JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Nelson Mandela's grandson says he will contest a court order for him to move the remains of three family members to their original gravesite.
The family feud comes as Mandela, 94, remains in critical condition Sunday in a Pretoria hospital.
The grandson, Mandla Mandela, issued a statement Sunday saying he was compelled to take action against 16 other family members who had pressed the case.
The court orders that the remains of Nelson Mandela's three deceased children should be moved back to the family gravesite in Qunu from the nearby village of Mvezo, according to South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper.
The Mandela family feud over the gravesite is apparently a prelude to a disagreement over where Nelson Mandela's remains will stay.
The Department of Computer Science is proud to congratulate our
students Dor Arad,
Noa Korner
and Mira Shalah, recipients
of the
2013
Anita Borg scholarships, among 39 scholars from Europe, The Middle East and North Africa.
All finalists will receive 7,000 Euro
and will be invited to visit Google?s Engineering Centre in Zurich for a
networking retreat.
Google established the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship in 2003 to encourage
undergraduate and graduate women completing degrees in computer science and
related fields to excel in computing and technology and become active role
models and leaders in the field.
CAIRO (AP) ? Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets Sunday, some in support of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and others to call for his ouster. Here is a look at Egypt's current political standoff, what it means and where it could lead:
___
WHO IS LEADING THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST MORSI AND HIS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD?
A new youth movement called Tamarod, or Rebel, is spearheading the latest campaign aimed at forcing Morsi from office. The group launched a petition drive around three months ago to collect signatures from Egyptians who want the president to step down. Tapping into growing discontent with Morsi over what his critics allege is his failure to effectively tackle the country's pressing problems, Tamarod claims it has collected more than 22 million signatures. The petitions have no legal weight and have not been independently authenticated, but the tally would be ? if verified ? nearly twice the number of votes Morsi received a year ago when he narrowly won the presidency. The main collection of opposition groups, the National Salvation Front, has endorsed Tamarod, and parties under the NSF umbrella helped collect signatures.
CAN THE OPPOSITION REALLY FORCE MORSI TO STEP DOWN?
Morsi, who has three years left in his four-year term, says he has no intention of resigning. The Tamarod organizers and opposition figures say protesters will not leave the streets until he does. If both sides stick to their guns, then the standoff could last for days, maybe even weeks. There are other factors at play, however. If the large numbers in Sunday's mass protests are repeated for days, and are later reinforced by strikes and a civil disobedience campaign, the country would grind to a standstill and significantly ratchet up the pressure on Morsi.
Still, the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group that propelled Morsi to power, has shown little sign of backing down. The group points to Morsi's election victory in a vote that is widely recognized to have been free and fair, and says that forcing Morsi from office will set a dangerous precedent for his successors, an argument Morsi cited in an interview with The Guardian published on Sunday. The only way to challenge Morsi, his supporters say, is through the ballot box.
WHAT ABOUT THE ARMY?
The army chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, called on Morsi and the opposition a week ago to reach an understanding and warned that the military would intervene if the country plunges into civil strife. The remarks were the strongest from the military on the nation's political turmoil since Morsi appointed el-Sissi last August. Since those comments, the army has dispatched reinforcements to bases outside cities across the nation and deployed troops backed by armored vehicles outside vital facilities.
A secretive institution by nature, the army has not tipped its hand on Egypt's current political standoff. It is considered unlikely that the military will stage a coup to depose Morsi. One possible scenario, however, could see troops coming to the defense of opposition protesters if violence breaks out. Such a move would provide a boost to the anti-Morsi camp and likely embolden many more Egyptians to take to the streets confident they would be protected by the military.
On the other hand, the military may see the wave of mass protests as a golden opportunity to get rid of Morsi and the Brotherhood. El-Sissi has not publicly clashed with Morsi, although there have been signs of tension between the two powerful institutions they represent. Some observers say the army has never been comfortable with the president's close ties with Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian chapter that the military has long seen as a threat to stability in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that borders Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Intervening would likely leave the military effectively in charge of the country again, much as it was after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. The military has been sharply criticized for its record running the country over that nearly 17-month period. Critics have blamed it for mismanaging the transition, and accuse it of committing large scale human rights violations, including torturing detainees and conducting virginity tests on women protesters.
WHAT IF THE MILITARY DOES NOT INTERVENE, MORSI REFUSES TO LEAVE OFFICE AND PROTESTS CONTINUE?
The hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets on Sunday chanting "leave!" have dealt a serious blow to Morsi's claim of holding a popular mandate, and it is difficult to see him riding this out without it taking a toll on his authority. The path Morsi chooses, however, may be heavily influenced by his experience as a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a secretive group that spent much of the more than 80 years since its creation underground to avoid government crackdowns. The Brotherhood waited eight decades to rule Egypt, and the prospect of relinquishing power now that they have it after so many years of persecution ? including the execution of some of its most revered leaders ? clearly isn't something the group relishes. Already, Morsi and his Brotherhood supporters have allowed radical Islamist groups with a violent past to take the lead in the campaign to defend the president. They have publicly spoken about "wiping" the protesters and routinely refer to them as "infidels" or paid Mubarak loyalists. But it would be a very risky gamble to unleash them on the opposition, a course of action that could drive Egypt to the brink of civil war, as many have already warned.
But there is the potential for violence on the opposition side as well, particularly if the protests drag on and Morsi holds his ground. Some anti-government protests in the past have devolved into clashes. Over just the past week, anti-Morsi protesters have stormed and ransacked several offices of the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, while clashes in a string of Nile Delta cities and the coastal port city of Alexandria killed at least seven people and wounded hundreds.
IS THERE ROOM FOR COMPROMISE?
So far, neither side appears willing to make concessions. Tamarod and the opposition parties insist that early presidential elections are their bottom line. Morsi has insisted, most recently in an interview published Sunday, that he will not step down.
Raising girls in the Middle East is not for the faint of heart. That was the consensus yesterday of three extraordinary women whose fearless commitment to empowering and educating girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen has inspired millions across the globe and brought them to speak at this year's Aspen Ideas Festival.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh, Nadia Al-Sakkaf, and Farahnaz Ispahani are social innovators who, despite incredible risks, continue to work tirelessly to advance the proposition that education for girls matters and that neither bombs nor bullets will keep them from sending girls to school.
But the risks for girls who don't receive education are even higher -- without education girls in so many countries are sucked into an enduring cycle of poverty, forced marriage, violence, and are never given their rightful place in their respective societies.
On the other hand, the critical link between education and economic development, health, and social mobility is crystal clear. A woman who receives an education will bring in more money for her family and for her community, she will raise healthier children, and she will have far greater social mobility. Investing in girls delivers a proven return on investment.
While that link is painfully clear, there are plenty of challenges in Muslim majority countries that inhibit girls' education, cutting the economic potential for them, their families, their communities, and their countries.
I sat down with Shabana, Nadia, and Farahnaz to discuss these challenges and the opportunities that exist to overcome them. The big takeaways of our conversation were the following:
Education needs to be approached from an inclusive perspective -- winning the support of the men in these girls' lives is critical. Whether they are fathers, brothers, or husbands, men can help stand up to social pressure, if it exists, against educating women. Shabana shared an incredible story of a girl whose father proudly defied the Taliban, ready to sacrifice his life, in order to send his daughter back to school in Kabul.
The legal framework guaranteeing education for girls is indispensible. From the perspective of a Pakistani parliamentarian, Farahnaz spoke passionately about the importance of building the legal framework for universal access to education. Hard-fought gains are far more secure when the law is on their side.
Content matters. Access to education is invaluable, but it is the content of that education that will determine whether it creates strong and knowledgeable women. As Editor-in-Chief of the Yemen Times, Nadia knows the value of producing honest content. She also underscored the challenge facing Yemen in reforming curriculum to foster creativity and encourage even-handed thinking on political, religious, and cultural issues facing Yemen and the Arab world.
Culture is not a monolith. It's a common refrain that the 'culture' in Muslim-majority countries is hostile to educating young girls. That's an analytical crutch that encourages unproductive thinking. In reality, the barriers are far more complicated than 'culture.' History, family, socio-economic status, access, parental education, and misconceptions all play a role in determining whether a girl will receive an education.
While studying these issues and speaking to these visionary young women, I couldn't help but reflect on the prescient Arab Human Development Report, published in 2002 by UNDP. It listed the barriers to development in the Arab world as stemming principally from three deficits: freedom, empowerment of women, and knowledge.
These deficits are the underpinnings for the transformational change that we are seeing across the region. And, the historical disempowerment of women in the Middle East positions them to play an even more important role as change agents and stakeholders in their respective societies. Education is a fundamental part of women's empowerment -- without it, women will not be stakeholders in their respective societies.
Shabana, Nadia, and Farahnaz embody the effort to drive development through women's empowerment and education. They are the change agents. Their voices are being heard, they are reclaiming their place, and they will not retreat. As brave as they are, however, they can't do it alone, so let's help to share their big Idea.
COLLEGE STATION -- Scientists using sophisticated imaging techniques have observed a molecular protein folding process that may help medical researchers understand and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's and cancer.
The study, reported this month in the journal Cell, verifies a process that scientists knew existed but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe, according to Dr. Hays Rye, Texas A&M AgriLife Research biochemist.
"This is a step in the direction of understanding how to modulate systems to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's. We needed to understand the cell's folding machines and how they interact with each other in a complicated network," said Rye, who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
"But that linear sequence of amino acids is not functional," he explained. "It's like an origami structure that has to fold up into a three-dimensional shape to do what it has to do."
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years, but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
"The constraints on getting that protein to fold up into a good 'origami' structure are a lot more demanding," he said. "So, there are special protein machines, known as molecular chaperones, in the cell that help proteins fold."
But how the molecular chaperones help protein fold when it isn't folding well by itself has been the nagging question for researchers.
"Molecular chaperones are like little machines, because they have levers and gears and power sources. They go through turning over cycles and just sort of buzz along inside a cell, driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds," Rye said.
The many chemical reactions that are essential to life rely on the exact three-dimensional shape of folded proteins, he said. In the cell, enzymes, for example, are specialized proteins that help speed biological processes along by binding molecules and bringing them together in just the right way.
"They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle," Rye explained. "And the proteins -- those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami -- are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules and do those chemical reactions.
"If that doesn't happen -- if the protein doesn't get folded up right -- the chemical reaction can't be done. And if it's essential, the cell dies because it can't convert food into power needed to build the other structures in the cell that are needed. Chemical reactions are the structural underpinning of how cells are put together, and all of that depends on the proteins being folded in the right way."
When a protein doesn't fold or folds incorrectly it turns into an "aggregate," which Rye described as "white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise, like crud in the test tube.
"You're dead; the cell dies," he said.
Over the past 20 years, he said, researchers have linked that aggregation process "pretty convincingly" to the development of diseases -- Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, to name a few. There's evidence that diabetes and cancer also are linked to protein folding disorders.
"One of the main roles for the molecular chaperones is preventing those protein misfolding events that lead to aggregation and not letting a cell get poisoned by badly folded or aggregated proteins," he said.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone -- the HSP60.
"They're called HSP for 'heat shock protein' because when the cell is stressed with heat, the proteins get unstable and start to fall apart and unfold," Rye said. "The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try and fix the problem.
"This particular chaperone takes unfolded protein and goes through a chemical reaction to bind the unfolded protein and literally puts it inside a little 'box,'" Rye said.
He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked because, while researchers could see evidence of that happening, no one had ever seen precisely how it happened.
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the "machine" goes through to start the folding action. This clued the researchers that this stalling might make it easier to watch.
They then used cryo-electron microscopy to capture hundreds of thousands of images of the process at very high resolutions which allowed them to reconstruct from two-dimensional flat images a three-dimensional model. A highly sophisticated computer algorithm aligns the images and classifies them in subcategories.
"If you have enough of them you can actually reconstruct and view a structure as a three-dimensional model," Rye said.
What the team saw was this: The HSP60 chaperone is designed to recognize proteins that are not folded from the ones that are. It binds them and then has a separate co-chaperone that puts a "lid" on top of the box to keep the folding intermediate in the box. They could see the box move, and parts of the molecule moved to peel the chaperone box away from the bound protein or "gift" in the box. But the bound protein was kept inside the package where it could then initiate a folding reaction. They saw tiny tentacles, "like a little octopus in the bottom of the box rising up and grabbing hold of the substrate protein and helping hold it inside the cavity."
"The first thing we saw was a large amount of an unfolded protein inside of this cavity," he said. "Even though we knew from lots and lots of other studies that it had to go in there, nobody had ever seen it like this before. We can also see the non-native protein interacting with parts of the box that no one had ever seen before. It was exciting to see all of this for the first time. I think we got a glimpse of a protein in the process of folding, which we actually can compare to other structures."
"By understanding the mechanism of these machines, the hope is that one of the things we can learn to do is turn them up or turn them off when we need to, like for a patient who has one of the protein folding diseases," he said.
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton University, Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&M and Gunnar Schrder at the Institute of Complex Systems in Germany.
###
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Scientists view 'protein origami' to help understand, prevent certain diseasesPublic release date: 28-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
COLLEGE STATION -- Scientists using sophisticated imaging techniques have observed a molecular protein folding process that may help medical researchers understand and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's and cancer.
The study, reported this month in the journal Cell, verifies a process that scientists knew existed but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe, according to Dr. Hays Rye, Texas A&M AgriLife Research biochemist.
"This is a step in the direction of understanding how to modulate systems to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's. We needed to understand the cell's folding machines and how they interact with each other in a complicated network," said Rye, who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
"But that linear sequence of amino acids is not functional," he explained. "It's like an origami structure that has to fold up into a three-dimensional shape to do what it has to do."
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years, but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
"The constraints on getting that protein to fold up into a good 'origami' structure are a lot more demanding," he said. "So, there are special protein machines, known as molecular chaperones, in the cell that help proteins fold."
But how the molecular chaperones help protein fold when it isn't folding well by itself has been the nagging question for researchers.
"Molecular chaperones are like little machines, because they have levers and gears and power sources. They go through turning over cycles and just sort of buzz along inside a cell, driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds," Rye said.
The many chemical reactions that are essential to life rely on the exact three-dimensional shape of folded proteins, he said. In the cell, enzymes, for example, are specialized proteins that help speed biological processes along by binding molecules and bringing them together in just the right way.
"They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle," Rye explained. "And the proteins -- those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami -- are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules and do those chemical reactions.
"If that doesn't happen -- if the protein doesn't get folded up right -- the chemical reaction can't be done. And if it's essential, the cell dies because it can't convert food into power needed to build the other structures in the cell that are needed. Chemical reactions are the structural underpinning of how cells are put together, and all of that depends on the proteins being folded in the right way."
When a protein doesn't fold or folds incorrectly it turns into an "aggregate," which Rye described as "white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise, like crud in the test tube.
"You're dead; the cell dies," he said.
Over the past 20 years, he said, researchers have linked that aggregation process "pretty convincingly" to the development of diseases -- Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, to name a few. There's evidence that diabetes and cancer also are linked to protein folding disorders.
"One of the main roles for the molecular chaperones is preventing those protein misfolding events that lead to aggregation and not letting a cell get poisoned by badly folded or aggregated proteins," he said.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone -- the HSP60.
"They're called HSP for 'heat shock protein' because when the cell is stressed with heat, the proteins get unstable and start to fall apart and unfold," Rye said. "The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try and fix the problem.
"This particular chaperone takes unfolded protein and goes through a chemical reaction to bind the unfolded protein and literally puts it inside a little 'box,'" Rye said.
He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked because, while researchers could see evidence of that happening, no one had ever seen precisely how it happened.
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the "machine" goes through to start the folding action. This clued the researchers that this stalling might make it easier to watch.
They then used cryo-electron microscopy to capture hundreds of thousands of images of the process at very high resolutions which allowed them to reconstruct from two-dimensional flat images a three-dimensional model. A highly sophisticated computer algorithm aligns the images and classifies them in subcategories.
"If you have enough of them you can actually reconstruct and view a structure as a three-dimensional model," Rye said.
What the team saw was this: The HSP60 chaperone is designed to recognize proteins that are not folded from the ones that are. It binds them and then has a separate co-chaperone that puts a "lid" on top of the box to keep the folding intermediate in the box. They could see the box move, and parts of the molecule moved to peel the chaperone box away from the bound protein or "gift" in the box. But the bound protein was kept inside the package where it could then initiate a folding reaction. They saw tiny tentacles, "like a little octopus in the bottom of the box rising up and grabbing hold of the substrate protein and helping hold it inside the cavity."
"The first thing we saw was a large amount of an unfolded protein inside of this cavity," he said. "Even though we knew from lots and lots of other studies that it had to go in there, nobody had ever seen it like this before. We can also see the non-native protein interacting with parts of the box that no one had ever seen before. It was exciting to see all of this for the first time. I think we got a glimpse of a protein in the process of folding, which we actually can compare to other structures."
"By understanding the mechanism of these machines, the hope is that one of the things we can learn to do is turn them up or turn them off when we need to, like for a patient who has one of the protein folding diseases," he said.
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton University, Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&M and Gunnar Schrder at the Institute of Complex Systems in Germany.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Being a Netflix subscriber is almost like being cursed -- sure, you have access to untold troves of streaming TV shows and films, but how do you choose what to watch? The burden of choice weighs heavily on the indecisive Netflix user, trapping them in a labyrinth of enticing categories, familiar recommendations and episode backlogs. Admit it, you don't know jack about picking out a good flick, which is exactly why Netflix created Max, a comedic recommendation engine that gamifies movie night with quick choices, mini games and quirky humor.
Netflix Vice President of Product Innovation Todd Yellin caught up with us at E3 earlier this month to give us a brief demo of the upcoming feature. Yellin parked us in front of a PS3 to demonstrate, pointing out that our screen's topmost category had been replaced by a larger banner. "My mother wanted me to be a lawyer," the Play Max prompt reads. "But my dream is to help you find great stuff to watch." Quirky. Yellin tells us that this is one of several boiler plates the streaming menu provides to lure users into trying Max. A cheeky button beneath the dialogue encourage us to "live our dreams" and give the content recommendation game a spin. Sure, why not?
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Diamond producer De Beers plans to cut costs and use machines more in place of labor as it strives to become leaner and more flexible in response to a tougher world economic environment, the company's chief executive said.
De Beers' owner Anglo American has just changed its own management and is in the middle of a three-month review, the outcome of which will likely include steps to improve the performance of the world's biggest diamond producer by value.
Philippe Mellier and another senior executive, Varda Shine, told Reuters that De Beers was working on a wide range of ideas including a new automatic grading machine, which would "get rid of the human element" in grading diamonds.
It also hopes to introduce a screening machine by the end of the year that can detect synthetic stones among small, or melee, diamonds.
"We currently have a big project that is looking at integrating the mining companies processes and systems together with the midstream sorting operations all the way to sales," Shine said in the interview in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
"(We need) to make sure that we are able to become leaner and more flexible because the world is much more volatile today."
Both executives shied away from saying whether that would add up to consolidation of some of the company's businesses or worker layoffs, but they did note that De Beers has four separate units and said the whole process could involve some capital outlays.
Mellier also said he could not comment on the ongoing review by Anglo.
Prices of diamonds slumped after the 2008 financial crash and have still to fully recover, hurting the margins of De Beers and its main competitor, Russia's Alrosa .
Some players have speculated the market may gain from investors in markets like China using dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven while the Federal Reserve reduces the flood of cheap dollars flowing into the world economy.
A more durable recovery of the U.S. economy may also help the jewelry market, but against that are signs of a slowdown in demand and economic stimulus in China, a key growth market for diamonds in recent years.
Mellier said on balance he believed global demand for diamond jewelry would rise a touch faster this year than last, outpacing supplies of the precious stones and clearing the way for more investment in the company's operations.
Production for De Beers in 2013, however, would stay in line with last year's rate of 27.9 million carats, he said.
"We think that the jewelry diamond market is going to grow a little bit more than last year," Mellier said.
PRICE SLUMP
Consumer demand for diamond jewelry rose 3 percent in 2012 but De Beers' total sales fell 16 percent to $6.1 billion in 2012 while core earnings dropped 39 percent to $1.08 billion. The company has forecast a single-digit increase in rough diamond prices this year, after a 12 percent fall in 2012.
"We actually see the supply-demand picture as being very positive, which is why we are so confident to continue investing," Shine said.
To help out clients known as sightholders, De Beers last year offered purchase deferrals until March 2013, but Mellier said it was a "one-shot" move that would not be extended.
Mellier also said two of its leading mines, Venetia in South Africa and Jwaneng in Botswana, had recovered respectively from a major flood and a slope failure.
"The two biggest events which were impacting production (at the) beginning of this year have now been cleared."
(Additional reporting by David Brough and Clara Ferreira-Marques; in London; editing by Patrick Graham)
Today during Microsoft's 2013 edition of Build, Rhapsody announced that it's releasing a version of its music app designed for the Windows 8 operating system. As you might expect, the Win8 variant will bring many of the same features found on its iOS and Android counterparts, including the ability for subscribers to create playlists and stream / download songs from Rhapsody's ample library of tunes. There will be some tidbits tailored specifically for Redmond's OS, however, such as a Snap Mode for simple multitasking and an option that allows tracks to be pinned to the Metro-style home screen. The company told us the application will hit the Windows store shortly, so we'll be sure to update this post as soon as we have a link to the download.
Update: Rhapsody's Windows 8 appis now up for grabs via the Windows store, linked down below for your convenience.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Pianist Keith Jarrett says "only music excites me, and awards and ceremonies do not." But the pianist says he feels honored to receive the National Endowment for the ArtsJazz Masters Award, joining many past recipients who've influenced him.
The NEA announced Thursday that its 2014 Jazz Masters ? the nation's highest jazz honor ? also include avant-garde saxophonist-composer Anthony Braxton, bassist-educator Richard Davis, and educator Jamey Aebersold.
Jarrett was cited by the NEA for his work in both the jazz and classical fields. His latest release, "Somewhere," marks the 30th anniversary of his trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. His recording of J.S. Bach's "Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard" with violinist Michelle Makarski is due out in September.
Yahoo News asked voters to comment on President Barack Obama's climate change plan, which he largely unveiled in a speech on Tuesday. Here's one response.
COMMENTARY l In response to President Obama's environmental proposals to combat global warming, I am in a unique position in that I can directly see both sides of the debate. I live in a small town in West Virginia, "coal mine country," and home to two coal-fired AEP power plants, with another right across the Ohio River in view. The coal mines, the former top industry in West Virginia, have been closed already, which has resulted in thousands of jobs lost for families in this state. And while a lot of the union and power plant workers have found steady work during plant outages and keeping up with the EPA's new regulations on the scrubbers and more, thousands of workers face the inevitability of losing work around here permanently. One of the two power plants was just recently shut down.
I also know the effects of global warming on this planet. My geology professor was right when he declared that the devastation from global warming is imminent and inevitable. Obama is right that we need to act now. The president is on the right track with creating renewable energy sources in this country, and the only way to attempt to mend the damage caused by global warming, prevent future devastation (and catastrophe), and create jobs, thereby elevating our economy, is to see these proposals through.
Americans, along with the rest of the world, are going to have to evolve and move on to new and safer industries.
Microsoft and Oracle each face cloud competition from other companies, including Amazon.
Microsoft said on Monday it would support Oracle software on its cloud-based platforms, a tie-up aimed at improving the rivals' chances against nimbler Web-based computing companies chipping away at their traditional businesses.
The two industry leaders have competed for decades to sell technology to the world's largest companies. But they face growing pressure from new rivals selling often-cheaper services based in remote data centers, and they are rushing to adapt.
The two companies have long collaborated out of the public eye to meet customers' needs, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on a conference call. "In the world of cloud computing, I think behind-the-scenes collaboration is not enough."
The tie-up does not resolve major competitive challenges the two tech pioneers face in the cloud market, but their cooperation was seen as a symbolically important step.
"Is it a game changer today? Not at all. It shows both companies are serious about their cloud endeavors. The fact that historical competitors are now friends speaks to how big the cloud opportunity is. And it opens up potential avenues of growth down the road," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at investment bank FBR.
Under the agreement, customers will be able to run Oracle software on Microsoft's Server Hyper-V and on Windows Azure platforms, the companies said.
Microsoft will offer Oracle's Java, Database and WebLogic Server to Windows Azure customers, while Oracle will also make Linux available to Windows Azure customers, the companies said in a news release.
Ironically, the pact means Microsoft is effectively promoting Linux and Java-based software, longtime rivals to its own Windows platform. But the software maker stands to benefit from getting any customer to pay for its data center services, regardless of the underlying software being used.
No. 3 software maker Oracle last week missed expectations for software sales for the fourth quarter, sending its shares plunging. Investors worried that the company may have trouble competing with software providers like Salesforce.com and Workday, as well as Amazon.com, which has also become a major player in cloud computing infrastructure.
Top software maker Microsoft's large-scale cloud computing initiative, called Azure, has failed to catch up with Amazon's cloud offering, called AWS (Amazon Web Services), which blazed the trail in elastic online computing services in the cloud.
Longtime rivalry The rivalry between Oracle and Microsoft dates back several decades and has been marked by a personal rivalry between the companies' best-known cofounders: Larry Ellison and Bill Gates.
In 1995, as the Windows franchise was taking off, Ellison began a high-profile but unsuccessful effort to promote a less expensive competitor to the personal computer known as the Network Computer. Gates began aggressively attacking Oracle's core database business in the late 1990s, infuriating Ellison as Microsoft's less-expensive SQL Server gained market share.
In recent years, both have come under attack from a wave of younger companies, like Workday and Salesforce, which charge a single subscription fee for software and support, at far lower margins than for Oracle's traditional products.
Ellison told analysts on last Thursday's quarterly conference call that Oracle had forged alliances with Microsoft and Salesforce.com, which uses Oracle's technology, and said he would announce details this week.
Over the past five years, shares of Amazon.com, which rents remote computing and storage to other companies, have surged 237 percent. Salesforce.com, founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, has risen 105 percent.
During the same half decade, Oracle's stock has risen 38 percent and Microsoft's shares are up 21 percent.
If you are remodeling your kitchen, money can be saved by buying cheap stock cabinets rather than replacing them with more expensive custom styles.
Planning Remodel
When you are planning any type of kitchen overhaul deciding what to do with the kitchen cabinet doors is always a major decision to make.
New cabinets often cost up to 50% of your entire remodeling budget and having cabinets that are functional can mean the difference between a kitchen that works and one that doesn?t.
Replacing Only Cabinet Doors
How about just replacing or refinishing the kitchen cabinet doors ? especially if the entire cabinets are in fairly good shape? If you can?t afford to buy all new cabinets this might be the way to go.
Stock, Custom and Semi-Stock
Finding kitchen cabinets that are cheap but don?t look cheap or have kitchen cabinet doors that don?t look cheap can be a real challenge but it is not impossible. Most remodeling specialists agree that cabinets take out a big hunk of your budget for the kitchen. Less money but still a fabulous look!
Cabinets and kitchen cabinet doors on a budget usually come in 3 types: stock, custom and semi-stock. In each of the types, there are variables of drawer quality, construction, wood type and finish. This is one way that you might be able to discover high value even in the less expensive stock cabinets. You only have to know what you are looking for.
Stock Cabinets
For stock cabinets and kitchen cabinet doors ? they are normally in almost any home improvement outlet and in many decorating styles than ever. These usually do not have to be ordered but are in stock at the store. Stock cabinets and kitchen cabinet doors are normally 34 and a half inches high and 24.5 inches deep. Wall or upper cabinets come 30 inches high and 12 inches deep.
To find the value you should wait until there are seasonal sales for discounts on stock. You can add crown molding to customize and this will create a look that is high-end.
Semi-Stock Cabinets
Semi-stock cabinets and kitchen cabinet doors can be ordered at your home improvement center through a kitchen designer. Usually they will be delivered in about a month, so you need to plan ahead with your project. These come in the same standard size as stock cabinets but with the option of being able to increase the width by 3 inch increments. Any old size space may be covered with a filler piece so that it blends with the remaining cabinets. They have solid kitchen cabinet doors and normally make of higher-quality plywood side construction. In addition customizable pieces such as pantries, plate racks, and spice racks can be ordered.
To find a value with these cabinets choose construction of drawers that is solid wood and more solid slides for longer cabinet life. The thicker the plywood of the side construction, the better value is the cabinet and the kitchen cabinet doors.
This is the cheapest way to go ? cabinet and kitchen cabinet doors that are in stock and already in inventory.
This is an article that tells about another way to remodel your kitchen cabinets and save. For further information check with Acme Cabinet Doors!
Summary:
To save the budget of a new kitchen you can find cheap cabinets and kitchen cabinet doors that are in stock at a home improvement store
DETROIT (AP) ? Max Scherzer has shrugged off the significance of his undefeated start, saying records are fluky statistics for pitchers and that he's simply playing for a good team.
When the Detroit Tigers right-hander found out he is the first to accomplish a couple feats since Rogers Clemens and Pedro Martinez, though, it knocked Scherzer off his humble script.
"That tickles me when you say those type of names," he said.
Scherzer improved to 10-0 and struck out 10, Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run homer and Detroit beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-1 on Monday night.
He became the first pitcher to begin a season 10-0 ? with all decisions coming in starts ? since Clemens went 11-0 for Toronto in 1997, according to STATS. And Scherzer is the first to have at least six strikeouts in his first 14 starts in a season since Martinez did it in 2001 with Boston, STATS said.
"He's at the top of his game pretty much," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said.
Scherzer allowed one run and seven hits in six innings. Chris Davis hit his major league-leading 24th homer in the second, but struck out with the bases loaded in the fifth and the Orioles down by two runs.
"He was just coming after me," Davis said. "Of course, when you're throwing 96, 97, 98, that helps."
Jake Arrieta (1-2) allowed five hits on 10 hits in 4 2-3 innings, and was sent to Triple-A Norfolk after the game with a 7.23 ERA.
"Stuff has never been an issue with Jake, it's just command," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.
With two on and none out in the fifth, Arrieta struck out Cabrera on a wild pitch that allowed two runners to get into scoring position. Victor Martinez hit a sacrifice fly and Jhonny Peralta's RBI single to give Detroit a four-run cushion in the fifth, chasing Arrieta.
Scherzer's start ended after finishing off the sixth inning with two strikeouts, giving him at least 10 in a game for the fifth time this year.
Scherzer lowered his ERA to 3.08 this season for the AL Central leaders. He is the second pitcher in Detroit history to start this strong since 1909, when George Mullin was 11-0 with one victory as a reliever, the Elias Sports Bureau said in information provided by the Tigers.
Drew Smyly followed with three hitless innings for his second save.
"We got (Scherzer's) pitch count up and got him out of there," Showalter said. "But Smyly is a good one, you can see why they're so high on him."
Detroit began the game leading baseball with an average of 5.72 runs per game at home and almost scored that much through five innings.
Austin Jackson led off with a single and scored on Cabrera's seemingly effortless swing, an opposite-field drive that cleared a high wall in right-center for his 19th homer to make it 2-0.
"I watched the replay on video a couple times and by his swing, you think it might be a fly ball to right field," Arrieta said. "But with the strength he has in his swing, a swing like that on that ball ends up in the seats."
NOTES: Detroit put RHP Anibal Sanchez (shoulder) and C Alex Avila (left forearm) on the 15-day DL and recalled OF Avisail Garcia and C Bryan Holaday from Triple-A Toledo to take their roster spots. The Tigers plan to call up LHP Jose Alvarez to start in place of Sanchez on Thursday at home against the Boston Red Sox. ... The Orioles are planning to start LHP Zach Britton in place of ailing RHP Jason Hammel on Tuesday night against Detroit and RHP Justin Verlander. ... Orioles Miguel Gonzalez left the team Monday to be with his wife, who is expecting their first child, but Showalter said the team might not put him on paternity leave.
AMMAN/LONDON (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, arriving in Britain ahead of an international summit set to be dominated by disagreement over the U.S. decision to send weapons to Syria's rebels, said the West must not arm fighters who eat human flesh.
In Syria, rebels fought back on Sunday against forces of President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese Hezbollah allies near Aleppo, where Assad has announced a campaign to recapture the rebel-held north after seizing a strategic town this month.
After months of deliberations, Washington decided last week to send weapons to the rebels, declaring that Assad's forces had crossed a "red line" by using nerve gas.
The move throws the superpower's weight behind the revolt and signals a potential turning point in global involvement in a two-year-old war that has already killed at least 93,000 people.
It has also infuriated Russia, Cold War-era ally of Syria, which has sold arms to Assad and used its veto at the U.N. Security Council to block resolutions against him.
Russia has dismissed the U.S. evidence that Assad's forces used nerve gas. The White House says President Barack Obama will try to lobby Putin to drop his support for Assad during this week's G8 summit hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron.
After meeting Cameron in London, Putin said Russia wanted to create the conditions for a resolution of the conflict.
"One does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras," Putin said.
"Are these the people you want to support? Are they the ones you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to the humanitarian values preached in Europe for hundreds of years."
The incident Putin referred to was most likely that of a rebel commander filmed last month cutting into the torso of a dead soldier and biting into a piece of one of his organs.
Both sides have been accused of atrocities in the conflict. The United States and other countries that aid the rebels say one of the reasons for doing so is to support mainstream opposition groups and reduce the influence of extremists.
DOUBTS OVER CONFERENCE
The U.S. plan to arm the rebels also places new doubt over plans for an international peace conference called by Washington and Moscow, their first joint attempt in a year to try to seek a settlement.
After meeting Putin, Britain's Cameron said the divide between Russia and the West over Syria could be bridged, although they disagreed about who was at fault.
"What I take from our conversation today is that we can overcome these differences if we recognize that we share some fundamental aims: to end the conflict, to stop Syria breaking apart, to let the Syrian people decide who governs them and to take the fight to the extremists and defeat them."
Britain has not said whether it too will arm the rebels, but the issue is contentious even within Cameron's Conservative-led government. Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister from his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, said: "We clearly don't think it's the right thing to do now, or else we would have done it."
Under its new posture, Washington has also said it will keep warplanes and Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Jordan, an ally whose territory it can use to help arm and train rebel fighters. Washington has 4,500 troops in Jordan carrying out exercises.
Washington has not ruled out imposing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, perhaps near the Jordanian border, although it has taken no decision yet to do so.
Jordan's King Abdullah rallied his own armed forces on Sunday, telling military cadets: "If the world does not help as it should, and if the matter becomes a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take the measures to protect the country and the interests of our people."
Washington hopes its backing will restore rebel momentum after Assad's forces seized the initiative by gaining the open support of Hezbollah, Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia, which sent thousands of seasoned fighters to aid Assad.
Just a few months ago, Western countries believed Assad's days were numbered. But with Hezbollah's support he was able to achieve a major victory this month in Qusair, a strategically located rebel-held town on a main route from Lebanon.
FIGHT FOR ALEPPO
Since then, the government has announced major plans to seize the north, including Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and commercial centre, largely rebel-held for nearly a year. The United Nations says it fears for a bloodbath in the north.
Rebels say they are fighting back against government offensives in the north. An opposition operations room in northern Aleppo said fighters had destroyed an army tank and killed 20 troops at Marat al-Arteek, a town where opposition sources say rebels are holding back an armored column sent to reinforce loyalists from isolated Shi'ite villages.
"Assad's forces and Hezbollah are trying to control northern rural Aleppo but they are being repelled and dealt heavy losses," Colonel Abdeljabbar al-Okeidi, a Free Syrian Army commander in Aleppo, told al-Arabiya Television.
He said Hezbollah had sent up to 2,000 fighters to Aleppo and the surrounding areas, but expressed confidence the opposition would prevail.
"Aleppo and Qusair are different. In Qusair we were surrounded by villages that had been occupied by Hezbollah and by loyalist areas. We did not even have a place to take our wounded. In Aleppo, we have a strategic depth and logistical support and we are better organized," he said. "Aleppo will turn into the grave of these Hezbollah devils."
Battles were also fought inside Aleppo itself, where thousands of loyalist troops and militiamen reinforced by Hezbollah have been massing and attacking opposition-held parts of the city, driving rebel fighters back.
Opposition activists said the army was also airlifting troops behind rebel lines to Ifrin, in a Kurdish area, which would give access for a bigger sweep inside the city.
"For a week, the rebel forces have been generally on the retreat in Aleppo, but the tide has started turning in the last two days," said Abu Abdallah, an activist in the area.
Hezbollah's support for Assad, a follower of the minority Alawite offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels has increased fears of sectarian violence spreading into neighboring countries.
In Lebanon, security sources said gunmen had shot dead four Shi'ite Muslim men in an ambush in the Bekaa Valley close to the Syrian frontier. It was not clear who was behind the shooting.
Lebanon is still rebuilding from its own sectarian civil war, fought from 1975-1990. Fighting between Sunnis and Shi'ites was also behind most of the violence in Iraq in the decade after the U.S. invasion of 2003.
(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman and Guy Faulconbridge, Costas Pitas and Andrew Osborn in London; Writing by Peter Graff)
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After the worlds gone to hell and wars have destroyed the land people are starving and always fighting for food.
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