Major assassination attempts in Syria's conflict

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian opposition forces have targeted government officials, army and police officers and civil servants in their campaign to topple President Bashar Assad's regime.

Here is a list of some of the major assassination attempts in Syria since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011:

?April 29, 2013: A bomb attached to a parked car detonates as Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi's car drove by. Syrian state media reported the prime minister was not hurt in the bombing in the upscale Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh, which is home to many embassies and officials in Assad's regime.

?March 21, 2013: A suicide bomber blows himself up in a mosque in central Damascus, killing Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, a leading Sunni Muslim preacher and outspoken supporter of Assad, and 41 others.

?Dec. 12, 2012: A car bomb targets the Interior Ministry in Damascus, wounding Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar. Initially, Syrian state media said al-Shaar was not hurt in the blast, but "several" were killed. News of his injuries emerged a week later, after he was brought to neighboring Lebanon for treatment.

?July 18, 2012: A blast at the Syrian national security building in Damascus during a high-level government crisis meeting kills four top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defense minister.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/major-assassination-attempts-syrias-conflict-111234260.html

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End for Herschel space telescope

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Europe's flagship space telescope has stopped working.

The billion-euro Herschel observatory has run out of the liquid helium needed to keep its instruments and detectors at their ultra-low functioning temperature.

This equipment has now warmed, meaning the telescope cannot see the sky.

Herschel, which was sensitive to far-infrared and sub-millimetre light, was launched in 2009 to study the birth of stars and the evolution of galaxies.

Its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments made it the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space.

The end of operations is not a surprise. Astronomers always knew the helium store onboard would be a time-limiting factor.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

The telescope gathered images and information in such volume that astronomers have barely scratched database?

End Quote Prof Matt Griffin Cardiff University, UK

The "blind" satellite is currently located about 1.5 million km from Earth on the planet's "night side".

Controllers at the European Space Agency's (Esa) operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, will run some final tests on the spacecraft in the coming weeks before putting it in a slow drift around the Sun.

"We will push it out into a heliocentric orbit and passivate it," said Micha Schmidt, the Herschel spacecraft operations manager.

"We will switch off the transponder and the spacecraft will go silent."

Herschel should not come anywhere near the Earth again for several hundred years.

Data legacy

The telescope will be remembered for its great vistas of gas and dust; the billowing clouds and threading filaments that trace the locations where future stars will form.

Over the course of the mission, it gathered thousands of such images. It also acquired detailed spectrographic data on many of its subjects, revealing their chemistry.

All of the information is now being assembled into a public archive.

Jonathan Amos inspected Herschel just before its launch in May 2009

This will become an important resource for future study and a starting point to plan follow-up observations with other astronomical facilities.

This is already happening with the recently opened, ground-based Alma telescope in Chile, which views the sky at frequencies that overlap those pursued by Herschel.

A US-German telescope called Sofia, which is mounted on a converted Boeing 747, can also see some of Herschel's frequencies.

"But the amazing thing about Herschel is that its maximum productivity in science terms probably won't be reached for another five years yet," said Prof Matt Griffin, the principal investigator on Herschel's Spire instrument.

"The telescope gathered images and information in such volume that astronomers have barely scratched the database," the Cardiff University, UK, scientist told BBC News.

Engineers issued an alert early in March warning astronomers that observations were coming to an end.

Herschel used special light detectors in its instruments known as bolometers. Although supremely efficient at capturing light, the technology must be kept close to absolute zero (-273C) to work properly.

This was achieved with the aid of 2,300 litres of liquid helium that was held in a giant flask, or cryostat.

But as the mission progressed, the cryogen gradually boiled away, and, on Monday, the Darmstadt controllers received telemetry from Herschel confirming every last drop was gone.

Continue reading the main story

Herschel Space Telescope

• Herschel was one of the largest space telescopes ever launched; its 3.5m diameter mirror perfectly captured infrared light
• It clocked more than 1,430 days of operations; making 22,000 hours of scientific observations; resulting in 600 scholarly papers... so far
• Infrared shines through gas and dust clouds that can block visible light - Herschel could see deep into dusty, star-forming regions
• The telescope was named after the astronomer William Herschel, who discovered infrared radiation while studying the Sun in 1800
• The Earth's atmosphere is an infrared absorber, so Herschel was launched in 2009 to get a clear view of the long-wavelength Universe

Herschel's demise occurred close to the time forecast at the start of operations nearly four years ago.

If anything, astronomers got a few months' more observations than they were expecting.

Herschel's cryostat approach to cooling was evolved from a previous Esa mission - the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), which operated in the 1990s.

This approach is described as a "passive" system because once initial conditions are set inside the flask, a continuing presence of helium and good insulation is all that is required to maintain those conditions.

An "active", or mechanical, cooling system was considered for Herschel in the initial feasibility studies. This would have involved a chain of Stirling units that use a cycle of compression and decompression in a fluid to get to low temperatures.

Theoretically, mechanical coolers could have given Herschel more life, but engineers considered such a design to be too risky.

"There was a competitive concept but it involved a lot of stages, a lot of machines," recalls Jean-Jacques Juillet, the director of scientific programmes at Thales Alenia Space, the company that led the industrial development of Herschel.

"If one of those stages had failed, it could have been a disaster for the continuity of the mission. The cryostat option was the safest option," he told BBC News.

With the cryostat path adopted, engineers then set about constructing the largest possible helium vessel they could fit inside an Ariane launch rocket.

Esa hopes to join a future far-infrared telescope project called Spica. This is a Japanese venture that could fly in the early 2020s.

Europe would provide important components, including the primary mirror and a spectrograph. Unlike Herschel, Spica is likely to use mechanical coolers.

Continue reading the main story

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21934520#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Preschools see sharp drop in funding: study

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enrollment in preschools stalled over the past year as states recovering from the recent recession struggle to fund early education for the nation's youngest students, researchers said.

In a report to be released later on Monday, education experts pointed to a record drop in state funding to serve the nation's 3- and 4-year-olds, citing a drop of more than half a billion dollars in the 2011-2012 school year from the year before.

Although a record high 1.3 million children attended state-run preschools in 2011-2012, it was the first year enrollment stagnated when taking the population growth into account, it showed. (for a graphic about the report, see http://link.reuters.com/duc77t)

The findings from Rutgers University's National Institute for Early Education Research come as the Obama administration is pushing its proposal to expand access to early learning.

President Barack Obama's plan calls for a federal-state plan to enroll 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families in preschools while providing additional grants to states to expand access to other middle class families.

Early education is one area that both Democrats and Republicans generally support, although clashes arise over government's role and funding.

Monday's report highlights the disparities not only in access to available preschool programs across various states but also in their quality.

"Not only are we stalled, but it really matters what your zip code is," said Steven Barnett, who directs the Rutgers institute.

Overall, state funding per child fell by more than $400 to $3,841 per child on average in 2011-2012, the first year such funding dropped to below $4,000 per student, the report said.

While most U.S. schools begin offering education for students at age 5 for kindergarten, preschool programs vary widely state-by-state.

Most states offer some sort of preschool program for 4-year-olds from families with qualifying low incomes, according to the institute, and some also serve 3-year-olds.

Ten states do not offer preschool, also known as pre-kindergarten or pre-K: Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

QUALITY CONCERNS

Even among those with programs, few states offer so-called "universal preschool" for all children. Parents whose incomes are too high to qualify for state-run programs must pay out-of-pocket for private ones.

Under Obama's plan, the federal government would spend $75 billion over 10 years to widen access to state programs for lower income families. It also seeks to encourage states to broaden access so middle class families could opt in, calling for $750 million in such grants under his 2014 budget proposal.

Despite the president's push, his plan has moved little in Congress, where lawmakers have been focused on immigration, the budget and other issues.

Advocates of early childhood education say reaching 3- and 4-year-olds can help boost students' development long-term. But conservatives and other critics have questioned the federal government's effectiveness in early childhood work, questioning another the federally funded program for low-income 3- to 5-year-olds, Head Start.

Additional funds could help boost cash-strapped states that have cut back on preschool funding since federal stimulus monies ran out, the report said.

"As states emerge from the recession, pre-K continues to suffer," researches wrote, adding that the number of needy families has continued to rise.

Lack of funding has taken a toll on states' abilities to monitor programs and hurt the quality of such early childhood education, they added.

Few states met the institute's 10 benchmarks to assess quality such as teacher training, learning standards and class size, in large part due to funding cuts, the report said.

States that fared the best include Alabama, Alaska, North Carolina and Rhode Island, it said, while California, Florida, Ohio, Texas and Vermont met the fewest quality standards.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/preschools-see-sharp-drop-funding-study-140408946.html

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Iraq watchdog suspends 10 TV channels for inciting violence

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has suspended the licenses of satellite news network Al Jazeera and nine other channels, accusing them of inciting violence through their coverage of recent sectarian clashes.

The Communication and Media Commission (CMC) regulator criticized their reporting of violence triggered by a security forces raid on a Sunni Muslim protest camp in Hawija on Tuesday.

None of the channels was immediately available for comment.

More than 170 people have been killed in the fighting - the worst Iraq has seen since Sunnis started staging protests in December to complain about their treatment by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.

The watchdog said sectarian language used in the reports encouraged "criminal acts of revenge by attacking the security forces".

"The CMC sees in the speech and content propagated by the channels...an incitement and escalation which leans towards misleading and exaggeration more than towards objectivity," the watchdog said in a statement published on Sunday.

Most of the channels, including local stations such as "Baghdad" and "al-Sharqiya", are pro-Sunni and often critical of the Shi'ite-led government. Al Jazeera is based in Qatar, a Sunni-ruled kingdom.

The watchdog is powerless to stop the channels broadcasting, but may make it harder for their local staff to cover events.

Media rights group the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said the CMC was biased, as some officials in the body had been appointed by the government.

"We do not deny there is an incitement to violence by some media outlets, but we consider the suspension of licenses of 10 satellite channels a blow for democracy," the Observatory's Executive Director Ziyad al-Ajili told Reuters.

Last June, the CMC ordered the closure of 44 media outlets including the BBC and Voice of America. It does not have the power to stop them broadcasting from overseas.

Violence, including bomb attacks that have killed dozens of people at a time, has increased across Iraq this year. Provisional figures from rights group Iraq Body Count indicate about 1,365 people have been killed so far in 2013.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami; Editing by Isabel Coles and Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-watchdog-suspends-10-tv-channels-inciting-violence-132418505.html

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'Taxels' convert mechanical motion to electronic signals

Apr. 25, 2013 ? Using bundles of vertical zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have fabricated arrays of piezotronic transistors capable of converting mechanical motion directly into electronic controlling signals. The arrays could help give robots a more adaptive sense of touch, provide better security in handwritten signatures and offer new ways for humans to interact with electronic devices.

The arrays include more than 8,000 functioning piezotronic transistors, each of which can independently produce an electronic controlling signal when placed under mechanical strain. These touch-sensitive transistors -- dubbed "taxels" -- could provide significant improvements in resolution, sensitivity and active/adaptive operations compared to existing techniques for tactile sensing. Their sensitivity is comparable to that of a human fingertip.

The vertically-aligned taxels operate with two-terminal transistors. Instead of a third gate terminal used by conventional transistors to control the flow of current passing through them, taxels control the current with a technique called "strain-gating." Strain-gating based on the piezotronic effect uses the electrical charges generated at the Schottky contact interface by the piezoelectric effect when the nanowires are placed under strain by the application of mechanical force.

The research will be reported on April 25 in the journal Science online, at the Science Express website, and will be published in a later version of the print journal Science. The research has been sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Any mechanical motion, such as the movement of arms or the fingers of a robot, could be translated to control signals," explained Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents' professor and Hightower Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This could make artificial skin smarter and more like the human skin. It would allow the skin to feel activity on the surface."

Mimicking the sense of touch electronically has been challenging, and is now done by measuring changes in resistance prompted by mechanical touch. The devices developed by the Georgia Tech researchers rely on a different physical phenomenon -- tiny polarization charges formed when piezoelectric materials such as zinc oxide are moved or placed under strain. In the piezotronic transistors, the piezoelectric charges control the flow of current through the wires just as gate voltages do in conventional three-terminal transistors.

The technique only works in materials that have both piezoelectric and semiconducting properties. These properties are seen in nanowires and thin films created from the wurtzite and zinc blend families of materials, which includes zinc oxide, gallium nitride and cadmium sulfide.

In their laboratory, Wang and his co-authors -- postdoctoral fellow Wenzhuo Wu and graduate research assistant Xiaonan Wen -- fabricated arrays of 92 by 92 transistors. The researchers used a chemical growth technique at approximately 85 to 90 degrees Celsius, which allowed them to fabricate arrays of strain-gated vertical piezotronic transistors on substrates that are suitable for microelectronics applications. The transistors are made up of bundles of approximately 1,500 individual nanowires, each nanowire between 500 and 600 nanometers in diameter.

In the array devices, the active strain-gated vertical piezotronic transistors are sandwiched between top and bottom electrodes made of indium tin oxide aligned in orthogonal cross-bar configurations. A thin layer of gold is deposited between the top and bottom surfaces of the zinc oxide nanowires and the top and bottom electrodes, forming Schottky contacts. A thin layer of the polymer Parylene is then coated onto the device as a moisture and corrosion barrier.

The array density is 234 pixels per inch, the resolution is better than 100 microns, and the sensors are capable of detecting pressure changes as low as 10 kilopascals -- resolution comparable to that of the human skin, Wang said. The Georgia Tech researchers fabricated several hundred of the arrays during a research project that lasted nearly three years. The arrays are transparent, which could allow them to be used on touch-pads or other devices for fingerprinting. They are also flexible and foldable, expanding the range of potential uses.

Among the potential applications:

? Multidimensional signature recording, in which not only the graphics of the signature would be included, but also the pressure exerted at each location during the creation of the signature, and the speed at which the signature is created.

? Shape-adaptive sensing in which a change in the shape of the device is measured. This would be useful in applications such as artificial/prosthetic skin, smart biomedical treatments and intelligent robotics in which the arrays would sense what was in contact with them.

? Active tactile sensing in which the physiological operations of mechanoreceptors of biological entities such as hair follicles or the hairs in the cochlea are emulated. Because the arrays would be used in real-world applications, the researchers evaluated their durability. The devices still operated after 24 hours immersed in both saline and distilled water.

Future work will include producing the taxel arrays from single nanowires instead of bundles, and integrating the arrays onto CMOS silicon devices. Using single wires could improve the sensitivity of the arrays by at least three orders of magnitude, Wang said. "This is a fundamentally new technology that allows us to control electronic devices directly using mechanical agitation," Wang added. "This could be used in a broad range of areas, including robotics, MEMS, human-computer interfaces and other areas that involve mechanical deformation."

This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant CMMI-0946418, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) under grant FA2386-10-1-4070, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences under award DE-FG02-07ER46394 and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences under grant KJCX2-YW-M13. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of DARPA, the NSF, the USAF or the DOE.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Wenzhuo Wu, Xiaonan Wen, Zhong Lin Wang. Taxel-addressable matrix of vertical-nanowire piezotronic transistors for active/adaptive tactile imaging. Science, 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1234855

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/-jrj0Z-Yh-E/130425142247.htm

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With New Ad Units, Vibrant Media Comes To Smartphones And Tablets

Vibrant Media, which powers in-text ads and other contextual ad products, is going cross-platform today with the launch of a number of new units. Some of those ad units are entirely new to Vibrant's lineup, while others take the company's desktop ads and optimize them for touch interactions. CEO Cella Irvine told me that there's growing interest from ad agencies in campaigns that span desktops, smartphones, and tablets, and also in mobile-specific campaigns. Some of Vibrant's existing ad units already worked on mobile, she said, but they weren't really designed for non-desktop devices. The goal with today's launch is to make sure "the experience is native to the device."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/39OWsU1c4ec/

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Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

NASA is exploring ways to send a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. In a first test, three tiny satellites are now on orbit and beeping back at Earth. Why the idea could be an aid to scientific research.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 24, 2013

NASA's Phonesat aims to demonstrate the ability to launch one of the lowest-cost, easiest-to-build satellites ever flown in space ? capabilities enabled by using off-the-shelf consumer smart phones.

Courtesy of NASA

Enlarge

That's no smart phone in your pocket or purse; that's the heart and soul of a satellite.

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Three satellites, to be exact, released into orbit on Sunday with the launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s new Antares rocket, the latest addition to NASA's stable of space-station resupply vehicles.

The tiny satellites, each occupying a cube four inches on a side, represent an experiment in using cheap but powerful off-the-shelf technology to run a new generation of small, affordable science satellites.

Two of these orbiters, which NASA has dubbed Phonesat 1.0, use the electronics and sensors packaged in a Google Nexus One smart phone to serve as on-board computers. Accelerometers that normally tell the phones which way you've oriented the screen now gather information on the satellites' orientation in space. And the cameras? Yep, snapshots of Earth from 156 miles up.

The third satellite, a prototype for Phonesat 2.0, uses a more powerful Nexus S, which also has a built-in gyroscope. Ultimately, engineers plan to use that extra capability to control solar panels and to control the spacecraft's orientation, instead of just recording it.

The notion of using a smart phone's innards to run a satellite grew out of informal hallway chatter, recalls James Cockrell, project manager for Phonesat at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

The benchmark people often use as a point of comparison for the power of their favorite laptop or smart phone is the primitive computing power used in the Apollo program, which landed humans on the moon and brought them back safely in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Indeed, Mr. Cockrell describes a trip to the Internet that netted him the electronic-circuit diagram for the navigation and control computer used in Apollo's Lunar Excursion Module.

"Oh my goodness, you could build it in your basement" with a circuit board and a few transistors, he says.

A couple of years ago, he says, an engineer at NASA-Ames was drawing a similar comparison between his smart phone and today's satellites during an informal hallway chat. The engineer noted that a smart phone's processor is 10 to 15 times more powerful than the processors used in a conventional satellite's computer. A smart phone has much more memory. And it boasts a GPS receiver, gyroscopes, and accelerometers ? the sensors needed for navigation and to control a satellite's orientation.

"He said: 'I don't know why we couldn't make a satellite our of a smart phone,' " Cockrell recalls. Although it took a bit of additional salesmanship to convince folks higher up the organizational food chain, the Phonesat project was born.

The satellites cost about $3,500 each. The initial goals were modest: Survive the launch and beep at Earth.

So far, the satellites have successfully relayed their health ? operating temperatures, battery status, and other key indicators ? via small external transmitters.

"We call this our Sputnik moment," Cockrell says, referring to the simple "I'm alive" beeps that the world's first artificial satellite sent back to Earth in 1957.

As of Monday night, the two Phonesat 1 orbiters started taking pictures. Each satellite selected one image to beam back to Earth.

Before the beaming could begin, the image had to be cut into pieces. And yes, there's now an app for that.

And where NASA's flagship missions to the far reaches of the solar system use the agency's global Deep Space Network for communications, Phonesats are using what you could call NASA's cheap-and-not-so-deep space network ? ham-radio operators worldwide.

So far, some 100 hams have registered at www.phonesat.org, a site the program has set up to receive the packets. As of Tuesday evening, Cockrell estimated that the website had collected more than 300 packets, which computers on Earth must sort through to eliminate duplicates. Ultimately the mosaic will be assembled and displayed online.

The three Phonesats are expected to reenter the atmosphere and vaporize at the end of their 10- to 14-day romp on orbit.

The project already has Phonesats 3.0 and 4.0 on the drawing boards, an effort that eventually could pay dividends for space research, explains Bruce Yost, who heads the Edison Small Satellite Flight Demonstration Program at NASA-Ames.

NASA is exploring concepts for sending a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. The arrangement would allow sensors from several satellites to take measurements simultaneously around an entire planet to unravel the processes at work on the surface or in an atmosphere.

"If each one of those little pieces of the puzzle costs millions of dollars, then you're not really making any headway" toward getting such a mission approved, Mr. Yost explains. Given the private sector's heavy investment in phone R&D and the capabilities that have emerged, the argument goes, why keep satellite-control technology development in-house and reinvent the wheel?

Earth is likely to be an early target for such "swarm" exploration, Yost says. Scientists studying and forecasting space weather are interested in lofting a flotilla of satellites that could make simultaneous measurements of the solar wind or solar storms and their influence on various parts of the Earth's magnetic field.

Cockrell and his team also are working on an eight-spacecraft flotilla to test the feasibility of this idea of satellite swarms, Yost says.

Perhaps it's fitting that the first smart phones in space run on the Android operating system. There's no word on when or if iPhones will get a crack at serving as the seed around which a satellite grows. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/-gOZelEbRBk/Tiny-satellites-cellphones-cheaper-eyes-in-the-sky-for-NASA

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25 Reasons to Celebrate Channing Tatum's Birthday

Until last year, most people didn't even know Channing Tatum's name. Now, he's everywhere! The hunky actor turns 33 on Friday, and we're guessing he'll celebrate with wife Jenna Dewan Tatum in London (where he's currently filming the movie Jupiter Ascending). We'd love to be invited to the party, but since that seems unlikely, we're throwing our own celebration for Channing! Here are 25 reasons why we love him.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/channing-tatum-25-reasons-celebrate-his-birthday/1-a-534299?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Achanning-tatum-25-reasons-celebrate-his-birthday-534299

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Local government says 21 dead in west China clash

BEIJING (AP) ? A violent clash between authorities and assailants described as a terrorist gang left 21 people dead in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, the local government said Wednesday.

Among the dead in the Tuesday afternoon fighting were 15 police officers and local government officials, the Xinjiang government propaganda office said in a news release. It said six assailants were killed on the spot and another eight were captured alive.

"Initial investigations show this was a gang plotting to carry out terrorist acts and the case is now being further cracked open," the release said.

A leading activist from the region's indigenous Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group questioned the official account, saying local sources said that police sparked the incident by shooting a Uighur youth during an illegal search of homes.

The death toll was the highest for a single incident in months in Xinjiang, which sees recurrent outbreaks of violence pitting Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) against the authorities and majority ethnic Han Chinese migrants. Rioting in July 2009 between Uighurs and Han killed nearly 200 people in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, and there have been sporadic attacks since, all of them quickly suppressed with overwhelming force by local paramilitary units.

The U.S. State Department expressed deep concern over the violence and said it was seeking more information about what happened. Spokesman Patrick Ventrell called for a thorough and transparent investigation and for Chinese officials to take steps to reduce tensions and promote long-term stability in Xinjiang.

U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke is currently in Xinjiang, leading a trade delegation of energy, rail and transportation companies. Ventrell said he was not sure if Locke was near the violence.

Tuesday's violence appeared to point to the chaotic nature of much of the Xinjiang violence, as well as problems with how authorities respond. It began when three local officials reported a group of suspicious men armed with knives hiding inside a home in Selibuya township outside the city of Kashgar, the news release said.

The three were then grabbed by the men in the house and local police and officials rushing to the scene were taken by surprise and attacked, it said. Those inside the house killed their three captives and set fire to the building, while the fighting ended only after armed units ? who are often stationed in larger towns and barracks and must be specially summoned by commanders ? arrived and began firing on those continuing to resist, the report said.

The release said 10 of those killed on the government side were Uighurs, three were Han, and two were from the Mongolian ethnic group. It said two other Uighurs were injured. The ethnicity of the assailants wasn't given and local police and government officials reached by phone said they had no additional information to give.

"We know only what is in the release and have no more to add," said an officer with the Xinjiang regional police, who gave only his surname, Meng, as is common with Chinese officials.

Xinjiang, a sprawling region that borders Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is home to millions of Uighurs, many of whom complain of tight restrictions on religious and cultural life by Beijing and say they have been marginalized by policies favoring Han migrants.

China claims much of the violence is orchestrated by Uighur activists based in the West or in Pakistan and other neighboring countries, but has provided little evidence publicly. The U.S. initially placed one group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, on a terrorist watch list following the 9/11 attacks, but later quietly removed it amid doubts that it existed in any organized manner.

Uighur activists say violence largely results from heavy-handed policing by the authorities, including the frequent detention of Uighur men with little or no due process.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress, said repression has intensified in the area around Kashgar, with an unknown number of Uighurs detained. He denied those involved in Tuesday's clash were part of an organized group and dismissed the government's terrorism claims.

"They always use such labels as a way of justifying their use of armed force," Raxit said in a phone interview.

____

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/local-government-says-21-dead-west-china-clash-064841577.html

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Small businesses given big boost | UoP News

Alistair McDermott, Director of Knowledge Services at the University, and Shena Mitchell, Director of Innovation Warehouse, at the newly opened Innovation Centre on Hampshire Terrace

A one-stop shop for innovation, entrepreneurship and the creation of new jobs for the city opened at the University of Portsmouth yesterday.

The University has invested ?500,000 into the Innovation Centre, on Hampshire Terrace to help ignite the growth of entrepreneurship and businesses in the region.

The centre has two floors dedicated to help business owners and managers work alongside academics to develop new products or routes to markets, and two floors dedicated to the Innovation Warehouse, an engine room for individuals and start-up companies looking for serious growth and new business opportunities.

Vice-Chancellor Professor John Craven officially opens the Innovation Centre

The combination of the two elements is a first for the University, which has never before provided space for businesses, and a first for Portsmouth, which is now the second city in the UK to be home to the Innovation Warehouse, a concept designed and tested in its London headquarters and which has, in 18 months, helped eight new business ventures to launch.

The launch of the centre was attended by local business and civic leaders, including businesses from the Isle of Wight, academics whose research has potential to deliver a boost to businesses, local media and strategic managers from the University and Innovation Warehouse.

The University?s new Innovation Centre aims to help fledgling and medium-sized businesses

Alistair McDermott, Director of Knowledge Services at the University, said: ?The launch of Innovation Space is about the University bringing wealth and jobs to the region and promoting engagement with experts from University.

?Together with the Innovation Warehouse, we are now in a position to help support local entrepreneurship and growth, which the city and region needs.?

The University?s goal for the centre is to put like-minded people in science and innovation together side by side to find new ways of solving problems or to come up with answers to help businesses make a step change in the development of new products or services.

Alistair said: ?We are committed to offering businesses direct access to researchers who are experts in their field to help create sparks of innovation and business growth. The businesses which have already joined us will be working with our experts in artificial intelligence to help improve their profit margins.?

The top two floors are dedicated to the Innovation Warehouse, which launched in London in 2011 after a philanthropist saw a need for those with entrepreneurial spirit and ideas to be given space to develop and fine-tune their ideas, products and goals.

The co-founders and directors offer mentoring, coaching and support help in writing business plans which stand a chance of working and, crucially, regular meetings with successful business directors and potential funders. In return for investment, they can take a share in businesses they help develop.

Tony Fish, Director of London?s Innovation Warehouse, said: ?We are about giving direct access to market for entrepreneurs with progressive and novel ideas.
?What we offer is not for everyone but it is a strong launch-pad for businesses which have brilliant potential but also some gaps or hurdles ahead of them.

?The gaps could be anything from understanding business concepts including intellectual property or company and product law, access to finance, pitching for funding, marketing and technical skills such as software development.

?You could say we are de-risking people who already have ideas worth millions.?

The Innovation Warehouse has plans to open eight more centres in the next two years and is working with partners to develop these in Leeds, Oxford, Croydon and New York.

Shena Mitchell, director of Innovation Warehouse Portsmouth, said: ?When the co-founders and co-directors were looking to invest and start a new Innovation Warehouse I persuaded them to consider Portsmouth.

?Having worked in the city for the last 20 years, I believe there are many people in Portsmouth ready to start their own businesses and who just need the kind of support we have to offer.?

Source: http://www.port.ac.uk/uopnews/2013/04/24/small-businesses-given-big-boost/

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'Teen Mom' Farrah Abraham's Major Parenting Fail

Let's do an experiment: close your eyes and think of three totally inappropriate places to take young children. What did you come up with? Strip club? Gun range? Marilyn Manson concert? We bet "sex tape negotiation meeting" didn't even occur to you, because who would do that? And the answer is...Farrah Abraham!

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/teen-mom-farrah-abraham-brings-dad-daughter-sex-tape-meeting/1-a-534105?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ateen-mom-farrah-abraham-brings-dad-daughter-sex-tape-meeting-534105

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Nicaragua nabs most-wanted U.S. child porn suspect

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) ? Police in Nicaragua have detained a former U.S. school teacher who was on the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives as a suspect in a child pornography investigation, authorities confirmed Monday.

Eric Justin Toth was detained Saturday in Esteli, a city near Nicaragua's border with Honduras, and will be immediately deported to the United States, said National Police chief Aminta Granera.

"Toth will be deported immediately because he was in our country illegally," Granera said at a news conference in Managua, the capital.

She said Toth entered Nicaragua with a false passport and also had a fake driver's license and credit cards.

Toth was being handed over to FBI agents present at the news conference and they planned to take him to the U.S. in a special plane, Granera said.

A thin and nervous-looking Toth dressed in cream-colored shirt and pants was briefly presented to journalists and photographers who took his picture, but he wasn't allowed to talk and was quickly taken away.

Granera said Toth first entered Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 2012, and left on Jan. 27. He returned on Feb. 12 and that's when Nicaraguan police began keeping a close watch, she said.

"He was captured in a house in the Panama Soberana neighborhood in Esteli, even though he resisted," Granera said.

Toth taught third grade at Beauvoir, a private elementary school on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. He was escorted off campus in June 2008 after another teacher reported finding sexually explicit photographs on a school camera in Toth's possession. He had not been seen since he lost his job.

In a statement, the school commended the work of U.S. authorities.

"We commend the work of the Office of the U.S. Attorney and the FBI for their ongoing efforts to apprehend Mr. Toth. They have been tenacious and resolute in their quest to bring this case to justice," it said.

Toth was added to the FBI's most-wanted list in April 2012 for allegedly possessing and producing child pornography, giving him notoriety normally reserved for people sought in connection with violent crimes or terrorism.

Osama bin Laden and purported Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger have both been featured on that list, but the FBI said it put Toth on because there were no reliable clues as to his whereabouts and because his Internet skills and alleged penchant for grooming children made him especially dangerous.

Authorities found Toth's car at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in August 2008 with a note suggesting he'd committed suicide in a nearby lake. But no body was found.

The FBI, which had been offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Toth's arrest, said he was believed to have traveled to Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It said Toth is originally from Hammond, Indiana, and is a graduate of Purdue University.

Toth is thought to have lived in Arizona in 2009.

The bureau had said that Toth might have been advertising as a tutor or a male nanny and using the alias of David Bussone.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nicaragua-nabs-us-most-wanted-child-porn-suspect-205230175.html

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Same protein that fires up cancer-promoting Erk also blocks its activation

Monday, April 22, 2013

A protein which is intimately involved in cancer-promoting cell signaling also keeps a key component of the signaling pathway tied down and inactive, a team led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports this week in Nature Structural Molecular Biology.

Shc, pronounced "schick," plays a key role in activating signals which lead to cell proliferation (and cancer) when cells are stimulated, however it unexpectedly turns out to be a tumor-suppressor, keeping Erk under wraps when a cell is less active, said senior author John Ladbury, Ph.D., professor in MD Anderson's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

"Shc is a checkpoint to prevent out of control cell growth, binding to Erk when a cell is not being stimulated by growth factors," Ladbury said. "Otherwise, the lower-level background signaling that's always present in a cell would be uncontrolled."

Keeping Erk in check while the cell idles

Overexpression of Erk occurs in many types of cancer, including ovarian and prostate cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma, so cellular control of its activity is important.

In the absence of external stimulation by growth factors, cells remain active but lower levels of cell signaling occur, which Ladbury compares to a car idling, ready to roll. Under these conditions control mechanisms are in place to prevent the cell kicking into gear. Shc turns out to be one of these controllers.

"We're essentially looking at the cell in a resting, but ready, state," Ladbury said. "I would argue that's probably more like a cell behaves in tissue, it's not normally getting a slug of growth factors as is often the way when we investigate signaling in experiments in the lab. There's still a lot going on in the cell, basically background activity."

These findings point to a number of therapeutic possibilities, including the measurement of Shc concentration levels as a diagnostic tool and of finding small molecule drugs that block growth-factor signaling to Shc, keeping it bound to Erk, Ladbury noted.

Growth factors provide double boost for Erk

When the appropriate growth factor receptor is stimulated Erk is activated in the MAP Kinase pathway. It dives into the cell nucleus and turns on a variety of genes, actions that contribute to cancer proliferation, blood vessel production and metastasis when signaling is out of control.

When receptor tyrosine kinases on the cell surface connect with growth factors, they normally send a signal via Shc that sets off a chain of actions leading to Erk activation. Ladbury and colleagues looked at Shc's connections to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling.

The team found in mammalian cell lines that:

• Under non-stimulated conditions Shc binds to Erk in the cell cytoplasm at binding sites that are unique on both proteins.
• Stimulation via EGFR reduces this connection, but not by competing with Shc at the Shc-Erk binding site.
• Instead, on stimulation from outside the cells, EGFR adds phosphate groups to itself at specific sites. One of these forms a binding for Shc, which distorts the protein's shape, making it impossible for Erk to bind.
• Overexpression of Shc decreases the amount of activated Erk, because Shc mops up free Erk molecules.
• Depleting Shc expression with short hairpin RNA resulted in higher levels of activated Erk.
• When separated from Shc, Erk moves into the nucleus and activates genes even when the cell is not receiving a stimulus. Thus without the controlling influence of Shc, Erk can run riot in the cell giving rise to unrestrained cell reproduction.

Shc-Erk connection confirmed

Ladbury and colleagues then tested their results in the C.Elegans, a worm model frequently employed in biological research. Both Shc and Erk are greatly similar between humans and the worms.

Experiments showed that Shc blocks Erk function by sequestering it away from the Ras-Raf-Mek MAPK pathway in the worms. Without the Shc-Erk connection, the MAPK pathway is activated, causing excessive Erk activation.

EGFR stimulation not only sets off the normal activation of Erk via Shc and the MAPK pathway, Ladbury said, but also frees Erk for greater availability for activation by breaking the tie to Shc.

Co-authors with Ladbury are first author Kin Man Suen and Chi-Chuan Lin, Ph.D., Fernando Melo, Ph.D., Zamal Ahmed, Ph.D., and Stefan Arold, Ph.D., all of MD Anderson's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Roger George, Ph.D., of the London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK; Eleanor Biggs, of the University of Bath, Bath, UK; and Melanie Drake and Swathi Arur, Ph.D., of MD Anderson's Department of Genetics.

Suen is a graduate student in The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which is run jointly by MD Anderson and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Ladbury and Arold also are affiliated with the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Function at MD Anderson.

###

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

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127839/Same_protein_that_fires_up_cancer_promoting_Erk_also_blocks_its_activation

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Pentagon chief stresses Israel's right to hit Iran

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, stands next to Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon as he looks at pictures of Jews killed in the Holocaust during a visit to the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem on Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner, pool)

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, stands next to Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon as he looks at pictures of Jews killed in the Holocaust during a visit to the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem on Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner, pool)

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel stands in a moment of silence after placing a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance as he tours Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, on Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Jim Watson, pool)

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, front, places a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance as he tours Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, on April 21, 2013. (AP PhotoJim Watson, Pool)

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, front, places a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance as he tours Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, on April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/ Jim Watson, pool)

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel places a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance as he tours Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, on April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Jim Watson, pool)

JERUSALEM (AP) ? U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel held out hope Sunday for a nonmilitary way to ending the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, but he also emphasized Washington's willingness to let Israel decide whether and when it might strike Tehran in self-defense.

Hagel, on his first visit to Israel as Pentagon chief, seemed intent on burying the image that Republican critics painted of him as insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state. That portrayal was central to a failed campaign to derail Hagel's Senate confirmation in February.

In an interview with reporters on his flight from Washington, Hagel said the United States and Israel see "exactly the same" threat from Iran, which he described as a toxic combination of nuclear ambition and support for terrorism.

But he acknowledged differences on when it may reach the point of requiring U.S. or Israeli military action.

Hagel stressed repeatedly that Israel has a sovereign right to decide for itself whether it must attack Iran. He made no mention of the possibility that an Israeli attack would draw the U.S. into the conflict and lead to a wider regional war.

"Israel will make the decision that Israel must make to protect itself, to defend itself," Hagel said as he began a weeklong tour of the Middle East.

Also Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Istanbul, where he urged Turkey to speed up and cement an American-brokered rapprochement with Israel. On a trip to Israel last month, President Barack Obama secured a pledge from Turkish and Israeli leaders to normalize ties that broke down after a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Hagel said international penalties are taking a heavy toll on Iran, though he said no one can be sure that economic coercion will compel Iran to change course.

Referring to sanctions and diplomacy, Hagel said, "these other tracks do have some time to continue to try to influence the outcome in Iran."

Hagel acknowledged that while Israel and the U.S. share a commitment to ensuring that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, there "may well be some differences" between the two allies on the question of when Iran's leaders might decide to go for a bomb.

"When you back down into the specifics of the timing of when and if Iran decides to pursue a nuclear weapon, there may well be some differences," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tends to see more urgency, reflecting in part the fact that certain Iranian technological advances toward a nuclear weapon could put the program beyond the ability of the Israeli military to destroy it with airstrikes. U.S. forces have greater reach.

Hagel's first order of business upon arrival in Jerusalem was a guided tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust history museum. He participated in a ceremony at the Hall of Remembrance and wrote an inscription in the guest book at a memorial for the 1.5 million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust.

"There is no more poignant, more touching, more effective way to tell the story than this reality, as painful as it is, but it is a reality," he said after completing his visit. "It did happen, and we must prepare our future generations ... for a clear understanding that we must never allow this to happen again."

In his remarks while en route to Israel, Hagel repeatedly emphasized Israel's right of self-defense and stressed that military force ? by implication, Israeli or American ? remains an option of last resort.

"In dealing with Iran, every option must be on the table," he said.

During his two-day visit to Israel, Hagel was expected to further discuss a U.S. arms deal that would provide Israel with missiles for its fighter aircraft, plus KC-135 refueling planes that could be used in a long-range strike on a country such as Iran, as well as V-22 Osprey transport planes. He called the proposed sale a "very clear signal" to Iran.

"The bottom line is, Iran is a threat ? a real threat," he said.

Iran asserts that its nuclear program is designed entirely for nonmilitary purposes.

Yiftah Shapir, a military analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank in Tel Aviv, said Hagel appeared eager to present a steady-as-she-goes attitude following his Senate confirmation battle.

"He's here to say, 'Folks, nothing has changed. We are still with you,'" Shapir said. "The goal is to deliver a relaxing message and to project business as usual."

Hagel suggested he holds hope that Iran's presidential election in June might change the trajectory of its nuclear drive.

After his talks in Israel, Hagel planned stops in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Each is an important American ally in the Middle East, and each is worried by Syria's civil war.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are part of a $10 billion proposed U.S. arms sale that includes Israel. The UAE would get about 26 F-16 fighters and it and Saudi Arabia would get advanced air-launched missiles.

___

Associated Press writer Aron Heller contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-21-ML-Hagel-Mideast/id-d943d2ab25344f389c0568f689c61667

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Officials: Suspects driven by religion

BOSTON (AP) ? The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by their religious faith but do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating the severely wounded younger man. He was charged with federal crimes that could bring the death penalty.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was charged in his hospital room with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill. He was accused of joining with his older brother, Tamerlan ? now dead ? in setting off the pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 200 a week ago.

The brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had been living in the U.S. for about a decade, practiced Islam.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev communicated with his interrogators in writing, a less-than-ideal format that precluded the type of detailed back-and-forth crucial to establishing the facts, said one of two officials who recounted the questioning. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

The two officials said the preliminary evidence from an interrogation suggests the Tsarnaev brothers were driven by religion but had no ties to Islamic terrorist organizations.

At the same time, they cautioned that they were still trying to verify what they were told by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and were looking at such things as his telephone and online communications and his associations with others.

The criminal complaint containing the charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shed no light on the motive.

But it gave a detailed sequence of events and cited surveillance-camera images of him dropping off a knapsack with one of the bombs and using a cellphone, perhaps to coordinate or detonate the blasts.

The Massachusetts college student was listed in serious but stable condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries. His 26-year-old brother died last week in a fierce gunbattle with police.

People wave U.S. flags while cheering as police drive down Arlington street in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013. The second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was ... more? People wave U.S. flags while cheering as police drive down Arlington street in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013. The second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was bleeding, seriously injured and being treated at a Massachusetts hospital on Friday after he was found hiding in a boat, state police said. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW) less?

"Although our investigation is ongoing, today's charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston and for our country," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

The charges carry the death penalty or up to life in prison.

"He has what's coming to him," a wounded Kaitlynn Cates said from her hospital room. She was at the finish line when the first blast knocked her off her feet, and she suffered an injury to her lower leg.

In outlining the evidence against him in court papers, the FBI said Tsarnaev was seen on surveillance cameras putting a knapsack down on the ground near the site of the second blast and then manipulating a cellphone and lifting it to his ear.

Seconds later, the first explosion went off about a block down the street and spread fear and confusion through the crowd. But Tsarnaev ? unlike nearly everyone around him ? looked calm and quickly walked away, the FBI said.

Just 10 seconds or so later, the second blast occurred where he had left the knapsack, the FBI said.

The FBI did not make it clear whether authorities believe he used his cellphone to detonate one or both of the bombs or whether he was talking to someone.

The court papers also said that during the long night of crime Thursday and Friday that led to the older brother's death and the younger one's capture, one of the Tsarnaev brothers told a carjacking victim: "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that."

In addition to the federal charges, the younger Tsarnaev brother is also likely to face state charges in connection with the shooting death of an MIT police officer.

The Obama administration said it had no choice but to prosecute Tsarnaev in the federal court system. Some politicians had suggested he be tried as an enemy combatant in front of a military tribunal, where defendants are denied some of the usual U.S. constitutional protections.

But Tsarnaev is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and under U.S. law, American citizens cannot be tried by military tribunals, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Carney said that since 9/11, the federal court system has been used to convict and imprison hundreds of terrorists.

In its criminal complaint, the FBI said it searched Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Sunday and found BBs as well as a white hat and dark jacket that look like those worn by one of one of the suspected bombers in the surveillance photos the FBI released a few days after the attack.

Seven days after the bombings, meanwhile, Boston was bustling Monday, with runners hitting the pavement, children walking to school and enough cars clogging the streets to make the morning commute feel almost back to normal.

Residents paused in the afternoon to observe a moment of silence at 2:50 p.m., the time of the first blast. Church bells tolled across the city and state in tribute to the victims.

Standing on the steps of the state Capitol, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick bowed his head and said after the moment of silence: "God bless the people of Massachusetts. Boston Strong."

On Boylston Street, where the bombing took place, the silence was broken when a Boston police officer pumped his fists in the air and the crowd erupted in applause. The crowd then quietly sang "God Bless America."

Also, hundreds of family and friends packed a church in Medford for the funeral of bombing victim Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker. A memorial service was scheduled for Monday night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.

Fifty-one victims remained hospitalized Monday, three of them in critical condition.

At the Snowden International School on Newbury Street, a high school set just a block from the bombing site, jittery parents dropped off children as teachers ? some of whom had run in the race ? greeted each other with hugs.

Carlotta Martin of Boston said leaving her kids at school has been the hardest part of getting back to normal.

"We're right in the middle of things," Martin said outside the school as her children, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old, walked in, glancing at the police barricades a few yards from the school's front door.

"I'm nervous. Hopefully, this stuff is over," she continued. "I told my daughter to text me so I know everything's OK."

Tsarnaev was captured Friday night after an intense all-day manhunt that brought the Boston area to a near-standstill. He was cornered and seized, wounded and bloody, after he was discovered hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a Watertown backyard.

He had apparent gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hand, the FBI said in court papers.

Meanwhile, investigators in the Boston suburb of Waltham are looking into whether there are links between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and an unsolved 2011 slaying. Tsarnaev was a friend of one of three men found dead in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana.

___

Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Pete Yost in Washington contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-bomb-suspects-appear-driven-faith-230004568.html

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Yahoo axing seven more apps and services as part of streamlining effort

Get ready to say goodbye to another another batch of Yahoo products at the end of this month. As the company continues to streamline and focus its services, March 31st will be the last day of stand-alone existence for Upcoming, Yahoo Deals, Yahoo Kids, Yahoo SMS Alerts, Yahoo Mail and Messages for feature phones. Noting an aim to slim down to roughly 15 offerings from 75, as The Register points out, this follows a few weeks after the company nixed other services like its BlackBerry app. Additionally, if you've been hanging onto the old version of Yahoo! mail, you'll have no choice but to switch to the new version by June 3rd. Yahoo! There's not word on what we can expect next, although EVP of Platforms Jay Rossiter notes that cuts like these are needed so it can focus on the likes of its new Mail and Weather apps. You'll find the details for each cut at the source link.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Yahoo

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Everyone Is Literally Crazy

Everyone has their moments of insanity. The Internet has made that painfully obvious, as our moments of abstracted, often context-less, craziness are haphazardly posted and then, in some cases, amplified for all to see. Because of this dynamic, we’re also given endless opportunities to deconstruct the way in which someone else has come unhinged. To wit:?The first thing we do in a national emergency and scandal? See if the suspect had a Twitter, Facebook or Myspace account — and then play comments-section psychologist. Or worse. “We think of ourselves as sane and other people as crazy but really we are all a little crazy,” says BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, who will be giving the keynote speech at TechCrunch Disrupt. The talk will be about this?exact topic, titled: “Everyone Is Literally Crazy,” like the headline of this post. After the last two weeks, I can confirm that someone somewhere needs to shed some light on why everyone seems more wacko online. I’m looking at you, Amanda Bynes. ***Buy tickets to Jonah’s talk here.*** “We think of ourselves as having consistent interests but really we are?capricious and what we like depends on context more than our own convictions,” Jonah explains. “This all becomes clear on the web because we can measure human behavior so carefully.” The examples of the Internet exposing and archiving humanity’s darker psychological side keep pouring in: Just yesterday, Gawker posted this email from a sorority girl at the University of Maryland. The article, which garnered over 1.6 million pageviews, featured a Delta Gamma board member lambasting her sorority sisters for “LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD.” Another great thing about the Internet is how often people misuse the word “literally.” ?If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you?re sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough fucking ride. For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, which apparently is the majority of this chapter, we have been FUCKING UP in terms of night time events and general social interactions with Sigma Nu. I?ve been getting texts on texts about people LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD and so fucking BORING. If you?re reading this right now and saying to yourself ?But oh em gee Rebecca, I?ve been having so much fun with my sisters this week!?, then punch yourself in the face right now so

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/rynNw6fyECU/

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College campus evacuated after link to Marathon bombing found

The UMass Dartmouth campus is being evacuated after one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers has been identified as a student.

"Please leave campus calmly as soon as possible," UMass Dartmouth tweeted.

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, is registered there.?

?

Source: http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/College-campus-evacuated-after-link-to-Marathon-bombing-found/-/11971628/19815316/-/e04f7s/-/index.html?absolute=true

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Runner, spectator get photos of marathon suspects

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from left, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from left, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from left, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from left, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from left, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from left, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from left, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from left, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from left, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from left, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from right, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from right, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

Bob Leonard and his family were Boston Marathon veterans and he preferred a spot not too far from the finish line to shoot runners as they concluded their 26.1-mile run. The area was less congested and over the years he learned that the men and women in the lead there usually went on to win.

With his Nikon, Leonard snapped about 10 to 20 photos a minute Monday, capturing group after group of finishing runners and the crowds lining the route.

Three days later, when the FBI released images of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, Leonard used the time stamp shown on them to narrow his search of the hundreds of photos he had took that day. He realized that he, too, had photos of the faces of the two men authorities were searching for.

He uploaded them to the FBI and Friday morning, he saw his cropped photos all over the morning news.

"That finally gave them a good facial picture," the 58-year-old electrical engineer said. "It was a pretty good breakthrough."

The two men were later identified as brothers, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in shootout with police overnight Friday, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, distinctive in his backward white baseball cap. The younger man was captured Friday night after a daylong siege of a Boston suburb.

"They actually stood in that corner for quite a bit of time," Leonard of Taunton, Mass., said of the men, just before the younger brother was caught.

After combing the digital images, he was sure he had something the FBI could use. He tried to upload them to an FBI site that it had asked the public to use. Then he called the hotline number and was on hold for about 40 minutes, the response was so overwhelming. He finally got an FBI spokesman, who told him to upload them to another site. Within 20 minutes, someone from Homeland Security called him back.

"They were on the news ... clear pictures of the two subjects and those were the pictures that I sent in," said Leonard, who started photography as a hobby when his sons played high school sports.

He was not the only picture-taker to help with images of the suspects. Seconds after the bombs exploded, David Green pulled out his smartphone and took a photo of the chaos developing a couple hundred yards in front of him ? the smoke, the people running in panic.

The Jacksonville businessman then put his phone back in his pocket and went to help the injured. It wasn't until Thursday, when officials released surveillance video of the two suspects, that Green realized what he had ? a picture of Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev walking away from the scene.

When Green's photo of one of the Boston bombing suspects fleeing the scene first surfaced, there was considerable doubt as to its authenticity because of the very low resolution of the image, which made the photo appear to be a composite image. When Green later provided the high-resolution frame directly from his cellphone, editors of The Associated Press were able to establish its authenticity based on the improved resolution as well as the time the photo was taken. The AP has established an exclusive arrangement for distribution of the photograph.

Green, back at his home in Florida, wore his yellow and blue Boston Marathon jersey as he talked about the now-famous photo, his finisher's medal from the race propped on a shelf in his home office.

Green, 49, had finished Monday's marathon in 3 hours and 17 minutes, about an hour before the blasts.

After he recovered, he went back to Boylston Street, where the finish line is located, to watch the rest of the race with his friends. He realized his phone was dying, so he went into a nearby store with a recharging station.

About 15 minutes later, he was walking back to his friends when the first bomb went off.

"I thought maybe it was a cannon," Green said. Then the second one exploded as he was walking toward it.

"When I saw it, I pulled out the camera and immediately took that picture," Green said.

He then put it back in his pocket and went to help the injured, including a boy and others who were missing limbs.

"It was like battle ? a lot of noise, a lot of smoke, people coming at me in a panic," he said.

A short time later, his friend Jason Lubin texted him and asked if he was OK. He replied with the photograph and a note: "It was just in front of me."

Lubin said Thursday, after the FBI released photos of the two suspects, that he decided to take a closer look at Green's photograph ? on the off chance Green had captured anything unusual. He pulled up the photo on his smartphone and zoomed in on the crowd. There in the lower left corner was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walking around a corner, his backward white baseball cap standing out amid the dozens of panicked people fleeing.

"I literally had to sit down," Lubin said.

Green contacted the FBI, which told him to send them a copy of the photograph.

"He is calmly walking, without panic," Green said of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Leonard also took pictures of the chaotic aftermath, smoke five stories high from the explosions that he said were deafening. He also saw a person who lost a limb before police rushed everyone away from the scene.

"The sense of loss tears your heart apart when you hear the victims' stories," said Leonard, who has lived in Taunton, about 30 miles south of Boston, since 1986 and knows what the race means. "It's just so senseless."

___

Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-20-Boston%20Marathon-Photographer/id-fea850a9e8b74072b30d27b59411b829

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