Brief hearing held in suspicious letters case

James E. Dutschke stands in the steet near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home Tuesday April 23, 2013 in connection with the recent ricin letters sent to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker. The Mississippi man charged with sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and others was released from jail Tuesday on bond, while FBI agents returned to Dutschke's house where they'd previously searched (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANADATORY CREDIT

James E. Dutschke stands in the steet near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home Tuesday April 23, 2013 in connection with the recent ricin letters sent to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker. The Mississippi man charged with sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and others was released from jail Tuesday on bond, while FBI agents returned to Dutschke's house where they'd previously searched (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANADATORY CREDIT

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) ? A Mississippi man charged with making a deadly poison sent to President Barack Obama and others was ordered held without bond until a hearing later this week when prosecutors are expected to describe what evidence they have against him

James Everett Dutschke made a brief appearance Monday in federal court wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands shackled. Authorities spent several days last week searching Dutschke's home and former business but have said very little about the suspect beyond a news release announcing the charge of making and possessing ricin over the weekend.

Dutschke's arrest early Saturday capped a week in which investigators initially zeroed in on a rival of Dutschke's, then decided they had the wrong man. Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) has denied involvement in the mailing of the letters, saying he's a patriot with no grudges against anyone.

The 41-year-old suspect said little during his hearing other than answering affirmatively to the judge's questions about whether he understood the charges against him.

The judge ordered Dutschke to remain jailed until a preliminary and detention hearing scheduled for Thursday. More details are likely to emerge at that hearing, when prosecutors have to show they have enough evidence to hold him.

An attorney from the public defender's office appointed to represent Dutschke declined to comment after Monday's hearing. Another attorney of Dutschke's, Lori Nail Basham, said she will continue to represent him in other matters but not the federal case.

Dutschke's house, business and vehicles in Tupelo, Miss., were searched last week, often by crews in hazardous materials suits, and he had been under surveillance.

He faces up to life in prison if convicted. A news release from federal authorities said Dutschke was charged with "knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, to wit: ricin."

He already had legal problems. Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty in state court to two child molestation charges involving three girls younger than 16, at least one of whom was a student at his martial arts studio. He also was appealing a conviction on a different charge of indecent exposure. He told The Associated Press last week that his lawyer told him not to comment on those cases.

The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent April 8 to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Mississippi judge Sadie Holland.

The first suspect accused by the FBI was Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, an Elvis impersonator. He was arrested on April 17 at his Corinth, Miss., home, but the charges were dropped six days later and Curtis, who says he was framed, was released from jail.

The focus then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect and the judge. Earlier in the week, as investigators searched his primary residence in Tupelo, Dutschke told the AP, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"I'm a patriotic American. I don't have any grudges against anybody. ... I did not send the letters," Dutschke said.

Curtis' attorney, Christi McCoy, said Saturday: "We are relieved but also saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks."

Some of the language in the letters was similar to posts on Curtis' Facebook page and they were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message." Curtis often used a similar online signoff.

Dutschke and Curtis were acquainted. Curtis said they had talked about possibly publishing a book on a conspiracy that Curtis insists he has uncovered to sell body parts on a black market. But he said they later had a feud.

Curtis' attorneys have said they believe their client was set up. An FBI agent testified that no evidence of ricin was found in searches of Curtis' home. Curtis attorney Hal Neilson said the defense gave authorities a list of people who may have had a reason to hurt Curtis and Dutschke's came up.

Judge Holland also is a common link between the two men, and both know Wicker. Dutschke's MySpace page has several pictures with him and Wicker at what appear to be campaign events.

Holland was the presiding judge in a 2004 case in which Curtis was accused of assaulting a Tupelo attorney a year earlier. Holland sentenced him to six months in the county jail. He served only part of the sentence, according to his brother.

Holland's family has had political skirmishes with Dutschke. Her son, Steve Holland, a Democratic state representative, said he thinks his mother's only encounter with Dutschke was at a rally in the town of Verona in 2007, when Dutschke ran as a Republican against Steve Holland.

Holland said his mother confronted Dutschke after he made a derogatory speech about the Holland family. She demanded that he apologize, which Holland says he did.

Dutschke said Steve Holland exaggerated the incident, and that he has no problem with Sadie Holland. "Everybody loves Sadie, including me," he said.

___

Follow Mohr at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-29-Suspicious%20Letters/id-37b5847d5e134ae5946d8d41ccc10c70

uganda the parent trap invisible children kony 2012 space weather sunspots pac 12 tournament sun storm

'Pain & Gain' leads US box office with $20.2M

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Mark Wahlberg's true-crime romp "Pain & Gain" led the domestic box office with $20.2 million over a quiet weekend that preceded the start of Hollywood's summer blockbuster season.

Summer's first big debut, "Iron Man 3," arrives in U.S. theaters Friday, with anticipation stoked by an overseas debut a week earlier in 42 markets that brought in nearly $200 million through the weekend.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Pain & Gain," Paramount, $20,244,505, 3,277 locations, $6,178 average, $20,244,505, one week.

2. "Oblivion," Universal, $17,803,425, 3,792 locations, $4,695 average, $65,090,925, two weeks.

3. "42," Warner Bros., $10,657,443, 3,405 locations, $3,130 average, $69,011,815, three weeks.

4. "The Big Wedding," Lionsgate, $7,591,663, 2,633 locations, $2,883 average, $7,591,663, one week.

5. "The Croods," Fox, $6,726,918, 3,283 locations, $2,049 average, $163,151,701, six weeks.

6. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," Paramount, $3,701,825, 2,707 locations, $1,368 average, $116,477,968, five weeks.

7. "Scary Movie 5," Weinstein Co., $3,434,451, 2,733 locations, $1,257 average, $27,471,387, three weeks.

8. "Olympus Has Fallen," FilmDistrict, $2,863,345, 2,334 locations, $1,227 average, $93,171,817, six weeks.

9. "The Place Beyond the Pines," Focus, $2,699,140, 1,584 locations, $1,704 average, $16,204,863, five weeks.

10. "Jurassic Park" in 3-D, Universal, $2,374,685, 1,848 locations, $1,285 average, $42,065,060, four weeks.

11. "Mud," Roadside Attractions, $2,215,460, 363 locations, $6,103 average, $2,215,460, one week.

12. "Evil Dead," Sony, $1,986,168, 2,186 locations, $909 average, $51,853,926, four weeks.

13. "Oz the Great and Powerful," Disney, $1,810,606, 1,610 locations, $1,125 average, $226,258,745, eight weeks.

14. "The Company You Keep," Sony Pictures Classics, $1,152,905, 807 locations, $1,429 average, $2,251,050, four weeks.

15. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," Lionsgate, $1,096,599, 942 locations, $1,164 average, $50,630,922, five weeks.

16. "Filly Brown," Lionsgate, $557,850, 259 locations, $2,154 average, $2,302,941, two weeks.

17. "Home Run," IDP/Samuel Goldwyn Films, $460,871, 370 locations, $1,246 average, $2,290,171, two weeks.

18. "Jack the Giant Slayer," Warner Bros., $420,831, 365 locations, $1,153 average, $63,733,938, nine weeks.

19. "The Host," Open Road Films, $379,907, 611 locations, $622 average, $25,866,993, five weeks.

20. "Identity Thief," Universal, $350,610, 425 locations, $825 average, $133,160,990, 12 weeks.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-29-Box%20Office/id-7121e6b0758b4ad982dce00c56a1d17f

nba all star weekend malin akerman jeff carter chomp national enquirer kate gosselin helicopter crash

Dubai court jails Britons for four years on drug charges

By Mahmoud Habboush

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Dubai court sentenced three Britons to four years in jail on drug charges on Monday, a decision that may overshadow a visit to Britain by the United Arab Emirates president because of allegations that the defendants were tortured.

The three were convicted a day after British Prime Minister David Cameron voiced concern about the allegations and his spokesman said the case would be on the agenda of his talks this week with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

Grant Cameron, Karl Williams and Suneet Jeerh, all in their 20s, were arrested in July 2012 during a holiday in the UAE. Police said they had found a form of synthetic cannabis in their hire car.

All three had pleaded not guilty to charges of possessing and intending to sell illegal drugs and said police had subjected them to beatings and threatened them with guns - allegations the police deny.

UAE Judge Ali Attiyah Saad found the three guilty in Dubai Criminal Court and sentenced them to four years in jail each.

Defence lawyer Issa bin-Haider said the sentences indicated the court had dropped the charge of intent to sell illegal drugs, which would have carried a more severe punishment.

Abdel-Hamid Mahdi, who represents Grant Cameron, said he planned to appeal against the sentence, asking for clemency. It is common for convicts to be pardoned during UAE national and religious holidays, particularly first-time offenders.

In London, David Cameron's spokesman said the case of the three Britons would feature in his discussions with Sheikh Khalifa, who was to arrive for a state visit on Tuesday.

"We have asked for a full and impartial independent investigation into these incidents," the spokesman told reporters. "The state visit is primarily a chance to develop and strengthen relations between our two countries. As part of that there will be opportunities to raise a wide range of issues, including concerns about these cases," he added.

In a letter to Reprieve, a London-based legal charity which campaigns for prisoner rights, Cameron said on Sunday that Britain had repeatedly raised concerns about the torture allegations with the UAE, saying the authorities' failure to organise a full medical examination of the men was worrisome.

"We continue to press for evidence of a full, impartial and independent investigation," Cameron wrote.

At a hearing in the case in March, police officer Osman Ali Abdulla, who took part in the Britons' arrests, denied any of the men were abused or beaten and said they were treated well.

There is zero tolerance for drug-related offences in the UAE, a regional business hub and tourist destination where millions of expatriates live and work. There are severe penalties for drug trafficking and possession.

Reprieve investigator Kate Higham urged Cameron on Monday to push for their release during his talks with Sheikh Khalifa.

"The central fact of this case remains that these men were tortured by police, but there has been no proper investigation into their abuse," she said in a statement.

During his two-day visit to Britain, the UAE leader will be hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle, hold a meeting with Cameron and have tea with the Prince of Wales. He will be accompanied by a high-level government delegation.

(Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths in London, Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dubai-court-jails-britons-four-years-drug-charges-083135190.html

Scary Movie 5 MTV Movie Awards 2013 masters masters leaderboard Psy Gentleman Candice Glover Angel Cabrera

Mother of bomb suspects found deeper spirituality

In this image taken from a video, an undated family photo provided by Patimat Suleimanova, the aunt of USA Boston bomb suspects, shows Anzor Tsarnaev left, Zubeidat Tsarnaev holding Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Anzor's brother Mukhammad Tsarnaev. Now known as the angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaev is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son. In another, she was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said. (AP Photo/Patimat Suleimanova)

In this image taken from a video, an undated family photo provided by Patimat Suleimanova, the aunt of USA Boston bomb suspects, shows Anzor Tsarnaev left, Zubeidat Tsarnaev holding Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Anzor's brother Mukhammad Tsarnaev. Now known as the angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaev is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son. In another, she was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said. (AP Photo/Patimat Suleimanova)

FILE - This April 25, 2013 file photo shows the mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, left, speaking at a news conference in Makhachkala, the southern Russian province of Dagestan. Two government officials tell The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies added the Boston bombing suspects' mother to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the attack. At right is her sister-in-law Maryam. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev, File)

BOSTON (AP) ? In photos of her as a younger woman, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva wears a low-cut blouse and has her hair teased like a 1980s rock star. After she arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 2002, she went to beauty school and did facials at a suburban day spa.

But in recent years, people noticed a change. She began wearing a hijab and cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a plot against Muslims.

Now known as the angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tsarnaeva is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son. In another, she was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said.

Tsarnaeva insists there is no mystery. She's no terrorist, just someone who found a deeper spirituality. She insists her sons ? Tamerlan, who was killed in a gunfight with police, and Dzhokhar, who was wounded and captured ? are innocent.

"It's all lies and hypocrisy," she told The Associated Press in Dagestan. "I'm sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I've never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism."

Amid the scrutiny, Tsarnaeva and her ex-husband, Anzor Tsarnaev, say they have put off the idea of any trip to the U.S. to reclaim their elder son's body or try to visit Dzhokhar in jail. Tsarnaev told the AP on Sunday he was too ill to travel to the U.S. Tsarnaeva faces a 2012 shoplifting charge in a Boston suburb, though it was unclear whether that was a deterrent.

At a news conference in Dagestan with Anzor last week, Tsarnaeva appeared overwhelmed with grief one moment, defiant the next. "They already are talking about that we are terrorists, I am terrorist," she said. "They already want me, him and all of us to look (like) terrorists."

Tsarnaeva arrived in the U.S. in 2002, settling in a working-class section of Cambridge, Mass. With four children, Anzor and Zubeidat qualified for food stamps and were on and off public assistance benefits for years. The large family squeezed itself into a third-floor apartment.

Zubeidat took classes at the Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics, before becoming a state-licensed aesthetician. Anzor, who had studied law, fixed cars.

By some accounts, the family was tolerant.

Bethany Smith, a New Yorker who befriended Zubeidat's two daughters, said in an interview with Newsday that when she stayed with the family for a month in 2008 while she looked at colleges, she was welcomed even though she was Christian and had tattoos.

"I had nothing but love over there. They accepted me for who I was," Smith told the newspaper. "Their mother, Zubeidat, she considered me to be a part of the family. She called me her third daughter."

Zubeidat said she and Tamerlan began to turn more deeply into their Muslim faith about five years ago after being influenced by a family friend, named "Misha." The man, whose full name she didn't reveal, impressed her with a religious devotion that was far greater than her own, even though he was an ethnic Armenian who converted to Islam.

"I wasn't praying until he prayed in our house, so I just got really ashamed that I am not praying, being a Muslim, being born Muslim. I am not praying. Misha, who converted, was praying," she said.

By then, she had left her job at the day spa and was giving facials in her apartment. One client, Alyssa Kilzer, noticed the change when Tsarnaeva put on a head scarf before leaving the apartment.

"She had never worn a hijab while working at the spa previously, or inside the house, and I was really surprised," Kilzer wrote in a post on her blog. "She started to refuse to see boys that had gone through puberty, as she had consulted a religious figure and he had told her it was sacrilegious. She was often fasting."

Kilzer wrote that Tsarnaeva was a loving and supportive mother, and she felt sympathy for her plight after the April 15 bombings. But she stopped visiting the family's home for spa treatments in late 2011 or early 2012 when, during one session, she "started quoting a conspiracy theory, telling me that she thought 9/11 was purposefully created by the American government to make America hate Muslims."

"It's real," Tsarnaeva said, according to Kilzer. "My son knows all about it. You can read on the Internet."

In the spring of 2010, Zubeidat's eldest son got married in a ceremony at a Boston mosque that no one in the family had previously attended. Tamerlan and his wife, Katherine Russell, a Rhode Island native and convert from Christianity, now have a child who is about 3 years old.

Zubeidat married into a Chechen family but was an outsider. She is an Avar, from one of the dozens of ethnic groups in Dagestan. Her native village is now a hotbed of an ultraconservative strain of Islam known as Salafism or Wahabbism.

It is unclear whether religious differences fueled tension in their family. Anzor and Zubeidat divorced in 2011.

About the same time, there was a brief FBI investigation into Tamerlan Tsarnaev, prompted by a tip from Russia's security service.

The vague warning from the Russians was that Tamerlan, an amateur boxer in the U.S., was a follower of radical Islam who had changed drastically since 2010. That led the FBI to interview Tamerlan at the family's home in Cambridge. Officials ultimately placed his name, and his mother's name, on various watch lists, but the inquiry was closed in late spring of 2011.

After the bombings, Russian authorities told U.S. investigators they had secretly recorded a phone conversation in which Zubeidat had vaguely discussed jihad with Tamerlan. The Russians also recorded Zubeidat talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with reporters.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

Anzor's brother, Ruslan Tsarni, told the AP from his home in Maryland that he believed his former sister-in-law had a "big-time influence" on her older son's growing embrace of his Muslim faith and decision to quit boxing and school.

While Tamerlan was living in Russia for six months in 2012, Zubeidat, who had remained in the U.S., was arrested at a shopping mall in the suburb of Natick, Mass., and accused of trying to shoplift $1,624 worth of women's clothing from a department store.

She failed to appear in court to answer the charges that fall, and instead left the country.

___

Seddon reported from Makhachkala, Russia. Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-28-Boston%20Marathon-Suspects'%20Mother/id-2828699e2d4240a797ddb521530b55d4

Sage Stallone Mermaid Body Found Celeste Holm Stephen Covey klimt bastille day breaking bad

Investigators push ahead in Boston bombing probe

BOSTON (AP) ? With the Boston marathon bombing suspect in a prison hospital, investigators are pushing forward in the U.S. and abroad to piece together the myriad details of a plot that killed three people and injured more than 260.

FBI agents have wrapped up a two-day search at a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where 19-year-old suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was a sophomore. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller wouldn't say what investigators were looking for or whether they recovered anything from the landfill before the search ended Friday.

A federal law enforcement official not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity on Friday that the FBI was gathering evidence regarding "everything imaginable."

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said the bombing suspects' mother had been added to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the April 15 attack ? a disclosure that deepens the mystery around the Tsarnaev family and marks the first time American authorities have acknowledged that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was under investigation before the tragedy.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with joining with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents.

Investigators have said it appears the brothers were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the CIA had Zubeidat Tsarnaeva's name added to the terror database along with that of her son Tamerlan after Russia contacted the agency in 2011 with concerns that the two were religious militants.

About six months earlier, the FBI investigated mother and son, also at Russia's request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism. Previously U.S. officials had said only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

In an interview from Russia, Tsarnaeva said Friday that she has never been linked to terrorism.

"It's all lies and hypocrisy," she said from Dagestan. "I'm sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I've never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism."

Tsarnaeva faces shoplifting charges in the U.S. over the theft of more than $1,624 worth of women's clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick in 2012.

Earlier this week, she said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested if she traveled to the U.S., but she said she was still deciding whether to go. The suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said that he would leave Russia soon for the United States to visit one son and lay the other to rest.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow questioned both parents in Russia this week.

Late this week, Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was recovering from a throat wound and other injuries suffered during an attempt to elude police, and was transferred to the Federal Medical Center Devens, about 40 miles from Boston, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The facility, at a former Army base, treats federal prisoners.

"It's where he should be; he doesn't need to be here anymore," said Beth Israel patient Linda Zamansky, who thought his absence could reduce stress on bombing victims who have been recovering at the hospital under tight security.

Two college buddies of his ? Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev ? have been interviewed at length, twice, by FBI agents and have cooperated fully, said Kadyrbayev's lawyer, Robert Stahl, a former federal prosecutor.

They were detained April 20 after being questioned in connection with the attacks, but are not suspects, Stahl said. They are being detained at a county jail in Boston for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes, he said.

The two, both students from Kazakhstan, had nothing to do with the attack and had seen no hints that their friend harbored any violent or terrorist sympathies, Stahl said.

Meanwhile, New York's police commissioner said the FBI was too slow to inform the city that the Boston Marathon suspects had been planning to bomb Times Square days after the attack at the race.

Federal investigators learned about the short-lived scheme from a hospitalized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during a bedside interrogation that began Sunday night and extended into Monday morning, officials said. The information didn't reach the New York Police Department until Wednesday night.

"We did express our concerns over the lag," said police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

The FBI had no comment Friday.

___

Sullivan reported from Washington. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi in Boston, Colleen Long in New York and Ted Bridis, Pete Yost and Julie Pace in Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/investigators-push-ahead-boston-bombing-probe-065744993.html

DMX act spartacus spartacus Jonathan Winters Justin Bieber Anne Frank will ferrell

Obama With Bangs At White House Correspondents' Dinner 2013 Is Genius (PHOTOS)

At the 2013 White House Correspondents' Dinner, President Obama professed that he's looking to shake things up and improve his image in his second term as president. So it was only natural, POTUS said in his speech, to take a cue from his wife...

... and get bangs.

Cue the awesome Photoshopped photos:

Genius? Super creepy? Both?

The real thing:

• February 13

• February 12 in Jason Wu

• February 15

• February 7

• January 22 in Naeem Khan

• January 21 in Jason Wu

• January 21 in Thom Browne & Reed Krakoff

• January 21 in Thom Browne & J. Crew

• January 20 in Reed Krakoff

• January 19

• January 6

• January 5

• Who Wore It Best: Michelle Obama or Rihanna?

  In this segment's who wore it best, it is for two totally different women who wore similar dresses. So between Michelle Obama and Rihanna, who wore it best?

• December 2012

  (Getty photo)

• December 2012

  (Getty photo)

• December 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• December 2012

  (AFP/Getty Images)

• December 2012

  (AFP/Getty Images)

• December 2012

  (Getty Images)

• November 2012

  (Getty Images)

• November 2012

  (Getty photo)

• November 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• October 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (McClatchy Tribune)

• September 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012 in Diane Von Furstenberg

  (AFP photo)

• August 2012

  (AP photo)

• August 2012

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012 in Barbara Tfank

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012 in Bibhu Mohapatra

  (NBC photo)

• August 2012

  (AP photo)

• August 2012

  (AP photo)

• July 2012

  (AP photo)

• July 2012

  (Getty photo)

• July 2012 in Tracy Reese

  (Twitter photo)

• July 2012

  (Getty photo)

• July 2012

  (Getty photo)

Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle.
--
Do you have a style story idea or tip? Email us at stylesubmissions@huffingtonpost.com. (PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/27/obama-with-bangs-white-house-correspondents-dinner_n_3171865.html

Dedication 4 labor day college football scores khan academy Espn College Football Eddie Murphy died Suzanne Barr

Amplats shareholders agree to share buy back

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Anglo American Platinum's shareholders gave the world's largest platinum producer the go ahead to buy back up to 10 percent of its shares during its annual general meeting on Friday, a spokeswoman for the company said.

Share buy backs are common during times of stock market decline, allowing the company to reduce the number of shares in issue and thereby boost per share earnings and dividends.

The company's shares have shed almost 31 percent of their value in the past year, underperforming the Johannesburg bourse's platinum index, which has fallen more than 20 percent over the same time.

Amplats, a unit of Anglo American, is battling to remain profitable after violent labour strikes in South Africa hurt already marginal operations, pushing them to the brink of closure.

It is also wrestling with soaring costs, 50 percent of which are wages, and weak prices.

Amplats is expected next week to announce whether it will press ahead with its review plan, which initially called for the cutting of up to 14,000 jobs, the mothballing of two mines and the sale of another.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amplats-shareholders-agree-share-buy-back-151733777.html

42 louisville basketball Ready for Love ncaa annette funicello margaret thatcher farrah abraham

CA-NEWS Summary

Anger on streets as Bangladesh building toll passes 300

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh textile workers vented their anger on Friday, burning cars and clashing with police, as the death toll passed 300 following the collapse of a building housing factories that made low-cost garments for Western brands. Miraculously rescuers were still pulling people alive from the rubble - 72 since daybreak following 41 found in the same room overnight - two days after the eight-storey building collapsed on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.

Obama: Chemical weapons use in Syria would be "game changer"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama warned President Bashar al-Assad on Friday that any use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war would be a "game changer" but cautioned that intelligence assessments that such weapons had been deployed were still preliminary. Speaking a day after the White House said for the first time that Assad's government had likely used chemical weapons on a small scale, Obama talked tough while appealing for patience as he sought to fend off pressure at home and abroad for a swift U.S. response.

Fire kills dozens in Russian psychiatric hospital

RAMENSKY, Russia (Reuters) - Thirty-eight people were killed, most of them in their beds, in a fire that raged through a psychiatric hospital near Moscow on Friday, raising questions about the care of mentally ill patients in Russia. The fire, which broke out at around 2 a.m. (6 p.m. ET on Thursday), swept through a single-storey building at the hospital, a collection of wood and brick huts with bars on some windows that was home to people sent there on grounds of mental illness by Russian courts.

Boston bomb suspect moved to prison from hospital

BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been moved to a prison medical center from the hospital where he had been held since his arrest a week ago while recovering from gunshot wounds, U.S. officials said on Friday. The 19-year-old ethnic Chechen, wounded in a late-night shootout with police on April 18 hours after authorities released pictures of him and his older brother as suspects, was charged on Monday and could face the death penalty if convicted. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in the shootout.

"Evidence" of Syria chemical weapons use not up to U.N. standard

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Assertions of chemical weapon use in Syria by Western and Israeli officials citing photos, sporadic shelling and traces of toxins do not meet the standard of proof needed for a U.N. team of experts waiting to gather their own field evidence. Weapons inspectors will only determine whether banned chemical agents were used in the two-year-old conflict if they are able to access sites and take soil, blood, urine or tissue samples and examine them in certified laboratories, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which works with the United Nations on inspections.

Islamist says Egypt should press on with judge reforms

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament must move quickly to adopt judicial reforms that have sparked a revolt by judges, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm argued on Friday. The proposed reforms, which would get rid of more than 3,000 judges by lowering the retirement age, have widened the rift between President Mohamed Mursi's government and a judiciary seen by its critics as a last bastion of the old regime that was toppled in the 2011 revolution.

Top British publicist charged with 11 sex assaults

LONDON (Reuters) - Celebrity publicist Max Clifford on Friday became the first high profile figure to be charged in a wide-ranging investigation into a sex scandal that has grabbed front page headlines in Britain in recent months. Clifford, 70, was charged with 11 counts of indecent assault, prosecutors said, including on two underage girls, after being arrested in December as part of an investigation into sex crime allegations against the late Jimmy Savile.

Bombs kill at least 20 across Iraqi capital

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least 20 more people on Friday at the end of a week of bloodshed that prompted a United Nations envoy to warn Iraq was "at a crossroads". More than 160 people have been killed since Tuesday, when troops stormed a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk, triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern provinces.

Russian court denies punk band convict Tolokonnikova parole

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court refused to release from prison one of two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band so that she can look after her young daughter. The court on Friday rejected Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's appeal for parole eight months after she was handed a two-year prison sentence for the band's performance of a "punk prayer" in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Bosnian regional president arrested in graft probe

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The president of Bosnia's autonomous Muslim-Croat federation and 19 others were arrested on Friday in an anti-corruption probe that also targeted the offices of the regional government, a spokesman for the state prosecutor said. The raid on Zivko Budimir's Sarajevo office and the regional government in the southern town of Mostar is the most high-profile anti-graft operation in Bosnia since independence more than two decades ago.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-023356509.html

kirk cousins ovechkin one world trade center bks new dark knight rises trailer khloe and lamar oklahoma city thunder

Novel screening tests for liver cancer

Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dimple Natali
easlpressoffice@cohnwolfe.com
44-790-013-8904
European Association for the Study of the Liver

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Friday 26 April 2013: New data from two clinical trials presented today at the International Liver Congress 2013 demonstrate substantial improvements in the detection of both hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CC) using diagnostic urine tests.

HCC is common throughout the world and most often develops as a late complication of chronic viral hepatitis or cirrhosis of any cause. The overall survival rate of HCC is poor and so screening for HCC offers the best hope for early detection, eligibility for treatment, and improved survival. While effective therapies exist, the available screening tests to detect HCC alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and ultrasound are reported to have low sensitivity and specificity (5085% and 7090%, respectively).

Preliminary data demonstrate the performance of urinary metabolites in helping to diagnose HCC. Urine samples were collected from four subject groups in West Africa on the case-control platform of PROLIFICA 'Prevention of Liver Fibrosis and Carcinoma in Africa' as follows: patients with HCC (n=65), cirrhosis (Cir, n=36), non-cirrhotic liver disease (DC, n=110) and healthy controls (NC, n=91). HCC patients were diagnosed using EASL guidelines.

Multivariate analyses of urinary nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra showed a distinct profile for urine of patients with HCC compared to Cir, DC and NC with sensitivity of 87%, 86% and 97% respectively. These results suggest that Urinary metabolite profile outperforms serum AFP which only differentiated HCC from these groups by 79% (Cir), 75% (DC) and 76% NC) respectively. The metabolites that were significantly increased (p

EASL General Secretary, Prof. Mark Thursz commented: "These findings will be welcomed by physicians as they validate urinary metabolic profiling as a potential screening tool for HCC, with superior diagnostic accuracy to serum AFP and if investigated further and put into practice this non-invasive technique could simplify and improve clinical diagnosis and outcomes for patients."

Similarly, detection of CC remains a diagnostic challenge and physicians will be encouraged by results from a Phase II study showing that a combined bile and urine proteomic test increased diagnostic accuracy of CC in patients with biliary strictures (an abnormal narrowing of the common bile duct) of unknown origin.

Having recently established diagnostic peptide marker models in bile and urine to detect both local and systemic changes during CC progression, investigators combined both models with the aim of reaching a higher diagnostic accuracy.

The data demonstrated this model enables impressive CC-diagnosis with an accuracy of more than 90% that is most applicable for patients with biliary strictures of unknown origin referred to endoscopy.

Prof. Mark Thursz added: "These important findings substantially improve the diagnosis of CC and may lead to early therapy and improved prognosis. Overall both data sets demonstrate the increasing value of proteomic and metabonomic techniques and if confirmed by further investigation, clinicians may soon be using simple urine dip-stick tests to diagnose HCC and CC."

A logistic regression model composed of the bile and urine proteomic classification factors lead to an area under curve (AUC) of 0.96, and 92% sensitivity and 84% specificity at the best cut-off. Only three of the 36 CC patients were false negative and two of the 33 PSC patients were false positive classified. Inclusion of CA19-9 and bilirubin values to the logistic regression model was of minor benefit.

Cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer is rare and almost always adenocarcinoma which starts in the lining of the bile duct. The cause of most cholangiocarcinomas is unknown but people with chronic inflammatory bowel conditions or congential abnormalities of the bile duct have a higher risk of developing the cancer.

Disclaimer: the data referenced in this release is based on the submitted abstract. More recent data may be presented at the International Liver Congress 2013.

###

Notes to Editors

About EASL

EASL is the leading European scientific society involved in promoting research and education in hepatology. EASL attracts the foremost hepatology experts and has an impressive track record in promoting research in liver disease, supporting wider education and promoting changes in European liver policy.

EASL's main focus on education and research is delivered through numerous events and initiatives, including:

• The International Liver CongressTM which is the main scientific and professional event in hepatology worldwide
  
• Meetings including Monothematic and Special conferences, Post Graduate courses and other endorsed meetings that take place throughout the year
  
• Clinical and Basic Schools of Hepatology, a series of events covering different aspects in the field of hepatology
  
• Journal of Hepatology published monthly
  
• Participation in a number of policy initiatives at European level

About The International Liver Congress 2013

The International Liver Congress 2013, the 48th annual meeting of the European Association for the study of the Liver, is being held at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam from April 24 28, 2013. The congress annually attracts in excess of 9000 clinicians and scientists from around the world and provides an opportunity to hear the latest research, perspectives and treatments of liver disease from principal experts in the field.

References:

1 De Masi S et al, Screening for hepatocellular carcinoma. Digestive and Liver Disease 2005;3(4): 219 300.

2 Ladep NG et al, URINARY METABOLIC PROFILE DISCRIMINATES HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA BETTER THAN SERUM ALPHA FETOPROTEIN IN WEST AFRICANS. Presented at the International Liver Congress 2013

3 EASL Guidelines: Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Available at http://www.easl.eu/_clinical-practice-guideline/issue-7-april-2012-management-of-hepatocellular-carcinoma [Accessed 11/4/13]

4 Metzger J, et al, A COMBINED BILE AND URINE PROTEOMIC TEST INCREASES DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY OF CHOLANGIOCARCINOMA IN PATIENTS WITH BILIARY STRICTURES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. Presented at the International Liver Congress 2013

5 Macmillan Cancer Support. Bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma). Available at http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertypes/Bileduct/Bileductcancer.aspx [Accessed 9/4/13]

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dimple Natali
easlpressoffice@cohnwolfe.com
44-790-013-8904
European Association for the Study of the Liver

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Friday 26 April 2013: New data from two clinical trials presented today at the International Liver Congress 2013 demonstrate substantial improvements in the detection of both hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CC) using diagnostic urine tests.

HCC is common throughout the world and most often develops as a late complication of chronic viral hepatitis or cirrhosis of any cause. The overall survival rate of HCC is poor and so screening for HCC offers the best hope for early detection, eligibility for treatment, and improved survival. While effective therapies exist, the available screening tests to detect HCC alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and ultrasound are reported to have low sensitivity and specificity (5085% and 7090%, respectively).

Preliminary data demonstrate the performance of urinary metabolites in helping to diagnose HCC. Urine samples were collected from four subject groups in West Africa on the case-control platform of PROLIFICA 'Prevention of Liver Fibrosis and Carcinoma in Africa' as follows: patients with HCC (n=65), cirrhosis (Cir, n=36), non-cirrhotic liver disease (DC, n=110) and healthy controls (NC, n=91). HCC patients were diagnosed using EASL guidelines.

Multivariate analyses of urinary nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra showed a distinct profile for urine of patients with HCC compared to Cir, DC and NC with sensitivity of 87%, 86% and 97% respectively. These results suggest that Urinary metabolite profile outperforms serum AFP which only differentiated HCC from these groups by 79% (Cir), 75% (DC) and 76% NC) respectively. The metabolites that were significantly increased (p

EASL General Secretary, Prof. Mark Thursz commented: "These findings will be welcomed by physicians as they validate urinary metabolic profiling as a potential screening tool for HCC, with superior diagnostic accuracy to serum AFP and if investigated further and put into practice this non-invasive technique could simplify and improve clinical diagnosis and outcomes for patients."

Similarly, detection of CC remains a diagnostic challenge and physicians will be encouraged by results from a Phase II study showing that a combined bile and urine proteomic test increased diagnostic accuracy of CC in patients with biliary strictures (an abnormal narrowing of the common bile duct) of unknown origin.

Having recently established diagnostic peptide marker models in bile and urine to detect both local and systemic changes during CC progression, investigators combined both models with the aim of reaching a higher diagnostic accuracy.

The data demonstrated this model enables impressive CC-diagnosis with an accuracy of more than 90% that is most applicable for patients with biliary strictures of unknown origin referred to endoscopy.

Prof. Mark Thursz added: "These important findings substantially improve the diagnosis of CC and may lead to early therapy and improved prognosis. Overall both data sets demonstrate the increasing value of proteomic and metabonomic techniques and if confirmed by further investigation, clinicians may soon be using simple urine dip-stick tests to diagnose HCC and CC."

A logistic regression model composed of the bile and urine proteomic classification factors lead to an area under curve (AUC) of 0.96, and 92% sensitivity and 84% specificity at the best cut-off. Only three of the 36 CC patients were false negative and two of the 33 PSC patients were false positive classified. Inclusion of CA19-9 and bilirubin values to the logistic regression model was of minor benefit.

Cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer is rare and almost always adenocarcinoma which starts in the lining of the bile duct. The cause of most cholangiocarcinomas is unknown but people with chronic inflammatory bowel conditions or congential abnormalities of the bile duct have a higher risk of developing the cancer.

Disclaimer: the data referenced in this release is based on the submitted abstract. More recent data may be presented at the International Liver Congress 2013.

###

Notes to Editors

About EASL

EASL is the leading European scientific society involved in promoting research and education in hepatology. EASL attracts the foremost hepatology experts and has an impressive track record in promoting research in liver disease, supporting wider education and promoting changes in European liver policy.

EASL's main focus on education and research is delivered through numerous events and initiatives, including:

• The International Liver CongressTM which is the main scientific and professional event in hepatology worldwide
  
• Meetings including Monothematic and Special conferences, Post Graduate courses and other endorsed meetings that take place throughout the year
  
• Clinical and Basic Schools of Hepatology, a series of events covering different aspects in the field of hepatology
  
• Journal of Hepatology published monthly
  
• Participation in a number of policy initiatives at European level

About The International Liver Congress 2013

The International Liver Congress 2013, the 48th annual meeting of the European Association for the study of the Liver, is being held at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam from April 24 28, 2013. The congress annually attracts in excess of 9000 clinicians and scientists from around the world and provides an opportunity to hear the latest research, perspectives and treatments of liver disease from principal experts in the field.

References:

1 De Masi S et al, Screening for hepatocellular carcinoma. Digestive and Liver Disease 2005;3(4): 219 300.

2 Ladep NG et al, URINARY METABOLIC PROFILE DISCRIMINATES HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA BETTER THAN SERUM ALPHA FETOPROTEIN IN WEST AFRICANS. Presented at the International Liver Congress 2013

3 EASL Guidelines: Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Available at http://www.easl.eu/_clinical-practice-guideline/issue-7-april-2012-management-of-hepatocellular-carcinoma [Accessed 11/4/13]

4 Metzger J, et al, A COMBINED BILE AND URINE PROTEOMIC TEST INCREASES DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY OF CHOLANGIOCARCINOMA IN PATIENTS WITH BILIARY STRICTURES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. Presented at the International Liver Congress 2013

5 Macmillan Cancer Support. Bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma). Available at http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertypes/Bileduct/Bileductcancer.aspx [Accessed 9/4/13]

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/eaft-nst042513.php

dark shadows trailer nate mcmillan clooney arrested southern miss rod blagojevich rod blagojevich uconn

The Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University Hosts Delegates from Northern Iraq to Reduce Violence against Women in Iraq

Combatting violence against women in Iraq spawns higher education partnership between Vanguard University and University of Duhok. Visit to California includes training with 12th District Court Judge David O. Carter, OC Juvenile Justice Douglas Hatchimonji, OC Juvenile Services, OC Child Abuse Special Teams (CAST) and Westminster Police Department

Costa Mesa, CA (PRWEB) April 26, 2013

Vanguard University announced today that it will host a team of delegates from the University of Duhok in northern Iraq for a two-week visit beginning Sunday, April 28. The purpose of the visit is to provide the team with training on ways to reduce violence against women in Iraq.

According to World Report 2012: Iraq published by Human Rights Watch, violence against women is a serious problem in Iraq. The report says that ??honor? crimes and domestic abuse is a threat to women and girls, who were also vulnerable to trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced prostitution due to insecurity, displacement, financial hardship, social disintegration, and the dissolution of rule of law and state authority.?

Vanguard University?s Global Center for Women & Justice (GCWJ) has been partnering with the University of Duhok in northern Iraq since 2010 to build capacity for women?s studies at the University of Duhok. The goal of the higher education partnership between these two universities, which grew to include partnering with the Ministry of the Interior and the three regional Directorates for Combatting Violence Against Women, is to eliminate violence against women in Iraq.

?The success of the recent visit with the Directorate for Combating Violence Against Women prompted Dr. Major Sami Hussein to bring leaders back here to Southern California where they can see actual programs and visit facilities rather than just learn training theory in a classroom setting,? says Sandra Morgan, director of the Global Center for Women and Justice. ?Together we have an opportunity to impact the regional development of the infrastructure to reduce violence against women in Iraq. This rare but necessary higher education partnership improves community capacity, promotes reconciliation, and contributes to stability in a region in which Americans have invested so many resources.?

The trip will include training with 12th District Court Judge David O. Carter, OC Juvenile Justice Douglas Hatchimonji, OC Juvenile Services, OC Child Abuse Special Teams (CAST), as well as three days of training with the Westminster Police Department under the direction of Derek Marsh, acting deputy chief of the Westminster Police Department and former chair of the OC Human Trafficking Task Force.

?The Westminster Police Department welcomes the rare opportunity to provide law enforcement and academic professionals from Iraq with a three-day training symposium,? says Derek Marsh, acting deputy chief of the Westminster Police Department. ?These courageous delegates are an instrumental part of a multi-year project initiated by Vanguard University and the University of Duhok, Iraq (KRG). Our goal is to provide best practices that can be applied to law enforcement investigations and will shape policies to enhance women's rights and reduce violence against women and children in Iraq.?

The team from Iraq includes the directors of all three KRG Regional VAW Directorates as well as the director of the Ministry of Interior, legal and academic scholars from the University of Duhok, and Victim Service directors.

For more information about the Global Center for Women & Justice, please visit http://gcwj.vanguard.edu/.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ###

ABOUT VANGUARD UNIVERSITY

Vanguard University (VU) is a regionally ranked, private, Christian university of liberal arts and professional studies. Located ten minutes from Newport Beach and an hour from Los Angeles, Vanguard equips students for a Spirit-empowered life of Christ-focused leadership and service. Vanguard is committed to academic excellence, boasting small class sizes that are designed to cultivate lasting professor-mentor relationships that enhance the learning process. Ranked annually by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 10 colleges in the west since 2010, Accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), Vanguard offers more than 30 degrees and certificates through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies programs.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL CENTER FOR WOMEN AND JUSTICE

The Global Center for Women & Justice at Vanguard University is a faith-based organization that exists to advance the global status of women through research, education, advocacy, collaboration and hope. The Global Center for Women & Justice promotes gender reconciliation and the inherent dignity of all persons.

Shana Martin, MBA
Vanguard University
714-966-5455
Email Information

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-center-women-justice-vanguard-university-hosts-delegates-120224373.html

After Christmas Sales 2012 Charles Durning Webster Ny Mcdonalds Restaurants Open on Christmas Day jessica simpson santa tracker

Solid Advice For People Thinking About Homeschooling | Exciting ...

An excellent education is vital, but this doesn?t have to take place in a traditional school setting. Homeschooling is increasing in popularity every day. The home learning environment can be a brilliant setting for delivering a solid education. If this interests you, you?re sure to appreciate the insights that follow.

Create a meal plan at the start of the week to save time and reduce stress. It is a great idea to bake a big lasagna, divide it into pieces and freeze the portions so you can serve it during the week. Preparing food in advance is a smart plan if you plan to be busy or if you are frequently tired after a day of instruction. Try various cooking plans to find the one that suits your needs and schedule.

TIP! Set up an online blog for your child. Since writing is part of any curriculum, this is a great learning tool for your child.

Remember to take time for family relations, even though you are homeschooling. Set aside time to spend with your partner. Otherwise, homeschooling your child could consume all of your time. No one should feel excluded or neglected because you spend a lot of time with the child you are homeschooling. Some togetherness can really help.

Before making the final decision to homeschool, consider your personal qualifications and make sure you are prepared to take on the roll of teacher. Address and take care of any issues with your child before beginning the program.

TIP! Become familiar with homeschooling laws in your state. There are state regulations that must be complied with when you choose to home school your children.

Make sure that craft supplies are always within reach for your children. While one child is engaged in serious learning, the other can be kept occupied with crafts. This keeps them happy and busy. This is an excellent way to teach and for children to learn.

If you?re teaching a student in high school, then you are aware that the goal is passing the GED exam. You can learn what areas they are weak in by having them take an example GED test ahead of time. This will let you enact remedial education strategies to shore up weaknesses.

TIP! Visit the library often. Reading skills are the cornerstone to any educational process.

Your child?s interests and strengths should serve as a starting point in the development of the curriculum and teaching approaches. Ask what they would prefer to do, and give their imagination freedom to go wild. Having this type of input will make learning more fun for them. You might be amazed at the ideas they have!

Don?t give lectures the same way as a teacher. You are not a professional, so it is not necessary to act like one. Also, these are your kids you are dealing with, and you know how much your kids hate listening to your lectures. You will get better results if you read a book or watch a documentary together. There is a good chance you will do quite a bit of learning as well.

TIP! Unless you can commit to disciplining your child as both a teacher and a student, it will be difficult to set boundaries. Sit down before your school year starts and make a plan for each of your children.

It?s important that you be realistic with yourself when it comes to your weakness, if you plan to homeschool. A lot of parents tend to skip subjects that they do not feel they know very well. This will leave gaps in your child?s education. You can hire a tutor to teach subjects that you don?t feel qualified teaching.

Find other families that are part of the homeschooling community. Homeschooling is very rewarding, but it is not always easy. Other parents can provide you with some great information and support that will help you make it through the tough times. You can provide expertise to them as well, bonding yourselves for a lifetime. On top of that, your children can become friends as well. Homeschooling may be a bit isolating for your child, so a group like this is a great opportunity for him to make friends. Making sure to be part of a homeschool group will go a long way toward benefiting you and the your kids.

TIP! Look into the wide variety of learning options available. Children will learn efficiently in different ways.

Due to the close bond you share with your children, it is inevitable that your homeschooling journey will at times become very tense. Keep day-to-day home concerns out of the classroom. If things get too tense, you?ve got the ability to take a bit of a break. This is helpful for your child as well as you.

Try to split up some of the children?s activities outside of the classroom with your partner, to help make your life a little easier. Your spouse can be in charge of extra-curricular activities. It is imperative that you set aside some time to relax with the other part of the team as well.

TIP! Homeschooling requires extreme patience. This is important.

If you have smaller children around while homeschooling, you need to set some ground rules for them. Set up a little spot for them with special toys, and let them know that they have to leave if they can not stay quiet. Take breaks several times to let them have extra attention and act silly. This will ensure that there are no distractions in the classroom and the area remains quiet for studying.

Just like you would make sure your child had a good breakfast and packed a lunch for a public school day, you need to feed your child a meal or snack before a homeschooling session. You have to keep their energy level up. It will also help them stay focused while you teach.

TIP! Can you homeschool effectively? Teaching any child, especially your own, is never easy. Homeschooling also carries with it a large financial commitment.

Homeschooling support groups are found across the nation. This is a growing trend. You may be surprised at how many other families you can find within your community. You can also find families that homeschool their kids while online. There is so much information to be shared! In addition, your kids can make new friends. A support group makes the entire homeschool process easier.

You should know more about homeschooling now that you have read this information. Armed with this information, you can now make a wise decision regarding your children?s education. Even if you decide to look elsewhere for your child?s education, you can use much of this information to supplement what the public or private schools are offering.

TIP! Older children can help their younger siblings. It some of your children are further ahead academically or are older than your other children, let them help the littler ones study.

Source: http://evoat11.com/solid-advice-for-people-thinking-about-homeschooling-2/

Schwab ncis jenelle evans jenelle evans aapl cispa Katherine Russell Tsarnaev

Social Media Marketing Tips That Take Your Business To The Next ...

Social Media Marketing Tips That Take Your Business To The Next Level

If you know how to go about using social media marketing, you can build your customer base. Even if you are already running a successful business, you can benefit from learning social media marketing. The advice of this article will offer you many ways to improve your business and bottom line, using social media marketing.

If you use social media for personal use, you have probably seen a variety of altered and Photoshopped advertisements and images. This use of images is very clever and can draw potential buyers to your products or website. Once you lure them in, they will be more likely to click through to your site and buy one of your products or services.

TIP! You will not have a successful social media campaign if you do not have a good understanding of your target audience. Your best bet is to learn as much as possible about your target market, including their social media preferences and behaviors.

Social Media Marketing

Remember that results are not instant when using social media marketing. It takes some time in order to come up with a solid strategy for social media marketing. Prior to announcing major social media efforts, take the time to get as many people as possible signed up to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Also, it?s wise to make your social media page known via other marketing methods.

TIP! Your social profiles should be used as a gateway that gets subscribed followers to buy your services and products. Let them know about new locations or discounts you have going on.

Be flexible in how often your page is updated. When launching a major campaign or new product, plentiful updates are critical. If not much is currently happening, though, you should curb your posting so you aren?t posting poor quality content that can hurt your brand.

Monitor and evaluate your progress. It is important to generate statistics of the activity produced and the number of followers gained on a weekly basis. Try linking these figures to your actions and pinpoint the best decisions you have made to develop better strategies. You have to keep track of all of your results to know what is working or not.

TIP! Try to focus on the things that people want when you are marketing through social media. Respond to customer complaints and feedback immediately so your customers know you are listening to them.

If comments are left on social media sites, reply to them. This is especially true for any negative comments. If people feel like what they have to say matters to your company, they are more likely to trust in your products and brand. Always get back to customers as soon as you can so they don?t feel ignored.

When dealing with social media marketing, it is important that you can handle not only positive comments, but negative ones as well. When your follows like you it?s great, but people will complain as well. Don?t simply ignore these comments. Embrace them, and assist your unhappy customers.

TIP! See what the competition is up to. Find them on the different social media sites and note their techniques.

Social Media

If you have a blog for your company, then when you update your blog with new content, post it on your social media sites after you publish. By back-linking to your blog, you will be able to tell your social media followers that you have new content available.

TIP! Special offers should be advertised on social networks. Your customers will search for your Facebook pages if they have incentives and discounts on them.

Social media marketing is all about social interaction, so don?t neglect to speak with people on a face-to-face basis. Or PC-to-PC, more accurately. People get frustrated when talking to a faceless company. When a customer is speaking to a live person, they realize that the company cares.

Consider hosting giveaways through your profiles on social media sites. By hosting a giveaway you will gain many new followers. All you need to do is figure out what you would like to give away, and post links on some of the many popular profiles that feature freebies.

TIP! Learn about how broad social media marketing is if you want to use it correctly. You can become better acquainted with your customers by using social media.

Social Media

One great, easy way to increase your social media followers is to add exclusive offers, coupons and discounts for people that ?like? your page or follow you. This practice works to improve not only your social media profile, but also your bottom line. Special offers encourage customers to connect with you and to make more purchases.

TIP! Prior to posting any content that represents your business on a social media marketing site, be sure to carefully review it all. Social media is very viral, and a little mistake can spread quickly.

Be patient. People should trust what you?re doing and whatever it is you are trying to sell. Relax and try to gain the trust of one person at a time. After a while, you will see your customer list begin to grow.

Social Media

TIP! A surefire way to create buzz around your company products is to conduct online Q&A sessions about the product. You can effectively teach your customers about your range of products or services while creating content for your website via FAQ entries.

Read up on social media marketing. Maybe you are already familiar with Facebook, but it is best to know that marketing through a social media site is a lot different than just chatting up your friends. Also, look on the Internet for pertinent advice from professionals in this field.

Use as many social media outlets as possible to market yourself. Although Facebook might be the most effective and popular tool, you should not minimize the marketing magnitude of other lesser sites such as twitter and Myspace. The greater your exposure, the better likelihood your efforts will succeed.

TIP! Letting your employees have blogs on the business website is among the more effective strategies you can wield in social media marketing. Employee blogs will give your customers a unique view into the personality of your business.

To create a place in social media marketing, these hints will benefit you. By implementing these methods into your business strategy, you are certain to notice an increase in the number of customers your business handles. When you really put the necessary time and effort into it, social media will prove to be a very successful and lucrative method of marketing for you.

Get your free website analysis (valued at $97) ? 1-888-513-5974 (tell us that you seen our ad on the website)

Source: http://4thgc.com/social-media-marketing-tips-that-take-your-business-to-the-next-level/

zack greinke zack greinke kermit gosnell jackie robinson Coachella 2013 Scary Movie 5 MTV Movie Awards 2013

Planet hunting: How MIT's TESS will bring search for life closer to home

Scientists with MIT's TESS project hope to build on the lessons of the successful Kepler planet-hunting mission and find planetary systems close enough for telescopes to study in detail.

By Pete Spotts / April 20, 2013

Relative sizes of Kepler habitable zone planets discovered as of April 18, 2013, in this artist's rendition provided by NASA. Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have found the best candidates yet for habitable worlds beyond the solar system.

NASA Amers/JPL-Caltech/REUTERS

Enlarge

The discovery of three new super-Earths by scientists with NASA's Kepler mission is helping to reveal the bounty of extrasolar planets across the Milky Way.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

Now another team is set to build a new orbiting planet hunter that, during a two-year mission, will search for other worlds closer to our sun's neighborhood.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which NASA approved under its Explorer program earlier this month, will be the first orbiting observatory to hunt for planets all around the sky.

NASA and the project's scientists, led by George Ricker of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., aim to launch the observatory in April 2017.

In essence, TESS?hopes to build on Kepler's pioneering role as an extrasolar-planet census taker and bring that nose count closer to home, where existing and future ground- and space-based telescopes can study in detail the planetary systems TESS uncovers.

Such studies "will allow us to really begin to figure out what their atmospheres are made of, what the temperature is like ? actually characterize those planets," says Doug Hudgins, project scientist for Kepler and TESS at NASA headquarters in Washington.

This kind of analysis not only will help astronomers uncover the range of solar system configurations and test ideas on how planets form and evolve. Such up-close looks also could provide evidence for life on any of the newly discovered worlds.

Among the signs researchers might look for: the presence of ozone ? a molecule made of three oxygen atoms ? and nitrogen oxides in a planet's atmosphere. On Earth, fossil evidence indicates that the first algae capable of photosynthesis, which produces oxygen, emerged some 3.5 billion years ago. On Earth, bacteria also produce copious amounts of nitrogen oxides.

The hunt for signs of life elsewhere in the galaxy is one of the drivers behind Kepler, and the inspiration for TESS. But Kepler isn't looking directly for life. Instead, it is looking for Earth-mass planets orbiting at Earth-like distances around sunlike stars in order to provide an estimate of how common such planets are.

On Thursday, Kepler's science team announced the discovery of three super-Earths in or on the boundary of their stars' habitable zones. The habitable zone is a region around the star far enough away so that a planet doesn't overheat, but close enough so it doesn't freeze either. In principle, a planet orbiting in its star's habitable zone should be able to host liquid water in stable quantities on its surface. Liquid water is seen as essential for organic life.

But the nearest of these new systems is 1,200 light-years away. Although the team speculates that one of the two super-Earths there is a water world and the other likely has a rocky surface, and while both fall into their star's habitable zone, they are too far away and their star is too dim to study with anything more than computer models.

TESS's targets should fall well within the gaze of a new generation of ground- and space-based telescopes. But those telescopes need to know where to look, Dr. Hudgins notes. And that's where TESS comes in.

Like Kepler, TESS is designed to detect planets as they pass in front of their host stars, dimming the starlight by a tiny fraction. If one could look back at the sun from beyond the solar system and watch for the wink an orbiting Earth would impart, the light would vary by just 0.000085 percent, a no-see-um in human terms.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/xS_epbvPKFw/Planet-hunting-How-MIT-s-TESS-will-bring-search-for-life-closer-to-home

cape breton bowling green marysville tornados dr. seuss the temptations rush limbaugh sandra fluke