CALDWELL--? The College of Idaho football team is starting to take shape for its debut season in 2014.? On Monday, Coyotes head coach Mike Moroski announced the signing of 10 more student-athletes to Frontier Conference Letters of Intent.?
All 10 players played their high school ball in Idaho.? Defensive back Dylan Coon and linebacker Tyler Andreason hail from Butte County High School.? Colton Sweesy played wide receiver at Canyon Ridge, and transfers to the College of Idaho from Briar Cliff University in Iowa.?
The Coyotes picked up three lineman in Shive Huggins from Middleton, Dylan Garcia from Mountain View, and Coeur d' Alene's Matt Humphries.?
On the defensive side of the ball, linebacker Jason Rebollozo comes from Burley, Hunter Temple played corner for Mountain View, and cornerback John Hohnhorst hails from Twin Falls.?
Twin Falls punter Lee Johnson rounds out the group of recent signees, bringing the total number of recruits to 42.? More signees are expected in the coming weeks.?
College of Idaho Football Recruits
Tyler Andreason?????????? RB/LB??????????????????? Butte County Cory Brady??????????????? DB?????????????????????? Bishop Kelly David Burnmeier?????????? OL?????????????????????? Columbia Jason Byce??????????????? LB?????????????????????? Twin Falls Ben Ceccarelli??????????? LB?????????????????????? Mountain Home Nick Chambard???????????? WR/DB??????????????????? La Salle, WA Dylan Coon??????????????? DB?????????????????????? Butte County Kyle Cothern????????????? LB?????????????????????? Skyview John Cushman????????????? OL?????????????????????? New Plymouth Josh Faulkner???????????? QB?????????????????????? Gooding Charlie Fridley?????????? DE?????????????????????? Blanchet, WA Andrew Galloway?????????? OL?????????????????????? Payette Dylan Garcia????????????? OL?????????????????????? Mountain View Taylor Gillens??????????? WR/DB??????????????????? Rigby Trevor Henderson????????? LB?????????????????????? Vallivue John Hohnhorst??????????? DB?????????????????????? Twin Falls Shive Huggins???????????? OL/DL??????????????????? Middleton Matt Humphries??????????? DL?????????????????????? Coeur d'Alene Lee Johnson?????????????? P??????????????????????? Twin Falls Lance Jones?????????????? WR/DB??????????????????? Garden Valley Clint Langston??????????? RB?????????????????????? Borah Hunter Larsen???????????? RB/LB??????????????????? Emmett Marcus Lenhardt?????????? TE?????????????????????? Eagle Josh Lopez??????????????? WR/DB??????????????????? Caldwell Reece Mahaffy???????????? RB?????????????????????? Coeur d'Alene Masen McCormick?????????? OL/DL??????????????????? Cheney, WA Cesar Montes????????????? K??????????????????????? McCall-Donnelly Tim Olson???????????????? QB?????????????????????? Kendrick Taylor Oppedyk??????????? LB?????????????????????? Buhl Hayden Paul?????????????? OL?????????????????????? Columbia Jason Rebollozo?????????? LB?????????????????????? Burley Tyler Rollins-Strole????? DE?????????????????????? Lemoore, CA Jacob Segali????????????? OL/DL??????????????????? Centennial Darian Seifert??????????? QB?????????????????????? Centennial Dylan Shapland??????????? K??????????????????????? Lake City Charlie Shepherd????????? WR?????????????????????? Salmon River Travis Spengler?????????? LB?????????????????????? Kuna Dakota Stallions????????? RB?????????????????????? New Plymouth Colton Sweesy???????????? WR?????????????????????? Canyon Ridge (Briar Cliff U.) Hunter Temple???????????? CB?????????????????????? Mountain View Taylor Watkins??????????? QB?????????????????????? East Valley, WA Hunter Wells????????????? WR?????????????????????? New Plymouth
This Monday, May 20, 2013 photo shows Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz. After a particularly ugly TV experience, Amy's is fighting back and trying to raise awareness for cyber-bullying. They are doing this after they cursed out critics of their TV experience on their Facebook page. The restaurant temporarily closed down their Scottsdale restaurant after the ?Kitchen Nightmares? episode aired. (AP Photo/Matt York)
This Monday, May 20, 2013 photo shows Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz. After a particularly ugly TV experience, Amy's is fighting back and trying to raise awareness for cyber-bullying. They are doing this after they cursed out critics of their TV experience on their Facebook page. The restaurant temporarily closed down their Scottsdale restaurant after the ?Kitchen Nightmares? episode aired. (AP Photo/Matt York)
This Monday, May 20, 2013 photo shows Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz. After a particularly ugly TV experience, Amy's is fighting back and trying to raise awareness for cyber-bullying. They are doing this after they cursed out critics of their TV experience on their Facebook page. The restaurant temporarily closed down their Scottsdale restaurant after the ?Kitchen Nightmares? episode aired. (AP Photo/Matt York)
PHOENIX (AP) ? It was the customer service disaster heard around the Internet.
An Arizona restaurateur, fed up after years of negative online reviews and an embarrassing appearance on a reality television show, posted a social media rant laced with salty language and angry, uppercase letters that quickly went viral last week, to the delight of people who love a good Internet meltdown.
"I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE," read the posting on the Facebook wall of Amy's Baking Co. in suburban Phoenix. "YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD."
It was, to put it kindly, not a best business practice. Add to that an appearance earlier this month on the Fox reality television show "Kitchen Nightmares" ? where celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay gave up on trying to save the restaurant after he was insulted ? and you have a recipe for disaster.
"That's probably the worst thing that can happen," said Sujan Patel, founder and CEO of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency in San Francisco.
In the evolving world of online marketing, where the power of word of mouth has been wildly amplified by the whims and first impressions of anonymous reviewers posting on dozens of social media websites, online comments, both good and bad, and the reactions they trigger from managers, can make all the difference between higher revenues and empty storefronts.
Hotels, restaurants and other businesses that depend on good customer service reviews have all grappled in recent years with how to respond to online feedback on sites such as Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram, where comments can often be more vitriol than in-person reviews because of the anonymous shield many social media websites provide.
No matter how ugly the reviews get, businesses need to be willing to admit mistakes and offer discounts to lure unhappy customers back, digital marketing experts said.
"In the past, people just sent bad soup back. Well, now they are getting on social media and telling all their friends and friends of friends how bad the soup was and why they should find other places to get soup in the future, so it takes the customer experience to another level," said Tom Garrity of the Garrity Group, a public relations firm in New Mexico.
"The challenge becomes ? how do you respond when someone doesn't think your food or product is as great as you think it is?"
In Amy and Samy Bouzaglo's case, the bad reviews were compounded by their horrible reality TV experience. The couple said during a recent episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" that they needed professional guidance after years of battling terrible online reviews. They opened the pizzeria in an upscale Scottsdale neighborhood about six years ago.
"Kitchen Nightmares" follows Ramsay as he helps rebuild struggling restaurants. After one bite, he quickly deemed Amy's Baking Co. a disaster and chided the Bouzaglos for growing increasingly irate over his constructive feedback. Among his many critiques: The store-bought ravioli smelled "weird," a salmon burger was overcooked and a fig pizza was too sweet and arrived on raw dough.
"You need thick skin in this business," Ramsay said before walking out. It was the first time he wasn't able to reform a business, according to the show.
Amy's Baking Co. temporarily closed last week after the episode aired. A Bouzaglo spokesman said the couple was not available for an interview Monday. The restaurant's answering machine was full. Emails and Facebook messages were not returned.
A wall post published last week claimed the restaurant's Facebook, Yelp and Twitter accounts had been hacked, but hundreds of commenters expressed doubt. Social media sites show someone posting as a member of the Bouzaglo family had been insulting customers over negative reviews since at least 2010.
The story bounced across the Internet, generating thousands of comments on Facebook, Yelp and Twitter, and prompting nearly 36,000 people to sign a petition on Change.org that asks the Department of Labor to look into the Bouzaglo's practice of pocketing their servers' tips.
While many corporations hire communications experts to respond to every tweet, Facebook message and online review, the wave of digital feedback can be especially challenging for small businesses with small staffs, digital consultants said.
For one thing, there is so much online content to wade through. Roughly 60 percent of all adults get information about local businesses from search engines and entertainment websites such as Yelp or TripAdvisor, according to a 2011 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
"Customer service is a spectator sport now," said Jay Baer, president of Convince & Convert, a social media marketing consultancy in Indiana. "It's not about making that customer happy on Yelp. That's the big misunderstanding of Yelp. It's about the hundreds of thousands of people who are looking on to see how you handle it. It's those ripples that make social media so important."
In their "Kitchen Nightmares" episode, Amy and Samy Bouzaglo are seen yelling and cursing at customers inquiring about undercooked food or long delays. They blame online bullies.
"We stand up to them," Amy Bouzaglo tells the camera at one point. "They come and they try to attack us and say horrible things that are not true."
That's exactly how businesses shouldn't respond, the digital experts said.
"If your policy is to berate the customer online, that doesn't create good public relations," Garrity said.
Baer said he tells clients to create a response matrix representing different potential complaints that staff can refer to whenever bad feedback arises. Creating the comment chart before the bad publicity hits helps ensure businesses aren't responding to angry or disappointed customers with their own anger or disappointment, Baer said.
A 2011 Harvard study found Yelp's 40 million reviews disproportionately affect small businesses. The research found a one-star increase in Yelp's five-star rating system resulted in a revenue jump of up to 9 percent for some restaurants, while chains with sizable advertising budgets were unaffected.
"You have to respond 100 percent of the time, whether you like it or not," Baer said. "Businesses need to assign someone to stay on top of it."
In Arizona, Amy and Samy Bouzaglo had planned a grand reopening ceremony and news conference for Tuesday, but the news conference was canceled late Monday after legal threats from Fox.
Fewer than a dozen people were waiting when the restaurant reopened Tuesday. Four guards blocked the door and turned reporters away. Inside, a smiling Samy Bouzaglo posed for pictures and told customers that the tension captured in the episode was staged. That was a disappointment for some.
"I wanted it to be dramatic and people yelling," said Ricky Potts, a 29-year-old blogger who ate at the restaurant for the first time Tuesday only to declare the food good and the service routine. "Basically, I wanted it to be the circus that the TV episode was."
MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital in an Oklahoma town hit by a powerful tornado, and officials lowered the death toll from the storm to 24, including nine children.
The 2-mile (3-km) wide tornado tore through Moore outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, trapping victims beneath the rubble, wiping out entire neighborhoods and tossing vehicles about as if they were toys.
About 237 people were injured and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said the death toll could rise from the deadliest tornado to hit the United States in two years.
"There may have been bodies that may have been taken to local funeral homes," Fallin said.
Seven of the nine children who were killed died at Plaza Towers Elementary School, which took a direct hit, but many more survived unhurt.
"They literally were lifting walls up and kids were coming out," Oklahoma State Police Sergeant Jeremy Lewis said. "They pulled kids out from under cinder blocks without a scratch on them."
The Oklahoma state medical examiner's office said 24 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, down from the 51 they had reported earlier. The earlier number likely reflected some double-counted deaths, said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer for the medical examiner.
"There was a lot of chaos," she said.
Thunderstorms and lightning slowed the rescue effort on Tuesday, but 101 people had been pulled from the debris alive, Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokeswoman Betsy Randolph said.
The National Guard, firefighters from more than a dozen fire departments and rescuers from other states worked all night under bright spotlights trying to find survivors in the town of 55,000 people.
Moore Fire Chief Gary Bird vowed at a news conference to search through every damaged building "at least three times," as authorities urged people to stay away from the area to allow rescue workers to complete the search.
AS LONG AS IT TAKES
President Barack Obama declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore after the deadliest U.S. tornado since 161 people were killed in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago.
"The people of Moore should know that their country will remain on the ground, there for them, beside them, as long as it takes," Obama said at the White House.
Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, said the whole town looked like a debris field and there was a danger of electrocution and fire from downed power lines and broken natural gas lines.
"It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed," Lewis told NBC.
On Tuesday morning, a helicopter was circling overhead and thunder rumbled from a new storm as 35-year-old Moore resident Juan Dills and his family rummaged through the remains of what was once his mother's home. The foundation was laid bare, the roof ripped away and only one wall was still standing. They found a few family photo albums, but little else.
"We are still in shock," he said. "But we will come through. We're from Oklahoma."
National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Rick Smith said the storm was about 17 miles long with maximum wind speeds of about 190 miles per hour. On the Enhanced Fujita Scale it was ranked EF4, the second most powerful category of tornado.
Authorities warned the town 16 minutes before the tornado touched down just after 3 p.m., which is more than the average eight to 10 minutes of warning, said Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the center.
The tornado cut a broad trail of destruction through the suburbs south of Oklahoma City, with the worst damage in Moore. The storm system threatened more twisters on Tuesday in several southern Plains states, especially northern and central Texas.
Shelters were opened for families who lost their homes and universities offered to house people.
FIVE SCHOOLS HIT
U.S. Representative Tom Cole, who lives in Moore, said the Plaza Towers school, one of five schools hit by the tornado, was the most secure and structurally strong building in the area.
"And so people did the right thing, but if you're in front of an F4 or an F5 there is no good thing to do if you're above ground. It's just tragic," he said on MSNBC-TV.
Miguel Macias and his wife, Veronica, had two children at the Plaza Towers school and found 8-year-old Ruby first after rescue workers carried the girl from the destruction. But their son, 6-year-old Angel, was nowhere to be found, said Brenda Ramon, pastor of the Faith Latino Church where the family are members.
Ramon and several congregation members spent hours helping the family search for Angel and calling area hospitals. The boy was finally located at a medical center in Oklahoma City about five hours after the tornado hit.
"It was heart-breaking," Ramon said. "We couldn't find him for hours." The boy had wounds to his face and head, but was not badly hurt, Ramon said. "Their little bodies are so resilient."
Survivors of the storm suffered injuries ranging from minor cuts and bruises to open wounds, impalements and open fractures, said Dr. Roxie M. Albrecht, the director of trauma and surgical critical care at the Oklahoma University Medical Center, which cared for 51 children and 35 adults.
Witnesses said Monday's tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5 tornado with wind speeds of more than 200 mph.
The 1999 tornado ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.
Monday's tornado in Moore ranks among the most severe in the United States http://link.reuters.com/gec38t
Diana Tinnin, 60, was at home with her brother when the storm hit. Her three-bedroom ranch-style home had no basement, so they huddled in a bathtub. "I lost my house. Everything fell on top of us."
(Additional reporting by Alice Mannette, Lindsay Morris, Nick Carey, Brendan O'Brien and Greg McCune; Writing by Nick Carey, Jane Sutton and Claudia Parsons; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz and Grant McCool)
Genetic diversity within tumors predicts outcome in head and neck cancerPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katie Marquedant kmarquedant@partners.org 617-726-0337 Massachusetts General Hospital
New measure may aid treatment planning, future studies for broad range of tumors
A new measure of the heterogeneity the variety of genetic mutations of cells within a tumor appears to predict treatment outcomes of patients with the most common type of head and neck cancer. In the May 20 issue of the journal Cancer, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary describe how their measure was a better predictor of survival than most traditional risk factors in a small group of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
"Our findings will eventually allow better matching of treatments to individual patients, based on this characteristic of their tumors," says Edmund Mroz, PhD, of the MGH Center for Cancer Research, lead author of the Cancer report. "This method of measuring heterogeneity can be applied to most types of cancer, so our work should help researchers determine whether a similar relationship between heterogeneity and outcome occurs in other tumors."
For decades investigators have hypothesized that tumors with a high degree of genetic heterogeneity the result of different subgroups of cells undergoing different mutations at different DNA sites would be more difficult to treat because particular subgroups might be more likely to survive a particular drug or radiation or to have spread before diagnosis. While recent studies have identified specific genes and proteins that can confer treatment resistance in tumors, there previously has been no way of conveniently measuring tumor heterogeneity.
Working in the laboratory of James Rocco, MD, PhD director of the Mass. Eye and Ear /MGH Head and Neck Molecular Oncology Research Laboratory, principal investigator at the MGH Center for Cancer Research and senior author of the Cancer report Mroz and his colleagues developed their new measure by analyzing advanced gene sequencing data to produce a value reflecting the genetic diversity within a tumor not only the number of genetic mutations but how broadly particular mutations are shared within different subgroups of tumor cells. They first described this measure, called mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity (MATH), in the March 2013 issue of Oral Oncology. But that paper was only able to show that patients with known factors predicting poor outcomes including specific mutations in the TP53 gene or a lack of infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) were likely to have higher MATH values.
In the current study, the investigators used MATH to analyze genetic data from the tumors of 74 patients with squamous cell head and neck carcinoma for whom they had complete treatment and outcome information. Not only did they find that higher MATH values were strongly associated with shorter overall survival with each unit of increase reflecting a 5 percent increase in the risk of death but that relationship was also seen within groups of patients already at risk for poor outcome. For example, among patients with HPV-negative tumors, those with higher MATH values were less likely to survive than those with lower MATH values. Overall, MATH values were more strongly related to outcomes than most previously identified risk factors and improved outcome predictions based on all other risk factors the researchers examined.
The impact of MATH value on outcome appeared strongest among patients treated with chemotherapy, which may reflect a greater likelihood that highly heterogeneous tumors contain treatment-resistant cells, Mroz says. He also notes that what reduces the chance of survival appears to be the subgroups of cells with different mutations within a tumor, not the process of mutation itself. "If all the tumor cells have gone through the same series of mutations, a single treatment might still be able to kill all of them. But if there are subgroups with different sets of mutations, one subgroup might be resistant to one type of treatment, while another subgroup might resist a different therapy."
In addition to combining MATH values with clinical characteristics to better predict a patient's chance of successful treatment, Mroz notes that MATH could someday help determine treatment choice directing the use of more aggressive therapies against tumors with higher values, while allowing patients with lower values to receive less intense standard treatment. While MATH will probably be just as useful at predicting outcomes for other solid tumors, the investigators note, that will need to be shown in future studies.
"Our results have important implications for the future of oncology care," says Rocco, the Daniel Miller Associate Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School. "MATH offers a simple, quantitative way to test hypotheses about intratumor genetic heterogeneity, including the likelihood that targeted therapy will succeed. They also raise important questions about how genetic heterogeneity develops within a tumor and whether heterogeneity can be exploited therapeutically."
###
Additional co-authors of the Cancer paper are Aaron Tward, MD, PhD, Mass. Eye and Ear; Curtis Pickering, PhD, and Jeffrey Myers, MD, PhD, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. The study was supported by National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research grants R01DE022087 and RC2DE020958, National Cancer Institute grant R21CA119591, Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas grant RP100233, and the Bacardi MEEI Biobank Fund. The MGH has filed a patent application for the MATH measure.
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute, Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine. In July 2012, MGH moved into the number one spot on the 2012-13 U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Genetic diversity within tumors predicts outcome in head and neck cancerPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katie Marquedant kmarquedant@partners.org 617-726-0337 Massachusetts General Hospital
New measure may aid treatment planning, future studies for broad range of tumors
A new measure of the heterogeneity the variety of genetic mutations of cells within a tumor appears to predict treatment outcomes of patients with the most common type of head and neck cancer. In the May 20 issue of the journal Cancer, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary describe how their measure was a better predictor of survival than most traditional risk factors in a small group of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
"Our findings will eventually allow better matching of treatments to individual patients, based on this characteristic of their tumors," says Edmund Mroz, PhD, of the MGH Center for Cancer Research, lead author of the Cancer report. "This method of measuring heterogeneity can be applied to most types of cancer, so our work should help researchers determine whether a similar relationship between heterogeneity and outcome occurs in other tumors."
For decades investigators have hypothesized that tumors with a high degree of genetic heterogeneity the result of different subgroups of cells undergoing different mutations at different DNA sites would be more difficult to treat because particular subgroups might be more likely to survive a particular drug or radiation or to have spread before diagnosis. While recent studies have identified specific genes and proteins that can confer treatment resistance in tumors, there previously has been no way of conveniently measuring tumor heterogeneity.
Working in the laboratory of James Rocco, MD, PhD director of the Mass. Eye and Ear /MGH Head and Neck Molecular Oncology Research Laboratory, principal investigator at the MGH Center for Cancer Research and senior author of the Cancer report Mroz and his colleagues developed their new measure by analyzing advanced gene sequencing data to produce a value reflecting the genetic diversity within a tumor not only the number of genetic mutations but how broadly particular mutations are shared within different subgroups of tumor cells. They first described this measure, called mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity (MATH), in the March 2013 issue of Oral Oncology. But that paper was only able to show that patients with known factors predicting poor outcomes including specific mutations in the TP53 gene or a lack of infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) were likely to have higher MATH values.
In the current study, the investigators used MATH to analyze genetic data from the tumors of 74 patients with squamous cell head and neck carcinoma for whom they had complete treatment and outcome information. Not only did they find that higher MATH values were strongly associated with shorter overall survival with each unit of increase reflecting a 5 percent increase in the risk of death but that relationship was also seen within groups of patients already at risk for poor outcome. For example, among patients with HPV-negative tumors, those with higher MATH values were less likely to survive than those with lower MATH values. Overall, MATH values were more strongly related to outcomes than most previously identified risk factors and improved outcome predictions based on all other risk factors the researchers examined.
The impact of MATH value on outcome appeared strongest among patients treated with chemotherapy, which may reflect a greater likelihood that highly heterogeneous tumors contain treatment-resistant cells, Mroz says. He also notes that what reduces the chance of survival appears to be the subgroups of cells with different mutations within a tumor, not the process of mutation itself. "If all the tumor cells have gone through the same series of mutations, a single treatment might still be able to kill all of them. But if there are subgroups with different sets of mutations, one subgroup might be resistant to one type of treatment, while another subgroup might resist a different therapy."
In addition to combining MATH values with clinical characteristics to better predict a patient's chance of successful treatment, Mroz notes that MATH could someday help determine treatment choice directing the use of more aggressive therapies against tumors with higher values, while allowing patients with lower values to receive less intense standard treatment. While MATH will probably be just as useful at predicting outcomes for other solid tumors, the investigators note, that will need to be shown in future studies.
"Our results have important implications for the future of oncology care," says Rocco, the Daniel Miller Associate Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School. "MATH offers a simple, quantitative way to test hypotheses about intratumor genetic heterogeneity, including the likelihood that targeted therapy will succeed. They also raise important questions about how genetic heterogeneity develops within a tumor and whether heterogeneity can be exploited therapeutically."
###
Additional co-authors of the Cancer paper are Aaron Tward, MD, PhD, Mass. Eye and Ear; Curtis Pickering, PhD, and Jeffrey Myers, MD, PhD, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. The study was supported by National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research grants R01DE022087 and RC2DE020958, National Cancer Institute grant R21CA119591, Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas grant RP100233, and the Bacardi MEEI Biobank Fund. The MGH has filed a patent application for the MATH measure.
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute, Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine. In July 2012, MGH moved into the number one spot on the 2012-13 U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
It's not clear if North Korea fired a short-range missile or an artillery round. The isolated regime also launched three missiles on Saturday, causing no damage.
By Hyung-Jin Kim,?Associated Press / May 19, 2013
A mock Scud-B missile of North Korea, (r.), and other South Korean missiles are displayed at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday. North Korea fired a projectile into waters off its eastern coast Sunday, a day after launching three short-range missiles in the same area, officials said.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
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North?Korea?fired a projectile into waters off its eastern coast Sunday, a day after launching three short-range missiles in the same area, officials said.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
North?Korea?routinely test-launches short-range missiles. But the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing recent tension, including near-daily threats by?North?Korea?to attack South?Korea?and the US earlier this year.?North?Korea?protested annual joint military drills by Seoul and Washington and UN sanctions imposed over its February nuclear test.
The fourth launch occurred Sunday afternoon, according to officials at Seoul's Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules, refused to say whether it was a missile or artillery round.
On Saturday,?North?Korea?fired two short-range missiles in the morning and another in the afternoon. The US responded by saying threats or provocations would only further deepen?North?Korea's?international isolation, while South?Korea?called the launches a provocation and urged the?North?to take responsible actions.
The?North?has a variety of missiles but Seoul and Washington don't believe the country has mastered the technology needed to manufacture nuclear warheads that are small and light enough to be placed on a missile capable of reaching the US.
US officials said the?North?has recently withdrawn two mid-range "Musudan" missiles believed to be capable of reaching Guam after moving them to its east coast during the recent tensions.
The Korean Peninsula officially remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. South?Korea's?Defense Ministry said Sunday it has deployed dozens of Israeli-made precision guided missiles on front-line islands near the disputed western sea boundary as part of an arms buildup begun after a?North?Korean artillery strike on one of the islands in 2010 killed four South Koreans.
* Associated Press writer Sam Kim contributed to this report.
This custom-made electric guitar played by the late John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles recently sold at auction.
A custom-made electric guitar played by the late John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles sold at a New York auction on Saturday for $408,000, said officials with the company behind the event.
The semi-hollow-body guitar, manufactured by the VOX company, was sold to an unidentified U.S. buyer at the "Music Icons" event organized by Beverly Hills, California-based Julien's Auctions and held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manhattan.
Julien's said previously it expected the guitar, which was the centerpiece of Saturday's sale, to fetch between $200,000 and $300,000.
Harrison played the instrument, distinguished by two symmetrical flared shoulders on the upper body, while practicing "I Am The Walrus," and Lennon used it in a video session for the song "Hello, Goodbye," according to a statement from Julien's Auctions.
Both songs were on the Beatles' 1967 album "Magical Mystery Tour."
The VOX guitar was a prototype instrument custom-built for Lennon in 1966, said Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's. Lennon gave the VOX guitar as a gift in 1967 to Yanni "Magic Alex" Mardas, who was the electronics engineer for the band's Apple Records label, the auction house said.
The instrument, displayed in recent weeks at a museum in Ireland before the sale, was sold a few years ago by Christie's Auction House for a little over $100,000. Nolan said the latest buyer, who sent a representative to Saturday's auction to bid on his behalf, wished to remain anonymous.
Lennon was shot to death in New York in 1980 by a deranged fan, and Harrison died of lung cancer in Los Angeles in 2001. The surviving members of the Beatles are Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Powerball jackpot Saturday night could be even higher than the record $600 million being advertised, possibly rivaling the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, a Texas Lottery official said on Saturday.
"Oftentimes, the advertised amount is lower than what the actual jackpot ends up being," said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery. "It's entirely possible this $600 million jackpot will end up being a bigger jackpot."
The Powerball record in November was advertised at $550 million, but ended up being $587.5 million when the winning numbers were drawn, thanks to last-minute sales.
Powerball officials told participating states on Saturday they would not be raising the advertised number for the drawing, Cripe said.
There had been speculation the advertised amount for the lottery would be increased to surpass $656 million - the largest jackpot in U.S. history, set by the Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. The lottery is offered in 43 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.
Chances of winning the Powerball on Saturday were one in 175 million, Cripe said.
If the drawing yields no winner, all records will be shattered as the jackpot for Wednesday would go to $925 million.
But players across the country weren't pushing their luck, shelling out bills for the nighttime drawing.
"It's only a couple bucks for a small daydream," said Russell Williams, 35, a salesman in Austin, Texas.
In New York City, talent acquisition agent Michelle Amici was playing the "if I win" game.
"Not sure that I'd buy anything," she said. "Rather, I'd attempt to quench my wanderlust by traveling the world. I'd also donate a large portion to education reform."
El Paso, Texas, mom Bonnie Carreno rarely plays but was taking a chance on this one. "I only ever buy a ticket when I see the amazing numbers in the headlines," she said.
For Austin marketing professional Becky Arreaga, the odds are not so long that she was discouraged about her chances.
"As long as the odds are 1 in anything, I'm in," said Arreaga, a partner at Mercury Mambo marketing firm. "I truly believe I could be the one."
"Just takes one ticket to win," echoed Tela Mange of Austin.
The popular lottery has not had a winner in two months.
The $2 tickets allow players pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35. The numbers will be drawn Saturday at 10:59 p.m. EDT (02:59 GMT on Sunday) in Tallahassee, Florida.
(Reporting by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune, Doina Chiacu)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? First lady Michelle Obama has some advice for some Tennessee high school graduates: Strike your own path in college and life and work to overcome inevitable failures with determination and grit.
Mrs. Obama spoke for 22 minutes to the Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School on Saturday in her only high school graduation speech this year.
The first lady told the 170 graduates that she spent too much of her own time in college focusing on academic achievements. While her success in college and law school led to a high-profile job, she said, she ended up leaving to focus on public service.
"My message to all of you today is this: Do not waste a minute living someone else's dream," she said. "It takes a lot of real work to discover what brings you joy ... and you won't find what you love simply by checking boxes or padding your GPA."
Mrs. Obama lauded the school ? it's on the site of one of the city's first to educate African-Americans ? for its graduation rate, spirit of volunteerism and healthy food programs. She noted that each graduate was going on to either higher education or the military.
She said MLK reminded her of her own high school experience in Chicago.
"My No. 1 goal was to go to a high school that would push me and challenge me," she said. "I wanted to go somewhere that would celebrate achievement. A place where academic success wouldn't make me a target of teasing or bullying, but instead would be a badge of honor."
But Mrs. Obama lamented that not all students have the same opportunities.
"Unfortunately, schools like this don't exist for every kid," she said. "You are blessed."
The first lady told graduates that failure may be a part of their college lives and careers, and that how they respond to any pitfalls will define them.
"That's when you find out what you're really made of in those hard times," she said. "But you can only do that if you're willing to put yourself in a position where you might fail."
Overcoming adversity has been the hallmark of many great people, she said.
"Oprah was demoted from her first job as a news anchor, and now she doesn't even need a last name," she said of media giant Oprah Winfrey. "And then there's this guy Barack Obama ... he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband."
Mrs. Obama later presented graduate diplomas on stage and posed for photos with graduates.
"We didn't know we would get to hug her," said graduate Natey Kinzounza, 18. "She's got a great sense of humor. She's like my mom, she's just a very real person."
There was a brief moment where some conservative were trying to make a scandal out of the President's moment in the rain on Thursday. But unfortunately that scandal died before it could really take off. During his Thursday press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, a Marine officer held an umbrella over the President's head to protect him from the rain. There were many problems with this, according to a select group of people.?
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It all started, as these things do, with a Daily Caller post on Friday. They correctly pointed out that according to Marine Corps uniform regulations umbrellas are strictly off limits for male officers. Female marines are allowed to carry umbrellas under some very strict guidelines, but male officers are taught from the beginning that they are not, under any circumstances, to be caught carrying an umbrella. "Obama expects our troops to hold damn umbrellas rather than go inside: It's disrespectful, inconsiderate, classless," Lou Dobbs added over Twitter. "Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas," Sarah Palin said at the beginning of a long Facebook post.?
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Yes, the Marines are often forced to get wet while standing outside the White House because they cannot hold an umbrella. Yes, the Marine Corps uniform regulations state a Marine cannot hold an umbrella. But Marine spokesman?Capt. Eric Flanagan explained to the Washington Post that, according to?Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Marines must "perform such other duties as the President may direct." So when the President asks you to hold an umbrella over his head, you hold an umbrella over his head.?
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It didn't matter that there's a long history of Marines and Secret Service members?holding umbrellas for the President, no matter which side of the aisle they represent. It also didn't matter that there are easily discoverable pictures of Sarah Palin having an umbrella held for her. They wanted to add more headaches to the President's very bad week. But, oh well. So much for Umbrellagate. It had a nice ring to it, too.?
NEW YORK (AP) ? A gunman used homophobic slurs before firing a fatal shot point-blank into a man's face on a Manhattan street alive with a weekend midnight crowd, a killing New York's police commissioner called an "anti-gay" hate crime.
Before opening fire early Saturday, the gunman confronted the victim and his companion in Greenwich Village and asked if they "want to die here," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The shooting follows a series of recent bias attacks on gay men in New York, but this was the first deadly one.
About 15 minutes before the bloodshed, the gunman was seen urinating outside an upscale restaurant a few blocks from the Stonewall Inn, a birthplace of the gay rights movement, according to Kelly. He then went inside the restaurant and asked if someone was going to call the police about him.
Police said the gunman, identified later as 33-year-old Elliot Morales, told both the bartender and the manager, "if you do call the police, I'll shoot you" and opened his sweatshirt to reveal a shoulder holster with a revolver and made anti-gay remarks, Kelly said.
Morales has a previous arrest for attempted murder in 1998, police said. Details of that arrest weren't immediately clear.
Out on the street minutes later, the gunman and two others approached the 32-year-old victim, identified by police as Harlem resident Marc Carson, and a companion on Sixth Avenue. One of the three men yelled out, "What are you, gay wrestlers?" according to Kelly.
The two men stopped, turned and, according to Kelly, said to the group taunting them, "What did you say?" ? then kept walking.
"There were no words that would aggravate the situation spoken by the victims here," the commissioner said. "This fully looks to be a hate crime, a bias crime."
Two of the men kept following the victim and his companion, Kelly said, adding that witnesses saw the pair approach from behind while repeating anti-gay slurs.
The gunman asked the men if they were together and when he got an affirmative answer, Kelly said, "we believe that the perpetrator says to the victim, 'Do you want to die here?'"
That's when suspect produced the revolver and fired one shot into Carson's cheek, Kelly said.
The gunman fled to 3rd Street, where an officer who had heard a description on his radio spotted him and ordered him to stop, Kelly said. The suspected gunman threw his revolver to the ground and was arrested on the edge of the New York University campus.
Police found the mortally wounded victim on the pavement. He was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital.
Authorities said they could not immediately identify Morales because he was carrying forged identification. But investigators learned his name after the forged ID was submitted to the department's Facial Recognition Unit.
Of the other recent New York bias attacks on gay men, one was reported last week on nearby Christopher Street, where a 35-year-old man told police he was beaten up and heard anti-gay words after leaving a bar.
On May 10, two men trying to enter a billiards hall on West 32nd Street were approached and beaten by a group shouting homophobic slurs, police said.
And on May 5, a man and his partner were beaten near Madison Square Garden after a group of men wearing Knicks shirts hurled anti-gay slurs at them.
The commissioner said Saturday that police were looking into possible links between the incidents.
Multiple lawmakers have condemned the violence.
"I am horrified to learn that last night, a gay man was murdered in my district after being chased out of a Greenwich Village restaurant and assailed by homophobic slurs," New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. "I stand with all New Yorkers in condemning this attack."
The Democratic mayoral candidate said there was a time in New York when hate crimes were common ? when two people of the same gender could not walk down the street arm in arm without fear of violence and harassment.
But "we refuse to go back to that time," she said. "This kind of shocking and senseless violence, so deeply rooted in hate, has no place in a city whose greatest strength will always be its diversity."
New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat whose district includes Manhattan's West Side, called on New Yorkers "to unite against hate and gun violence."
And State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick declared that "New York is not open for bigotry."
The New York City Anti-Violence Project plans to gather on Friday night for what it calls a "Community Safety Night."
The relationship between the heritable risk for schizophrenia and low intelligence (IQ) has not been clear. Schizophrenia is commonly associated with cognitive impairments that may cause functional disability. There are clues that reduced IQ may be linked to the risk for developing schizophrenia. For example, reduced cognitive ability may precede the onset of schizophrenia symptoms. Also, these deficits may be present in healthy relatives of people diagnosed with schizophrenia.
In a remarkable new study published in Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Andrew McIntosh and his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh provide new evidence that the genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with lower IQ among people who do not develop this disorder.
The authors analyzed data from 937 individuals in Scotland who first completed IQ testing in 1947, at age 11. Around age 70, they were retested and their DNA was analyzed to estimate their genetic risk for schizophrenia.
The researchers found that individuals with a higher genetic risk for schizophrenia had a lower IQ at age 70 but not at age 11. Having more schizophrenia risk-related gene variants was also associated with a greater decline in lifelong cognitive ability.
"If nature has loaded a person's genes towards schizophrenia, then there is a slight but detectable worsening in cognitive function between childhood and old age. With further research into how these genes affect the brain, it could become possible to understand how genes linked to schizophrenia affect people's cognitive function," said McIntosh.
These findings suggest that common genetic variants may underlie both cognitive aging and risk of schizophrenia.
"While this study does not show that these common gene variants produce schizophrenia per se, it elegantly suggests that these variants may contribute to declines in intelligence, a clinical feature associated with schizophrenia," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "However, we have yet to understand the development of cognitive impairments that produce disability in young adulthood, the period when schizophrenia develops for many affected people."
Clearly, more research is necessary, but this new study adds to the growing and substantial effort to understand how the gene variants that contribute to the development of schizophrenia give rise to the cognitive disability commonly associated with it.
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Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com
Thanks to Elsevier for this article.
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Ubuntu tablets may not be particularly new, but thanks to its liberal build, things can get a bit more interesting when another OS is added to the mix. Ekoore's Python S3 tablet goes a little further, nestling Ubuntu, Android and Windows 8 behind its 11.6-inch screen. Specifications can be customized on the order page, but there's an Intel Celeron processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD for storage, while the 1,366 x 768 resolution was chosen to suit all three operating systems: Windows 8, Android 4.2 and Ubuntu 13.04. There's connectivity through both WiFi and an optional 3G module -- the Win 8 license itself is also a purchasable extra. The device is priced at $770 for the US, while you'll be able to pick up a dockable keyboard add-on (with built-in battery) for around $179. For those of you who still can't decide your favorite tablet OS, you can hedge your bets and place an order at the source.
SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - One of the most urgent questions in economics today is the connection between inequality and growth. That is because one of the big economic facts of our time is the surge in income disparity, particularly between those at the very top and everyone else. The other big fact is the recession set off by the financial crisis and the consequent imperative to jump-start economic growth. Figuring out the relationship between these two tent-pole issues is therefore a good way for economists to spend their time.
There are two main and contradictory ideas about how that relationship might work. One is that inequality is the price of robust economic growth. If the private sector is thriving, the most successful capitalists will be getting very rich. Creating a system that allows - indeed, encourages - the best and the brightest to pull away from everyone else is how you shift your economy into its highest gear.
There is, however, another theory, and it has been winning adherents in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In this view, rising inequality is not a symptom of a fast-growing economy or an incentive that will help create one. Instead, too much income inequality crushes economic growth.
There are different arguments for why that might happen. One is that high income inequality creates an unstable system that is vulnerable to costly booms and busts. Another is that when too much of the income goes to the very top and not enough goes to the middle, spending slumps - how many yachts does a plutocrat need? - putting a brake on growth.
David Howell, a professor of economics at The New School in New York, has written a draft paper for the Center for American Progress, a progressive research group, that investigates the first argument. Howell argues that the United States and Britain have acted over the past three decades on what he calls the laissez-faire theory, that the equation of rising inequality and increasing gross domestic product is correct.
As Howell puts it, "the laissez-faire case for high inequality is grounded in the belief that growth in output and employment depends mainly on strong incentives to work and invest."
Howell tested that view by comparing the United States and Britain to their peers. He asked whether "compared to other rich countries, U.S. income inequality has paid off in relatively high growth." His answer: not particularly. He finds that "there is no simple correlation between our measures of growth and income inequality."
That may come as a surprise to many Americans, who are accustomed to hearing, as Howell explained, "that the U.S. middle class is doing relatively well, at least compared to Europe, because of productivity growth and because we allow higher inequality."
But the reality is that at least some of those allegedly sclerotic European economies, dragged down by their highly redistributive welfare states, have outperformed the United States.
"What we see is Sweden having really good productivity growth by all measures, despite much more modest increases in inequality and starting at a much lower level," he said.
"The U.S. is anywhere from an O.K. to middling performer in the Age of Inequality," Howell said, using his term for our era. But while his work suggests inequality is not needed to get growth, he does not show that inequality actually hurts growth either: "I don't show a strong measurable inverse effect."
Lars Osberg, an economist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, takes on this second argument - the case that inequality, at least beyond a certain point, can stifle growth.
He, too, adopts a comparative lens, looking at Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Osberg argues that a growing chasm between those at the very top and everyone else imperils the overall economy. His worry is financial instability.
"The added savings of the increasingly affluent must be loaned to balance total current expenditure," he writes, "but increasing indebtedness implies financial fragility, periodic financial crises, greater volatility of aggregate income and, as governments respond to mass unemployment with countercyclical fiscal policies, a compounding instability of public finances."
This is a variation of an argument by Raghuram Rajan, a politically center-right professor at the University of Chicago, who has suggested that rising income inequality was one of the drivers of the financial crisis. As income inequality increased, and the incomes of the middle class stagnated, the U.S. government responded by increasing the consumer credit available to the middle class.
In the short term, that was a win-win solution: consumption, and therefore the economy, grew, and the middle class was quiescent because stagnating incomes were masked by increasing consumer debt. But in the medium term that Goldilocks scenario broke down - the middle class consumption bubble, and the Wall Street bubble it helped finance, popped with devastating consequences.
Both Howell and Osberg are skeptical, at best, of the value of rising income inequality as a driver of economic growth. When you put that conclusion together with the arithmetic of democracy - rising income inequality means a majority of voters are on the losing end of the deal - a political backlash seems inevitable.
"Go back to the 1920s or the 1870s and economists were worried about the stability of the capitalist system," Osberg said. "One of the things the 1930s experience teaches us is there are some catastrophic outcomes which can happen."
The investing class and the academic world are focused on those dangers. "Can capitalism survive?" is one of the trendiest conference topics among red-blooded capitalists and left-leaning professors alike. So far, at the ballot box and on the street, this question has not been as salient. That does not mean it will not be in the future - and in ways we cannot predict.
(Chrystia Freeland is the managing director and editor, Consumer News at Thomson Reuters. Prior, she was U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times. Before that, Freeland was deputy editor of the Financial Times, in London, editor of the FT's Weekend edition, editor of FT.com, UK News editor, Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent. From 1999 to 2001, Freeland served as deputy editor of The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. Freeland began her career working as a stringer in Ukraine, writing for the FT, The Washington Post and The Economist.
She is the author of two books: "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-rich and the Fall of Everyone Else," published by Penguin in 2012 and "Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution," published by Crown Publishing books in 2000.)
(Chrystia Freeland is a Reuters columnist. Any opinions expressed are her own.)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? The first group of exiles from an Iranian opposition group has moved to Albania from a former U.S. military base near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations mission to Iraq said Thursday.
In a statement, U.N. envoy Martin Kobler said 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived in Albania late Wednesday, the first of 210 set to travel to new homes in Albania.
Last year about 3,000 MEK exiles were moved from their decades-long home in northeastern Iraq to a refugee camp outside Baghdad at the former U.S. base, part of an effort to ensure their peaceful departure from Iraq.
The MEK, or the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, opposes Tehran's clerical regime. It carried out assassinations and bombings in Iran until renouncing violence in 2001. Several thousand of its members were given sanctuary in Iraq by dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in 2003.
The Shiite-led government in Baghdad that replaced Saddam's regime is bolstering its ties with Iran. It considers the MEK a terrorist group and wants its members out of the country. The MEK fought alongside Saddam's forces in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war, and its members fear persecution and death if they return to Iran.
Kobler described the transfer of the first group as "an encouraging first step in the relocation of the group of 210 residents the Albanian government has agreed to receive."
Phone calls to reach Iraqi government and MEK officials went answered. There was no immediate comment from Albania.
Seven people were killed in a rocket attack on the MEK camp in early February. Later, the head of a Shiite militant group threatened to carry out more attacks on the camp if the MEK members refused to leave Iraq.
Emma Watson and her cast mates from "The Bling Ring," along with director Sofia Coppola, made a splash on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.
While we're sad we can't bring you a new disco GIF of Watson, you should at least enjoy another stylish turn from the actress as she rolls out her latest film with all the required French flair.
AFP - Getty Images
Emma Watson poses at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.
Getty Images
Watson blows a kiss as Katie Chang, left, and Sophia Coppola look on.
Watson, who rose to fame as Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" film series, said at a Cannes news conference that those days seem "like such a long time ago."
"I enjoy the chance to transform into new roles and work with new creative people," the 23-year-old actress said of her turn in the film about a gang of celeb-robbing teens.
"The Bling Ring" opens in theaters in the US next month.
Getty Images
Bling ring, indeed. A detail view of the earrings worn by Watson on Thursday.
Getty Images
"The Bling Ring" stars, from left, Claire Julien, Taissa Fariga, Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Watson and director Sophia Coppola.
Crew members unload a catch of sockeye salmon at Craig, Alaska, in 2005. Researchers say fish are being found in new areas because of changing ocean temperatures.
Melissa Farlow/National Geographic/Getty Images
Crew members unload a catch of sockeye salmon at Craig, Alaska, in 2005. Researchers say fish are being found in new areas because of changing ocean temperatures.
Melissa Farlow/National Geographic/Getty Images
Climate change is gradually altering the fish that end up on ice in seafood counters around the world, according to a new study.
"The composition of the [global] fish catch includes more and more fish from the warmer areas, and cold water fish are getting more rare, because the temperatures are increasing," says Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia, a co-author of the study.
As oceans warm ? a result of climate change ? fish maintain their preferred water temperature by moving away from the equator and toward the poles.
So, for example, people in Denmark are now encountering swordfish, which you'd normally find in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Africa.
"In British Columbia, where I live, we have Humboldt squid, giant squid from Mexico," Pauly says. "They eat all the herrings and stuff, and people don't know them. They are stranded on the beach, and people think they are sea monsters."
And fishermen have scuffled over Atlantic mackerel quotas, as the fish moves north to new grounds around Iceland.
The new study in Nature shows these anecdotes aren't simply a fluke. Data from fish catches from around the world show it's happening everywhere the ocean is warming ? which is just about everywhere.
This trend isn't obvious at American fish counters. That's because 80 percent of our seafood is imported, and we don't know whether fishermen are catching our swordfish in the tropics or the North Atlantic. Also, half of all seafood is now produced in enclosures ? not caught in the wild.
But if it's invisible to us, that's not the case for many people who rely on their local fisherman for protein.
"In the tropics, there are lots of developing countries' fisheries where their ability to adapt to changes in the resources is much lower," says William Cheung, the report's lead author. Like Pauly, he's at the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Center in Vancouver.
The paper documents a migration of some species out of the tropics, as they seek cooler waters. But there are no fish to replace the ones that are leaving. As a result, "these fisheries in the tropics will be most vulnerable to climate change impacts," Cheung says.
The United States will gradually feel the effects as well.
"Imagine a reef fish that is driven by temperature into North Carolina or the Delaware coast," Pauly says. "That reef fish will not find reefs. It's like you having to move, but you cannot take your furniture with you, or your house. That is the problem."
Many fish will have a hard time adapting to this very rapid change, he says.
Mark Payne at the National Institute for Aquatic Resources in Denmark was not involved in the research, but he's impressed by the result.
"This is suddenly a wakeup call," he says. "It's a strong suggestion that climate change is here. It's real, and it's really starting to affect what we catch and, therefore, what we eat."
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google Inc. unveiled a streaming music service called All Access that blends songs users have already uploaded to their online libraries with millions of other tracks for a $10 monthly fee.
The service puts the Internet goliath in competition with popular paid subscription plans like Spotify and Rhapsody and free music services like Pandora.
The announcement Wednesday at Google's annual developers conference in San Francisco kicks off a wave of developments in the digital music space that are expected to entice consumers with ways to listen to music on a range of devices.
Rival Apple Inc. is expected to debut a digital radio service later this year; Google-owned YouTube is also working on a paid subscription music plan; and Sweden's Spotify is exploring a way to make a version of its paid streaming plan free with ads on mobile devices, according to a person in the music industry familiar with the matter.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the developments because the deals and features on the services have not been finalized.
Google is playing catch-up in the digital music space after launching its music store in November 2011. Apple's iTunes Store, which launched in 2003, is the leader in song downloads and Spotify claims about 6 million paying subscribers worldwide.
But Google's massive reach on mobile devices that use its Android operating system means it could narrow the gap quickly. Some 44 percent of active smartphones in the U.S. are powered by the Android software, according to research firm eMarketer. Google said about 900 million Android devices have been activated worldwide.
All Access will be available in the U.S. on Wednesday and comes with a 30-day free trial. It is expected to roll out soon in 12 other countries were Google currently sells music, including 10 European countries such as the U.K., France and Germany, as well as Australia and New Zealand. If you start the trial by June 30, the monthly fee drops to $8 for the foreseeable future.
Google's All Access allows users to search for songs, albums or artists directly, or peruse 22 different genres. Google curators also offer up recommendations based on your listening behavior and your existing library of songs.
You can listen to any of millions of tracks right away, or switch to a "radio" format that creates a playlist of songs that you might like. Radio playlists can be adjusted on the fly by deleting or re-ordering upcoming songs.
"This is radio without rules," said Chris Yerga, engineering director of Android. "This is as lean-back as you want or as interactive as you want."
By combining an all-you-can-listen-to plan with music sold from its Google Play store, the service covers any gaps. Some artists, like Taylor Swift, keep recent releases off of streaming services for several months in order to boost download sales. The combination also means people can listen to their own specialized music or bootleg recordings alongside the millions of tracks available from Google.
All three major record labels ? Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group Corp. ? are part of the All Access service.
Listening to music streamed over cellphone networks has become extremely popular. According to research firm eMarketer, over 96 million Americans are expected to stream music on mobile devices at least once a week in 2013, up from 85 million a year ago. About 147 million Americans are expected to stream music on the go at least once a month this year.
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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