Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber Share A Dating 'Philosophy'

'If you're in love, you're in love to the fullest,' singer/actress tells Cosmopolitan.
By Jocelyn Vena

Photo: Cosmopolitan

Selena Gomez turns the big 2-0 later this year, and she seems to be leaving her tween image behind. The 19-year-old is the latest teen star to appear on the cover of Cosmopolitan, following last month's issue of the women's magazine, featuring 17-year-old Dakota Fanning.

For her first cover for the magazine, Gomez dons a low-cut, floral-print dress as she looks rather seductively into the camera. She's sitting with her one leg perched in front of her body, displaying a saucier side of herself than fans might be used to seeing.

Inside the issue, she's talking all about love, opening up about her longtime boyfriend, Justin Bieber. "I'm just like every 19-year-old girl," she said. "If you're in love, you're in love to the fullest, and you just want to go to the movies, hang out, and be as normal as possible. I'm fortunate that I've found someone who has that philosophy."

In another Cosmo quote floating around online, Gomez dishes on a past boyfriend (Taylor Lautner? Nick Jonas?) who didn't make things as easy on her. "I was in a relationship previously where I had to hide everything and it wasn't my choice. I had to go through different exits and take separate cars and do the craziest things, and it just really wasn't worth it," she explained. "It was like a year of my life completely wasted."

The more mature magazine cover comes as Gomez prepares for the next phase of her career. In the coming weeks, she'll hit the set for her next film, the more adult-themed "Spring Breakers," which follows a group of college girls who rob a restaurant to pay for their spring break. When they land in jail, a drug and arms dealer bails them out, and they quickly become entangled with him and his business.

"It's a different character than I have ever played before," she told MTV News about the film, which will be directed by "Kids" mastermind Harmony Korine. "It's a different kind of vibe I think than people are used to seeing me in. What you're going to see is more raw, I think. It's going to be raw and more about acting."

What do you think about Selena's grown-up image? Let us know in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678236/selena-gomez-justin-bieber-dating-philosophy.jhtml

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Whale secret may help helicopters fly faster

Helicopters can deliver military troops or rescue the wounded in tight spaces, but their rotating blade design also puts a hard limit on their speed and maneuverability. Now researchers have begun flight-testing an unlikely fix inspired by the underwater ballet of humpback whales.

The potentially cheap solution uses small bumps along the front edge of the helicopter blades similar to bumps found on the large pectoral fins of humpback whales. Such bumps give an aerodynamic edge that delays the moment of "stalling" when there's not enough lift to keep the whale from sinking ? or a helicopter from stalling out at top speeds.

"Stalling is one of the most serious problems in helicopter aerodynamics ? and one of the most complex," said Kai Richter from the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology in Germany.

Helicopters face a speed limit because their backward-moving rotor blade goes against their forward motion of flight. That problem leads to turbulence and loss of lift, as well as strong forces acting on the rotor, which eventually cause the helicopter to stall out.

German researchers patented the bump idea for helicopters, under the name "Leading-Edge Vortex Generators." Wind tunnel experiments led to a test flight with a helicopter carrying 186 rubber bumps ?each less than a quarter of an inch long ? glued to its four rotor blades.

"The pilots have already noticed a difference in the behavior of the rotor blades," Richter said. "The next step is a flight using special measuring equipment to accurately record the effects."

If testing goes well, existing helicopters could get a speed boost with simple retrofits. New helicopters could have the design built into their titanium blades during manufacturing.

The natural bump design already helps humpback whales swim at speeds of up to 16.5 miles per hour, or about five times faster than the fastest human swimmer.

"Research has shown that these bumps cause stalling to occur significantly later underwater and increase buoyancy," said Holger Mai from the DLR Institute of Aeroelasticity in Germany. "Flow phenomena in water are similar to those in air; they just need to be scaled accordingly."

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? 2012 InnovationNewsDaily.com. All rights reserved. More from InnovationNewsDaily.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46195967/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

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Mexico detects stolen fuel at gas station

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexican officials said Monday they have found a new distribution point for thousands of gallons of gasoline stolen from state-owned pipelines: a seemingly normal gas station with official logos.

Thieves in Mexico had long been thought to unload stolen oil products on shadowy black markets. But it now appears the thefts have taken on a new sophistication, using a gas station that until 2010 had a concession from the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos company, known as Pemex, to legally sell gas.

A Pemex official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Monday that it was the first time that stolen fuel has been detected being sold through a gas station. In the past, primitive illicit fueling stations with improvised tanks had been discovered in fields, vacant lots and industrial buildings, presumably to supply fuel to private fleets.

But in a raid over the weekend in the northern city of Monterrey, the federal Attorney General's Office said it found about 12,690 gallons (48,000 liters) of stolen gasoline at the station, worth about $77,000. The station came under suspicion because it had not had a legitimate delivery of gas in some time.

Photos of the station showed that it had the normal green, red and white signs borne by all Pemex gas stations throughout Mexico. Pemex licenses the stations to be run by private concessionaires, who must buy fuel from the company. The Attorney General's Office said the Monterrey station's concession had been canceled in 2010.

The company is taking the threat seriously enough that it is starting a nationwide, random audit of stations throughout the country, in part because the volume of oil products being stolen appears to be too large to move through primitive, improvised outlets.

The company says it lost about 2.99 million barrels, or about 125 million gallons, of oil products in the first 11 months of 2011, the latest figures available. That represented about a full day's worth of total production for the company, and marked a 52-percent increase over the 1.96 million barrels stolen in the same period of 2010.

According to a U.S. court case, Mexican gangs trafficked some stolen crude over the border to U.S. refineries, and in June 2011, Pemex filed a lawsuit against nine U.S. companies and two individuals for alleged involvement in buying or processing Mexican oil products stolen by gangs.

Thieves have also sold unrefined fuels to bulk users such as brick kilns and factories, but the amount of gasoline being stolen would be inappropriate for such uses, or even private truck fleets.

Pemex said the task force will use mobile labs to test stations' gasoline to detect whether it was illicitly mixed or transported. It will also review tax and commercial records to detect whether any station is selling more gas than it has ordered.

But the 1,324 illegal taps and break-ins at Pemex pipelines discovered in 2011 are only part of the complex series of attacks on the company.

A Mexican legislator said Monday that an oil spill in early January in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz was intentionally caused to create a pollution emergency, in order to generate income and contracts for clean-up work.

Federal Congressman Antonio Benitez Lucho toured the Pemex plant where the spill originated and said a primitive cut had been made in a valve head, a hole knocked in a containment wall and a thick hose laid to the edge of the Coatzacoalcos river, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

In early January, about 63,400 gallons (240,000 liters) of crude spilled from the valve plant, blackening the river's shores and threatening wildlife.

"There was no doubt that it was deliberate," Benitez Lucho said.

"I think they spilled the crude so that the companies that do clean-up and remediation work ... could get quick, fast-track contracts," he said. "They are million-dollar companies that charge huge amounts for clean-up and remediation, and I think that is the motive."

The office of the Federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection said the case was still under investigation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-30-LT-Mexico-Oil-Theft/id-fb497627d90747c48c31a8b1ea183dc1

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Greece, creditors laboriously piece together debt deal (Reuters)

ATHENS (Reuters) ? Greece and its private creditors head back to the negotiating table on Saturday to put together the final pieces of a long-awaited debt swap agreement needed to avert an unruly default.

After weeks of muddling through round after round of inconclusive talks, the negotiations appear to be in their final phase, with both sides hoping to secure a preliminary deal before Monday's European Union summit.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was expected to meet bankers' chief negotiator Charles Dallara at around 1330 GMT (8:30 a.m. EST) on Saturday, before meeting inspectors from the "troika" of foreign lenders pressing Athens to step up painful reforms.

"Today will be another tough day," said George Karatzaferis, leader of the far-right LAOS party, one of three parties in Papademos's emergency coalition government. "We will see whether we can bear the burden that lies ahead."

The debt swap, in which private creditors are to take a 50 percent cut in the nominal value of their Greek bond holdings in exchange for cash and new bonds, is a prerequisite for the country to secure a 130-billion-euro rescue package.

Papademos told Reuters in an interview on Friday he expected the debt talks to be concluded within days.

"We made significant progress over the last few weeks and in the last few days in particular. We are trying to conclude the discussions as quickly as possible. I am quite optimistic an agreement will be reached in the coming days," he said.

But concern has grown that the deal may not do enough to get the country's debt reduction plan back on track, and that Greece's European partners will be forced to stump up funds to cover the shortfall.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that Greece's international lenders thought Athens would need 145 billion euros of public money from the euro zone for its second bailout rather than the planned 130 billion euros.

The magazine said the extra money was needed because of the deteriorating economic situation in Greece, echoing a Reuters report on Thursday.

Athens also faces problematic talks with the "troika" of foreign lenders - the European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank - who have warned it needs to do more to drive through painful reforms before they dole out any more money.

"It's all very dense, difficult and crucial," a Greek finance ministry official said. "There is optimism because the country needs to survive and we need to protect its citizens because they have suffered a lot."

Athens and its creditors have broadly agreed that new bonds under the swap would probably have a 30-year maturity and a progressive interest rate. The deal is aimed at chopping 100 billion euros off Greece's crushing 350-billion-euro debt load.

But they have wrangled for weeks over the interest rate Greece must pay on the new bonds and pressure has grown in recent days on the European Central Bank and other public creditors to accept a cut in the value of their Greek bond holdings like the private sector creditors.

A debt deal must be sealed in about three weeks as Greece has to repay 14.5 billion euros of debt on March 20. Otherwise Greece will sink into an uncontrolled default that might spread turmoil across the euro zone.

Papademos promised on Friday this would not happen. "Greece will not default," he said.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday that euro zone members were making progress to overcome their crisis but must do more to strengthen their financial firewall, adding that the IMF was ready to help.

"There is progress as we see it," Lagarde told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"But it is critical that the euro zone members actually develop a clear, simple, firewall that can operate both to limit the contagion and to provide this sort of act of trust in the euro zone so that the financing needs of that zone can actually be met."

Senior euro zone officials have expressed optimism on the Greek debt deal, though previous predictions of an imminent agreement have failed to become reality.

Greece is in its fifth year of recession, and hopes of an end to the crisis in the near term have virtually gone, because of the combination of squabbling politicians, rising social anger and its inability to get its debt load under control.

Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday.

Greece said such a move was out of the question, adding that a similar proposal had been made in the past by a Dutch minister without getting anywhere.

"There is no way we would accept such a thing," a Greek government official told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou, Writing by Deepa Babington; editing by Tim Pearce)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/bs_nm/us_greece

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Steve Jobs, Superhero

When I was a kid, I read tons of superhero comic books. I fantasized about superpowers, but the storylines about heroes with massive Achilles? heels really held my attention the most. They saved the world but had screwed up personal lives, made lots of mistakes, and often acted like complete assholes. In retrospect, I related to their flaws. And, probably not coincidentally, my favorite characters exhibited core weaknesses I had experienced: Spider-Man (immaturity), Iron Man (overconfidence/hubris), and Wolverine (rage). Ironically, when the character?s weakness comingled with the superpower, it would often spur them to succeed against impossible odds.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/q5ZmDhTBLPE/

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Monica Spannbauer, Bachelor Castoff, Takes Shot at Ben Flajnik and Courtney Robertson

Monica Spannbauer, The Bachelor's most recent castoff, says star Ben Flajnik and Courtney Robertson are a perfect match. Aww. So nice to say, right?

No. She means that quite negatively.

"I absolutely think she's wrong for Ben, but the more I watch - obviously I don't get to see everything that happens - they deserve each other," she said.

Courtney Robertson, who's like a model, has made a nasty habit of hating on other girls while pursuing Ben. And saying "winning" like a complete tool.

Monica Spannbauer, who ruffled a few feathers herself in The Bachelor house, says she had no beef with Court personally ... but is still not a fan. At all.

"Courtney isn't a very nice person and I think she deserves everything that's coming toward her," Monica said, ominously. "Hands down, I think she's somebody different around other women and somebody different around a man."

Spannbauer also had a nice parting shot for Ben Flajnik.

"Courtney is really manipulative and good at what she does. Clearly that's the kind of girl Ben's looking for ... If they end up together, they deserve each other, because if he's that shallow and she's that manipulative, then they totally work."

Meow!! You tell us ... Courtney Robertson:

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/monica-spannbauer-bachelor-castoff-takes-shot-at-ben-flajnik-and/

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France wants faster NATO Afghanistan exit

PARIS?? France and Afghanistan agree NATO should speed up by a year its timetable for handing all combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday, raising new questions about the unity of the Western military alliance.

Sarkozy also announced a faster-track exit for France, the fourth-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan ? marking a distinct break from previous plans to adhere to the U.S. goal of withdrawing combat forces by the end of 2014. The proposal comes a week after four unarmed French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier described as a Taliban infiltrator.

Sarkozy, alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was in Paris for a previously planned visit, said France had told the U.S. of its plan, and will present it at a Feb. 2-3 meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He said he would call President Barack Obama about it Saturday.

"We have decided in a common accord with President Karzai to ask NATO to consider a total handing of NATO combat missions to the Afghan army over the course of 2013," Sarkozy told reporters.

A sense of mission fatigue has been growing among some European contributors to the 10-year allied intervention in Afghanistan. The new idea floated by Sarkozy would accelerate a gradual drawdown of NATO troops that Obama has planned to see through until the end of 2014.

France's announcement could step up pressure in other European governments like Britain, Italy and Germany, which also have important roles in Afghanistan ? even if the U.S. has the lion's share by far. But the leaders of those European nations don't face elections anytime soon: Sarkozy does.

Sarkozy said France will withdraw combat troops by the end of 2013, a reversal from his repeated commitment in recent months to stick with other allies on a U.S.-led schedule.

At the same time, he said France will restart its training missions of Afghan troops Saturday. After the shootings Jan. 20, he immediately suspended the training and joint French military patrols with Afghan forces.

A senior U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue that U.S. forces are continuing to plan to transition to the Afghans at the end of 2014, and that nothing has changed.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the timetable announced by France was worked through by both the Afghans and NATO as part of efforts to transfer security authority to Afghanistan.

"We, obviously, want to continue to work together to ensure that this is implemented in a way that is consistent with the efforts of all of NATO to give increasing authority to the Afghans, and that it is smooth," she said.

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Nuland said the U.S. was pleased the move was not "precipitous."

"So you know, this was a national decision of France. It was done in a managed way. We will all work with it. As the president has said, with regard to our own presence, we are working on 2014," she said.

"The alliance as a whole is working on 2014. But we are also going to work within this French decision," she added.

NATO reacted tersely to Sarkozy's statement.

"We have taken note of the statement," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in Brussels.

Sarkozy said France will speed up its withdrawal timetable, pulling out 1,000 of its current 3,600 soldiers by year-end ? the previous target was 600 ? and bring all combat forces out by the end of 2013.

Karzai had said previously that the goal was to have Afghan security forces in charge of security across the entire nation by the end of 2014. Afghan forces started taking the lead for security in certain areas of the country last year and the plan has been to add more areas, as Afghan police and soldiers were deemed ready to take over from foreign forces.

According to drawdown plans already announced by the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations, the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan will shrink by an estimated 40,000 troops at the close of this year. Washington is pulling out the most ? 33,000 by the end of the year. That's one-third of 101,000 U.S. troops that were in Afghanistan in June, the peak of the U.S. military presence in the war, Pentagon figures show.

Sarkozy also said France would hand over authority in the strategic province of Kapisa east of Kabul, where nearly all French troops are deployed, to the Afghans in March.

"A new phase is starting with the Afghans in which civilian and development projects will progressively take the handoff from our military presence," Sarkozy said, adding Afghan security "is the business of Afghans."

Karzai, who praised the role of France and other NATO allies, didn't object when Sarkozy said the 2013 timetable was sought by the two countries.

But the Afghan leader appeared to suggest that it was a high-end target.

"Yes, Mr. President, it is right that Afghanistan has to provide for its own security and for the protection of its own people, and for the provision of law and order," Karzai said.

"We hope to finish the transition ? to complete this transition of authority to the Afghan forces, to the Afghan government, by the end of 2013 at the earliest ? or by the latest as has been agreed upon ? by the end of 2014," Karzai said.

The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan has been steadily handing over responsibility for security to the government's army and police ever since the alliance's last summit in Lisbon in 2010. There, NATO leaders decided to move the Afghans into the lead role in fighting the Taliban by 2014 and end the coalition's combat role.

Afghan forces have started a process of taking the lead in over half of the country's population of 30 million in terms of security, and the transition remains on track.

Britain and Germany said France's announcement didn't change their pullout plans.

Britain said it's keeping to plans to withdraw all its 9,500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"We set out our long-term plans for no combat role by the end of 2014," a Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. "We have already set out plans for some withdrawals in 2012."

Prime Minister David Cameron will hold talks with Karzai on Saturday. The Foreign Office said their meeting "is about long-term partnership and commitment beyond 2014 and the need for progress on the political track."

In Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Germany's government had recently affirmed its troops' mandate "with a wide majority."

"We are in agreement with the international goal to hand over security responsibility fully by the end of 2014 and withdraw combat troops," the spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.

During Karzai's stop Thursday in Italy as part of his European tour, Premier Mario Monti said his country would give economic and civilian support after a 2014 withdrawal. The two signed a long-term cooperation agreement.

Sarkozy's government has been under political pressure to withdraw French troops before the United States' pegged pullout in 2014. Polls show most French want an early pullout ? and he may soon be up for re-election.

Francois Heisbourg, an analyst at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think tank, told The Associated Press this week that a quick exit would also pose logistical problems for French forces, who hope to bring home much of the heavy equipment they have deployed in Afghanistan.

Francois Hollande, the Socialist nominee for France's presidential elections, repeated on French TV on Thursday his hope to bring all French forces home this year. Polls show him leading the conservative Sarkozy, who has not formally announced whether he will run in the two-round election in April and May ? though most political observers believe he will.

Nick Witney, a senior policy fellow at the Paris-based European Council on Foreign Relations, said public support of the war in Europe started sliding fast after the coalition agreed to end the combat mission in 2014.

"It has become more and more difficult to justify every single casualty, since it's now clear that these are wasted lives," said Witney, a former head of the European Defense Agency.

"Most European policymakers realize that on a purely cost-benefit assessment, we would all leave Afghanistan tomorrow," Witney said, adding that "it's difficult for any single government to break with its allies without being accused of lack of solidarity."

At the news conference with Karzai, Sarkozy didn't respond to a reporter's question about whether he believed France's announcement could weaken the alliance.

___

Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Jill Lawless in London, David Rising in Berlin, Colleen Barry in Rome, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46169115/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

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Pre-caffeine tech: Google+ for teens, Facebook for seniors!

By Helen A.S. Popkin

via BuzzFeed

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning. Here's everything that you need to know before taking that first sip of coffee today.

Apple CEO does not care for your comments about Apple not caring about worker abuse in China.

Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.

But here's how you get around those restrictions.

Teens ages 13 and up in the U.S. can now join Google's social network, Google+, although the search giant said it is adding safety measures for younger users. What it didn't say is that it adds to Google's efforts to get more users on Google+, including an announcement earlier this week it will allow users to have alternate names.

Meanwhile, Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill didn't spare Facebook in her speech opening?a forum on Data Privacy Day ? even though the event was live-streamed by the social network, in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Counsel.

Meanwhile, Aerosmith's?Steven Tyler might've sung about a?"dude [who] looks like a lady," but Google's convinced that a lady?? yours truly?? has the Internet browsing habits of a dude.

The next time you make a particularly strange typo, don't throw your keyboard out the window ? instead just smile. Smile, because it's possible for a simple typo to lead to a marriage -- like it did there these two.?

In closing: "Facebook & Twitter For Seniors For Dummies" exists.?

???compiled by Helen A.S. Popkin, who invites you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook.?Also, Google+.??

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10250925-pre-caffeine-tech-google-for-teens-facebook-for-seniors

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Syrian troops fight rebels near Damascus (Reuters)

HARASTA, Syria (Reuters) ? A 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad edged closer to the Syrian capital on Thursday as troops battled rebels in a town just north of Damascus and a provincial governor spoke of negotiating local ceasefires.

A Syrian officer told Reuters clashes had been under way in Douma since the morning. Security forces were searching houses for arms and wanted suspects. Reporters were shown home-made grenades among other seized weapons.

The officer was speaking in the tense suburb of Harasta nearby, where troops were deployed in strength.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces had detained 200 people in raids in Douma, a hotbed of protests and armed rebellion against Assad.

Gunfire was close enough to be heard from central Damascus during the night.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For graphic on Arab League http://link.reuters.com/pev65s

For graphic on Syria toll http://link.reuters.com/xav85s

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"Many of them (in the opposition) have been misled. They will eventually come back to the right way," Hussein Makhlouf, governor of Damascus countryside, told Arab League monitors before they headed for some of the capital's troubled suburbs.

"We have started a dialogue with them, including some armed groups that are controlling positions there," Makhlouf said.

He told the observers that the authorities were using "the same approach as in Zabadani, so the same scenario will happen."

This month the military withdrew armored vehicles encircling the rebel-held town of Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, after negotiating a truce with its defenders.

Arab observers stopped at an entrance to the Damascus suburb of Irbin, where a dozen soldiers stood guard. Beyond them a crowd of about 100 anti-Assad protesters shouted slogans. The troops showed the monitors the bodies of a soldier and another person they said had been killed in the morning.

The Arab observers soon drove away from the scene without going into the township.

There was no immediate word on casualties in the fighting near Damascus.

DEADLY VIOLENCE

Elsewhere, three people were killed in Homs, a sniper killed a 58-year-old woman in Hama and a 14-year-old boy was killed in the southern city of Deraa, the British-based Observatory said.

The state news agency SANA said "terrorists" had assassinated a colonel in Homs and detonated a bomb in Deraa province, killing an army lieutenant as he tried to defuse it.

SANA said 21 soldiers, security personnel and civilians killed by "armed terrorist groups" were buried on Thursday. It also reported pro-Assad demonstrations in several cities.

The monitors, now without 55 Gulf Arab colleagues withdrawn by their governments this week in protest at continued bloodshed, were resuming work after a one-week gap during which the Arab League prolonged their mission by another month.

Syrian opposition groups have accused the observer mission, which deployed on December 26, of giving Assad diplomatic cover to pursue a crackdown on protesters and rebels in which more than 5,000 people have been killed since March, by a U.N. tally.

The Arab League called on Sunday for Assad to quit as part of a transition plan for which it is seeking U.N. support.

Western and Arab diplomats are working on a draft Security Council resolution on Syria. Russia said it would promote its own text, but did not rule out a compromise.

Russia, one of Syria's few remaining allies along with Iran, has rejected sanctions or military action against Assad.

The Security Council could vote as early as next week on a Western-Arab draft resolution, council diplomats said.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby urged Damascus to end military operations against "defenseless civilians."

In recent months, an insurgency by army deserters and other rebels has increasingly eclipsed peaceful protests against more than four decades of rule by the Assad family.

Activists said the army deployment and clashes in townships around Damascus were a response to insurgents' growing strength.

"The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has almost complete control of some areas of the Damascus countryside and some control in Douma and Harasta," an activist said by telephone from Harasta.

Other activists in Douma, Harasta and Irbin said security forces had gathered in their towns after rebels retreated because they could not fight pitched battles with the army.

"Assad's army has armored vehicles and anti-aircraft guns while we only have rifles and rocket-propelled grenades," said an FSA fighter who called himself Abu Thaer.

The Arab League has suspended Syria and called for Assad to hand over to his deputy, pending the formation of an unity government, constitutional and security reform, and elections.

Michael Posner, the U.S. State Department's top human rights official, said Washington would work with the League to end the bloodshed in Syria, reiterating that Assad must go.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, John Irish in Paris and Tom Perry in Cairo; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_syria

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Video: Dogs of the Dow?

The dogs of the Dow is one of the best known dividend investing strategies, but after giving a boost to investor portfolios last year, the strategy is in the dog house so far in 2012, with CNBC's Jeff Cox.

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46137981/

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Official: Would take miracle for cruise survivors

	Essential News from The Associated Press

? ?Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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What's all the buzz about Oprah and Salman Rushdie going to India?

The Jaipur Literary Festival has become Asia's biggest literary festival, and the fact that some of the biggest names in the book world attend highlights India's growing appetite for good reads.

Oprah's here - but Salman Rushdie is not.?

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The fifth annual Jaipur Literature Festival has for a few years now attracted more and more major literary and cultural figures from across the world, including, this year, talk show host and reading evangelist Oprah Winfrey.?

For five days, the festival, which started Friday, is taking over Jaipur, a city in central India. The festival has gotten so big that no sooner had the dates been announced ? last year ? then did nearby hotels get slammed with bookings. The rate at which the festival is growing in popularity highlights how much the book industry in India has grown.

The Jaipur Literature Festival had relatively humble beginnings: Its main purpose was to put literature, both in English and local languages, on the radar for Indians.

It seems to have worked.

Now, the festival is widely recognized as a destination for thinkers and writers.?Publishers come to scout for talent and writers come looking for book deals. And hundreds of thousands of eyes are on it and watching the books that are discussed there.??

It?s recently been described as ?the Oscars? of the literary world.

?Of the many literary festivals in India, Jaipur is the big one. It?s the one to go and be seen at,? novelist Samit Basu told the Wall Street Journal.

To say it gets crowded is an understatement. In 2008 there were 7,000 attendees; last year an estimated 60,000 people came to see and be seen and even more are expected to attend this year.

India?s English-language publishing is relatively small but growing industry ? a study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry last fall pegged the market at $1.4 billion and reported it was growing about 10 percent each year.

Among the local writers, an invitation to appear is an indication of having made it: Look out for Jeet Thayil, Anuradha Roy, and Gurcharan Das.

Oprah arrived in Mumbai earlier last week and spent time with the?first family of Bollywood?? actors?Aishwarya Rai,?Abhishek Bachchan, and their baby girl???before heading north.

Addressing the festival today, she said three things have struck her about India so far: "Its chaos,?the underlying calmness and love, and the fact that everyone seems to know where they are going.? She also dabbled in US politics, predicting the President Obama would win reelection in November.

US journalist Katherine Boo's book on life in the slums of Mumbai, ?Behind The Beautiful Forevers,? is one of the most anticipated books, and sOprahe?s slated to be on hand.

Other notable authors appearing include Ben Okri,?David Remnick, Jamaica Kincaid, Fatima Bhutto, Lionel Shriver, Amy Chua, and Teju Cole.

But Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses which earned him a fatwa in 1989, has announced he will not attend, saying intelligence services have told him that underworld dons in Mumbai have hired assassins to "eliminate" him. He may yet appear via video link instead, which is continuing to kick up controversy in India.

"While I have some doubts about the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the Festival in such circumstances; irresponsible to my family, to the festival audience, and to my fellow writers," said Rushdie in a statement.?

It's unfortunate for festival-goers, many of whom were keen to see Rushdie live in the flesh in his homeland,?but something tells me there will be plenty to keep them occupied.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/E1y3e-ASKo0/What-s-all-the-buzz-about-Oprah-and-Salman-Rushdie-going-to-India

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GOP using Obama's address to blame him for economy (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republicans took the offensive Tuesday and cast President Barack Obama as the culprit for the economy's persistent frailty, hoping to shift the focus away from his State of the Union address' theme of economic fairness.

As they awaited the president's election season speech to the nation Tuesday night, Republicans in the Capitol and on the campaign trail said three years of Obama policies of higher spending, bigger government and tax increases have left the economy stuck in a ditch.

"If the president wants someone to blame for this economy, he should start with himself," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "The fact is, any CEO in America with a record like this after three years on the job would be graciously shown the door."

White House officials argue that the economy has resumed growing and generating new jobs on Obama's watch, though growth has been generally listless and the jobless rate remains at a high 8.5 percent.

One of Obama's themes will be economic fairness, including protecting the middle class and making sure the wealthy pay an equitable share of taxes. Republicans seemed determined to blunt that message and prevent the president from making it the top issue of this year's presidential and congressional elections.

"This election is going to be a referendum on the president's economic policies," which have worsened the economy, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The politics of envy, the politics of dividing our country is not what America is all about."

Boehner also said nearly 30 House-passed bills aimed at helping the economy have stalled in the Democratic-run Senate, most of them rolling back or blocking environmental, workplace and other regulations. He said he hoped Obama "will extend somewhat of an olive branch" to work with Republicans on boosting the economy.

Poised to give the GOP's formal, televised response to Obama was Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who flirted with running for his party's presidential nomination before deciding against it last May.

The first White House budget chief under President George W. Bush, Daniels has portrayed himself as a foe of budget deficits. He has described Obama's fiscal policies as "catastrophic."

Budgets are non-binding annual blueprints for federal tax and spending policy whose details are frequently ignored. They can also be hard to approve if they address or ignore difficult issues, so leaders sometimes avoid votes on them so vulnerable lawmakers seeking re-election can escape taking a controversial stance.

Obama was delivering his State of the Union address during a rowdy battle for the GOP presidential nomination that has ended up playing directly into Obama's theme of economic fairness.

That fight has called attention to the wealth of one of the top contenders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and the low ? but legal ? effective federal income tax rate of around 15 percent that the multi-millionaire has paid in the past two years. Romney, who is in Florida campaigned for that state's Jan. 31 primary, released his tax documents for that period on Tuesday.

"The president's agenda sounds less like "built to last" and more like doomed to fail," Romney said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. "What he's proposing is more of the same: more taxes, more spending, and more regulation."

Romney's chief rival so far, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said in a written statement that the top question about Obama's speech was whether he "will show a willingness to put aside the extremist ideology of the far left and call for a new set of policies that could lead to dramatic private sector job creation and economic growth."

Republicans criticized Obama for putting off, so far, construction of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would run from western Canada to Texas' Gulf Coast. Supporters say it would create thousands of jobs, while critics say such claims are exaggerated and would cause pollution.

The GOP also sought to use the spotlight on Obama's speech to score points against congressional Democrats, saying the Senate has not approved a federal budget for 1,000 days.

"Unlike Democrats, House Republicans are fighting to strengthen our economy and allow small businesses to create jobs for hard working Americans," the chairman of the House GOP's campaign arm, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said in an email to supporters.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Republicans are using President Barack Obama's State of the Union address as an opportunity to grab the offensive and blame him for the country's economic woes.

As they awaited his election-year speech Tuesday night, Republicans in the Capitol and on the presidential campaign trail were blaming him for the weak economy and an 8.5 percent jobless rate that is too high.

They said his answers are more of the same: higher taxes, more spending and bigger government.

One of Obama's themes will be economic fairness, which will include protecting the middle class and making sure the wealthy pay a fair share of taxes.

The formal GOP response will be delivered by Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor and former White House budget director under President George W. Bush.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_state_of_union_gop_reaction

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Florida pollsters expect tight race between Gingrich and Romney (The Ticket)

Gingrich and Romney (Eric Gay/AP)

As the As Republican presidential candidates begin campaigning in Florida before next Tuesday's primaries, two polling groups are anticipating tight race in the state between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Results from InsiderAdvantage, a Republican polling firm run by a former Gingrich staffer, shows the former House Speaker leading by eight points in the Sunshine State, after weeks of polling behind Romney. The poll of 557 registered Republican voters showed Gingrich with 34 percent, and Romney with 26 percent. Ron Paul is in third with 13 percent with Santorum trailing with 11 percent.

"The poll shows a huge bounce for Newt Gingrich, coming out of? South Carolina," IA pollster Matt Towery told Newsmax Magazine.

Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, says their first night of survey results show Gingrich and Romney "neck and neck," although the group has not yet released its official results.

"[Two] more people picked Mitt than Newt out of about 600 people we polled tonight," said PPP pollster Tom Jenson on Twitter. "That's how close we're talking."

On Monday, Rasmussen released a new poll showing Gingrich leading Romney by nine percentage points. The survey of 750 likely Republican voters taken Sunday night by telephone, shows 41 percent saying they will support Gingrich over 32 percent for Romney. The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, suggests a major swing for Gingrich in just the past few weeks, when he trailed Romney by more than 20 percentage points in a Florida Rasmussen survey released on Jan. 12.

The candidates plan to face off twice this week in Florida, with debates on Monday and Thursday nights.

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:

? Finally, a real party at Gingrich HQ: Scenes from the victory party

? Romney defeat exposes significant weaknesses for potential battle with Obama

? Romney rips into Gingrich (without uttering his name) in primary speech

Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook, follow uson Twitter, or add us on Tumblr.

Handy with a camera? Join our Election 2012 Flickr group to submit your photos of the campaign in action.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20120123/el_yblog_theticket/pollsters-in-florida-expect-tight-race-between-gingrich-and-romney

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How to Make Cheap Whiskey Taste Like Fancy Whiskey [Video]

You like whiskey. You looooove good whiskey. You can't afford to drop hundreds of dollars on high-end bottle. You stick with rotgut, right? Nope. There's a new process of hyper-aging booze that apparently turns run-of-the-mill whiskey into dark and delicious firewater of the gods. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9MTn2sTIIzU/how-to-make-cheap-whiskey-taste-like-fancy-whiskey

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Jonathan Agin: Cancer One War, Less Than One

President Nixon declared a war on cancer on Dec. 23, 1971. The war on cancer is arguably being lost on a daily basis. My daughter Alexis Agin, just two weeks shy of her fifth birthday, became yet another name etched on the proverbial wall of names who laid down their life in this war. Sure, some battles may have been won, but the war rages on, worse than ever, all these years after the initial battle cry. Unfortunately, some in the medical profession are estimating that cancer deaths may in fact double in less than 20 years. Does this sound like we are winning? During Alexis' long battle, we saw behind the curtain of Oz that is the manner in which we fight this disease. I became convinced that we are losing the war because we are not properly equipping our soldiers.

First, there is the way the government manages the care and access to treatment of those diagnosed. Imagine being sat down in a small, cramped dark room next to a nursing station. Your 27-month-old daughter sitting right across the hall. The previous night was a sleepless one on a narrow bench next to your daughter's metal hospital crib. You are told that your child has cancer and that she has six months, maybe a year to live. Sent back to your child's room with no other information, you know nothing about the world of pediatric cancer. You have no idea about the limitations on access to drugs that may help your child. The red tape, paperwork, institutional review boards (IRB), and the Federal Drug Administration. Although these are all theoretically established to protect the patient, it becomes patently obvious that they hinder your child's chances of survival in many respects. Patients given terminal diagnoses are often not allowed to try the most novel therapies under the guise that the government is trying to protect the patient from harm. Yet, these individuals have no hope, no possibility of beating the odds and are told they are going to die. Instead, these soldiers are left to lose their personal battles.

Then you have the cancer hospitals. When it became obvious that Alexis' tumor was progressing in the wrong direction, we scoured the Internet, spoke with her doctors, overturned as many rocks as we could, and ultimately decided that the most promising treatment was located at Memorial Sloane Kettering (MSK) in NYC. This was the only location where this therapy was offered. Each week we traveled from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Each week, Alexis obtained an infusion of a drug called Temsirolimus. She also received an oral chemotherapy with the infusion, which we were able to give her at home. Despite the hardships on Alexis, our jobs, our family, I often wondered why we had to travel each and every week for a drug already approved by the FDA. The reason we had to travel and could not administer this treatment regimen here in Washington, D.C. was simple; the FDA and the IRB of MSK. This trial regimen was only approved at MSK. Interestingly, Temsirolimus was being administered at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. as part of another trial. Thus, there was plenty of experience with this drug locally. Consequently, if you wanted your child to participate in this trial, you traveled on a weekly basis regardless of hardship, despite the readily available nature of the drugs. For us, we were lucky that we lived within reasonable proximity to MSK. For parents unable to do so, despite the potential promising nature of the treatment, their child was unable to receive the drugs in this combination.

It is this set of obstacles that tie parents' hands and keep this war un-winnable. It is for this reason that participation in clinical trials is declining. Several publications in the spring and summer of 2011 highlighted this fact. The red tape and impediments placed before patients hinders the ability to recruit and fill slots. It makes for a difficult system for the average parent and patient to navigate. Physicians do not have the time to educate parents on this system. With respect to Phase I clinical trials, there are rotating enrollments. Thus, timing is everything. If a slot is not open for your child at the time they are eligible, they may ultimately lose the chance to be placed on that trial.

Finally, for pediatric cancer patients, the fact that a new pediatric-specific cancer drug has not been approved in the last 20-plus years is indicative of the mentality of how we approach pediatric and childhood cancer in this country. There are little to no incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new pediatric drugs. The Orphan Drug Act, Public Law 97-414, as amended, may hopefully change this equation. It has yet to be seen whether this system of incentivizing drug manufacturers to release drugs targeting orphan diseases, such as the one that claimed Alexis, will have any impact. Pediatric and childhood cancer is not a profit center for the large pharmaceutical companies. Bald children do not sell or generate profits.

Regulation is necessary in order to maintain control and standards. Regulation does protect those who require protection. That being said, those who are given a death sentence should be afforded all opportunities and access to any treatment that is feasible. And if that means taking a calculated risk, then so be it.

To sum it up, I firmly believe we need to shift the paradigm and try a different approach, lest we continue to let children die. The FDA and the institutional review boards, rather than being impediments to patients gaining access to potentially life-saving drugs, must become a partner with patients. Regulatory impediments before parents must be eased. This paradigm is shifting slightly. Thanks to so many parents who are on the front lines, change has already happened, unfortunately not fast enough. As long as the government remains embroiled in partisan fighting with an eye on issues that do not surround life and death, the war on cancer will continue to claim more victims. This simply is unacceptable.

?

Follow Jonathan Agin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@jonathanagin

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-agin/cancer-1-war-less-than-1_b_1219490.html

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Veterinarians emphasize importance of sterilizing pets, especially in ...

Consider this: One pair of un-sterilized cats, together with their offspring, can result in 420,000 kittens in seven years.?One pair of un-sterilized dogs, with their offspring, can result in 4,372 puppies in the same time frame.

Statistics also show that only one out of nine of these animals finds a good home, leaving the rest to suffer abandonment and/or euthanasia.

For years, pet owners have questioned whether to spay or neuter their pets. However, history and research show that there are many pros to having your pets spayed or neutered.???

Whether ?pets are kept indoors or out, there are many health and behavioral benefits associated with spaying and neutering, says Dr. Lynn Ruoff, clinical associate professor at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Longtime southTempeveterinarian Dr. Thomas Gus, who operatesUniversityAnimalHospitalonsouth Hardy Drive, agrees with the advice.

?From a behavioral standpoint, it definitely reduces the roaming behaviors and territorial aggression (in both cats and dogs),? Gus said.

The obvious benefit of spaying and neutering is population control, lowering the number of stray abandoned dogs and cats in local neighborhoods and streets. And, unfortunately, with the struggling economy and other factors affecting residents, more and more dogs and cats are being turned over shelters or put to death, Gus said.

?The number of cats and dogs being put in shelters or euthanized has absolutely increased (compared to past years),? Gus said. ?Oftentimes it?s near universities, where students end up moving away after graduating and leaving their pets behind.?

Gus estimates that 75 percent of dog and cat owners in the immediate area of his clinic spay or neuter their pets, not only to make them sterile but to avoid health risks as their pets grow up.

?For male dogs, (neutering) reduces the risk of prostate cancer and eliminates the risk of testicular cancer,? he said.

?In female dogs, it prevents urinary tract infections and, what?s probably the best advantage, is it eliminates breast cancer ? taking it to almost zero probability if you spay before their first heat cycle, which is 6 to 12 months of age.?

Female dogs, Gus said, are three times as likely as humans to develop breast cancer.

?As far as female cats go, you save having to put innocent animals to death,? he said. ?Female cats are in heat for a week every two to three weeks, so it can literally seem like they are always in heat.?

Because female cats are in heat more often than dogs, a significantly larger amount of stray cats are born per year than dogs, Gus added.

Male cats that are not neutered are often much more aggressive and can increase their territory, traveling farther away from home and becoming vulnerable to other disease-carrying, stray animals.

Male dogs are less likely to mark their territory, especially inside homes.

Gus said Maricopa County Rabies Animal Control and the Humane Society are the two main organizations to which stray dogs and cats can be reported.

Other, privately funded groups have begun local rescue projects, but Gus said the problem of unspayed, unneutered pets has continued to grow.

University Animal Hospital is at 2500 S. Hardy Drive, Tempe. Phone: 480-968-9275.

Source: http://www.wranglernews.com/2012/01/21/veterinarians-emphasize-importance-of-sterilizing-pets-especially-in-these-times/

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