At least 5 hospitalized in US with swine flu

NEW YORK – At least five people were in U.S. hospitals with swine flu as the number of cases nationwide rose to 66 on Tuesday and a federal health official warned that deaths were likely.

Most of the nation's confirmed cases were in New York City, where the health commissioner said "many hundreds" of schoolchildren were ill with what was "most likely swine flu." The city announced 45 confirmed cases, all affiliated with a Catholic high school.

Richard Besser, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that although ordinary human flu accounts for 36,000 deaths every year, he was concerned by this strain.

"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," Besser said at an Atlanta news conference.

New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said that hundreds of students at St. Francis Preparatory in Queens had developed symptoms consistent with swine flu, although many hadn't been tested to confirm it. Some students there recently went on a spring break trip to Mexico.

There were indications that the outbreak may have spread beyond St. Francis, with officials closing a school for autistic children down the road. Two suspected cases were hospitalized in New York, one has been released and the other is doing well, officials said.

"It is here and it is spreading," Frieden said. "We do not know whether it will continue to spread."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that 82 of 380 students at P.S. 177, a school for autistic children, have called in sick. A third school in Manhattan is being evaluated because students there are sick, Frieden said.

The CDC and states say the U.S. has 66 confirmed cases across six states, with 45 in New York, 11 in California, six in Texas, two in Kansas and one each in Indiana and Ohio.

At least five people have been hospitalized in the U.S., including three in California and two in Texas, Besser said.

The increase is not surprising. For days, CDC officials have said they expected to see more confirmed cases — and more severe illnesses. Health officials across the country have stepped up efforts to look for cases, especially among people with flu-like illness who had traveled to Mexico.

CDC officials also had warned that updates in the number of confirmed cases would at time be disjointed, as different states announce new information before the CDC's national count is updated.

A handful of schools around the country have closed over swine flu fears and some people are wearing masks, but it's mostly business as usual in the U.S., even at border crossings into Mexico.

(This version CORRECTS national figure to 66.)

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Clear Channel cutting 590 radio jobs

SAN ANTONIO – Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest owner of U.S. radio stations, said Tuesday it is cutting 590 jobs, including some on-air personalities, in its second round of mass layoffs this year amid pressure from the recession and evaporating advertising budgets.

Clear Channel's parent company, CC Media Holdings Inc., also said it will suspend its 401(k) match for all employees for the rest of the year, starting Friday. However, if the company hits 90 percent of its budget goals at the end of the year, the matches will be retroactively restored, a company spokeswoman said.

The latest cuts represent 2.7 percent of company's total work force of 22,100. They affect operational jobs like engineering, accounting and customer service, all in the radio division. The company also has an outdoor advertising division, which sells items like billboard space and wasn't affected by the job cuts.

The previous cuts of 1,850 jobs came in January and were also in the radio division, mostly in sales.

Clear Channel didn't break out the latest cuts by geography or job function, but said they do include some on-air personalities, whose identities weren't disclosed. Employees were notified of the cuts Tuesday.

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Swine flu fear catching fast in weak world economy

NEW YORK – The swine flu outbreak is unleashing a side effect the global economy is in no condition to handle: fear.

Travelers are canceling or delaying trips to Mexico, Cuba banned all flights to its neighbor and Argentina announced Tuesday a five-day ban on flights arriving from Mexico. China, Russia and South Korea have banned imports of some North American pork, despite assurances that the flu is not spread through meat. Investors just starting to regain their nerve have again caught the jitters.

The threat of a pandemic comes just as the world economy is showing the barest glimmerings of what analysts say might be the light at the end of what remains a long, dark tunnel. And now this.

"This is just another negative shock when the economy can least afford another negative shock," said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia Corp.

So far, fear of the flu is at least as responsible for the economic disruption as the disease itself.

The number of confirmed cases in the United States climbed to 66, and federal officials warned that deaths were likely. In New York, the city's health commissioner said "many hundreds" of schoolchildren were ill at a school where some students had confirmed cases.

President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the disease.

Economists remember well the financial damage the SARS outbreak inflicted in 2003. An epidemic of that scale or greater could inflict severe damage on a global economy already badly listing.

"On top of a synchronized global financial and economic crisis, an outbreak of swine fever is the last thing we need just now," Neil MacKinnon, chief economist at The ECU Group PLC, based in London, wrote this week.

There are already early signs that swine flu fear is taking an economic toll.

In Mexico City, canceled events and closed movie theaters, night clubs, museums and other establishments are costing at least $57 million a day, according to city's Chamber of Trade, Services and Tourism.

That's a 36 percent drop in revenue generated by tourism and services in the Mexican capital, chamber president Arturo Mendicuti said.

Royal Caribbean Cruises suspended stops at Mexican ports indefinitely, and Carnival Cruise Lines canceled Mexico port calls through May 4. Norwegian Cruise Line canceled the Norwegian Pearl's final two calls in Mexico this week and said its schedules do not include any other ports in Mexico until the end of September 2009.

In Chicago, traders bid down the price of pork futures Tuesday for a second straight day, reflecting what analysts say are consumer worries about catching the virus from meat. The drop in prices came even as China — the third-biggest market for exports of U.S. pork — banned shipments of the meat from California, Texas and Kansas, along with those from Mexico. Russia and South Korea have announced similar measures.

The bans caused consternation for U.S. pork farmers, despite assurances from public health agencies that the flu isn't spread by eating meat.

"We have everybody ... all saying pork is safe to eat and that this isn't in the swine herd, definitely not in the U.S. swine herd," said Dave Warner, of the National Pork Producers Council. "I think the economics right now is being driven by fear of what could happen, rather that what really is happening."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack even pushed to change the name of swine flu to protect the hog market.

The danger of economic fallout helps explain the cautious stance of the World Health Organization, which has not recommended travel restrictions as it has in previous outbreaks.

WHO, accountable to its member countries, is a health agency, but its policies are driven at least partly by financial considerations. In recent years, the agency has shied away from actions that might upset member nations. Dr. Margaret Chan, the agency's head, has repeatedly said that her priority is to serve her countries.

That is in direct contrast to the strong action WHO took to contain the SARS epidemic in 2003, when it issued travel advisories that recommended postponing nonessential travel to cities including Hong Kong, Beijing and Toronto.

The economic impact was devastating as air traffic slowed to a crawl. Canada was so incensed it sent a delegation to WHO's Geneva headquarters to protest. But WHO's leader at the time, Gro Harlem-Brundtland of Norway, insisted the advisories were necessary to contain SARS.

Ultimately, world health experts say the travel advisories sharply cut the spread of SARS.

"There really is a careful balance between scaring people and downplaying it too much. And the reason why that's so important is that the various interventions that are available to public health authorities all have a cost associated with them," said Ross Hammond, part of a group at the Brookings Institution that builds computer models to study how pandemics and public fears interact.

On Monday, WHO increased its alert level from 3 to 4 — out of 6. Its influenza chief, Keiji Fukuda, warned that "at this time containment is not a feasible option," rejecting calls for a travel ban or other restrictions on Mexico or the United States.

"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said. "There was much more economic disruption caused by these measures than there was public health benefit."

The SARS virus — which killed nearly 800 people — wreaked most of its damage in Asia. In Hong Kong, businesses shut and the number of tourists plunged by 70 percent. The local economy contracted by about 9 percent in the second quarter of 2003, when the epidemic was at its peak.

But the damage also sent wide ripples. In Canada, particularly greater Toronto, the outbreak sharply reduced tourism, and kept even residents home rather than out shopping. The city's economy lost about $950 million, a contraction of about 0.5 percent, according to The Conference Board of Canada.

The SARS outbreak was short-lived and came at a time of relative economic stability. Today's economy can ill afford such a setback. But the worry reflected in stock markets is about the possibility, still remote, that a new outbreak could erupt into something far more serious.

A report by the World Bank, updated last year, estimated that a severe pandemic — like the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 that killed between 40 million and 100 million people — would cause a nearly 5 percent drop in global economic activity, costing the world about $3.1 trillion.

"Even a mild pandemic has significant consequences for global economic output," a pair of Australian researchers wrote in a 2006 report cited by the World Bank.

In a global recession, a pandemic could present a greater threat. On Friday, the World Bank warned developing nations that slashing public health budgets could put their citizens' health at risk.

Meanwhile, economic markets are waiting to see the fallout.

Fear of a pandemic has to make people wonder. In the U.S., where unemployment is expected to top 10 percent before the end of the year, could the shock of a flu outbreak make it 12 percent instead? Think what that would mean to retailers, to people's ability to pay their mortgages, to companies' ability to get work done.

"When you're steaming full speed ahead and are hit by a torpedo, you can just keep going," Wachovia's Bryson said. "But you take a torpedo after four or five torpedoes which you've already taken, and this could be the thing that sinks the ship."

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this story.

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SKorean experts claim to have cloned glowing dogs

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases. The four dogs, all named "Ruppy" — a combination of the words "ruby" and "puppy" — look like typical beagles by daylight.

But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs' nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye.

Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-chun, head of the research team, called them the world's first transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes, an achievement that goes beyond just the glowing novelty.

"What's significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them," Lee told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

His team identified the dogs as clones of a cell donor through DNA tests and earlier this month introduced the achievement in a paper on the Web site of the journal "Genesis."

Scientists in the U.S., Japan and in Europe previously have cloned fluorescent mice and pigs, but this would be the first time dogs with modified genes have been cloned successfully, Lee said.

He said his team took skin cells from a beagle, inserted fluorescent genes into them and put them into eggs before implanted them into the womb of a surrogate mother, a local mixed breed.

Six female beagles were born in December 2007 through a cloning with a gene that produces a red fluorescent protein that make them glow, he said. Two died, but the four others survived.

The glowing dogs show that it is possible to successfully insert genes with a specific trait, which could lead to implanting other, non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases, Lee said.

The scientist said his team has started to implant human disease-related genes in the course of dog cloning, saying that will help them find new treatments for genetic diseases such as Parkinson's. He refused to provide further details, saying the research was still under way.

A South Korean scientist who created glowing cats in 2007 based on a similar cloning technique said that Lee's puppies are genuine clones, saying he had seen them and had read about them in the journal.

"We can appraise this is a step forward" toward finding cures for human diseases, said veterinary professor Kong Il-keun at South Korea's Gyeongsang National University. "What is important now is on what specific diseases (Lee's team) will focus on."

Lee was a key aide to disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose breakthroughs on stem cell research were found to have been made using faked data. Independent tests, however, later proved the team's dog cloning was genuine.

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Apple adds special 20-inch iMac for educational institutions

During these difficult economic times, schools are feeling the budget pinch as much as any other group. So Apple's decision to begin selling a 2.0GHz 20-inch iMac to educational institutions (PDF link) for $899 couldn't come at a better time. The 20-inch model replaces the 17-inch polycarbonate iMac for education, which Apple was found to be still selling only a few weeks ago.

The iMac includes the same 1,066MHz system bus as the current consumer models, 1GB of DDR3 RAM, a 160GB SATA hard drive, 802.11n wireless networking, a gigabit Ethernet port, four USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, a slot-loading SuperDrive, and Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processing.

The model is only available to educational institutions, not for individual students or faculty. For everyone else, the entry-level iMac is a 2.66GHz 20-inch model with 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive—it runs $1,149 for students, or $1,199 for the general public.

The new education model will be available in four weeks.

source: tech.yahoo.com

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Password Stealers Sit on Popular Download Sites

You might already know that it's easy for the bad guys to buy malware kits and ready-made digital nasties on black market Web sites. But some tools are even easier to pick up, such as a blatant IM password stealer available on a major download site.

A simple search can turn up a keylogger program available for download on numerous sites, including PCWorld.com, with the idea that the tools are offered for personal use to catch someone messing around on your own PC, or perhaps for concerned parents. That may be a thin veneer, but Christopher Boyd posted on the SpywareGuide Greynets Blog the he came across a tool availble as a free download at the oft-visited download.com that exists solely to steal passwords for IM accounts.

The app presents a fake IM app and captures usernames and passwords that are typed into the window, according to Boyd. It's a bit of a stretch to think of how such a tool might be meant for personal use to catch snoops on your own computer, especially with a description like "This is perfect if a visitor is coming round who wants to access their IM account."

Boyd's coverage caught my eye as support for the smart-surfer advice to always assume that any login entered on any public computer is compromised and should have its password changed as soon as you're back at a trusted PC. This tool alone had been downloaded 18,214 times when I checked its listing.

source:tech.yahoo.com

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Goldman 1Q earnings surpass Wall Street estimates

Goldman Sachs, in another sign that banks may be turning around, beat Wall Street's earnings expectations as it reported a profit of $1.66 billion for the first three months of this year. The bank also said it planned to raise $5 billion in stock to help it pay back government bailout funds.

The New York-based bank said it earned $3.39 per share, easily surpassing analysts' forecasts for profit of $1.64 per share. This compares with earnings of $1.47 billion, or $3.23 per share, in the quarter ended Feb. 29 of last year, and is a huge improvement over the $2.29 billion Goldman lost in the fourth quarter.

Goldman's news, released a day earlier than anticipated, came days after another top-performing bank, Wells Fargo & Co., said it expected to report record first-quarter earnings of $3 billion, well above Wall Street's estimates. That news fed a huge stock market rally Thursday, but with companies including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. still to report their first-quarter results, it's too soon to say the banking industry is indeed finally recovering from the devastating losses caused by the credit crisis and the recession.

Investors showed some caution after Goldman's announcement, which followed the close of regular trading on Wall Street. Goldman shares initially rose in response to its report but then slipped 1.5 percent. Citigroup, which surged 25 percent during regular trading, rose a more modest 1 percent in after-hours activity while Bank of America rose 0.7 percent after jumping 15 percent during regular trading. Morgan Stanley fell 3.3 percent in late trading after jumping 6 percent during regular hours.

Morningstar Inc. equity analyst Michael Wong said Goldman benefited from the fact that it has more traditional investment banking and trading operations than more retail-focused banks like Citi and Bank of America.

"What allowed Goldman to outperform is solely tied to their brokerage operations," he said.

Still, Goldman's first-quarter performance put it in a strong enough position to plan the public stock offering of $5 billion which it said would be used, with additional resources, to pay back its government debt. Goldman received $10 billion in government funds during the downturn last fall as part of the U.S. Treasury Department's program to invest directly in hundreds of banks and try and help alleviate the nearly frozen credit markets.

Goldman executives have said for months that the company wanted to repay bailout funds this year, and last month, company spokesman Lucas Van Praag said the main reason Goldman wanted to return the money is that it doesn't need the funds.

Many banks have chafed under restrictions, including limits on executive compensation, imposed by the government as it dispensed the bailout money. The banks have also come under sharp criticism from lawmakers and the public for a variety of business practices.

Goldman said its first-quarter profit was bolstered by strong revenue growth in its fixed income and currency businesses. The Treasury market and the dollar were beneficiaries of investor uncertainty during the first two months of the year; in March, the stock market began a five-week rally that lifted the major indexes off 12-year lows.

Goldman's total revenue was $11.88 billion during the quarter, compared with $18.63 billion in the prior-year quarter. Analysts forecast revenue of $7.19 billion.

Goldman's fourth-quarter loss was its first since becoming a public company in 1999. The company, like other financial firms, was hurt by the plunging value of its investments as the credit crisis eroded the value of mortgage-backed securities, stocks and many other assets.

When Goldman became a bank holding company last fall amid the mushrooming credit crisis, it switched its reporting cycle so its fiscal quarters were in line with calendar quarters beginning Jan. 1. To adjust its reporting schedule, Goldman began fiscal 2009 on Jan. 1 instead of Dec. 1 of last year. The bank said for the month of December, which fell between the change in reporting cycles, it lost $1 billion, or $2.15 per share.

Shifting the start of its fiscal year certainly helped the bank's overall results, said Denise Valentine, senior analyst at Aite Group, a Boston-based research firm.

"It's a little bit of fancy footwork, but for the market as a whole it's good news and it was needed," she said. "When your star does well or does what is expected, you breathe a little easier."

Valentine was quick to note that other areas outside of Goldman's fixed income and currency businesses showed some pain during the quarter.

Investment banking revenue totaled $823 million, down 30 percent year-over-year as far fewer merger deals were done. Its asset management revenue declined 28 percent to $949 million.

Its earnings improvement lends support to what bank CEOs have been saying in recent weeks: That business conditions have started to stabilize.

Encouraging words from several big bank CEOs that they were having a better quarter than most expected have helped fuel hopes for an economic recovery — and led the stock market to its best four-week performance in more than 75 years. Many hinge the end of the recession on the health of the nation's banking system.

Goldman also declared a dividend of 35 cents, down from 46.7 cents but still a healthier payout than many banks have been able to give shareholdeers.

source: news.yahoo.com

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Passenger lands plane in Fla. after pilot dies

Doug White and his family had just enjoyed a smooth takeoff and were ascending through the clouds when the pilot guiding their twin-engine plane tilted his head back and made a guttural sound.

The pilot, Joe Cabuk, was unconscious. And though White had his pilot's license, he had never flown a plane as large as this.

"I need help. I need a King Air pilot to talk to. We're in trouble," he radioed.

Then he turned to his wife and two daughters: "You all start praying hard." Behind him, his wife trembled. Sixteen-year-old Bailey cried. Eighteen-year-old Maggie threw up.

White, 56, landed the plane on his own about 30 minutes later, coaxed through the harrowing ordeal by air traffic controllers who described exactly how to bring the aircraft to safety. The pilot died, but White somehow managed.

When a controller asked whether he was on autopilot, White replied: "I'm in the good Lord's hands flying this Niner Delta Whiskey," giving the code for the aircraft.

White had logged about 150 hours recently flying a single-engine Cessna 172 but had no experience flying the faster, larger King Air. He declared an emergency to air traffic controllers — White already knew how to use the radio. On Sunday afternoon, he got his first lesson landing the larger craft.

They were on their way home from Marco Island, where they'd traveled after his brother died from a heart attack the week before. White owns the King Air plane and leases it out through his company, Archibald, La.-based White Equipment Leasing LLC.

White got his pilot's license in 1990, but said 18 years had passed until he recently started flying again.

White had his wife try to remove the pilot from his seat — afraid that he'd slump down and hit the controls.

But the space was too small. His wife couldn't remove him. They strapped him back in, and White sat at the adjacent set of controls.

White knew they were supposed to stop at 10,000 feet, but he watched as they ascended thousands of feet higher.

Flying the Cessna, White said he's never gone higher than 7,000 feet.

White tried to stay calm and listen to the air traffic controllers as they relayed instructions.

"It was a focused fear," he said. "And I was in some kind of a zone that I can't explain."

One of the air traffic controllers called a friend in Connecticut certified in flying the King Air, 43-year-old Kari Sorenson. Sorenson got out his flight checklists, manuals and cockpit layout sheets and issued instructions to the controller. The controller relayed the process to White.

Sorenson told the New Haven Register he hadn't been up in a King Air since 1994 — but he still had all the manuals, and it came back easily.

"After 3,500 hours in an airplane you get right back in it pretty quickly," said Sorenson, who has more than two decades of flight experience.

At one point, White said he tried putting the autopilot back on, but it steered the plane north, as Cabuk had programmed in the flight's destination in Jackson, Miss. They had planned on dropping White off there, where he'd left his truck, and having Cabuk continue on home to Louisiana with the rest of the family.

Flying by hand, White navigated the plane through the descent.

"When I touch down, if I ever touch down, do I just kill the throttle or what?" he asked.

"That's correct," the controller replied. "When you touch down, slowly kill the throttle."

They landed safety shortly after 2 p.m. Fire trucks and EMTs were waiting on ground.

"Looks good from here," the controller said. "Good job."

White said they tried for about 30 minutes to revive Cabuk, the pilot.

The medical examiner's office has not yet determined his cause of death.

A day after the ordeal, White said he could never have done it without the help of the air traffic controllers.

"Heartfelt thanks," he said. "They don't make near enough money, don't get near enough respect for what they do."

SOURCE : news.yahoo.com

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Hannah Montana tops box office with $34 million

Miley Cyrus and alter-ego Hannah Montana have double-teamed their way to another No. 1 box office debut.

Walt Disney's "Hannah Montana: The Movie" opened with $34 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. That followed Cyrus' first-place premiere last year with her 3-D concert film.

The movie is a big-screen installment of the Disney Channel series about an ordinary teen living a double life as pop star Hannah.

"Hannah Montana" drew $17.3 million on Friday for the biggest opening day ever for a G-rated live-action movie.

While girls 12 and younger and their moms made up most of the audience, "Hannah Montana" also attracted a solid crowd of teenage girls, fans reaching the age when they might be outgrowing the show, said Mark Zoradi, president of Disney's motion-picture group.

"Miley's audience stayed with her," Zoradi said. "Those that enjoyed the show on TV and maybe have become young teens themselves came back for the movie."

The previous weekend's box office champ, "Fast & Furious," fell to second place with $28.8 million. The street-racing thriller raised its domestic take to $118 million, and distributor Universal said its worldwide total has topped $200 million.

Seth Rogen's "Observe and Report" opened at No. 4 with $11.1 million, a fair but unremarkable debut for the Warner Bros. comedy about an emotionally unstable mall cop trying to catch a flasher and gain entry to the police academy.

It was a slightly better opening for Rogen than last fall's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" ($10.1 million) but far below the $20 million and $30 million debuts of his previous comedies "Knocked Up" and "Pineapple Express."

"Observe and Report" was a tougher sell, with Rogen dropping his lovable teddy-bear persona to take on an unsympathetic character.

"This was a little bit darker," said Jeff Goldstein, general sales manager for Warner Bros. "A little older, and a little bit more big city."

The weekend's other new wide release, 20th Century Fox's fantasy adventure "Dragonball: Evolution," debuted at No. 8 with $4.7 million.

Hollywood extended its box office hot streak as overall receipts totaled about $142 million, up 50 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Prom Night" led with $20.8 million.

Revenues this year are at $2.76 billion, up 16.7 percent from 2008's, according to box office tracker Media By Numbers. Accounting for 2009's higher ticket prices, movie attendance is running 15 percent ahead of last year's.

At just 16, Cyrus already has an enviable box office history as she moves from TV to the big screen. "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert" put in a $31.1 million debut, while her animated comedy "Bolt" opened with $26.2 million last fall and became a $100 million hit.

"Her average opening weekend is around $30 million," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. "That's a pretty good track record for a 16-year-old. Her opening-weekend average rivals stars twice her age."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Hannah Montana: The Movie," $34 million.

2. "Fast & Furious," $28.8 million.

3. "Monsters vs. Aliens," $22.6 million.

4. "Observe and Report," $11.1 million.

5. "Knowing," $6.7 million.

6. "I Love You, Man," $6.4 million.

7. "The Haunting in Connecticut," $5.7 million.

8. "Dragonball: Evolution," $4.7 million.

9. "Adventureland," $3.4 million.

10. "Duplicity," $3 million.

source : news.yahoo.com

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5 killed, 7 hurt when boat slams into tug in Fla.

Authorities were investigating Monday why a power boat packed with 12 people slammed into a docked tug boat, killing five occupants of the pleasure craft and seriously injuring 12.

The 22-foot power boat crashed into the rear of the tug at about 7 p.m. Sunday on the Intracoastal Waterway in St. Johns County, about 25 miles southeast of Jacksonville, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Joy Hill. The Intracoastal Waterway runs along Florida's east coastline.

Three of the injured were airlifted from the crash site and all seven were taken to area hospitals, she said.

Hill was not sure whether those on the Crownline boat were tossed into the water during the crash.

She said it doesn't appear anyone was aboard the 25-foot tug boat, which is registered to F&A Enterprises in St. Augustine.

The victims' names have not been released. Hill said investigators were still trying to verify their identities.

"Investigators are looking at anything that may have caused this," Hill said, including the speed and capacity of the boat, lighting conditions and whether alcohol may have been a factor.

The boat was carrying 12 people, according to Jeremy Robshaw of the St. Johns County Fire and Rescue. He told The Florida Times-Union newspaper that three of those injured were in critical condition, with the others in stable condition.

Robshaw said the pier was under construction and rescuers had to lay down planking before they could get to the crash victims.

Herb Davis watched the rescue from the dock at his home down the street.

"There was a lot of moaning," he told the newspaper. "It was very clear, this lady was screaming so loud," he said.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Obama boosts anti-abortion recruitment

The first hint of a stir came just after Election Day, when the computer servers at Americans United for Life crashed. People were swamping the Web site to sign a petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to stand firm against abortion.

“I got a call from one of our guys, ‘We have a problem,’ ” said Charmaine Yoest, the group’s president and chief executive officer. “And I was like, ‘The problem would be what?’ ”

Obama’s first 84 days in office have been like an extended recruiting drive for the anti-abortion movement, reinvigorating a constituency he sought to neutralize during the campaign. Activists report a noticeable spike in activity as Obama moves to defend and expand a woman’s right to choose an abortion – causing anti-abortion voters to mobilize in ways never needed during the Bush administration. So far this year:

—The Susan B. Anthony List says its supporters sent more anti-abortion-related letters, e-mails and faxes to Obama and lawmakers in the first quarter alone than during each of the last two years.

—The American Life League reported a 30 percent uptick in donations over last year.

—Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr., an anti-abortion Democrat who campaigned vigorously for Obama, has received more mail on abortion than on any other issue in 2009, spokesman Larry Smar said.

Activists have sent more than 100,000 postcards urging Casey to oppose the Freedom of Choice Act, which would guarantee the right to abortion in federal law. Obama told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in July 2007 that “the first thing I’d do as president” is sign the act. “It’s been our biggest organized mailing,” Smar said.

—More than 261,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation for Obama to speak at the Catholic university’s May 17 commencement. The petition says Obama has carried out “some of the most anti-life actions of any American president," including expanding taxpayer-funded research on embryonic stem cells.

—And Americans United for Life plans to expand its plans to expand its staff in Washington and, after the post-election crash, recently upgraded its computer system to handle the bump in online activism.

It’s no surprise that Obama supports abortion rights. What’s been surprising to these groups is a quick succession of policy and personnel moves by Obama as president – moves they say belie the words of Candidate Obama, who pledged to change the national conversation about abortion.

“President Obama is losing favor with many who might have supported him at first but have become very disturbed with his actions on pro-life issues,” said the Rev. Frank S. Page, a member of the president’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Some of us have been disturbed with the rapid pace he has moved to dismantle some of the few protections that remain for the unborn.

“The verbalization that he wishes to find common ground – we are just not seeing that,” Page said.

"I am seeing an increase in activity amongst groups that it is time to make the decision makers know what we feel."

The series of decisions started with Obama’s move soon after taking office to lift federal funding restrictions on overseas family planning groups. Later, he moved to repeal Bush-era conscience protections for medical professionals. And his stem-cell decision angered groups that consider it tantamount to ending a human life, because the embryos must be destroyed to retrieve the cells.

But his personnel moves also have caused alarm. Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius fought attempts to dial back abortion rights as Kansas governor. Obama’s communications director Ellen Moran previously ran EMILY’s List, which backed women candidates who supported abortion rights. Obama’s pick to run the powerful Office of Legal Counsel inside the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen, was previously legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in the late 1980s and early 1990s.



The White House took steps earlier this month to shift the narrative. Obama’s chief domestic policy adviser, Melody Barnes, assembled a conference call to kick off its abortion reduction initiative, asking for examples of successful local programs and announcing plans to hold a series of meetings on the issue.

Obama also has appointed at least four religious leaders to the Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships who oppose abortion.

“The president understands that this is a difficult issue with strong perspectives on both sides,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement. “He looks forward to working with a range of partners to reduce unintended pregnancies, support maternal and child health, encourage adoption and reduce the need for abortion.”

These steps haven't mollified the right, where the intensity is strongest. But even some moderates, who have been far less critical of Obama, acknowledge concern in their ranks.

Stephen Schneck, a Catholic University political science professor, took issue with the way Obama handled the stem-cell announcement, saying it lacked sufficient acknowledgement of the moral complexities of the research.

“I'm caught flat-footed by the administration's casualness and lack of public reflection in making this decision,” Schneck wrote in a blog post on the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good website. “But, then, I'm always surprised by progressives who don't understand those of us who are horrified (or even squeamish) about the technological use of embryos.”

Obama should have moved earlier on his “common ground” initiatives as a way to build trust, Schneck said in an interview.

“From the pro-life side, even among those with a fondness for Obama, it would have been nice to see some frontloading,” Schneck said.

To be sure, anti-abortion voters were never going to support Obama wholeheartedly, but because he worked hard during the campaign not to play up his differences with them, any signs that they are mobilized could cause him trouble down the road.

Obama won the Catholic vote in November, and did better among Protestants than 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry.

In a poll released last week, Obama’s disapproval ratings among Catholic and Protestant voters rose between February and April, but it was consistent with an increase in dissatisfaction among all voters. The fluctuation among white evangelicals was more severe, according to the survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press. A 31 percent disapproval rating in February jumped to 47 percent in April, making it one of the steeper spikes among demographic groups.

Despite his criticism, Page, the former Southern Baptist Convention president, said the White House remains open to listening. He pressed aides last week about the conscience regulation, and “felt a slight bit of encouragement” that doctors who do not believe in abortions will be protected, Page said.

And some moderate anti-abortion advocates stand by Obama. Catholics United and three other groups started an online petition in support of Obama at Notre Dame that already has received more than 33,100 signatures.

Douglas Kmiec, a former legal counsel to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush who crafted the Catholic case for Obama in 2008, echoed the sentiments of progressives last month while defending his continued support for the president.

“So the political antagonists of the president can ‘call me out’ if they want,” Kmiec wrote in response to questions from the U.S. News and World Report blog “God and Country.”

“Though, I think their time would be better spent seeing the larger picture of the economic and related cultural challenges which face the nation and how the president brings great intelligence and open-mindedness to the needs of many who previously were invisible to the governmental process.”

But anti-abortion activists say their e-mail lists, grassroots organization and online traffic show something is happening.

“A lot of activists are waking up,” said Joy Yearout, political director the Susan B. Anthony List. “For eight years we had President Bush and his veto pen to protect us – and we don’t have that anymore.”

source : news.yahoo.com

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US captain's rescue raises stakes in piracy ops

The killing of three Somali pirates in the dramatic U.S. Navy rescue of a cargo ship captain has sparked concern for other hostages and fears that the stakes have been raised for future hijackings in the busy Indian Ocean shipping lane.

Sunday's rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips followed a shootout at sea on Friday by French navy commandos, who stormed a pirate-held sailboat, killed two pirates and freed four French hostages. The French owner of the vessel was also killed in the assault.

The two operations may have been a setback for the pirates, but they are unlikely to quell the brigands, who have vowed to avenge the deaths of their comrades.

Experts indicated that piracy in the Indian Ocean off Somalia, which transformed one of the world's busiest shipping lanes into one of its most dangerous, has entered a new phase with the Navy SEAL rescue operation of Phillips.

It "could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

The International Maritime Bureau said Monday it supported the action by the U.S. and French navies, but cautioned it may spark retaliatory moves by pirates.

"We applaud the U.S. and the French action. We feel that they are making the right move, although the results sometimes may be detrimental," said Noel Choong of the IMB's piracy center in Kuala Lumpur.

He did not elaborate, but for families of the 228 foreign nationals aboard 13 ships still held by pirates, the fear is revenge on their loved ones.

"Those released are lucky, but what about those who remain captive?" said Vilma de Guzman, the wife of Filipino seafarer Ruel de Guzman. He has been held by pirates since Nov. 10 along with the 22 other Filipino crew of the chemical tanker MT Stolt Strength.

The U.S. rescue operation "might be dangerous (for) the remaining hostages because the pirates might vent their anger on them," she said.

So far, Somali pirates have never harmed captive foreign crews except for a Taiwanese crew member who was killed under unclear circumstances. In fact, many former hostages say they were treated well and given sumptuous food.

The pirates had operated with near-impunity in the Gulf of Aden north of Somalia, and more recently in waters south of the country after a multinational naval force began patrolling the Gulf.

Choong said there have been 74 attacks this year with 15 hijackings as compared to 111 attacks for all of last year.

The modus operandi of the pirates is simple: Board unarmed or lightly armed merchant ships, fire shots in the air or at the hull to intimidate the crew, divert the ships to hide-outs on the Somali coast and wait for the owners to pay millions of dollars in ransom.

But the game changed last week when the pirates boarded the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. In an act of courage, Phillips offered himself as hostage in return for the safety of his crew.

The pirates transferred the 53-year-old Phillips, a Vermont native, to a lifeboat. But the pirates had not counted on the U.S. military's resolve. After a five-day standoff during which a small U.S. flotilla tailed the lifeboat, Navy SEAL snipers on a destroyer shot and killed three pirates and plucked an unharmed Phillips to safety. A fourth pirate surrendered.

The comrades of the slain pirates immediately threatened retaliation.

"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them," said Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told The Associated Press by telephone from the pirate hub, Eyl.

Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town, told the AP that pirates will not take the U.S. action lying down.

"We will retaliate for the killings of our men," he said.

Giles Noakes, chief maritime security officer of the largest international shipping association, the Denmark-based BIMCO, says it is premature to say Philips' rescue will lead to an escalation of violence.

"The question here is whether there will be a change of attitude in the pirates and in their modus operandi. We hope the change will be that they will be even more deterred because of the successful action by both the Maersk Alabama crew and the navies," he said.

Many of the governments whose ships have been captured — including Taiwan's Win Far 161 with a multinational crew of 30 — are in talks with the pirates and would not comment on the consequences of the American rescue for fear of jeopardizing the negotiations.

"We are monitoring the situation closely, but the ship owner wants to keep a low profile to help with their negotiation with the abductors," Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Henry Chen said.

He said the crew, comprising 17 Filipinos, six Indonesians, five Chinese and two Taiwanese, were safe as of Monday.

Some families also wonder if Phillips' rescue drew so much of attention because of his nationality.

"It's difficult when the ship's crew are all Filipinos because we are ignored," said de Guzman. "Maybe if there are Japanese, Koreans or British among the crew, the case would get more attention."

source : news.yahoo.com

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Rain brings wildfire relief to North Texas, Okla.

Rainstorms have drenched most of North Texas and parts of Oklahoma, helping firefighters contain several large blazes that have burned for days.

Wildfires have burned more than 192,000 acres across North Texas.

In a white-clapboard church spared by wildfires that ravaged rural Stoneburg last week, a pastor offered words of hope to his congregation on Easter Sunday.

"It's devastating to see, but hope springs eternal," the Rev. Larry Kennedy told about 40 people, including some children in pink and green Easter dresses, at Stoneburg Baptist Church.

Firefighters managed to save the church, which was built in the 1940s. The odor of burned debris lingered Sunday from the blackened fields and heaps of ashes and charred cars in town.

"It's hard to see," said church member Marilyn Rater, wiping away tears as she looked across the street at the debris of her childhood home, "but it could have been worse." The couple who lived there had escaped unharmed.

The blazes were finally contained Sunday after early morning rainfall, said Montague County Sheriff Paul Cunningham.

David Abernathy, a forest service operations section chief, said Sunday that the rains were a tremendous help. He says many weary firefighters have been given a chance to rest or return home.

Wind-fueled fires in Montague County in North Texas engulfed 75,000 acres of parched pastures Thursday and up to 100 homes. Three people died and two were injured.

In neighboring Oklahoma, showers and thunderstorms helped exhausted firefighters extinguish blazes that flared in Oklahoma, Carter and Stephens counties on Saturday, officials said.

"We had crews out for about four hours Saturday, but we've gotten well over an inch of rain and that's helped us immensely," said Jerry Lojka, fire marshal for hard-hit Midwest City. "Anything left smoldering last night was taken care of and there have been no new fires."

The rain came days after wind-whipped fires destroyed about 170 homes statewide and injured 62 people, two seriously. Fire investigators haven't determined what started most of the blazes, but Lojka has said the Oklahoma County fire was intentionally set.

On Sunday, he said the investigation into the fire was ongoing.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Sony PS3 Outsells Nintendo Wii in Japan

Sony Corp's PlayStation3 outsold Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii in March for the first time in 16 months in Japan thanks to the hot new PS3 titles from Sega Sammy and Capcom, a game magazine publisher said.

Video game sales are closely watched for hints on how soon Sony can turn around its struggling game operations and how much growth momentum Nintendo has left.

Domestic sales of the PS3 came to 146,948 units in the five weeks through March 29, compared with 99,335 units of the Wii and 43,172 units of Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Xbox 360, Enterbrain said on Monday.

The latest versions of popular action adventure series from Sega Sammy Holdings Inc and Capcom Co Ltd—"Ryu Ga Gotoku 3" and "Resident Evil 5," respectively—came in first and second in game software sales in the period, helping drive PS3 demand.

Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Etsuko Tamura said that despite its strong showing in March, the PS3 is unlikely to threaten the Wii's global dominance as more software makers are focusing development resources on the Wii, a console with the largest user base among the current generation of hardware.

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New Malware Specifically Targets Firefox

The malware resembles DNSChanger, a common DNS hijacking threat, but operates differently. Instead of hacking the registry to change DNS, the new variant throws a DLL into the C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components directory and therefore runs inside the browser.

This is not a vulnerability in Firefox in any sense; in order for this to happen the user has to run a malicious program as Administrator or some other privileged account. But it does show that some malware authors see enough potential in Firefox to write special malware for it. The use of a DLL does make the malware specific to Windows, although it may be possible to write versions for other platforms as well.

Like DNSChanger it intercepts certain operations, like search requests, and redirects them through a Ukrainian host previously used by DNSChanger.

A second piece of Firefox adware came bundled with the installer for a 3rd party Firefox plugin called PlayMP3z. The terms of service agreement that everyone just clicks through explicitly permits the software. It's called Foxicle and it generates popup and popunder ads. Once again this isn't Firefox's fault; you chose to install it, you got what you asked for.

Success for the early entries in the Firefox malware market could set a signal for other IE-only players that it's time to go cross-platform.

Source: Yahoo! News

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IBM, Mayo Form Open-source Health IT Consortium

Biomedical informatics researchers at IBM and the Mayo Clinic have launched a new open-source consortium focused on natural language processing (NLP), in an effort to help doctors share diagnosis and treatment information.

The Open Health Natural Language Processing Consortium, announced Thursday, will focus on technology to allow for large-scale data aggregation, allowing doctors to mine medical records in their specialties to find similar cases to study before making difficult diagnoses or before determining treatment.

Doctors will be able to review any physician notes on similar cases, but no personally identifiable patient information will be available in the database, IBM and Mayo said.

With the launch of the consortium, the two organizations have released two projects under open-source licenses, one focused on clinical notes and one on pathology reports. The consortium is using the Apache license, version 2.0.

The organizations are inviting others to help develop NLP tools. "By making it an open-source initiative, we hope to enable wide use of these NLP tools so medical advancements can happen faster and more efficiently," Dr. Christopher Chute, a Mayo Clinic bioinformatics expert and senior consultant on the project, said in a statement.

Two other health care organizations, Seattle Group Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, plan to participate in the consortium, and other participants are welcome, IBM and Mayo said.

As more health care providers adopt electronic health records, it will become increasingly important to be able to search those records, the organizations said. Mayo and IBM have developed a system for extracting information from more than 25 million text-based clinical notes based on IBM's open-source Unstructured Information Management Architecture, or UIMA, they said.

The two organizations have also developed a system to extract cancer diseases characteristics from pathology reports, allowing for the computation of cancer stage.

"Large-scale information extraction from the clinical narrative is a vital component in advancing translational research and patient care," Guergana Savova, a medical informatics specialist and Mayo's lead on the project, said in a statement. "It 'unlocks' the clinical textual data that resides in huge repositories. Such technology would allow for large-scale data aggregation, analyses and usage -- just imagine the power of data from millions of patients."

The organizations have not yet determined what NLP projects to work on next, an IBM spokeswoman said. "The goal is to first get feedback from participating institutions on the initial project, and then expand," she said.

Source: Yahoo! Tech

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Skype Fuels FCC Fight for an Open Wireless Internet

Skype's free iPhone application is stirring up debate again. Available on Apple's App Store on March 31, the app first stirred debate after being blocked by Deutsche Telekom in Germany. Now Skype is fueling debate on network neutrality.

Skype's Voice over Internet Protocol app gives users Skype calling and instant messaging on Apple iPhones and second-generation iPod touches. The application, which saw more than one million downloads in the first two days after being made available, allows users to make calls on the iPhone over a Wi-Fi connection, but not on AT&T's 3G cellular network.

The limitation, which has been formally imposed by Apple's App Store policies, has caused groups such as the Free Press to ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether Apple and AT&T are breaking federal rules. The Free Press wants the FCC to clarify whether its Internet Policy Statement for an open Internet applies to wireless service providers who also offer broadband Internet access service.

Competition at Core

The Free Press complaint comes after a senior AT&T official was quoted in USA Today as saying that AT&T expects its vendors to not facilitate the services of competitors. That statement indicates it won't be developers who have control over wireless innovations, but wireless carriers through restrictive language used to control the use of applications and services on their network, according to the Free Press.

The Free Press says the mobile Internet should be as free as the Internet users access from fixed locations.

"This issue is not new -- it is simply unresolved," said Ben Scott, policy director at the Free Press. "Wise voices at the FCC have long said that the Internet Policy Statement applies to wireless. As more and more consumers begin to access the Internet wirelessly, it is critical that the FCC clarifies that online consumer protections that prohibit blocking are the same regardless of how we access the Web."

Analyst Michael Gartenberg said carriers may have to come to terms with VoIP applications such as Skype's becoming competitors, but added that in this case the developer may have made the decision.

"It seems like app functionality is determined by the app developer," Gartenberg said. "(There are) lots of reasons why Skype might not have wanted to use 3G for calls."

Consumer Rights and Choice

Scott, however, sees the situation as a step back for consumer rights. "These limitations fly in the face of the consumer rights contained in the Internet Policy Statement, and the commission should reaffirm that the Internet Policy Statement applies to wireless networks," Scott said in his letter to FCC Acting Chairman Michael Copps.

Skype is supporting Free Press' actions. As long as consumers are not harming the network, they should be entitled to use the products they pay for, Christopher Libertelli, a senior director of government and regulatory affairs for Skype, told The Wall Street Journal.

Source : Yahoo! Tech

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Male Infertility Treatment Boosts Sperm Count

A hormone-antioxidant combination therapy appears to improve sperm count and motility in infertile men, according to an Egyptian study.

The research included 60 men eligible for infertility treatment. They were randomly selected to take either the combination treatment of clomiphene citrate and vitamin E or a placebo for six months. By the end of the study, their partner's pregnancy rate was about 37 percent among men who'd taken the combination therapy, compared with 13 percent for those in the placebo group.

The men in the treatment group also had a greater increase in sperm concentration and an improvement in sperm progression, the Cairo University researchers found.

The study was published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Clomiphene citrate (Clomid or Serophene) is an anti-estrogen drug designed as a fertility medicine for women but sometimes used to boost sperm production in men with low sperm counts and poor sperm motility. Vitamin E helps counter oxidative stress, which is associated with sperm DNA damage and reduced sperm motility.

"The results of this study will be encouraging to male factor patients and their doctors," Dr. R. Dale McClure, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said in a society news release. "However, more research is needed to determine how the components of the combination therapy affect the different semen parameters observed and the advantages of using these drugs singly or in combination with other drugs not used in this study."

Source : Yahoo! News

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French hospital performs face, hand transplants

Dozens of doctors working in teams over 30 hours performed the world's first simultaneous partial-face and double-hand transplant during the weekend, Paris' Public Hospital authority said Monday.

The authority described the recipient as a 30-year-old burn victim. The man, whose name was not released, was injured in a 2004 accident that left him with scars "preventing any social life," it said.

The authority's statement said the operation, performed over Saturday and Sunday at the Henri Mondor hospital in the Paris suburb of Creteil, was the world's sixth partial-face transplant but the first to include hands as well.

In a first, the upper half of the man's face, including the scalp, forehead, nose, ears and upper and lower eyelids, were transplanted. Previous facial transplants have attached the lower part of the face.

The man also received a new set of hands, attached above the wrist, the statement said. The surgery succeeded in reconnecting all the relevant nerves, tendons, arteries and veins.

The organs were harvested from a brain-dead donor with his family's consent. The transplant patient had been on the waiting list for the organs for one year, the authority said.

A French woman, Isabelle Dinoire, underwent the first partial face transplant in 2005 in Amiens, France. Other recipients include another European patient, a Chinese farmer and a woman operated on late last year in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dinoire was disfigured when her dog chewed her face after she passed out from an overdose of sleeping pills. She lost part of her nose, lips, chin, and parts of her cheeks.

French doctors gave Dinoire, then 38, a new face from a brain-dead donor, as well as bone marrow cells that they hoped would prevent rejection. Dinoire still had two instances of rejection — one month after her surgery and again a year later.

Other recipients have also have been plagued by rejection — a problem that worries Dr. Patrick Warnke, a professor of surgery at the University of Kiel in Germany who has expressed skepticism about the procedure.

"I think the hype about face transplants is too much," he said in a phone interview Monday.

He pointed to the risk of long-term use of immuno-suppression drugs aimed at preventing rejection, which he said could cause cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

"I'm worried that patients don't understand what it means to be on these drugs for the rest of their lives," he said.

source : Yahoo! News

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Obama to Muslim world: No US war with Islam

swormeDeclaring the U.S. "is not and never will be at war with Islam," President Barack Obama worked Monday to mend frayed ties with NATO ally Turkey and improve relations with the larger Muslim world.

Obama acknowledged still-raw tensions over the Iraq war but said Muslims worldwide have little in common with terrorists such as al-Qaida and have much to gain in opposing them. Reaching out, he also spoke of Muslim connections in his own background.

"We seek broader engagement based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," Obama said in a speech to Turkey's Parliament.

It was his first visit to a predominantly Islamic nation as president, and he struck a balance between extending a hand to Muslims in general and discussing Turkey's central role in helping to bring stability to a post-war Iraq and the wider Middle East.

"Our partnership with the Muslim world is critical, not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people," he said. He portrayed terrorist groups such as al-Qaida as extremists far removed from the vast majority of Muslims.

Turkey has NATO's largest Army after the U.S., but relations between the two countries soured after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the Turks opposed. Turkey barred U.S. forces from going through its country to attack Iraq.

Now, however, since Obama is withdrawing troops, Turkey has become more cooperative.

Sharing parts of its southern border with Iraq, Turkey's role in maintaining security will be pivotal after U.S. combat troops are gone, despite the Turks' lingering problems with Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. Turkey also has important leverage with both Afghanistan and Pakistan and has served as a broker between Israel and several Arab states.

"Turkey's greatness lies in your ability to be at the center of things. This is not where East and West divide — this is where they come together," Obama said.

He acknowledged hard feelings over Iraq. "I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. So let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam."

Obama's visit was closely watched by an Islamic world that harbored deep distrust of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, two of the biggest Arabic satellite channels, carried his remarks live.

The president invoked his own heritage: "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them."

Obama's Kenyan father and grandfather were Muslims, and he spent time as a child in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population.

The president spoke for about 25 minutes from a small white-marble-and-teak rostrum in the well of a vast, airy chamber packed with Turkish lawmakers in orange leather chairs.

Except for a few instances of polite applause, the room was quiet during his speech. There was a more hearty ovation toward the end when Obama said the U.S. supports the Turkish government's battle against the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which both nations consider a terrorist group, and again when he said America was not at war with Islam. Lawmakers also applauded when Obama said the United States supports Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

Ankara and Istanbul were the final scheduled stops on Obama's eight-day international tour. He began by attending the Group of 20 economic summit in London, then he celebrated NATO's 60th anniversary in Strasbourg, France, and visited the Czech Republic for a summit of European Union leaders.

Turkey is a member of both the G-20 and NATO and is trying to get into the EU with the help of the U.S.

"Some people have asked me if I chose to continue my travels to Ankara and Istanbul to send a message," Obama said. "My answer is simple: Evet. Yes. Turkey is a critical ally. Turkey is an important part of Europe. And Turkey and the United States must stand together — and work together — to overcome the challenges of our time."

Obama's strong support for Turkish membership in the EU, which he reiterated on Sunday at the meeting in Prague, has chagrined some U.S. allies, including France and Germany, which contend America has no say in the matter.

Obama acknowledged the point, but said he was speaking "as a friend" of both Europe and Turkey.

"Turkey is bound to Europe by more than bridges over the Bosporus. Centuries of shared history, culture and commerce bring you together," he said. "And Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe's foundation once more."

Obama began the day paying tribute to the memory of modern Turkey's founding father. "I'm honored to pay tribute to his name," Obama said at wreath-laying ceremony during a morning visit to the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

In his later remarks to Parliament, Obama said Ataturk's "greatest legacy is Turkey's strong and secular democracy, and that is the work that this assembly carries on today."

He also met, separately, with President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

In a news conference with Gul, Obama stood by his 2008 assertion that Ottoman Turks carried out widespread killings of Armenians early in the 20th century. But he stopped short of repeating the word "genocide" that he has used.

"Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed views," Obama said.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in the years leading up to and during World War I, event viewed by many scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, claiming the toll has been inflated and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest.

On the sidelines of a dinner Monday night, Obama huddled with the foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia and Switzerland, said a senior White House official. Obama commended their efforts to bring about normalized Turkish-Armenian relations and urged them to complete the talks "with dispatch," the official said.

In his speech to Parliament — formally the Turkish Grand National Assembly — Obama said, "History, unresolved, can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future."

"I say this as the president of a country that not too long ago made it hard for someone who looks like me to vote. But it is precisely that capacity to change that enriches our countries," said America's first black president.

Turkey maintains a small military force in Afghanistan, part of the NATO contingent working with U.S. troops to beat back the resurgent Taliban and deny al-Qaida a safe haven along lawless stretches of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Turkey's participation carries enormous symbolic importance to the Muslim world. It has offered to help the U.S. train and support Afghan security forces.

In his news conference with Gul, Obama addressed the rift in U.S. and Turkish relations over Iraq. "I do not think they ever deteriorated so far that we ceased to be friends and allies. What I hope to do is build on what is already a strong foundation," he said.

source : yahoo! news

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Strong quake in Italy kills over 150, wounds 1,500

Rescue workers using bare hands and buckets searched frantically for students believed buried in a wrecked dormitory after Italy's deadliest quake in nearly three decades struck this medieval city before dawn Monday, killing more than 150 people, injuring 1,500 and leaving tens of thousands homeless. The 6.3-magnitude earthquake buckled both ancient and modern buildings in and around L'Aquila, snuggled in a valley surrounded by the snowcapped Apennines' tallest peaks.

It also took a severe toll on the centuries-old castles and churches in the mountain stronghold dating from the Middle Ages, and the Culture Ministry drew up a list of landmarks that were damaged, including collapsed bell towers and cupolas.

The quake, centered near L'Aquila about 70 miles northeast of Rome, struck at 3:22 a.m., followed by more than a dozen aftershocks.

Firefighters with dogs and a crane worked feverishly to reach people trapped in fallen buildings, including a dormitory of the University of L'Aquila where a half- dozen students were believed trapped inside.

After nightfall Monday, rescuers found a scared-looking dog with a bleeding paw in the half-collapsed dorm. Relatives and friends of the missing stood wrapped in blankets or huddled under umbrellas in the rain as rescuers found pieces of furniture, photographs, wallets and diaries, but none of the missing.

The body of a male student was found during the daylight hours.

"We managed to come down with other students but we had to sneak through a hole in the stairs as the whole floor came down," said Luigi Alfonsi, 22, his eyes filling with tears and his hands trembling. "I was in bed — it was like it would never end as I heard pieces of the building collapse around me."

Elsewhere in town, firefighters reported pulling a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-man from a pancaked five-story apartment building where many students had rented flats.

Amid aftershocks, survivors hugged one another, prayed quietly or tried to call relatives. Residents covered in dust pushed carts of clothes and blankets that they had thrown together before fleeing their homes.

Slabs of walls, twisted steel supports, furniture and wire fences were strewn in the streets, and gray dust was everywhere. A body lay on the sidewalk, covered by a white sheet.

Residents and rescue workers hauled debris from collapsed buildings by hand or in a bucket brigade. Firefighters pulled a woman covered in dust from her four-story home. Rescue crews demanded quiet as they listened for signs of life from inside.

RAI television showed rescue workers gingerly pulling a man clad only in his underwear from a crumbled building. He embraced one of his rescuers and sobbed loudly as others placed a jacket around his shoulders. Although shaken and covered in dust, the man was able to walk.

Some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed, officials said. L'Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente said about 100,000 people were homeless. It was not clear if his estimate included surrounding towns.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi said in a TV interview that more than 150 people were killed and more than 1,500 were injured. He had already declared a state of emergency, freeing federal funds for the disaster, and canceled a trip to Russia.

The quake hit 26 towns and cities around L'Aquila. Castelnuovo, a hamlet of about 300 people southeast of L'Aquila, appeared hard hit with five confirmed dead. The town of Onno, population 250, was almost leveled.

Pope Benedict XVI prayed "for the victims, in particular for children," and sent a condolence message to the archbishop of L'Aquila, the Vatican said. Condolences poured in from around the world, including from President Barack Obama.

Parts of L'Aquila's main hospital were evacuated due to the risk of collapse, and only two operating rooms were in use. Bloodied victims waited in corridors or a courtyard, and many were being treated in the open. A field hospital was being set up.

The four-star, 133-room Hotel Duca degli Abruzzi in L'Aquila's historic center was heavily damaged but still standing, said Ornella De Luca of the national civil protection agency in Rome.

Though not a major tourist destination like Rome, Venice or Florence, L'Aquila boasts ancient fortifications and tombs of saints.

Many Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance landmarks were damaged, including part of the red-and-white stone basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio. The church houses the tomb of its founder, Pope Celestine V — a 13th-century hermit and saint who was the only pontiff to resign from the post.

The bell tower of the 16th-century San Bernardino church and the cupola of the Baroque Sant'Agostino church also fell, the ministry said. Stones tumbled down from the city's cathedral, which was rebuilt after a 1703 earthquake.

"The damage is more serious than we can imagine," said Giuseppe Proietti, a Culture Ministry official. "The historic center of L'Aquila has been devastated."

The city's own cultural offices, housed in a 16th-century Spanish castle, were shut down by damage, Proietti said. The damaged fortifications, once perfectly preserved, are also home to a museum of archaeology and art.

L'Aquila, whose name means "The Eagle" in Italian, was built around 1240 by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and was under French, Spanish and papal domination during the centuries. The high-flying bird was both the emblem of Frederick and reflects the 2,300-foot altitude of the proud city.

Proietti said in a telephone interview that reports from the countryside showed many villages around L'Aquila had been heavily damaged, including churches "of great historical interest."

Damage to monuments was reported as far as Rome, with minor cracks at the thermal baths built in the 3rd century by Emperor Caracalla, he said.

A makeshift tent city was set up on a sports field on the outskirts of L'Aquila. Civil protection officials distributed bread and water to evacuees.

"It's a catastrophe and an immense shock," said Renato Di Stefano, who moved his family to the camp. "It's struck in the heart of the city. We will never forget the pain."

It was Italy's deadliest quake since Nov. 23, 1980, when one measuring 6.9-magnitude hit southern regions, leveling villages and killing 3,000.

Many modern structures have failed to hold up to the rigors of quakes along Italy's mountainous spine or in coastal cities like Naples. Despite warnings by geologists and architects, some of these buildings have not been retrofitted for seismic safety.

"The collapses that occurred in Abruzzo involved houses that weren't built to withstand a quake that wasn't particularly violent," said Enzo Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.

"We get all worked up after every earthquake, but it's not in our culture to construct buildings the right way in a quake zone, that is, build buildings that can resist (quakes) and retrofit old ones. This has never been done," Boschi said.

The last major quake in central Italy was a 5.4-magnitude temblor that struck the south-central Molise region on Oct. 31, 2002, killing 28 people, including 27 children who died when their school collapsed.

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