Disgraced former United Way CEO dies at 84 (AP)

McLEAN, Va. ? William Aramony, who built the United Way of America into a philanthropic powerhouse before leaving in disgrace and serving six years in prison for fraud, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 84.

Aramony was the United Way's CEO from 1970 to 1992. He resigned after using the organization's money to fund a lavish lifestyle, including gifts for a girlfriend who was 17 when they first met.

Aramony's son, Robert Aramony, said his father died Friday in Alexandria at the son's home. He suffered from prostate cancer that metastasized to bone cancer, Robert Aramony said.

William Aramony was a son of Lebanese immigrants and dedicated his time after his 2001 release from prison to peace-building efforts in the Middle East, his son said.

"At heart, that's what he was, a social worker," Robert Aramony said. "He did it his whole life."

At the United Way, Aramony built a tangled web of disparate organizations into one of the nation's best-known charitable groups. Revenue at United Way increased from less than $800 million to more than $3 billion during his time at the helm. The now-familiar structure of using United Way to facilitate payroll deductions at charity campaigns run through the workplace blossomed under Aramony's guidance.

The United Way's high-profile partnership with the National Football League also took hold under Aramony.

But the charity's successes were eclipsed by the scandal surrounding Aramony's spending habits.

Prosecutors argued that Aramony's spending on personal luxuries with United Way funds constituted a fraud on donors who expected their money would go to charity.

At his federal trial in 1995 in Alexandria, Va., where United Way is based, prosecutors and court officials estimated that he defrauded donors of anywhere from $600,000 to $1.2 million over a 10-year period. He was convicted on 23 of 27 counts, including fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy.

Much of the case against Aramony concerned his four-year affair with Lori Villasor, whom he met while he was dating her older sister. Aramony, who was married at the time, took the teenager on trips, billing her plane tickets and meals as charity expenses.

His defense lawyer argued that Aramony was suffering from a brain trauma, a shrunken frontal lobe that made him increasingly irrational and coarsened his sexual drive.

He served six years of a seven-year prison sentence.

United Way Worldwide, as the charity is now known, issued a statement offering condolences to Aramony's family.

"Mr. Aramony integrated the network of local United Ways, formed national partnerships and increased contributions," according to the statement. "Since 1992, United Way has undergone major governance and structural changes. In partnership with the Board of Governors, a rigorous new audit, budget and other financial controls were implemented, along with a Code of Ethics, to ensure that the problems associated with former management can never occur again."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_ex_united_way_ceo

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Bishop: Penn State scandal reopens church wounds (Providence Journal)

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Australia PM pushes to end India uranium sales ban (Reuters)

CANBERRA (Reuters) ? Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pushing to overturn a ban on sales of uranium to India, removing a diplomatic thorn between the two countries and potentially opening up new markets for Australian suppliers.

Australia has refused to sell nuclear material to India because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but Gillard's ruling Labor party will debate lifting the ban at its conference next month.

"It is time for Labor to modernise our platform and enable us to strengthen our connection with dynamic, democratic India," Gillard said in a column in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

The move is set to spark heated debate at the party's December conference, but should easily pass with support from Labor's dominant right faction. The policy does not need to go to parliament for approval but the conservative opposition also supports uranium sales to India.

Gillard's policy shift comes on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Australia and would bring Australia's uranium policy into line with the United States.

Washington in 2008 signed a civil nuclear agreement with India over the use of uranium for nuclear energy.

Critics accused the United States of undermining the global non-proliferation regime, but the deal was seen by President George W. Bush as the centrepiece of a new strategic relationship with India, viewed in Washington as an increasingly important economic and geopolitical counterweight to China.

Australia, one of the United States' closest allies in the region, supported the U.S-India nuclear agreement as a member of the 46-member Nuclear Supplier's Group, but had continued to refuse to sell uranium to India.

India has long complained about the ban as it seeks access to nuclear supplies for its power sector and growing economy.

Australia has almost 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, but supplies only 19 percent of the world market. It has no nuclear power stations.

The country now has four mines, BHP Billition's Olympic Dam, potentially the world's biggest; Energy Resources Australia's Ranger mine; the Beverly mine, owned by U.S. company General Atomics, and Honeymoon mines, owned by Uranium One and Mitsui & Co.

Shares in smaller uranium producers and explorers rose, with

Paladin Energy up 4.5 percent and Toro Energy up more than 10 percent.

GREENS OPPOSED

A decision to lift the ban would be welcomed by Australia's mining sector but is strongly opposed by Labor's political allies, the Greens.

Strict conditions are imposed on uranium exports to ensure it is used for power generation and not weapons. Nuclear-armed India has repeatedly clashed with neighbouring Pakistan, which also possess nuclear weapons.

India has refused to sign the nuclear NPT, arguing it is discriminatory and flawed in allowing only countries which had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 to legally possess them.

Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are the only other non-signatories to the treaty.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who has just returned from India and who has championed uranium sales to the country, told Australian radio a change in policy would normalise Australia's bilateral relationship with India.

"It is about time we fronted up to the fact that India is a responsible nation. They have a desire to assist their community to get out of poverty, with 40 percent of the population having fewer than 12 hours of electricity per day," Ferguson said.

Greens leader Bob Brown condemned the proposal, and said selling uranium to India would encourage a nuclear arms race by countries in the region and make Australia less safe.

Two-way trade between India and Australia is currently worth about $20 billion a year, with the balance skewed in Australia's favour because of India's voracious appetite for resources.

Canberra has forecast uranium exports to rise from around 10,000 tonnes a year to 14,000 tonnes in 2014, worth around A$1.7 billion.

BHP Billiton, which is planning a major expansion of its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, said it would review its position on sales to India if the government changed its policy.

Rio Tinto had no immediate comment.

POWER PUSH

India's 19 nuclear plants produce only a small fraction of the country's electricity. That figure is projected to double over the next 25 years as new plants are built, requiring more overseas uranium purchases.

Uranium prices have fallen below $55 a pound since the March 11 tsunami that knocked out Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant. That compares with January's price of nearly $75, itself nearly half a high of $136 in 2007.

Australia has also been in discussions with the United Arab Emirates on agreements that could potentially open up a new market for Australian uranium.

For now, supplies of uranium to the world market continue to be supplemented with secondary sources of uranium -- stockpiled fuel and nuclear arms decommissioned since the end of the Cold War -- which are now in decline. That additional supply provided nearly half of demand in 1999 but by 2010 it had dropped to 30 percent, according to sector estimates.

The decline in secondary supply may accelerate once the "megatons for megawatts" programme that converts Russian nuclear warheads into reactor fuel expires in two years, taking secondary supply lines from Russian and U.S. uranium stocks to as low as 5 percent, from 40 percent now, analysts say.

BHP, Cameco, Rio Tinto and others are taking steps to dig new mines and expand old ones to take advantage of a forecast 20 percent leap in global uranium consumption by 2015.

In Australia, BHP also wants to mine 90,000 tonnes of uranium from its Yeelirrie deposit over 30 years but has yet to break any ground.

($1 = 0.980 Australian Dollars)

(Additional reporting by James Regan and Lincoln Feast in Sydney and Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Editing by Ed Davies)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/india/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111115/india_nm/india605252

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Rescued baseball player Ramos thankful to be alive

Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, left, shakes hands with Venezuela's Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami at the end of a news conference at Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire. El Aissami said Saturday that authorities had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, left, shakes hands with Venezuela's Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami at the end of a news conference at Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire. El Aissami said Saturday that authorities had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos attends a news conference at Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire Friday night. Authorities said they had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami, left, shows a picture of the SUV that Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos was forced into at gunpoint, right, during a news conference at Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire Friday night. El Aissami said they had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos attends a news conference at Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire Friday night. Authorities said they had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

The alleged kidnappers of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos are presented to the media in the parking lot of the Venezuela's Judicial Police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela, Saturday Nov. 12, 2011. Ramos' kidnapping ordeal ended after two days when police commandos rescued him in a flurry of gunfire Friday night. Authorities said they had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and 74-year-old man were also arrested for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) ? His eyes tearing up with emotion, Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos embraced his rescuers Saturday and said he had wondered whether he would survive a two-day kidnapping ordeal that ended when commandos swept into his captors' mountain hideout.

Ramos said that he was happy and thankful to be alive a day after his rescue, saying that his final moments as a prisoner were hair-raising as police and the kidnappers exchanged heavy gunfire in the remote area where he was being held. He said his kidnappers had carefully planned the abduction and told him they were going to demand a large ransom.

"I didn't know if I was going to get out of it alive," Ramos told reporters at a police station in his hometown of Valencia, flanked by police investigators, National Guard commanders and Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami. "It was very hard for me. It was very hard for my family."

El Aissami said authorities arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and a 74-year-old man were also arrested as accomplices for supplying the kidnappers with food from their home in the area, he said. The six suspects were led past journalists at the police station with black hoods over their heads.

Authorities were still searching for four Colombian men who escaped during the rescue, El Aissami said. He didn't say whether anyone was wounded in the gunbattle.

Ramos, 24, was seized at gunpoint outside his family's home Wednesday night and whisked away in an SUV. It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela, and the abduction set off an outpouring of candlelight vigils and public prayers at stadiums as well as outside Ramos' house.

El Aissami said investigators' first break in the case came when they found the kidnappers' stolen SUV, a bronze-colored Chevrolet, abandoned in the town of Bejuma alongside the mountains of central Carabobo state. With that location pinpointed, he said, they studied past crimes in the area and ended up checking on a rural house that authorities believed had been used in a previous kidnapping.

An SUV parked outside had mud on it even though there was no mud in the area, El Aissami said. Investigators suspected that SUV was being used to shuttle food to another spot nearby, and eventually determined the house was probably being used by the kidnappers as a support base while holding Ramos elsewhere, he said.

El Aissami said authorities took over the house and detained the couple who had been cooking for the abductors.

Once investigators thought they had found the general area where Ramos might be, President Hugo Chavez personally authorized an aerial search mission and teams also set out on foot in the mountainous area, El Aissami said. He said the teams searched most of the day on Friday and finally came upon the remote house where Ramos was being held.

Chavez followed the operation "minute by minute," the justice minister said.

Ramos had recently returned to his homeland after his rookie year with the Nationals to play during the offseason in the Venezuelan league.

When he was abducted, he was standing with his father and two brothers just outside the front door of his family home in a working-class neighborhood of Valencia, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) west of Caracas.

Ramos said his captors drove him for five or six hours, and once changed from one SUV to another. He said they bound his hands at first, but later allowed him not to be tied up. The kidnappers didn't cover their faces and they spoke little to him, he said.

"They demanded only money," he said.

Ramos said some of his abductors spoke with Colombian accents and revealed they had studied his movements before carrying out the abduction.

"They told me many things they knew of my private life," he said. "They knew a lot about me. They had very good information, an informant who told them all that."

Asked more about that informant, Ramos said he didn't have further details but that "they themselves told me."

El Aissami said one of the Colombians wanted by authorities lives in the area, and investigators believed he planned the kidnapping and studied Ramos' daily routine.

"This person is the one who gives the information to a criminal group," which in turn carried out the kidnapping, El Aissami said.

He said the investigation also pointed in part to "Colombian paramilitary groups that could be involved in the kidnapping."

Ramos said he was kept in a room and passed the time lying on a bed. When the gunfire erupted Friday as his rescuers arrived, "I was on the bed and I threw myself directly to the floor."

"It was like 15 minutes of shots until the officials arrived and saw me in the room," said Ramos, who hugged the justice minister as well as police and National Guard officers at the news conference.

Ramos said he was enjoying being back with his family, and planned to start training Monday to play with his Venezuelan team, the Aragua Tigres, on Wednesday.

He said he didn't plan to travel to Washington for now. "I want to stay here to give them that, to the Venezuelan people ... so that they can see me play here."

After his rescue was announced Friday night, Ramos' mother, Maria Campos de Ramos, celebrated, exclaiming on television: "Thanks to God!"

Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo also celebrated the news.

"He asked me to thank all who played a role in his rescue, and all those who kept him and his family in their thoughts and prayers," Rizzo said in a statement. "I join Wilson in thanking the many law enforcement officials in Venezuela and investigators with Major League Baseball who worked tirelessly to ensure a positive ending to what has been a frightening ordeal."

A baseball official said Major League Baseball's local security agents worked with Venezuelan law enforcement on the case. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

Security has increasingly become a concern for Venezuelan players and their families as a swelling wave of kidnappings has hit the country's wealthy and middle class in recent years. Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, and the vast majority of crimes go unsolved.

Major League Baseball officials said it was the first kidnapping of a major leaguer that they could recall. But relatives of several players in Venezuela have previously been kidnapped for ransom, and in two cases have been killed.

Bodyguards typically shadow major leaguers when they return to their homeland to play in Venezuela's baseball league.

"They didn't physically harm me, but psychologically I underwent very great harm," Ramos said. "I was always praying to God, and thanks to God he gave me the miracle of sending me these wonderful people."

He saluted his rescuers, saying: "I'm alive thanks to them."

___

Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda in Caracas and AP sports writers Howard Fendrich in Washington and Ron Blum in New York contributed to this report. Rueda reported from Caracas.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-12-BBN-Venezuela-Ramos-Abducted/id-be7faa370bf446c796c4ddb00d35b091

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Android Central Podcast Ep. 78

Podcast MP3 URL: 

http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral78.mp3

Thing 1: Motorola Droid RAZR

• Motorola Droid RAZR review
• Verizon confirms Droid RAZR goes on sale at 11:11 a.m. 11-11-2011, brings new data plans
• Test drive the Droid RAZR wallpapers and ringtones
• Key meets Kevlar on Droid RAZR
• Costco selling Droid RAZR with free bonus pack -- HD Dock, HDMI cable, and chargers
• Motorola Droid RAZR Car Dock
• Motorola Droid RAZR HD Dock

Thing 2: Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet

• Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet officially announced
• Nook Tablet hands-on
• Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet Specs
• hhgregg to carry the Nook Tablet, Nook Color, Nook Simple Touch
• Nook for Android update adds Nook Newsstand
• Amazon confirms Netflix, Facebook, Pandora and more on Kindle Fire

Thing 3: Flash is dead, long live Flash

• Adobe makes it official: Adobe AIR now its focus for mobile, HTML5 takes over the web

Odds and ends

• Preview: ASUS Transformer Prime ushers in the Tegra 3 era starting at $499 in December
• Nvidia announces the Tegra 3 -- Kal-El brings PC class performance to Android
• How to manually update your Sprint Epic 4G to Gingerbread
• HTC announces first wave of devices destined for Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades
• Sprint announces Ice Cream Sandwich update for HTC devices

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/kT-JsVoVxx0/story01.htm

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Gingrich: Cain handling allegations well, so far (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says rival Herman Cain has handled the sexual harassment allegations against him well so far. But Gingrich is unsure what would happen if more accusations surface.

Gingrich, a former GOP House speaker, says Cain seems to have satisfied most people so far by his explanations.

Cain has denied accusations from four women about alleged incidents a decade ago.

Gingrich also tells CBS' "Early Show" that Texas Gov. Rick Perry's embarrassing presidential debate performance Wednesday, when he forgot one of the three Cabinet agencies he would abolish, could have happened to anyone.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_el_ge/us_gingrich

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Egypt closes Great Pyramid after rumors of rituals (AP)

CAIRO ? Egypt's antiquities authority closed the largest of the Giza pyramids Friday following rumors that groups would try to hold spiritual ceremonies on the site at 11:11 on Nov. 11, 2011.

The authority's head Mustafa Amin said in a statement Friday that the pyramid of Khufu, also known as Cheops, would be closed to visitors until Saturday morning for "necessary maintenance."

The closure follows a string of unconfirmed reports in local media that unidentified groups would try to hold "Jewish" or "Masonic" rites on the site to take advantage of mysterious powers coming from the pyramid on the rare date.

Amin called all reports of planned ceremonies at the site "completely lacking in truth."

The complex's director, Ali al-Asfar, said Friday that an Egyptian company requested permission last month to hold an event called "hug the pyramid," in which 120 people would join hands around the ancient burial structure.

The authority declined the request a week ago, al-Asfar said, but that did not stop concerned Egyptians from starting internet campaigns to prevent the event from taking place.

"It has been a big cause now on Facebook and Twitter for many people to write about," al-Asfar said.

The closure was unrelated to the rumors, he said, adding that the pyramid needed maintenance after the large number of visitors during the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday last week.

The rest of the complex, which includes two other large pyramids, numerous tombs and the Sphinx, remained open.

Speaking by phone from the pyramids after 11:11 had passed, al-Asfar said he'd seen nothing out of the ordinary.

"Everything is normal," he said. "The only thing different is the closure of the Khufu pyramid."

Khufu is credited with building the Giza complex's largest pyramid, now one of Egypt's biggest tourist attractions. Khufu founded the 4th Dynasty around 2680 B.C. and ruled Egypt for 23 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_egypt

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Researcher finds elderly lose ability to distinguish between odors

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Scientists studying how the sense of smell changes as people age, found that olfactory sensory neurons in those 60 and over showed an unexpected response to odor that made it more difficult to distinguish specific smells, putting them at greater risk from dangerous chemicals and poor nutrition.

"We found clear changes in olfactory sensory neuron responses to odors for those 60 and up," said Professor Diego Restrepo, Ph.D., director of the Center for NeuroScience at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who led the researchers. "When we presented two different odors to the olfactory sensory neurons of younger people they responded to one or the other. The sensory neurons from the elderly responded to both. This would make it harder for the elderly to differentiate between them."

According to the study published in the latest issue of Neurobiology of Aging, those losing their sense of smell are at a higher risk of malnutrition since taste and smell are closely related, they may also be unable to detect spoiled food, leaking gas or toxic vapors.

Researchers looked at 440 subjects in two age groups ? those 45- years-old and younger and those 60 and over. Their olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) were tested for their responses to two distinct odors as well as subsets of those odors.

Restrepo wanted to determine if age-related differences in the function of OSNs might contribute to an impairment of the sense of smell. For this, in a collaboration with Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, researchers biopsied cells from both age groups.

"Whereas cells from younger donors were highly selective in the odorants to which they responded, cells from older donors were more likely to respond to multiple odor stimuli? suggesting a loss of specificity," the study said.

The scientists had expected to find less OSNs in older subjects and they thought the neurons would be less likely to respond to stimuli. In fact, they found as many neurons in the old as the young but those over 60 could not differentiate between two odors, they blended together.

The study suggests that changes in nose and the brain contribute to smell loss in the elderly, Restrepo said.

###

University of Colorado Denver: http://www.ucdenver.edu

Thanks to University of Colorado Denver for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115105/Researcher_finds_elderly_lose_ability_to_distinguish_between_odors

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Obama seeks to hitch U.S. economy to Asian growth (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? With Europe mired in crisis, President Barack Obama is launching a charm offensive this week to hitch the U.S. economy to growth opportunities in Asia that he hopes can help power the recovery he needs for re-election.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, will host Asian leaders including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in Honolulu this weekend to seek to improve trade ties across the Pacific.

He will then travel to Australia to announce plans to boost the U.S. military presence in the region and will be the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit in Bali. There, he will heap attention on the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as India.

The campaign to cozy up to Asian powers large and small comes at a critical moment for the U.S. economy, whose recovery is at risk because of a spiraling debt crisis in Europe that dominated a G-20 leaders' summit in France last week.

"To have this trip happen when you have nothing but crisis in Europe and nothing but opportunity in Asia, you couldn't have more of a juxtaposition," said Victor Cha, who advised President George W. Bush on Asian affairs.

Georgetown University professor Charles Kupchan said he expected the Asia swing to be "much more upbeat" than the trip to Cannes had been for Obama, whose re-election chances in November 2012 will hinge on his economic record.

Executives from companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar, General Electric and Time Warner Cable will also attend the APEC summit to help Obama make the case that closer ties with Asia will help create U.S. jobs.

"When you look for rays of light, where is growth going to come from, one of the main answers is exports to Asia," Kupchan said. "It is something that this president needs to focus on, particularly in an election season."

Obama will not be able to leave the European financial crisis behind entirely. Asia-Pacific finance ministers meeting in Honolulu before the leaders' summit fretted about Europe's lack of strong action to deal with crises in Greece and Italy, and talked of ways to bolster their own economies to minimize potential spillover.

PACIFIC POWER

Obama will also seek to reassert the U.S. role as a Pacific power, shifting more of its budget-stretched military resources to Asia as it pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq and worries less about security in Europe.

In Australia, he is set to announce an agreement for more than 2,000 Marines to train and do joint exercises from Darwin, a city with a large military presence on the country's northern coast, according to an Obama administration official familiar with the plans. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The cooperation deal is seen as a stepping stone to a more permanent presence for the United States in Australia, which could eventually see U.S. vessels stationed in Perth or nearby that could respond faster to regional threats or humanitarian emergencies than they could from Hawaii or California.

"This is part of a big push to put the United States back into the Asian game after a decade or so in which it has been preoccupied with the Middle East," Kupchan said.

Obama is likely to avoid direct references to China when making the announcement, although the agreement is widely seen to be a way for the United States to act as a check on Chinese power and defuse possible conflicts over waterways and disputed islands.

"It is sending a very clear message that the United States is not ceding Asia diplomatically to China," said Cha, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kupchan agreed, saying smaller and emerging powers in Asia "don't want China stepping all over them because of its economic clout." The United States provides a good military counterbalance that should not contradict its cooperative ties with Beijing so long as it is handled delicately, he said.

Asia has been a stated foreign policy priority for Obama since his first days in office, but wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the Middle East soon diverted much of his attention.

Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said this week the winding down of U.S. involvement in those conflicts offered a chance for the Democrat to focus more on the Asia-Pacific, which he described as "a region that is really going to shape the future of the 21st century."

(Additional reporting by Rob Taylor in Canberra; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111111/pl_nm/us_apec_obama

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Obama to talk economy, currency with China's Hu (reuters)

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Justin Bieber to take paternity test on baby claim (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Justin Bieber will take a paternity test to counter claims that he fathered a baby boy with a young California woman after a brief backstage encounter last year, a source close to the singer said on Monday.

The Canadian singer also is contemplating legal action against the woman for defamation, his spokesman said.

Bieber, 17, spent much of last week denying the claims made by Mariah Yeater, 20, in a paternity lawsuit filed in San Diego, saying he had never met her. Yeater gave birth to a baby in July that she claimed was the result of having sex in a backstage bathroom with Bieber after a Los Angeles concert in 2010.

"Justin's team chose to proactively make arrangements for him to take a DNA test to put this to rest when he gets back from Europe," a source close to the singer said.

Yeater asked for a paternity test and is seeking child support in her lawsuit.

"It's sad that someone would fabricate malicious, defamatory, and demonstrably false claims," a spokesman for the singer added.

"We'll vigorously pursue all available legal remedies to protect Justin and to hold those involved with bringing this suit accountable for their actions," he added

Teen heartthrob Bieber won award for best pop act and top male singer at the MTV Europe awards in Belfast on Sunday in a show hosted by his Disney Channel star girlfriend Selena Gomez.

He is expected to return to the United States from Europe in about two weeks time.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111108/music_nm/us_justinbieber

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TV van tipped as rally for Paterno gets violent

Police hold back students after they reacted off campus Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in State College, Pa. to Penn State board of trustees firing of football coach Joe Paterno Wednesday. Hundreds of students gathered about two blocks from the campus, with some chanting "We want Joe! We want Joe!" Some shook a lamp post and others tipped over a news van, kicking out its windows. Police fired bursts of pepper gas. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Police hold back students after they reacted off campus Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in State College, Pa. to Penn State board of trustees firing of football coach Joe Paterno Wednesday. Hundreds of students gathered about two blocks from the campus, with some chanting "We want Joe! We want Joe!" Some shook a lamp post and others tipped over a news van, kicking out its windows. Police fired bursts of pepper gas. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Police hold back students after they reacted off campus Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in State College, Pa. to Penn State board of trustees firing of football coach Joe Paterno Wednesday. Hundreds of students gathered about two blocks from the campus, with some chanting "We want Joe! We want Joe!" Some shook a lamp post and others tipped over the news van, kicking out its windows. Police fired bursts of pepper gas. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Penn State students and others gather off campus, one holding a cutout of football coach Joe Paterno, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, in State College, Pa., after the firing of Paterno and university president Graham Spanier. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Police hold back students after they reacted off campus Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in State College, Pa. to Penn State board of trustees firing of football coach Joe Paterno Wednesday. Hundreds of students gathered about two blocks from the campus, with some chanting "We want Joe! We want Joe!" Some shook a lamp post and others tipped over the news van, kicking out its windows. Police fired bursts of pepper gas. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Police in riot gear have confronted hundreds of Penn State students who took to the streets after the ouster of football coach Joe Paterno. Crowds toppled a television news van and at least one photographer has been pelted with a rock.

The students flooded downtown State College on Wednesday night after Paterno and university President Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of sex abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach.

Officers used pepper spray to control the crowd. Some students chanted 'We want Joe! We want Joe!" Others kicked in the windows out of the toppled news van.

Paterno had announced earlier in the day he planned to retire after the season and expressed remorse for not having done more after he learned of the sex assault allegations.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-10-Penn%20State%20Abuse-Students/id-3b1c87acda0041c0962c0a98d93a337d

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Lightbank-Backed Haggling Platform oBaz Shifts Focus To Product Discovery And Curation

Lightbank-backed oBaz,, a crowdsourced haggling service that launched in August, is shifting its focus towards product discovery today with the launch of a new Aisle-system on the site. As we reported previously, oBaz, short for online bazaar, lets anyone create their own group of like-minded buyers looking to get a good price on the same product or service. You simply post the item you'd like on oBaz, wait for people to join the group (a minimum of 25 people have to be in a group to haggle for a product), and then let oBaz work its magic. oBaz hagglers will reach out to merchants or manufacturers and leverage the group and their own negotiating expertise to get the best possible deal.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iwnDyO-R16k/

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C. M. Rubin: The Global Search for Education: The 20%

"The achievement gap is not created by schools. The achievement gap begins before the children are born." -- Diane Ravitch (photo courtesy of Rick D'Elia, Save the Children U.S. Programs)

Even with food stamps, poor people are still poor. The OECD lists the U.S. as being one of the five top OECD nations with the highest child poverty rate. The impact of poverty is significant in the outcomes of children in America's education system. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, about 22 percent of U.S. children less than 6 years old, and 18 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 17, live in poverty.

So what should we be doing to support the approximate 20 percent of U.S. school children who live in poverty?

From 1991 to 1993, Diane Ravitch was Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. Ravitch is the author of numerous books on education, including The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

How do you find a great teacher for a poor school where the best teachers are probably needed most?

Today, the definition of a great teacher seems to be somebody who can get test scores up. But that is not necessarily a great teacher. A great teacher is one who inspires students, one who encourages them to love learning. Test scores do not measure that. A person who can get the test scores up is sometimes a terrible teacher. Someone who spends hours and hours drilling children mindlessly and making them take practice test after practice test is not a good teacher.

Great teachers are made, not born. The first requisite for great teachers for poor schools is to find teachers who want to make a difference in the lives of poor children. Many teachers want to teach in poor neighborhoods and prepare themselves to do so. I have met many teachers-in-training who feel a strong sense of mission. They know that they need extra preparation so that they are prepared for all the different issues they will encounter. Great teachers emerge from experience over time. Great teachers can be nurtured by great principals. There is no simple formula for cranking out "great teachers." Those who are in charge of a school district must have the wisdom to identify and support the leadership -- the principals, who will support and nurture their teachers.

People argue if you exclude the schools with a significant number of poor children then the performance of American students on PISA tests would be in the top ten countries.

That is correct. Our PISA results reflect the poor scores achieved by students living in poverty. Among OECD nations, only Mexico, Turkey and Poland have a greater proportion of children in poverty.

How should we improve our poor schools -- send in the best teachers?

I do not think that sending our best teachers to the poorest schools would make much of a difference. The working conditions are so bad in some of these schools that even the best of teachers will be unable to help. You first have to want to improve the schools, not close them. American policy right now is focused on closing schools, i.e. fire the principal, fire the staff and start all over again. It's a very discouraging situation because it is not as if there are thousands of fabulous teachers waiting in line to take a job in the schools that have been built on the ashes of the old school. So first of all, there has to be a determination to say that we are going to improve performance at these schools and we're going to have a broader set of measures than standardized tests. If you've got children who can't read English, they are not going to get high test scores. If you've got children who are autistic, they are still going to be autistic next year. We must deal with the problems that children have and help them to learn, no matter what, and not use the test scores to stigmatize them or their teachers.

"I think we should be spending more money on high quality pre-school education." -- Diane Ravitch (photo courtesy of Save the Children U.S. Programs)

50 percent of our new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. What are your thoughts on how to solve the problems?

If we had started trying to fix our problems 25 years ago, we would now be in a different position. We need to do what they did in Finland. We need to change the approach to recruitment, support, and retention of teachers. We should begin by raising standards for entry into teaching. Teachers should have at least a year devoted to post-graduate study and practice. New teachers need the support of a mentor. Then we have to focus on retention. Salaries should be higher. While there is much talk about reform, teachers are seeing pay cuts, including cuts in their healthcare. I hear from teachers all the time who tell me they spend $1,000-2000 per year out of their own money buying supplies for their students. The average teachers' salary in the U.S. is about U.S.$50,000 per year. This is a profession that is not well paid and that is constantly under attack. It's a wasteful system where 50 percent of the people who enter the profession are gone within five years. We have a system now for recruiting people into teaching in which the standards get lower and lower. Teach for America has raised U.S. $500,000,000 in the last decade. They have become the focus of philanthropy and government investment. They offer college graduates a five week summer training program and then they are placed in the classroom as a teacher. They agree to stay for only two years. Many of these graduates are also sent into very difficult schools. When I told Finnish educators that we have teachers with five weeks of teacher training, their eyes just popped. There are some states where there is no requirement for becoming a teacher other than having a college degree. In other states, teacher training is done online. We have a recruitment system that does not work, a support system that does not work, and no system to retain teachers.

Are we allocating education monies in the wrong places?

We are spending way too much on accountability right now. In addition, a very large percentage of what we do spend goes into special education, which is necessary of course. Other countries find better ways to categorize the funding. I do not think we are spending more than other countries. I think we are just allocating our monies differently. I think we should be spending more money on high quality pre-school education. The achievement gap is not created by schools. The achievement gap begins before the children are born. The parents are poor. They have no education. We see the results in every testing program. Kids who come from these poor communities do badly compared to kids who come from the other end of the spectrum. Those who live in affluent families begin life with great advantages.

What other work has to be done to support children's schools in poor communities?

The first thing I would do would be to make sure the schools are in excellent physical condition. The condition of a school sends a message to a child. Many children are attending schools that are old and decrepit. That says to a child: "You are not considered to be worthy of a beautiful school." A beautiful facility says "This is a safe place. This is a place where you are respected." Secondly, I would want a school with teachers who are committed to teaching children and to dealing with all the social and emotional problems that poor children bring to school. Many poor children come to school hungry, many have medical issues that need to be addressed. You need teachers who are prepared for all kinds of disabilities. And then, after the facilities are taken care of and the right teachers are in place, I would put a tremendous focus on the curriculum, especially the arts.

Successful school systems such as the one in Finland place high importance on the arts. What are we doing in America?

This is a very important topic. Many districts are cutting the arts, which is really outrageous. What I saw in Finland was that the arts are very important and center stage in every single school I visited.

Diane Ravitch and C. M. Rubin (Diane Ravitch photo courtesy of Jack Miller)

In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon, Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/child-poverty-education_b_1078826.html

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Jon M. Sweeney: What Did Saint Francis Look Like?

Have you ever seen Saint Francis smile? Neither have I, and that's unfortunate because, according to his biographers, he was one of the most joyous of men.

Francis was the merry leader of a band of brethren who were self-named, "God's jugglers," as they worked and played and sweat and laughed with men in the fields and towns, before they ever preached to them. This sunny disposition also showed itself in the ways Francis located God in some startlingly "new" places according to the 13th century worldview: not just in women and men who are trying to be faithful, but in lepers and outcasts, ravenous wolves, fish and birds, the sun and the moon, even bodily pain and death. This is a man who rolled in the snow; who stripped naked in order to demonstrate to his father how joyfully he had renounced owning rich things; and who preached in his underwear to show humility. Still, we never see him smile. What a shame that is.

Blame it on the iconographers -- the artists and painters who have rendered Saint Francis' image since his death in 1226. There are thousands of paintings of Francis. The world's most popular saint is also, after Jesus, the most painted figure in history. It seems that, at least occasionally, we should see him smile. Instead we usually see him caught in the serious actions of his life story, as told by his biographers.

You might say that there is a "top three" in the history of art of the most important paintings of Saint Francis. First would have to be the fresco on the wall of the chapel of Saint Gregory in the Sacro Speco (English, "sacred grotto") in Subiaco, a city in the province of Rome. The Subiaco grotto was made famous centuries earlier by Saint Benedict of Nursia, who retreated there and founded the Benedictine order within its walls. Francis's fresco hangs to the right of the entrance to the cave and is inscribed as painted during the second year of the pontificate of Pope Gregory IX. That dates the painting to late 1228 or early 1229, making it the earliest surviving painting we have of Francis. Many scholars assume that the man you see in that fresco should be as close of a depiction we will ever have of the real Francis. He is wearing the rough habit of his order, a knotted cord about his waist, his hands are pre-stigmata and he's barefoot.

Second among the most important paintings of Saint Francis would be Cimabue's famous portrait that hangs in the right transept of the Lower Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. The Francis you see there appears shorter and swarthier than the man we see at Sacro Speco. He is showing his stigmatized hands to the painter with downcast, humble eyes. Some biographers prefer this image as the most faithful of the early ones precisely because it seems to show a less idealized man. This feels like the Francis we know from the many of the stories in "The Little Flowers" and the biographies about him written by Thomas of Celano.

The third most important painting of Saint Francis is certainly the most reproduced image of him: Giotto's famous fresco, also from San Francesco in Assisi, depicting "The Preaching to the Birds." This is scene 15 in the narrative cycle located around the nave of the Upper Basilica. You've probably seen it on postcards, coffee mugs, holy medals, in books, films, and on your hotel and tour brochure if you ever visited any town in Umbria, Italy. Each of the images from the famous fresco cycles at San Francesco -- just like similar cycles in other Franciscan basilicas throughout Italy -- depict the notable scenes from the biographies of Francis. Like any good storytelling of a saint, they show Francis on his way of conversion toward heaven.

But then there are other images that call our attention. These hang in museums around the world. There is, for instance, Francisco de Zurbaran's famous "Saint Francis in Meditation" hanging in The National Gallery in London. The 17th century Spanish Catholic painter shows a kneeling friar in closet-like solitude, well-cowled, his mouth agape speaking to God, holding a skull in contemplation of death. This is a dark, stark, arresting image, far removed from the juggling and joyous side of Francis. Zurburan's countryman, El Greco, painted similar scenes.

Lastly, there is the famous painting closer to home: "Saint Francis in the Desert" by Giovanni Bellini, recently restored at The Frick Collection in Manhattan. Bellini's painting dates from the most exciting days of the European Renaissance, around 1480, when the artist was at the height of his powers in Venice, Italy. He took as his subject the patron saint of Italy, but he also added a variety of details, mysteries and symbolic touches that have kept experts guessing for centuries.

The painting was done in oils on three wooden panels joined together. Bellini placed Saint Francis in the foreground surrounded by an Italian scene that depicts both mountains and desert -- a common combination in central Italy. Going into the mountains, for the saints of Italy, has long been a way of replicating the experience of Jesus going into the desert. The two locales are united in the Italian worldview. In this picture, Francis is very much alone, in deep contemplation of God, gazing gently heavenward, his arms at his sides, palms slightly raised. There is a walled city in the background, a pasture with a donkey, farm land and what appear to be orchards. This is a place both rugged and alone, cultivated and civilized.

One's eye can wander in the background scenes for a long while. Who knows how a master painter decides what to put in those places of a picture? It is a created scene, to be sure, and does not represent any precise bit of the Italian landscape. So then, are the details simply what fancied the artist on those days, or did they hold some deeper symbolism that he was reading into the story of the saint he was aiming to tell?

And, what is that story, exactly?

The central action of "Saint Francis in the Desert" is taking place -- albeit somewhat mysteriously -- with Francis in the foreground. The natural world surrounds him, there, too. There are a red bird, various indigenous plants, an elegant heron and a rabbit that appears tucked behind the saint's outstretched arm. I can't help but think that such a rabbit was one that Francis may have purchased from a meat vendor in town only to carry it with him to the countryside where he could set it free.

There, standing dramatically, before you, is Francis. Unlike Cimabue's fresco of the swarthy little man, this Francis is the charismatic founder of the world's largest family of religious orders. Contrary to what we know as fact since his body was discovered several meters below the high altar at San Francesco in 1818, this Francis appears almost tall and lanky. He strikes a grand figure. We know that Francis had theatrical flair, but we don't imagine that he would display such a quality alone before God. This is the sincere movement of a man consumed by God at that particular moment.

But what is that moment, precisely? Bellini only tells us with tiny, almost indecipherable, spots of red paint. You can still see them on Francis's hands, and conservators who have recently examined the painting under a microscope tell us that there was once a spot of red on the saint's foot, as well. It is no longer visible. As for the traditional piercing of the side, it is nowhere to be found. In fact, one wouldn't imagine that this man is experiencing any sort of discomfort at all with the five wounds associated both with Christ's crucifixion -- and that seems odd. Nevertheless, Bellini is presenting us with the moment in time when the wounds of Christ were reproduced in the body of Francis: the world's first stigmata.

The greatest mystery of all in Bellini's famous painting is the presence of God. It strikes me that this Renaissance artist created a somewhat modern rendition of the famous scene, contrasting with Giotto's traditional representation of Christ in the form of a seraph imparting the sacred wounds to the holy man. Instead, Bellini has Saint Francis looking out of the frame to find the divine. God is non-representational. Only a soft light enters in and permeates the entire scene. It is this divine light that seems to illumine Francis and make him, quietly, like Christ.

Jon M. Sweeney is the author of 'The Pope Who Quit: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation,' coming from Image Books on March 6, 2012. A version of this article appeared in a recent issue of America magazine.

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Follow Jon M. Sweeney on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jonmsweeney

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-m-sweeney/what-did-saint-francis-lo_b_1071143.html

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