Save 55% on blacklight miniature golf and lunch at Shipwreck Golf, just up Route 81 in Cortland! Our last deal of 2011! Source: http://twitter.com/BingChicken/statuses/152833837930516480
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TUCSON, Ariz.?? Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, other survivors of the Tucson shooting rampage and countless others will come together in the close-knit southern Arizona city on Jan. 8 to commemorate the one-year mark of that tragic day and remember those who died.
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A number of events are planned that Sunday, although it remained unclear Thursday which Giffords will attend or whether she will make any public statements.
Other survivors of the shooting, including Giffords' staffers Ron Barber and Pam Simon, plan on going to every event that they can. Others, like 76-year-old survivor Mavy Stoddard ? whose husband died shielding her from bullets ? plan on staying home with loved ones who will help them get through the emotional day.
"The whole weekend of the anniversary, I think is going to be tough," Barber said recently during an interview in Giffords' Tucson office.
Barber was shot in the cheek and thigh during the shooting, which killed six and injured 13, including Giffords. The congresswoman survived a gunshot wound to the head and has been undergoing extensive physical and speech therapy in Houston for the past year.
Barber still walks with a cane, meets with a therapist and is working on a part-time basis because of fatigue.
Barber has been reliving the terrible moments of the shooting in nightmares and flashbacks as he helps plan events marking the day, which he envisions as a time of togetherness and healing for Tucson.
"This wasn't just an emotional wound for those of us who were there, but our entire community was shocked ? a lot of people still cry when they see me," Barber said. "We're bringing the community together in a way that they came together (after the shooting)."
In the weeks following the tragedy, Tucson residents turned out in droves to contribute to memorials at Giffords' office, the hospital where survivors were treated and in front of the grocery store where the shooting happened. All of the people wounded that day say that their neighbors brought them food that kept them fed for two months.
"This community really rallied around itself and us," Barber said. "And I know the congresswoman wants to be here to be a part of that."
Simon said she feels a responsibility to go to all the events planned Jan. 8, partially because her colleague and friend Gabe Zimmerman and others who were there for Giffords that day were killed.
"I've felt this way from moment one, since I was one of the staff members that could be there, although it's emotionally tough sometimes," she said. "But people got wounded when they came to see Gabby, and as one of her staff it's very, very important for me to be there for the community. It's a privilege and an honor."
The events planned include a community-wide ringing of bells at churches and by people throughout the city at 10:11 a.m., the exact time the shooting broke out, an interfaith service at St. Augustine Cathedral where people of all religions are invited to pray and reflect, and a series of talks reflecting the lives of Giffords and the six people killed in the shooting.
During the talks, being held on the University of Arizona campus, Colorado Sen. Mark Udall will speak about Giffords.
Other speakers include federal Judge Raner Collins speaking for shooting victim and fellow Judge John Roll, Barber speaking for Mavy Stoddard's husband Dory, and Serenity Hammerich, who will talk about her best friend and the youngest shooting victim, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green.
Capping off the events will be a candlelight vigil at the university.
Stoddard said that she won't be able to go to any of the events because they'll be too emotional.
Stoddard has had a particularly tough time coping with the loss of her husband and "soul mate" of 15 years during the holidays. The two were grade-school sweethearts who married when they were 60 years old after each of their spouses died; they spent the next 15 years traveling the world and building a home together in Tucson.
"I'm glad the town is turning out to remember but I'd rather just be with my family," she said. "I think that's what Dory would want, to have us all together and love one another."
___
To read more about the events commemorating Jan. 8, visit: http://www.rememberingjanuary8.org/
Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at http://twitter.com/?!/AmandaLeeAP
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45817355/ns/us_news/
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The findings, published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, come less than a week after the European Commission approved Avastin for treating women newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. The drug, known generically as bevacizumab, has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat ovarian cancer in the U.S.
Though Avastin has not been shown to prolong the lives of women with ovarian cancer and does come with significant side effects, it offers some hope for treating what remains the deadliest of gynecologic cancers, researchers said.
Ovarian cancer affects an estimated 200,000 women worldwide and causes 125,000 deaths each year, including more than 15,000 in the U.S. The cancer is particularly difficult to treat because it usually found after it has already spread to other organs. Surgery can remove only some of the tumors, and the two chemotherapy drugs most commonly used aren't very good at killing the cancer cells left behind.
But the study results suggest that treatment for ovarian cancer could improve for the first time in 15 years, said Dr. Robert Burger, a surgical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center and lead author for one of the studies.
"I think we finally have a third component of treatment that works differently and that may greatly complement our therapeutics for ovarian cancers," he said.
Avastin is a biological antibody that interferes with a growth factor that cancer cells need to grow new blood vessels. When used in concert with chemotherapy, the drug helps keep cancers that have metastasized from growing and spreading. The FDA has approved the drug for use in a number of different cancers, including non-small-cell lung, kidney, brain and colon cancer.
Most recently, its use in treating breast cancer has become a source of controversy, as the FDA last month withdrew its approval of Avastin for patients with advanced breast cancer because the modest benefits were not seen as outweighing the drug's side effects. Physicians, however, can still prescribe Avastin off-label.
Burger's team, known as the Gynecologic Oncology Group, looked at what's called progression-free survival ? the length of time before the cancer gets worse ? in 1,873 women with newly diagnosed stage III and stage IV ovarian cancers, which typically have 5-year survival rates ranging from 18% to 45%. The investigators found that patients who received Avastin throughout their chemotherapy treatment experienced 14.1 months of progression-free survival, compared with the 10.3 months for patients who received standard chemotherapy plus a placebo. (Patients who received Avastin only during the initial treatments had 11.2 months of progression-free survival.)
The second study, by the International Collaboration on Ovarian Neoplasms, looked at 1,528 ovarian cancer patients and found a smaller difference in progression-free survival ? 24.1 months for those who took Avastin versus 22.4 months for those who didn't.
But when they focused on the 465 patients with the most advanced cancers, they found a bigger benefit ? 14.5 months with standard therapy alone and 18.1 months with Avastin added. They also found that overall survival for these patients was better with Avastin, at 28.8 versus 36.6 months.
On the whole, however, the researchers said they would not able to say much about overall survival rates until the patients had been tracked for a few more years.
The studies documented some notable side effects from the drug, including an increased risk of hypertension and gastrointestinal wall disruption, when a hole develops in the gastrointestinal tract. But these problems did not affect patients' quality of life, both studies found.
Avastin does not come cheap. The drug, made by Genentech Inc., can cost about $50,000 to $100,000 a year, which may be a lot to pay for just a few months more of remission, said Dr. Joanne Mortimer, director of the Women's Cancers Program at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte. Many insurance companies cover at least some of that cost.
"Is it worth it?" said Mortimer, who served on two of three FDA advisory panels that debated the use of Avastin for breast cancer. "These are positive studies, but are they meaningful differences?"
Though the answer for breast cancer was no, the answer for ovarian cancer may be different, she said. Drugs for breast cancer are held to a higher standard because much more is known about how to treat the disease. The bar is lower for ovarian cancer because the treatment options aren't as good, Mortimer said.
Dr. Timothy Perren, a medical oncologist at Spire Leeds Hospital in Yorkshire, England, who led the second study, said the trials were promising steps that would "cement the place of Avastin in treating ovarian cancer." But researchers from both groups noted that more work needed to be done to figure out which patients would benefit the most from the drug and the best way to administer it.
The studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute for Health Research in Britain, Genentech and its parent company, Roche.
amina.khan@latimes.com
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Ever since North Korea announced the death of Kim Jong Il, the wailing has come nonstop. From the woman in black on television, who announced that the Dear Leader had slipped these surly bonds of earth, to those who have gathered daily since then to moan and wail and beat their chests in agonized sadness, the North Koreans have shown that they do public grief better than anyone else.
And make no mistake: they have just begun to weep. Tomorrow, Dec. 28, when Kim Jong Il's funeral takes place in Pyongyang, the masses will be bawling and howling. They'll cry like few men (or women) have cried before. As the rest of the world has watched these scenes, most people are asking a very reasonable question: Are these people nuts? (See photos of Kim Jong Il lying in state.)
After all, it's not as if they had been living somewhere else when tens if not hundreds of thousands of their fellow North Koreans died of starvation in the late 1990s, the direct result of the ludicrous economic policies put in place by the Dear Leader. They walked past the corpses every day. "Everyone knew what was going on," says Kim Shin-yong, who defected from the North in 2002. Nor are they unaware that thousands of others have been flung into the country's notorious political prisons, many for no other reason than being related to somebody who had somehow offended the regime. Yet out they've come, crying their eyes out for a leader who is a sure-shot first-ballot entrant into the Despots Hall of Fame.
Why do they do it? The answer, as is usual in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is complicated. Many psychologists who view these scenes from afar consider them legitimate. Raised in isolation and fed an unrelenting diet of personality-cult-driven propaganda for their entire lives, a people can feel rudderless and grief-stricken when they hear that Kim has joined his late father, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, in the afterlife. Scott Atran, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, notes accurately enough that the people of North Korea were told from Day One that virtually everything they have came from the Dear Leader, "and they have no alternative form of reality." And mass grief, though particularly intense in North Korea, isn't wholly unique. Chinese of a certain age recall that when Mao Zedong died in 1976, many Chinese were shocked into tears that the father of their country was no longer with them.
But as Jane Bolton, a psychiatrist, wrote last year in Psychology Today, "a lot of misunderstanding happens around the act of crying," and in North Korea, is that ever true. There are reasons other than grief that enter into play that, to put it politely, would not be a factor elsewhere. Cheong Seong Chang, a longtime North Korea watcher in Seoul, notes that mid-level party officials, if they are seen to be wailing louder than co-workers, "might get promoted." (See 10 things you didn't know about North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un.)
And it's what happens to that other guy -- the guy stupid enough not to be wailing in public -- that provides the real motivation. Scholars of the system in North Korea say that if you are out and about and happen upon a group of criers, you'd best be seen crying too -- particularly if there are cameras rolling. As Lee Sung Yoon, a researcher for the National Asia Research Program, told CNN recently, "If you're not devastated by the news, you might get in trouble."
North Korean defectors say you can eliminate the might from that sentence: the country, they claim, has a network of domestic informants that makes the old East German Stasi look like amateurs. The fact that the Dear Leader could preside over a famine like the one in the '90s and not have the regime even wobble shows just how tight a grip the government has on its benighted population.
The question -- almost unknowable from the outside -- is, What happens behind closed doors? Are the Koreans still crying? North Korea watchers observe that there is less intensity to the public displays of grief this time than when Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK, died in 1994. They further note that the population is not quite as ignorant of the outside world today as it was back then. Modern technologies (cell phones and DVDs from South Korea and China) find their way into the country these days. Thousands defected in the wake of the famine, and many figured out ways to get messages back to friends and relatives about what life is like in China -- or in South Korea, if they are lucky enough to make it that far. (See pictures of the busy life of Kim Jong Il.)
Still, clues about what North Koreans actually think are maddeningly elusive. You take them where you can and try to fit them into the puzzle. Consider this: I spent a few days visiting a new university just outside Pyongyang about two weeks before Kim Jong Il died. The school is attended by elite kids, many of them connected to senior levels of government or the military. Some of the faculty and administration of this experimental new school -- all of whom are foreigners -- were on campus when the announcement of Kim's death came. I asked one person how the students had reacted to the news. Was there wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments? "They were quiet, definitely," this person said. "But there was no crying."
None? "No. None that I saw."
Which was a relief to hear. The kids who attend this school are anything but stupid. They know a bit about the outside world, but they are also very much products of the regime. That there wasn't a damp eye in the house is not, frankly, what I was expecting to hear. Remember that the next time you see news footage of what one friend of mine in Seoul calls "the great North Korean wailing contest." Not everything is as it seems in North Korea, and they're not as nuts as they look.
See TIME's 2011 Person of the Year: The Protester.
See TIME's Top 10 Everything of 2011.
View this article on Time.com
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ABUJA?? At a Nigerian Catholic church where a Christmas Day terror attack killed 35 people and injured at least 52, women tried to clean the sanctuary ahead of Mass on Monday while one man wept uncontrollably amid the debris.
Outside St. Theresa Catholic Church, crowds gathered among the burned-out cars in the dirt parking lot, angry over the attack claimed by a radical Muslim sect and fearful that the group will target more churches.
Rev. Father Christopher Jataudarde said Sunday's blast happened as church officials gave parishioners white powder as part of a tradition celebrating the birth of Christ.
Some already had left the church at the time of the bombing, causing the massive casualties. In the chaos after the bombing, Jataudarde said one mortally wounded man, cradling his shredded stomach, begged him for religious atonement.
"Father, pray for me, I will not survive," the man said, according to the priest.
At least 52 people were hurt in the attack, said Slaku Luguard, a coordinator with Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency. Victims filled the cement floors of a nearby government hospital, some crying in pools of their own blood.
Other attacks by the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram on Christmas left a total of 39 dead across Africa's most populous nation. A bomb also exploded amid gunfire in the central Nigeria city of Jos and a suicide car bomber attacked the military in the nation's northeast.
After the bombings, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. The sect has used the newspaper in the past to communicate with public.
"There will never be peace until our demands are met," the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying. "We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released; we want full implementation of the Sharia system and we want democracy and the constitution to be suspended."
Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.
This Christmas attack comes a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded. The group also claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital Abuja that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others.
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While initially targeting enemies via hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot, violence by Boko Haram now has a new sophistication and apparent planning that includes high-profile attacks with greater casualties.
That has fueled speculation about the group's ties as it has splintered into at least three different factions, diplomats and security sources say. They say the more extreme wing of the sect maintains contact with terror groups in North Africa and Somalia.
Targeting Boko Haram has remained difficult, as sect members are scattered throughout northern Nigeria and the nearby countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Analysts say political considerations also likely play a part in the country's thus-far muted response: President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south, may be hesitant to use force in the nation's predominantly Muslim north.
Speaking late Sunday at a prayer service, Jonathan described the bombing as an "ugly incident."
"There is no reason for these kind of dastardly acts," the president said in a ceremony aired by the state-run Nigerian Television Authority. "It's one of the burdens as a nation we have to carry. We believe it will not last forever."
? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45790505/ns/world_news-africa/
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Like a modern-day Library of Alexandria, the US Library of Congress is a repository of media nonpareil, including some offbeat and seemingly inexplicable items, such as a fashion pictorial shot...shot on a golf course. The unidentified models convey the fact that it was hot that day, scantily clad (for their time) in bathing suits, playing golf from huge blocks of ice.
Yep, just like real life.
No matter, it is amusing look at two pastimes from one of the most prosperous times for America, the "Roaring Twenties."
The country was unaware in 1926 that in three short years the Great Depression would begin and that the country would lay in economic malaise for nearly a decade afterward. In 1926, it was all good. Bobby Jones was in his prime and dominating amateur golf, while the raconteur and gadfly about town Walter Hagen wined and dined his way through the nascent PGA Tour, ostensibly smelling the roses along the way. Later in the year, Hagen would face Jones in a 72-hole match play tournament they cooked up together to have a little fun, settle the score, and oh by the way, showcase the Florida golf course real estate that they represented. Hagen would school Jones 12-and-11 in a defeat Jones called the most through beating he ever experienced.
And fashion models cooled off on the course too, probably raising the temperatures of red-blooded men who saw the photos. Two more photos after the jump.
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Source: cocoperez.com --- Monday, December 26, 2011
Source: http://172.16.12.201/2011-12-26-kate-middleton-christmas-day-church-style
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A Southern Californian woman called in a bomb threat to stop her husband getting on a flight at Los Angeles International Airport to visit a woman with whom she thought he was having an affair, the FBI reportedly said.
Johnna Woolfolk of Lynwood reportedly called AirTran Airways at LAX on Nov. 27 and said her husband was carrying a bomb and boarding an Atlanta-bound flight.
After FBI agents tracked her down, Woolfolk admitted the call was a hoax and that she had recently had marital difficulties, the LA Times reported.?
Her husband, when he was intercepted at the airport, also said he was having marital problems and his wife wanted him to stay, FBI Special Agent David Gates said, according to the Torrance Daily Breeze.
Woolfolk was expected to plead guilty during a Jan. 9 hearing to providing false and misleading information about the LA-Atlanta flight, The Associated Press reported.
Defense lawyer Gordon Turner said on Thursday that Woolfolk, who is about 50, admitted in court and to the FBI that she made the call and she now realizes it was wrong...
Woolfolk is caring for her dying mother in the couple's Lynwood home and it has been stressful, the lawyer said, adding she also believes her husband of 30 years is having an affair and was flying to Atlanta to meet the woman.
Woolfolk broke down in tears after authorities replayed her conversation with the AirTran operator, Gates reportedly wrote in an affidavit. "She stated that she was not thinking, she did not want to hurt anyone and did not want to cause harm."
"Making a threat to an airline is a serious offense and will be prosecuted," the LA Times quoted FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller as saying. "The response to these hoaxes is a great expense to the government."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/news/regions/americas/united-states/johnna-woolfolk-bomb-threat-hoax-terrorism-infidelity
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Source: http://cohoes.wnyt.com/news/community-spirit/102444-cohoes-church-serve-free-christmas-dinners
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WEST CARROLLTON, Ohio (WDTN) - This Christmas marked the 17th annual Community Caretakers Christmas Meals at the West Carrollton Masonic Center.
The association opens its kitchen from 5 pm Christmas Eve until 7 pm Christmas day.?
"This is for firefighters, police officers, utility workers and members of the media who are forced to work through the holiday," said Charlie Cooper, the event organizer.? "Its our way of saying thank you for your service."
Community caretakers are able to enjoy a hot breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert free of charge.
The food is donated by local restaurants.
Source: http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/organizations-offers-free-meals-to-community-caretakers
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MEXICO CITY ? Mexico said Friday that it seized 229 metric tons of precursor chemicals used to make methamphetamine, the third such huge seizure this month at the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, all of which were bound for a port in Guatemala.
The seizure brings to more than 534 tons the amount of meth chemicals detected at the Mexican port in less than a month.
Authorities announced on Dec. 19 that they had found almost 100 metric tons of methylamine at Lazaro Cardenas, and earlier said that 205 tons of the chemical had been found there over several days in early December.
Experts familiar with meth production call it a huge amount of raw material, noting that under some production methods, precursor chemicals can yield about half their weight in uncut meth.
The Attorney General's Office said the most recent seizure was found in 1,600 drums, and had been shipped from Shanghai, China. All three shipments originated in China and were destined for Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.
The office has not indicated which cartels may have been moving the chemicals, but U.S. officials have noted that the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful, has moved into meth production on an industrial scale.
Sinaloa also has operations in Guatemala, and given recent busts by the Mexican army of huge meth processing facilities in Mexico, the gang may have decided to move some production to the Central American country.
Lazaro Cardenas is located in the western Michoacan state, which is dominated by the Knights Templar cartel and previously by the La Familia group.
However, a series of arrests, deaths and infighting may have weakened those gangs' ability to engage in massive meth production.
Also Friday, the attorney general's office in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz reported that it had found ten bodies in an area along the border with the neighboring state of Tamaulipas. The office said investigators were alerted to the bodies by a tip, and are working to identify them and the cause of death.
The area has been the scene of bloody battles between the Gulf and Zetas cartels.
Finally Friday, federal police captured Javier Mercado Guerrero, alias "El Indio," who allegedly led the operations of the Zetas drug cartel in the Veracruz city of Poza Rica and surrounding areas inland.
Police said Mercado Guerrero had served as a local police officer in 2010, and passed information to the Zetas.
Local police in Veracruz have become so corrupt that on Wednesday, the government decided to dissolve the entire police force in the state's largest city, also known as Veracruz, and sent the Navy in to patrol.
State spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees were laid off. Dominguez said they can apply for jobs in a state police force, but must meet stricter standards.
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This year has been a busy year for me as your member of parliament for Esquimalt?Juan de Fuca. I have been working hard with my colleagues to bring your issues and concerns to Ottawa.
As the Official Opposition, we have had some successes in the Conservative majority government over the past few months.
New Democrats pushed for a federal ship building procurement plan for years and this fall we saw Seaspan win its bid for a $8 billion contract that will create hundreds of long-term, stable jobs here on the lower Island.
Federal infrastructure funding also helped fund the new Langford City Centre development, the recently officially opened Royal Roads Learning and Innovation Centre, and the ongoing E&N rail-trail construction. These are all good federal investments that will make our communities better.
I continue working with local representatives to push the government to approve funding to get the E&N railway repaired and running again.
We desperately need the E&N working to ease traffic and freight congestion and to make our roads safer by moving dangerous goods off the highway.
My colleagues and I in the Official Opposition continue to oppose the government?s private pension scheme that bets on uncertain stock markets.
We have introduced an affordable plan to double your CPP benefits over time, to a maximum of $1,920 per month.
Economists and provincial leaders agree that growing the CPP is the best, lowest-cost pension reform option available.
As opposition critic for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered issues I proudly re-introduced Bill C-279 to ensure the rights and safety of transgender people. I also seconded Bill C-215 to stop the unfair clawback of veteran and retired police officer pensions.
I would like to thank those that have written or called me to express your opinions. Serving as your MP is an incredible honour and privilege.
I will continue to work hard to represent you in Ottawa.
Best wishes and very happy, healthy and prosperous holiday season and New Year 2012 to you and your family.
randall.garrison@parl.gc.ca
?Randall Garrison (NDP) is the MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.
?
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Source: http://www.goldstreamgazette.com/opinion/135740533.html
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Just as great civilizations once emerged along the banks of major rivers such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Ganges and Nile, the ancestors of humans might have originated on riversides too, scientists find.
This discovery could help us better understand the environmental forces that shaped the origin of the human lineage, such as factors of the landscape that prompted our ancestors to start walking upright on two legs, researchers said.
What may be the earliest known ancestor of the human lineage, the 4.4 million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus, or " Ardi," was discovered in Aramis in Ethiopia. The precise nature of its habitat has been hotly debated ? its discoverers claim it was a woodland creature far removed from rivers, while others argue it lived in grassy, tree-dotted savannas.
To learn more about what the area was like back then, scientists investigated sediments from the site where Ardi was excavated. They noticed layers of sandstone that were likely created by ancient streams regularly depositing sand over time. These rivers may have reached up to 26 feet (8 meters) deep and 1,280 feet (390 m) wide.
The researchers also looked at isotopes within these sediments. All isotopes of an element have the same number of protons, but a different number of neutrons ? for instance, carbon-12 has six neutrons, while the heavier carbon-13 has seven. The grasses that dominate savannas engage in a kind of photosynthesis that involves both carbon-12 and carbon-13, while trees and shrubs rely on a kind of photosynthesis that prefers carbon-12.
All in all, carbon isotope ratios suggest the environment back then was mostly grassy savanna. However, the way in which those ratios fluctuate suggests riverside forests also cut through this area. Oxygen isotope ratios that are closely linked with climate also suggest the presence of streams, researchers added.
"Great rivers such as the Nile and Ganges have been very important in our history, and we now find that rivers might have also helped play a key role at the dawn of humanity," researcher Royhan Gani, a geologist at the University of New Orleans, told LiveScience.
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Knowing the context in which our distant relatives dwelt when key traits such as walking upright evolved can shed light as to why such characteristics developed in the first place. For instance, as savannas began dominating what were once primarily forests, it might have made more sense to start walking on two feet to conserve energy when moving through tall grasses.
"We now want to get a better understanding of why and how climate was shifting over a much larger area to get an even better idea of how the environment changed," Gani said.
Royhan Gani and his wife, Nahid Gani, detailed their findings online Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
? 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45738738/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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PARIS (Reuters) ? Sixty-six journalists were killed worldwide in 2011, many of them covering Arab revolutions, gang crime in Mexico or political turmoil in Pakistan, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Thursday.
Ten journalists were killed in Pakistan, most of them murdered, making it the most dangerous country for news coverage for the second year running.
With pro-democracy demonstrations prompting violent reprisals from Arab governments, the number of reporters killed in the Middle East doubled to 20 this year.
A similar number were killed in Latin America, where criminal violence was rife, the Paris-based RSF said in a statement.
Some 1,044 journalists were arrested this year - nearly double the 2010 figure - due largely to the Arab Spring, as well as street protests in countries including Greece, Belarus, Uganda, Chile and the United States.
"From Cairo's Tahrir Square to Khuzdar in southwestern Pakistan, from Mogadishu to the cities of the Philippines, the risks of working as a journalist at times of political instability were highlighted more than ever in 2011," RSF said.
China, Iran and Eritrea remained the biggest prisons for the media, it said, without specifying how many journalists were in jail there.
The 10 locations that RSF considered the most dangerous for journalists included Abidjan, the business capital of Ivory Coast, where at least two reporters were killed in electoral violence, and Cairo's Tahrir Square, where journalists were systematically attacked by supporters of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak before he stepped down in February.
The Arab Spring flashpoints of Deraa, Homs and Damascus in Syria, Change Square in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, and the Libyan rebel stronghold of Misrata were also on the list.
Last year 57 journalists were killed for their work the world over. The worst year of the past decade for journalists was 2007, when war in Iraq pushed the global toll up to 87.
(Reporting by Daniel Flynn)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama demanded on Tuesday that Republicans in the House of Representatives pass a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, showing an unwillingness to back down in a fight that could result in higher taxes for 160 million Americans.
The Republican-led House earlier rejected a short-term deal passed by Democrats and fellow Republicans in the Senate over the weekend and called for fresh negotiations on the expiring tax break that saves the average American worker $1,000 a year.
As both sides dug more deeply into entrenched positions, House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, demanded Obama order Senate Democrats back into session to haggle over a year-long extension.
"I need the president to help out," Boehner told reporters, drawing applause from a large group of Republican lawmakers standing behind him in the Capitol.
In a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, a visibly frustrated Obama told lawmakers to put politics aside. "Let's not play brinkmanship," he said.
"The clock is ticking. Time is running out. And if the House Republicans refuse to vote for the Senate bill or even allow it to come up for a vote, taxes will go up in 11 days," he said.
Prospects for the Democratic-controlled Senate reopening negotiations remained dim as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid insisted he would not recall the chamber to reopen negotiations. Reid has won backing from some Republicans in the Senate, who have called on their colleagues in the House to back the deal.
Reid "will stick to his guns" and refuse to reopen negotiations, a senior Democratic aide said after the House vote. "Taxes will go up -- or Boehner will cave," the aide said.
Both parties believe they have the upper hand in the year-end battle. Republicans are betting Democrats fear a voter backlash in 2012 if the tax break expires and will eventually bow to their demands. Democrats, however, are gambling the same is true for Republicans.
The House Republican demand for a one-year extension marks a surprising turnabout since for months they were openly skeptical of its economic benefits. Now they argue a two-month extension creates uncertainty for workers and employers and is unworkable.
RECESSION THREAT
The Senate passed the short-term extension on Saturday because Republicans and Democrats could not agree on how to pay for it for a full year. It was not clear how House Republicans hope to overcome that hurdle.
The U.S. Treasury Department weighed into the debate for the first time, saying while it would prefer a full-year extension, it could implement the short-term measure.
Failure to extend the tax break and benefits for millions of unemployed Americans, which expire on December 31, could heighten the possibility of a U.S. recession in 2012, some economists have warned.
"You're either going to have an okay rate of economic growth next year or a pretty subpar one, and it will be determined in large part by U.S. politicians," said Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management in Toronto.
Many had expected the year-end negotiations on renewing the tax break would be difficult, but what had been thought to be a brawl has exploded into a full-scale battle.
Washington gridlock and dysfunction is fueling an anti-incumbent mood among voters heading into next year's elections, with Congress' popularity at a very low 11 percent.
The political bickering has brought the government to the verge of a shutdown three times this year and led to rating agency Standard & Poor's cutting America's prized AAA credit rating.
The biggest sticking point for a year-long extension is how to cover the $120 billion in lost revenue to the Social Security Trust Fund. Republicans are demanding spending cuts to cover the cost and Democrats want to pay for it by closing some tax breaks for the wealthy.
The Senate bill included a provision demanded by House Republicans that would force Obama to accelerate a decision on TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL oil pipeline project between Canada and Texas, which is backed by some labor unions but opposed by environmental groups.
Over the weekend Boehner called the Keystone provision a victory for House Republicans because Obama had strongly opposed efforts to link Keystone with the payroll tax cut.
But the "sweetener" was not enough to quell overwhelming opposition to the Senate bill. The revolt has raised questions about Boehner's ability to control his restive caucus, which has repeatedly balked this year at compromising with Democrats.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, Donna Smith, Leah Schnurr, Rachelle Younglai, Kim Dixon and Caren Bohan; writing by Deborah Charles and David Lawder; Editing by Ross Colvin and Todd Eastham)
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VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI seems worn out.
People who have spent time with him recently say they found him weaker than they'd ever seen him, seemingly too tired to engage with what they were saying. He no longer meets individually with visiting bishops. A few weeks ago he started using a moving platform to spare him the long walk down St. Peter's Basilica.
Benedict turns 85 in the new year, so a slowdown is only natural. Expected. And given his age and continued rigorous work schedule, it's remarkable he does as much as he does and is in such good health overall: Just this past week he confirmed he would travel to Mexico and Cuba next spring.
But a decline has been noted as Benedict prepares for next weekend's grueling Christmas celebrations, which kick off two weeks of intense public appearances. And that raises questions about the future of the papacy given that Benedict himself has said popes should resign if they can't do the job.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi has said no medical condition prompted the decision to use the moving platform in St. Peter's, and that it's merely designed to spare the pontiff the fatigue of the 100-meter (-yard) walk to and from the main altar.
And Benedict rallied during his three-day trip to Benin in west Africa last month, braving temperatures of 32 Celsius (90F) and high humidity to deliver a strong message about the future of the Catholic Church in Africa.
Wiping sweat from his brow, he kissed babies who were handed up to him, delivered a tough speech on the need for Africa's political leaders to clean up their act, and visited one of the continent's most important seminaries.
Back at home, however, it seems the daily grind of being pope ? the audiences with visiting heads of state, the weekly public catechism lessons, the sessions with visiting bishops ? has taken its toll. A spark is gone. He doesn't elaborate off-the-cuff much anymore, and some days he just seems wiped out.
Take for example his recent visit to Assisi, where he traveled by train with dozens of religious leaders from around the world for a daylong peace pilgrimage. For anyone participating it was a tough, long day; for the aging pope it was even more so.
"Indeed I was struck by what appeared to me as the decline in Benedict's strength and health over the last half year," said Rabbi David Rosen, who had a place of honor next to the pope at the Assisi event as head of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee.
"He looks thinner and weaker ... which made the effort he put into the Assisi shindig with the extraordinary degree of personal attention to the attendees (especially the next day in Rome) all the more remarkable," Rosen said in an email.
That Benedict is tired would be a perfectly normal diagnosis for an 84-year-old, even someone with no known health ailments and a still-agile mind. He has acknowledged having suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in 1991 that temporarily affected his vision. And his older brother, who has a pacemaker for an irregular heartbeat, has expressed concern about Benedict's own heart.
But Benedict is not a normal 84-year-old, both in what he is called to do and the implications if he were to stop.
Popes are allowed to resign; church law specifies only that the resignation be "freely made and properly manifested."
Only a handful have done so, however. The last one was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.
There's good reason why others haven't followed suit: Might the existence of two popes ? even when one has stepped down ? lead to divisions and instability in the church? Might a new resignation precedent lead to pressures on future popes to quit at the slightest hint of infirmity?
Yet Benedict himself raised the possibility of resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue on, when he was interviewed for the book "Light of the World," which was released in November 2010.
"If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign," Benedict said.
The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had an intimate view as Pope John Paul II, with whom he had worked closely for nearly a quarter-century, suffered through the debilitating end of his papacy. After John Paul's death at age 84, it was revealed that he had written a letter of resignation to be invoked if he became terminally ill or incapable of continuing on.
And it should be recalled that at the time Benedict was elected pope at age 78 ? already the oldest pope elected in nearly 300 years ? he had been planning to retire as the Vatican's chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend his final years writing in the "peace and quiet" of his native Bavaria.
It is there that his elder brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, still lives. Ratzinger, who turns 88 next month, is nearly blind. Benedict has said his brother has helped him accept old age with courage.
Benedict said in "Light of the World" that he knew his own strength was diminishing ? steps are difficult for him and his aides regularly hold his elbows as he climbs up or down. But at the same time Benedict insisted that he had no intention of resigning to avoid dealing with the problems of the church, such as the sex abuse scandal.
"One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it," he said.
As a result, a papal resignation anytime soon seems unlikely.
And Benedict is maintaining a hectic agenda. His planned trip to Cuba and Mexico next spring will fall shortly before he turns 85 on April 16. He has also said he'd like to make it to Rio de Janeiro in 2013 for the next World Youth Day.
Sometime in the New Year he will presumably preside over a new consistory to name the new cardinals who will elect his successor. And he has lots of unfinished business close to his heart: Bringing back breakaway traditionalists under Rome's wing, the fate of the sex abuse-scarred Irish church, tensions with China.
And he still cuts a robust figure in public given his age, walking briskly, speaking clearly and emphasizing key points. But his public engagements have been trimmed back; he had far fewer speeches in Benin than during his September visit to his native Germany or the United Kingdom last fall.
And behind closed doors, during audiences without the glare of TV cameras or throngs of the faithful encouraging him on, he has begun to show his age, acquaintances say.
The Rev. Joseph Fessio, Benedict's U.S. publisher and onetime student, sees the pope every so often, including during the summer when Benedict gathers his former theology students for an informal academic seminar at the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo.
Fessio recalled a day in the 2010 edition that remains with him: "In the Saturday morning session, the pope looked older and weaker than I had ever seen him before. In fact I remarked to someone that it's the first time I've seen him look like the old man that he is. He was speaking in softer tones than even his normally soft speaking voice. His head was bowed. He was pale. He just looked frail."
But then, after lunch and an apparent rest, Benedict returned for the afternoon session. "It was a complete transformation. He was lively, vigorous, attentive, and with his usual good humor," Fessio said.
Clearly, at his age Benedict has good days and bad, even good half-days and bad.
Yet he's never called in sick. In fact as pope, he has only had one significant known medical incident: He broke his right wrist when he tripped on the leg of his bed and fell while on vacation in the Alps in 2009.
Lombardi says the pope realizes the limitations of his strength, and that's why the recent trip to Benin was a one-stop-only affair.
"I think it's an example of the great willingness and wisdom of the Holy Father to continue doing these trips, even those that are difficult or far away," Lombardi said. He said the pope "measures well what his strengths are, and the possibility of doing the trips well."
"When I'm 84 I think I'll have been buried for many years," he added.
But he refused to give any kind of medical updates on the pope.
"I'm not a doctor. I don't give medical bulletins," Lombardi said. He paused, then added quietly: "In this phase. At this moment."
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Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary, right, arrives at Dauphin County Court surrounded by heavy security Friday, Dec 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. McQueary declined to speak to reporters Friday as he entered the courthouse in Harrisburg for the hearing for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, who are set to appear for a preliminary hearing related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary, right, arrives at Dauphin County Court surrounded by heavy security Friday, Dec 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. McQueary declined to speak to reporters Friday as he entered the courthouse in Harrisburg for the hearing for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, who are set to appear for a preliminary hearing related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
Former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, arrives for a preliminary hearing at Dauphin County Court, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. A judge is to determine after the hearing if there's enough evidence to send Schultz and former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley to trial on charges of failure to report abuse to authorities and lying to a grand jury related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
Former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, right, arrives for a hearing at Dauphin County Court, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa. A judge is to determine after the hearing if there's enough evidence to send Curley and former university Vice President Gary Schultz to trial on charges of failure to report abuse to authorities and lying to a grand jury related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
FILE -- In a Nov. 7, 2011 file photo former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, left, and former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, right, enter a district judge's office for an arraignment in Harrisburg, Pa. Curley and Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations involving former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the state attorney general?s office. (AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower/file)
Penn State Assistant Football Coach Mike McQueary, left, departs the Dauphin County Court Friday, Dec 16, 2011 in Harrisburg, PA. McQueary, speaking for the first time in public about the 2002 encounter in a Penn State locker room, said he believes that Jerry Sandusky was attacking a child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100 percent sure it was intercourse. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? As soon as he walked into the Penn State locker room, Mike McQueary heard running water and rhythmic, slapping sounds of "skin on skin." He looked in a mirror and saw a naked Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach, holding a young boy by the waist from behind, up against the wall in the campus shower.
"I just saw Coach Sandusky in the showers with a boy and what I saw was wrong and sexual," McQueary recalled telling his father that night in 2002. He repeated it the next morning to coach Joe Paterno, who slumped deep into his chair at his kitchen table.
"He said, 'I'm sorry you had to see that,'" McQueary said.
McQueary's testimony Friday at a preliminary hearing for two Penn State officials accused of covering up the story was the most detailed, public account yet of the child sex abuse allegations that have upended the university's football program and the entire central Pennsylvania campus. Paterno and the university president have lost their jobs, and officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them.
A Pennsylvania judge on Friday held Curley, the university's athletic director, and Schultz, a retired senior vice president, for trial after the daylong hearing.
Curley said that McQueary never relayed the seriousness of what he saw, and said he was only told that Sandusky was "horsing around" with a boy but that his conduct wasn't sexual.
He said he told the university president about the episode and the top official at a children's charity that Sandusky founded, but never told university police. "I didn't see any reason because I didn't think at the time it was a crime," he told the grand jury, according to testimony read into the record on Friday.
Curley, Schultz and Paterno have been criticized for never telling police about the 2002 charges. Prosecutors say Sandusky continued to abuse boys for six more years. Sandusky has denied having inappropriate sexual contact with boys.
In about two hours on the witness stand, McQueary said again and again that what he saw was a sexual act, although he stopped short of saying he was sure that Sandusky, now 67, had raped the boy.
"I believe Jerry was sexually molesting him and having some type of sexual intercourse with him," McQueary said on Friday. He said later he "can't say 100 percent" that Sandusky and the boy were having intercourse because he was seeing Sandusky from behind.
He said after talking to his father, he went over to Paterno's home the next morning and said that what he had seen "was way over the lines, it was extremely sexual in nature." He said he would not have used words like sodomy or intercourse with Paterno; he did not get into that much detail out of respect for the coach, he said.
Paterno told the grand jury that McQueary said he saw Sandusky doing something of a "sexual nature" with the youngster but that he didn't press for details.
"I didn't push Mike ... because he was very upset," Paterno said. "I knew Mike was upset, and I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster."
Paterno told McQueary he would talk to others about what he'd reported.
McQueary said he met nine or 10 days later with Curley and Schultz and told them he'd seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in the shower after hearing skin-on-skin slapping sounds.
"I would have described that it was extremely sexual and I thought that some kind of intercourse was going on," said McQueary.
McQueary said he was left with the impression both men took his report seriously. When asked why he didn't go to police, he referenced Schultz's position as a vice president at the university who had overseen the campus police
"I thought I was talking to the head of the police, to be frank with you," he said. "In my mind it was like speaking to a (district attorney). It was someone who police reported to and would know what to do with it."
The square-jawed, red-haired assistant coach spoke in a steady voice in his first public account of the alleged abuse, sometimes turning his seat and leaning toward defense lawyers to answer questions. His voice rose a few times and he blushed once when describing the sexual encounter in the shower.
Defense lawyers for Curley and Schultz argued that a perjury charge should not be based solely on a person's testimony under oath contradicting someone else's testimony. The defense said uncorroborated testimony from McQueary is not enough and sought to pick apart the ways he described the shower scene differently to different people.
The defense noted that McQueary admitted changing his description of the shower encounter when speaking with Paterno ? enough so that the coach didn't believe a crime had occurred.
McQueary said he had stopped by a campus football locker room to drop off a pair of sneakers in the spring of 2002 when he saw Sandusky with the boy, who he estimated was 10 or 12 years old.
McQueary, 37, said he has never described what he saw as anal rape or anal intercourse and couldn't see Sandusky's genitals, but that "it was very clear that it looked like there was intercourse going on."
In its report last month, the grand jury summarized McQueary's testimony as saying he "saw a naked boy ... with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky."
McQueary said he peeked into the shower three times ? the first via a mirror, the other two times directly. The last time he looked in, Sandusky and the boy had separated, he said. He said he didn't say anything, but "I know they saw me. They looked directly in my eye, both of them."
McQueary said the entire encounter ? from when he first entered the locker room to when he retreated to his office ? lasted about 45 seconds.
Curley told the grand jury that he couldn't recall his specific conversation with McQueary, but McQueary never reported seeing anal intercourse or other sexual conduct. He said he spoke to Sandusky about it, who first denied having been in the shower with a boy, but later changed his story.
Schultz said he remembered McQueary and Paterno describing what the younger coach saw only in a very general way.
"I had the impression it was inappropriate," Schultz told the grand jury. "I had the feeling it was some kind of wrestling activity and maybe Jerry might have grabbed a young boy's genitals."
Under cross-examination, McQueary said he considered what he saw a crime but didn't call police because "it was delicate in nature."
"I tried to use my best judgment," he said. "I was sure the act was over." He said he never tried to find the boy.
Paterno, Schultz and Curley didn't testify, but District Judge William C. Wenner read their grand jury testimony from January at the Dauphin County hearing.
Curley's attorney, Caroline Roberto, said prosecutors "will never be able to reach their burden of proof at a trial."
Schultz's attorney, Tom Farrell, predicted his client would be acquitted.
He also took a shot at Paterno, saying, "I'm an Italian from Brooklyn, and he may not have called the police but he may have done what I would have done, which is get the boys in the car with a few baseball bats and crowbars and take it to the fellow."
Sandusky says he is innocent of 52 criminal charges stemming from what authorities say were sexual assaults over 12 years on 10 boys in his home, on Penn State property and elsewhere.
Curley, 57, was placed on leave by the university after his arrest. Schultz, 62, returned to retirement after spending about four decades at the school, most recently as senior vice president for business and finance, and treasurer.
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