The Solar Impulse plane has set a new distance record for solar-powered flight on the second leg of its trans-American journey on Wednesday evening.
The craft landed in Dallas, Texas, after an 18-hour flight from Phoenix, Arizona - a journey of 1,541km (958mi).
In the coming weeks, it will also stop over in St Louis, Missouri, and Washington DC before heading to New York in early July.
The project aims to showcase the capabilities of renewable energy.
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA has the same wingspan as an Airbus A340 but at a weight of just 1.6 tonnes - by comparison, a fully laden A340 weighs about 370 tonnes.
The plane's wing and stabiliser are covered with nearly 12,000 solar cells, which drive its four propellers and charge the plane's 400kg of lithium-ion batteries for night-time flying.
The "Across America" bid is billed as the first cross-continental, solar-powered flight.
It is the last showpiece with the prototype aircraft before the Solar Impulse co-founders and pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, attempt a trans-oceanic flight and an eventual around-the-world flight in 2015.
Continue reading the main story
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA
Wingspan - 63m (208ft)
Weight - 1,600kg (3,500lb)
Covered with 11,628 solar cells
Carries 400kg (900lb) of lithium-ion batteries
Maximum cruising altitude of 8,500m (28,000ft)
The craft already holds records for the first international flight of a solar-powered plane in 2011, and first inter-continental flight in 2012.
The two Swiss pilots will alternate on different legs of the journey; Wednesday's flight was piloted by Andre Borschberg.
Mr Borschberg also holds a record set in 2010 - the longest-lasting flight of a solar-powered craft, at more than 26 hours.
"This leg was particularly challenging because of fairly strong winds at the landing. It also was the longest flight - in terms of distance - ever flown by a solar airplane," Mr Borschberg said.
"You have to understand that the pilot needs to stay awake for more than 20 hours without any autopilot."
The plane completed the first leg of its trans-American bid - between San Francisco and Phoenix - in early May, in a flight lasting 18 hours.
The Across America project coincides with the pair's Clean Generation Initiative, an effort to encourage policy-makers and businesses to develop and adopt sustainable energy technologies.
May 22, 2013 ? While folk wisdom has its place, the "folks" may not be so wise when it comes to shopping for airline tickets, say researchers at Texas A&M University.
"There's been this industry folk wisdom that says Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days to purchase airline tickets," says Steven Puller, an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M who specializes in industrial organization. "But we couldn't find any systematic analysis to back that up."
Rather, he says, the weekend is the best time to book airline tickets because airlines are more likely to discount fares on Saturday and Sunday.
In the study "Price Discrimination By Day-Of-Week Of Purchase: Evidence From The U.S. Airline Industry," published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Puller and co-author Lisa Taylor, a former Texas A&M graduate student, found that tickets purchased on the weekend were, on average, 5 percent cheaper than similar tickets purchased on weekdays.
"We find that when you control for a large set of factors -- the day-of-week of travel, whether the ticket was refundable, the number of days in advance that the ticket was purchased, how full the flights were, and other factors -- that tickets purchased on the weekends were sold, on average, for a 5 percent discount," Puller explains.
The study further finds this weekend purchase discount is greatest on routes with a mix of both business and leisure customers. There is not much of this type of discount for leisure destinations such as Orlando or Las Vegas, Puller notes.
The researchers suggest, although do not definitively conclude, that this weekend purchase effect reflects a common practice known as "price discrimination."
This happens when the same service is sold at different prices to different buyers, in this case, based on the day of the week that an airline ticket is purchased.
Puller says the airlines try to play the odds when deciding how to price flights.
"Take a route that serves both business and leisure travelers," he explains. "If the business travelers primarily purchase tickets on weekdays, then the typical traveler buying on the weekend is more likely to be a price-sensitive leisure traveler than a business traveler. There is an incentive for the airlines to lower fares on the weekends to try to entice the price-sensitive leisure traveler to buy a ticket."
But how do the airlines know if a particular buyer is travelling for leisure or business? "They don't," Puller contends. "They're playing the odds."
The researchers conducted the study by looking at a historical archive of actual tickets purchased on all major airlines. Puller says the study compared tickets with similar characteristics rather than simply looking at the cheapest fare available.
"If you're a traveler who just wants to get from point A to point B for the cheapest price possible, then these findings may not apply to you," he notes. "But many people do care about these factors."
The researchers only studied round-trip flights with nonstop service. The study did not examine first-class airfare or the holiday travel periods around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.
Puller says these results could have implications for other industries that have the ability to change prices daily based on the types of customers who purchase on a specific day. "The software systems that are used in airline pricing are used in other industries such as cruises, hotels, car rentals," he explains. "We've only analyzed airline pricing, but I wouldn't be surprised if similar pricing practices are used in these other industries as well."
We've already spent some quality time with Nokia's handsome Lumia 925 and while it's no secret the company's Windows Phone flagship is coming to the US courtesy of T-Mobile, we'd never actually seen the carrier-branded model -- until now, that is. Nokia brought T-Mobile's version of the handset to CTIA 2013 where we took it for a brief spin. As you'd expect, the phone is identical to its global twin save for the operator's logo below the capacitive button and the radios which support T-Mobile's bands. Unfortunately, the Lumia 925 we played with was not final, so the software was off limits. In terms of hardware, it features the same 4.5-inch 1,280 x 768 AMOLED screen, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB of storage and 8.7-megapixel camera with OIS. This is definitely one of Nokia's most attractive designs yet, and we're looking forward to getting our hands on a review unit soon. In the meantime, why not check out the gallery below?
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Jami Littlefield, 51, of Griswold, pleaded guilty Monday in Superior Court in Norwich to third-degree assault. She told authorities she paddled the girl in January because she was acting out, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Littlefield was arrested after the girl's biological mother noticed bruises on her daughter's buttocks when the child bent over to pick up a toy during a supervised visit. Medical staff at the Pequot Health Center determined the girl's contusions appeared to have been caused by the repeated strikes of a blunt instrument.
Littlefield initially denied hitting the child but later said she spanked the girl with the?spoon?she was using to stir soup after the child struck her granddaughter, spat at her, and used a racial slur, according to the arrest document.
Gary Kleeblatt, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Families, told The Day of New London?that Littlefield's foster care license, which she received in 2004, was removed after her arrest.
Foster parents receive extensive training on the proper care of children, including how to manage behaviors without resorting to corporal punishment, Kleeblatt said.
"Certainly we expect that they will not use an instrument of any type," he said.
Littlefield is scheduled to be sentenced on July 17. Under terms of her plea deal she faces 100 days in prison and two years of probation.
The ATS Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the?American Thoracic Sociey, is accepting applications from early career investigators in recognition of outstanding and meritorious early careers.
One-year grants of $40,000 each will be awarded to up to seven domestic and international ATS members to be used for research projects relevant to ATS' mission of advancing science in pulmonary, sleep, or critical care medicine. Funds can go towards salary, research, or a combination of both.
The ATS Scientific Advisory Committee will assess the strength of each applicant through an evaluation of an A0 unfunded proposal submitted to the National Institutes of Health or an internationally equivalent federal funding body. The NIH (or equivalent) must have reviewed these proposals on or after June 2012 and assigned the proposal a highly competitive scientific score. The NIH (or equivalent) critique pages ("pink sheets") must be attached to the ATS Foundation application. The applicant's biosketch and letters of recommendation also will be considered in the ATS review process. The original proposal must be relevant to pulmonary, critical care, or sleep medicine, and should not have other extramural support.
To be eligible, applicants must have completed their primary research training (Ph.D. or subspecialty fellowship training) by July 1, 2013, and have a firm commitment from their home institution for a faculty position. Partnerships between junior and senior investigators are strongly encouraged, particularly for new investigators who are within one to five years of the completion of their research training. At least one of the key personnel must be an ATS member at the time of application, and the principal investigator must be an ATS member at the time that the grant is awarded.
See the ATS Web site for eligibility and application guidelines.
May 22, 2013 ? Re-routing anti-cancer drugs to the "power plants" that make energy to keep cells alive is a promising but long-neglected approach to preventing emergence of the drug-resistant forms of cancer -- source of a serious medical problem, scientists are reporting. That's the conclusion of a new study published in the journal ACS Chemical Biology.
Shana Kelley and colleagues explain that doxorubicin and other common forms of chemotherapy work by damaging the genes inside the nucleus of cancer cells. Cancer cells divide and multiply faster than surrounding normal cells, making copies of their genes. The drugs disrupt that process. But cancer cells eventually adapt, developing structures that pump out nucleus-attacking drugs before they can work. Kelley's team explored the effects of targeting doxorubicin to the mitochondria, the energy-producing structures in cells that also contain genes.
They describe a re-targeting approach that involved mating doxorubicin with a small piece of protein that made the drug travel to mitochondria instead of the nucleus. The combo killed cancer cells, even those that had developed pumps. Such an approach could work with a whole family of anti-cancer drugs that target the nucleus, the scientists indicate.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.
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Journal Reference:
Graham R. Chamberlain, David V. Tulumello, Shana O. Kelley. Targeted Delivery of Doxorubicin to Mitochondria. ACS Chemical Biology, 2013; : 130423103952004 DOI: 10.1021/cb400095v
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Contact: Chris Bunting c.j.bunting@leeds.ac.uk 44-113-343-2049 University of Leeds
Declines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years, according to a new study.
Researchers led by the University of Leeds and the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands found evidence of dramatic reductions in the diversity of species in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands between the 1950s and 1980s.
But the picture brightened markedly after 1990, with a slowdown in local and national biodiversity losses among bees, hoverflies and wild plants.
Professor Bill Kunin, Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds, said: "Most observers have been saying that the 1992 Rio Earth Summit targets to slow biodiversity loss by 2010 failed, but what we are seeing is a significant slowing or reversal of the declines for wild plants and their insect pollinators.
"These species are important to us. About a third of our food production, including most of our fruit and vegetables, depends on animal pollination and we know that most crop pollination is done by wild pollinators. Biodiversity is important to ensuring we don't lose that service. Relying on a few species could be risky in a changing environment," he added.
The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, found a 30 per cent fall in local bumblebee biodiversity in all three countries between the 1950s and the 1980s. However, that decline slowed to an estimated 10 per cent in Britain by 2010, while in Belgium and the Netherlands bumblebee diversity had stabilised.
The picture was better for other wild bees, with an 8 per cent reduction in diversity in the Netherlands and a stable picture in Great Britain turning into significant increases (7 per cent in the Netherlands and 10 per cent in Britain) over the past 20 years. While these solitary bees continued to decline in Belgium, hoverfly diversity improved there, shifting from stable diversity in the 1980s to significant (20 per cent) increases in recent decades. British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s, but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.
Not all groups fared so well. Butterfly diversity continued to fall in all three countries at roughly the same rates as in the past.
Dr Luisa Carvalheiro, lead author on the paper, said: "It is possible that by 1990 the most sensitive species had already gone. However, that's probably not the whole story, as there are still plenty of rare and vulnerable species present in recent records.
"There is a much more encouraging possibility: the conservation work and agri-environment programs paying farmers to encourage biodiversity may be having an effect. We may also be seeing a slowdown of the drivers of decline. The postwar emphasis on getting land into production and on more intensive farming has given way to a more stable situation in which the rate of landscape change has slowed and in which agrichemical excesses are regulated.
Dr Carvalheiro said: "If what we take from the Rio targets is that the investment in conservation gave us no results, then that is a counsel of despair. This study brings a positive message for conservation. But some important groups are undoubtedly still declining, so continued and increased investment in conservation practices is essential for guaranteeing the persistence of a diverse assemblage of species."
Co-author Professor Koos Biesmeijer, who works both at the University of Leeds and Naturalis, said: "This paper builds on a widely-publicised study we published in 2006 that established that the diversity of bees and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods, and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.
"However, while we can use biodiversity records to measure changes in the diversity of pollinators, we can't tell what's happening to their overall abundance or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops. To study these issues would require a long-term monitoring programme."
The research team, including scientists from 18 institutions in Europe and the United States, used historical and contemporary records of species' presence held by organizations including the European Invertebrate Survey, Butterfly Conservation, the Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society, the INBO Research Institute for Nature and Forest in Belgium and the University of Mons, Belgium.
The study is published in Ecology Letters on Wednesday, May 22, 2013. This is the 21st anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity and has been designated by the United Nations as International Day for Biological Diversity.
###
The research was funded under the European Union Framework Program 7 projects Status and Trends of European Pollinators (STEP) and Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales (SCALES), with additional support from the UK Insect Pollinators Initiative.
Further information
Professor Bill Kunin and Dr Luisa Carvalheiro are available for interview.
Images of bees, butterflies and hoverflies species recorded in the study are available on request.
Contact: Chris Bunting, Press Officer, University of Leeds; phone 0113 343 2049 or email c.j.bunting@leeds.ac.uk .
The full paper: Lusa G. Carvalheiro, et al. 'Species richness declines and biotic homogenization have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants'. Ecology Letters, doi: 10.1111/ele.12121 is published in Ecology Letters on May 22. It is also available on request from the University of Leeds press office.
Notes for Editors
The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise showed the University of Leeds to be the UK's eighth biggest research powerhouse. The University is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University's vision is to secure a place among the world's top 50 by 2015. http://www.leeds.ac.uk
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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.
Contact: Chris Bunting c.j.bunting@leeds.ac.uk 44-113-343-2049 University of Leeds
Declines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years, according to a new study.
Researchers led by the University of Leeds and the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands found evidence of dramatic reductions in the diversity of species in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands between the 1950s and 1980s.
But the picture brightened markedly after 1990, with a slowdown in local and national biodiversity losses among bees, hoverflies and wild plants.
Professor Bill Kunin, Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds, said: "Most observers have been saying that the 1992 Rio Earth Summit targets to slow biodiversity loss by 2010 failed, but what we are seeing is a significant slowing or reversal of the declines for wild plants and their insect pollinators.
"These species are important to us. About a third of our food production, including most of our fruit and vegetables, depends on animal pollination and we know that most crop pollination is done by wild pollinators. Biodiversity is important to ensuring we don't lose that service. Relying on a few species could be risky in a changing environment," he added.
The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, found a 30 per cent fall in local bumblebee biodiversity in all three countries between the 1950s and the 1980s. However, that decline slowed to an estimated 10 per cent in Britain by 2010, while in Belgium and the Netherlands bumblebee diversity had stabilised.
The picture was better for other wild bees, with an 8 per cent reduction in diversity in the Netherlands and a stable picture in Great Britain turning into significant increases (7 per cent in the Netherlands and 10 per cent in Britain) over the past 20 years. While these solitary bees continued to decline in Belgium, hoverfly diversity improved there, shifting from stable diversity in the 1980s to significant (20 per cent) increases in recent decades. British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s, but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.
Not all groups fared so well. Butterfly diversity continued to fall in all three countries at roughly the same rates as in the past.
Dr Luisa Carvalheiro, lead author on the paper, said: "It is possible that by 1990 the most sensitive species had already gone. However, that's probably not the whole story, as there are still plenty of rare and vulnerable species present in recent records.
"There is a much more encouraging possibility: the conservation work and agri-environment programs paying farmers to encourage biodiversity may be having an effect. We may also be seeing a slowdown of the drivers of decline. The postwar emphasis on getting land into production and on more intensive farming has given way to a more stable situation in which the rate of landscape change has slowed and in which agrichemical excesses are regulated.
Dr Carvalheiro said: "If what we take from the Rio targets is that the investment in conservation gave us no results, then that is a counsel of despair. This study brings a positive message for conservation. But some important groups are undoubtedly still declining, so continued and increased investment in conservation practices is essential for guaranteeing the persistence of a diverse assemblage of species."
Co-author Professor Koos Biesmeijer, who works both at the University of Leeds and Naturalis, said: "This paper builds on a widely-publicised study we published in 2006 that established that the diversity of bees and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods, and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.
"However, while we can use biodiversity records to measure changes in the diversity of pollinators, we can't tell what's happening to their overall abundance or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops. To study these issues would require a long-term monitoring programme."
The research team, including scientists from 18 institutions in Europe and the United States, used historical and contemporary records of species' presence held by organizations including the European Invertebrate Survey, Butterfly Conservation, the Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society, the INBO Research Institute for Nature and Forest in Belgium and the University of Mons, Belgium.
The study is published in Ecology Letters on Wednesday, May 22, 2013. This is the 21st anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity and has been designated by the United Nations as International Day for Biological Diversity.
###
The research was funded under the European Union Framework Program 7 projects Status and Trends of European Pollinators (STEP) and Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales (SCALES), with additional support from the UK Insect Pollinators Initiative.
Further information
Professor Bill Kunin and Dr Luisa Carvalheiro are available for interview.
Images of bees, butterflies and hoverflies species recorded in the study are available on request.
Contact: Chris Bunting, Press Officer, University of Leeds; phone 0113 343 2049 or email c.j.bunting@leeds.ac.uk .
The full paper: Lusa G. Carvalheiro, et al. 'Species richness declines and biotic homogenization have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants'. Ecology Letters, doi: 10.1111/ele.12121 is published in Ecology Letters on May 22. It is also available on request from the University of Leeds press office.
Notes for Editors
The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise showed the University of Leeds to be the UK's eighth biggest research powerhouse. The University is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University's vision is to secure a place among the world's top 50 by 2015. http://www.leeds.ac.uk
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
The Quickindicator from Nord Zeitmachine promises it has the world’s quickest minute hand on a wrist watch. ?I’m not sure what the benefits of a quick minute hand are, but the watch does look very cool. ?These watches are made in Switzerland in a one-man shop. ?Daniel, the owner of Nord Zeitmachine, has a few [...]
While we don't have all of the details on the new Xbox Live features announced at today's Xbox One launch, it's clear that Microsoft is going all-in when it comes to social and multiplayer gaming. First, they are upping the number of dedicated servers for online play from 15,000 to 300,000 and nearly all of your content and game data will be store in the cloud.
It's not uncommon for the Sky Sports iPad application to receive features tailored for fans of the world's beautiful game, soccer (or football, if you want to get technical). To that end, Sky today released version 5.4 of the app ahead of next week's UEFA Champions League final. Viewers will now be able to choose from up to 20 camera angles when watching game highlights, which should go hand-in-hand with the recent inclusion of that second screen experience. The update also brings the ability to view selected clips in slow-mo -- and, hey, the way Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund are currently playing, we're definitely going to need to take things down a notch.
ROME (AP) ? After all these years, Rafael Nadal still knows how to dominate Roger Federer.
In the 30th meeting between the tennis greats, Nadal controlled the final from the start and won 6-1, 6-3 Sunday for his seventh Italian Open title.
"Rafa was just too good today," Federer said.
It tied for the second most lop-sided win in the series since Nadal also lost just four games, but over three sets, in the 2008 French Open final against Federer. At the tour finals in London in 2011, Nadal allowed Federer just three games.
"For that to happen between two players with not that much difference, it has to be because one player plays very well and the other is having more mistakes than usual," Nadal said. "That's all."
Nadal improved to 20-10 in his career against Federer, and showed once again that he'll be the player to beat when the French Open starts next Sunday. It was the fifth-ranked Spaniard's sixth title since returning earlier this year from a seven-month layoff due to a left knee injury.
"I'm playing much better than I dreamed of a few months ago," Nadal said. "I'm doing the right things to play well."
Federer complimented Nadal for the way he took his time before returning to the circuit.
"It goes to show that's what every player should do," Federer said. "Now he's as strong as ever and is going to be the favorite for Roland Garros."
In the women's final, Serena Williams won her fourth consecutive title of the year in impressive fashion, defeating third-seeded Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 6-3. The top-ranked American will go to Paris on a career-best 24-match winning run.
Williams was coming off consecutive titles in Miami; Charleston, South Carolina; and Madrid last week.
She didn't drop a set while winning this title.
"I moved better than I did all week," Williams said. "Hopefully I can stay like this. I feel really good."
Federer hadn't previously dropped a set all week as well, but he had no reply for Nadal's topspin-heavy groundstrokes. The 17-time Grand Slam winner attempted serving and volleying, but he either missed the volley or Nadal passed him with the return.
Federer lost 10 points to nine won at the net. He also committed 32 unforced errors to Nadal's eight.
"I was missing too many easy forehands," Federer said. "And if you don't stick your volleys or serve very accurate it's very difficult."
It was 20th meeting between Nadal and Federer in a final, tying the Ivan Lendl-John McEnroe rivalry for most championship matchups in the Open era.
Center court at the Foro Italico was packed to the limit with 10,500 fans, but the crowd didn't get to see too much tennis. The men's final took only 1 hour, 9 minutes ? a far cry from the 2006 final in which Nadal beat Federer in a fifth-set tiebreaker after more than 5 hours.
Rome remains one of the few important tournaments that Federer has never won. He also lost the 2003 final to Felix Mantila.
The women's final Sunday was also a short affair.
On a pleasant spring day, Williams immediately took control by breaking Azarenka's serve twice to take a 3-0 lead in the opening set.
The 15-time Grand Slam winner slugged winners at will off Azarenka's first and second serves, stepping into the court to dictate play at every opportunity.
Azarenka grew distraught at the end of the first set, twice slamming her racket on the court in desperation.
After trading breaks midway through the second set, Williams took control again when Azarenka double-faulted to give her a 5-3 lead. Williams served out the match at love, letting out a big scream when she unleashed a backhand winner down the line to close it out.
"She definitely showed incredible tennis today," Azarenka said. "But I don't think the score says how close the match was. She was better at the key moments."
Williams held a 41-12 edge in winners and served nine aces to Azarenka's none.
"It wasn't really easy out there," Williams said. "I just came up with the good shots at the right times."
Williams has twice won 21 matches in a row before, although they came more than a decade ago, in 2002 and the beginning of 2003.
Martina Navratilova established the longest women's winning run in the Open Era at 74 matches in 1984.
Williams' only previous title at this clay-court event came when she beat Justine Henin in the 2002 final.
That was also the year she won her only Roland Garros title. Last year in Paris, Williams lost in the opening round of a major for the first time, falling to 111th-ranked Virginie Razzano of France.
"The lady in the mirror is the ultimate opponent for me," Williams said, looking ahead to Paris. "I'm going to try and win every match and be really cautious going for every point."
At 31, Williams is back at the top of her game after missing 11 months in 2010 and 2011 with a right foot injury and a pulmonary embolism.
In the women's doubles final, Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan and Peng Shuai of China upset the top-ranked Italian pair of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 4-6, 6-3, 10-8. In the men's final, top-ranked Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States beat the sixth-ranked Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna 6-2, 6-3.
Kanye West hit the stage during the May 18 episode of "Saturday Night Live" to perform some new music.
The 35-year-old West performed a new track called "Black Skinhead," rapping the song in the middle of the show. Wearing a studded black leather jacket and jumping around in front of a screen that featured the words NOT FOR SALE intercut with barking dogs, the rapper worked his way through an energetic track that includes lyrics that are filtered through a loud-speaker effect. Censores seemed to miss West's use of the n-word, which made it to broadcast during the East Coast feed.
West also performed "New Slaves," a song that he debuted by projecting it on the sides of buildings across the world.
His stint on "SNL" was one that the musician seemed less than enthused about. In the promos for the episode, hosted by actor Ben Affleck, West appeared apathetic and serious.
He also addressed the gig at a recent performance. "Someone asked me, 'When you do 'SNL,' are you going to do a skit about the paparazzi and humanize yourself?'" West said during a show, referencing his recent run-in with the paparazzi. "What the f--k do I have to apologize for? When did I become inhuman? Or was it them demonizing me and harassing me that made me less than human?"
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Saturday that advanced weapons supplied by Russia to war-torn Syria could end up in the wrong hands and be used against the Jewish state.
A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by the United States on Friday and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect of Russia supplying S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Damascus.
While Israel has declined to take sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes inside Syria in a bid to destroy weapons it believes are destined for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Army Radio: "(Weapons) could reach others in Syria or Lebanon and be used against Israel."
"These are not just any weapons, they are tie-breakers, and that's why there is a responsibility with all world powers, certainly Russia, not to supply such arms," Livni said, adding that Israel had the right to defend itself.
Israel has neither denied nor confirmed reports that it attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near Damascus this month that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, an Assad ally which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
Senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad said the S-300 and the Yakhont would likely end up with Hezbollah and threaten both Israel and U.S. forces in the Gulf.
"If Hezbollah and Iran are supporting Syria and propping the (Assad) regime up, then why shouldn't it transfer those weapons to Hezbollah? You don't even have to be an intelligence expert, it makes sense that they will," Gilad told Channel Two television's Meet the Press.
In comments to Israel Radio on Friday, Gilad said: "If you ask the Russians if these weapons will be passed on to Hezbollah, they will say: 'No, that is against Russian law.' But it's not certain that Russian law is something they will respect. So if Hezbollah can put its hands on them, it will."
The two-year-old civil war in Syria between Assad's forces and rebel fighters has killed at least 80,000 people and driven 1.5 million abroad.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Thousands took to the streets on Saturday to protest austerity measures and advocate for job creation and workers' rights. Italy is experiencing its longest recession since 1970, with unemployment rates soaring.?
By Staff,?Reuters / May 18, 2013
Members of Italy's metalworkers union Fiom protest during a demonstration. Thousands of people protested in central Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession.
REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
Enlarge
Thousands of people protested in Rome?on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister?Enrico Letta?to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession.
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"We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience," said?Enzo Bernardis, who joined the sea of protesters waving red flags and calling for more workers' rights and better contracts.
Less than a month in power, Letta is trying to hold together an uneasy coalition between his centre-left?Democratic party?and the centre-right People of Freedom, led by former prime minister?Silvio Berlusconi.
Confidence in the government, cobbled together after inconclusive elections, is already falling, with one poll on Friday by the SWG institute showing its approval rating had dropped to 34 percent from 43 percent at the start of the month.
"We can't wait anymore" and "We need money to live" were among slogans on banners held up by the crowds.
Letta promised to make jobs his top priority when he came to power in April after two months of political deadlock. But several protesters complained he was not sticking to his vow, focusing instead on a property tax reform outlined this week.
Union leaders said he needed to shift away from the austerity agenda pursued by former Prime Minister?Mario Monti, who introduced a range of spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reform to shore up strained public finances.
"We need to start over with more investment. If we don't restart with public and private investments, there will no new jobs," said?Maurizio Landini, secretary-general of the left-wing metalworkers union Fiom.
Italy?is stuck in its longest recession since quarterly records began in 1970, and jobless rates are close to record highs, with youth unemployment at around 38 percent.
Other protesters were pessimistic that Letta's fragile government would be able to take effective action.
"This government will last a very short time," said demonstrator?Marco Silvani. What we need is a new leftist party that fights for the rights of the people," he said.
(Reporting By Carmelo Carmilli and Roberto Mignucci, writing by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Emergency personnel respond to one of the people hit by a car, at right, during the beginning of the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
Emergency personnel respond to one of the people hit by a car, at right, during the beginning of the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
Hiker "Quinoa" talks about being given credit for saving the lives of Carson Balckburn, Dalton Thomason, and Faith Ritchie after he ran them and others off the road with a water gun during a festival parade in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Just as the children ran off the street, a car came down the road and struck several people. (AP Photo/Bristol Herald Courier, Earl Neikirk)
People attend to a victim who was hit by a car during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Republican-American, Bill O'Brien)
People attend to a victim who was hit by a car during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Va., Saturday, May 18, 2013. Witnesses said the car drove into a crowd at the parade and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Republican-American, Bill O'Brien)
DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) ? Authorities believe the driver who plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a Virginia mountain town parade suffered from a medical condition and did not cause the crash intentionally, an emergency official said Sunday.
Officials did not have a formal confirmation or any specifics on the condition, but based on the accounts of authorities and witnesses on the scene, they are confident the issue was medical, according to Pokey Harris, Washington County's director of emergency management. "There is no reason to believe this was intentional," she said.
In what witnesses called a frantic scene at the parade, about 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial Saturday. No fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals.
Two people were kept at hospitals overnight, but their injuries were not critical as of Sunday, Harris said. "For the most part, everyone was treated and released," she said.
The crash happened around 2:10 p.m. Saturday during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.
Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade and he had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past. Several witnesses described him as an elderly man.
Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.
"It is under investigation, and charges may be placed," Nunley said Saturday.
On Sunday, festival events were continuing as scheduled, Harris said. Mayor Jack McCrady had encouraged people to attend the final day.
"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.
Harris said that the incident left a "sad heart and black cloud" over the event and that people were proceeding with "heightened awareness." But she emphasized the crash was an accident and said no additional security measures were taken.
On Saturday, Rudolph "Chip" Cenci, 64, of Minoa, N.Y., told The News-Item newspaper in Shamokin, Pa., that he heard people yelling "get out of the way" and turned around to find the car was about to hit him. He jumped onto the hood and held onto the gap at the base of the windshield near the wipers. He said the driver had a blank stare on his face.
"I bet you that man never realized someone was on his hood," Cenci said.
Cenci said he had a bump on his knee but was otherwise OK. He added that his wife, Susan, 63, narrowly missed being hit.
Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.
"Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.
Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped.
"There's no single heroes," he said. "We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in."
This week from Gwist! Lesbians and Straights square off in "The Spousal Equivalent Game," Alec Mapa and gay comics share stories in "Gwissues with Howard Bragman," Miss Richfield 1981 talks body hair with the steam room guys on SRS Live, and Emily and Liz share some lesbian long-distance wisdom on "Dykeotomy."
(Warning: Some topics may be unsuitable for all audiences.)
1. Gwissues -- "Why Gay Comedians have S*** To Talk About" Erin Foley, Alec Mapa, and Dave Rubin discuss why gays have the best material right now, and why audiences are starved for LGBT humor.
2. The Spousal Equivalent Game -- "Older Gay Men vs. Young Lesbians" Gay couple Don and Robert battle young lesbian couple Emily and Liz to see who knows more about their partner!
3. SRS Live With Miss Richfield 1981 -- "Hair Today! Gone Tomorrow! Wolverine Syndrome" Body hair: Is it sexy or no? The Steam Room boys dish about their own hair preferences just in time for summer!
4. Dykeotomy -- "Does Long Distance EVER Work?" Liz and Emily give you the low-down on how to keep a long-distance relationship from going down the toilet.
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) ? Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday's evening rush hour, injuring about 50 people, authorities said. There were no reports of fatalities.
The Metro-North Railroad, a commuter line serving the northern suburbs, referred in a news release to a "major derailment" near Fairfield, just outside Bridgeport. It said emergency workers were at the scene of the accident, which came shortly after 6 p.m.
Bill Kaempffer, a spokesman for Bridgeport public safety, told The Associated Press approximately 49 people were injured, including four with serious injuries. About 250 people were on board the two trains, he said.
Photos taken at the scene showed a train car askew on the rails, with its end smashed up and brushing against another train. Amtrak suspended service indefinitely between New York and Boston.
"At this stage, we don't know if this is a mechanical failure, an accident or something deliberate," Fairfield police spokesman Lt. James Perez told the Connecticut Post.
The railroad said a train that departed New York City's Grand Central station en route to New Haven derailed. A westbound train on an adjacent track then struck the derailed train. Some cars on the second train also derailed as a result of the collision.
Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett said everybody who needed treatment had been attended to, and authorities were beginning to turn their attention to investigating the cause.
"Everybody seemed pretty calm," he said. "Everybody was thankful they didn't get seriously hurt. They were anxious to get home to their families."
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation.
The Metro-North main lines ? the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven ? run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
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Valuable Hyperlinks For Authors Author Recommendations Article Writing Guidelines Why Submit Articles HomeHealth & Fitness ArticlesEars Hearing ArticlesHearing Protection Do We Take It SeriouslyHearing Protection Do We Take It Seriously By Paul Gracey on May 05, 2012
There are many various circumstances and places that you can be in that can prove to be quite unsafe to the health of your ears. Most importantly, hearing protection ought to be a top concern for any person that works in an really noisy atmosphere. hearing protection is an absolute should.
Not to be taken lightly, you need to bear in mind to put on your hearing protection for circumstances like shooting ranges, mowing the lawn, making use of a easy tool in the garage etc. Don?t forget, its not just loud piercing sound levels that will cause harm. A lot of damage is done just by having more than a couple of minutes of exposure.Your ears are a single of the most sensitive and delicate organs within the human physique.
It is really essential that we offer the best protection for the ears mainly since when you endure any kind of hearing/ear harm, it?s usually not revers in a position. Some people think that hearing protection ought to only be worn at the ?shooting variety? or at a ?stock auto race?. This merely is not correct. The most frequent lead to of hearing loss is from long exposures to sounds that are just above 85 decibels.
Fortunately as the years go by, hearing protection devices have turn into commonplace in a lot of of the workplaces such as factories and heavy industrial locations. A lot of organizations are necessary to provide cost-free hearing protection to safeguard its personnel. Some fields are nonetheless unregulated or the protection is fully the responsibility of the worker. In these circumstances, you really find that a lot of people just merely do not take benefit of suitable protection.
The most typical for of totally free protection that is provided out to employees and visitors in loud environments are the soft foam ear plugs. These are one size fits all plugs that can be very easily pressed into the ear canal. Obviously, these aren?t the ?greatest? option for protection, but they do assist. In particular scenarios, this sort of hearing protector is all you are going to need to have.
Frequently individuals get confused when hunting for hearing protection. In reality, it is not genuinely that hard. You really need to just sit and concentrate on what your needs are and do some analysis. The main issue I inform folks is that you must check online, but don?t go straight to a retailers website. You need to get in and uncover individual stories from real folks that have used various sorts.
There are numerous stories on the net exactly where individuals make wonderful evaluations of a lot of of the best units. One particular other cause that I like to look at private blogs and so on is that they generally are 3rd celebration, which tends to make them unbiased. I personally suggest a set of headphone or earmuff variety devices.
Not only do they have a tough protective shell on the outdoors that stops a lot of noise, but several of the higher finish units will only block out loud sounds. There are filters in the units, actually electronically controlled that sense the sound. These are great for places where you want to be able to hear individuals talking, but at the identical time, need to have great protection from overly loud sounds.
All in all, the way to avert hearing loss or inner ear harm is by getting responsible and wearing hearing protection in any scenario exactly where you even think there is a remote possibility of injury.
When It comes to hearing, you require the greatest protection you can get. To give you the greatest guidelines and understanding on the different types of hearing protection, you can visit this site: hearing protection Headphones Reviews. You will be given several suggestions for the best headphone system for your wants.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Caterpillar Inc's deal to cut the purchase price of a Chinese mining-equipment maker it bought last year ends an embarrassing episode that overshadowed the company's effort to expand in China and distracted its executives for months.
Now, analysts say, comes the hard part: Proving to investors that ERA Mining Machinery, the Chinese maker of hydraulic roof supports that Caterpillar purchased, really can help penetrate China's huge underground mining market.
In January, Caterpillar took a $580 million impairment related to the ERA deal after discovering what it characterized as a "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at Siwei, a subsidiary that handled ERA's principal business.
Late on Thursday, Caterpillar said it reached a deal with the former controlling shareholders of ERA to cut $135 million from the $886 million purchase price - a move welcomed by analysts even if the money involved was, in the words of one, "a blip" in the U.S. company's overall finances.
"Outside of the reduction in purchase price, the chief benefit of the settlement is to eliminate the management distraction caused by the issue and get on with realizing the potential that led Caterpillar to buy this company in the first place," said Alex Blanton, a senior analyst at Clear Harbor Asset Management in New York.
"Whether or not it realizes the potential is another question," he said.
The deal reduces the outstanding obligations Caterpillar has to MML, and to former ERA directors Emory Williams and John Lee, as well as MML shareholder James Thompson, to $29.5 million. Caterpillar still owed the four about $164 million.
In exchange, Caterpillar agreed to end any litigation targeting the Chinese company's former directors or auditors related to the alleged accounting misconduct.
A Caterpillar spokesman declined to comment on the settlement on Friday, citing "pending litigation" - a reference to the shareholder lawsuits over the charge.
Eli Lustgarten, an analyst at Longbow Securities, said the dispute overshadowed ERA's real importance to Caterpillar: giving it the product line and distribution it desperately wants in China, which produces and consumes more coal than any other country in the world.
Caterpillar, long the world's largest maker of construction equipment, has also become the world's largest mining equipment maker in recent years.
One question that remains is how Caterpillar will account for the $135 million, which - potentially - could lift its earnings as a noncash, nonrecurring item.
"From an economic standpoint, for Caterpillar's business and for Caterpillar's shareholders, it's rather de minimus," said Morningstar analyst Adam Fleck. "But it's real savings."
In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Caterpillar told investors it was gaining market share in China despite a slowdown in economic growth there. Sales of its distinctive yellow construction and mining machines were up in the first quarter of 2013 over the same period of 2012 even as its inventories there declined.
(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; editing by Matthew Lewis)
If there's one thing I can tell you definitively about the future of journalism, it's that young people of the present will be the leaders of that future.
Those in college now, who have recently finished college, or maybe a few years out of college, they're the leaders of tomorrow. There are a lot of questions about what that future will look like, but these folks have the creativity, innovative mindset and smarts to take journalism to places it's never been before.
These are the Millennials. They grew up with computers, instant messaging on AIM, using Facebook in school, they're not afraid to communicate in GIFs or acronyms, and they're poised to do great things in the future. That's why they're worth watching. And that's why I thought I'd put together a list of them.
Thanks to some crowdsourcing help on Twitter and Facebook, here are more than 100 young people to watch in the social media and journalism space going forward. These people have bright futures ahead of them!
Did I miss someone great? Tweet me @ckanal and I can consider adding them.
?
Follow Craig Kanalley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ckanal
Remember ASUS' Transformer Books? All is forgiven if you don't, as we're already approaching the one-year anniversary of when they were first revealed at Computex in Taipei. As well as the ability to detach and work as a standalone 13.3-inch tablet, you'll be able to choose from Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processor options when the Books arrive in the US next week. Sure, Japanese buyers might have picked one up first, but interested hybrid PC shoppers should mark May 21st into their diaries. No official word on pricing, but preorder pages from MacMall earlier this year had the Core i7 model pegged at a hefty $1,479.99.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" had its big red carpet premiere in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and Leonard Nimoy was the one man who raised his hand for the cameras and made an iconic gesture that was allowable.
In no universe should it be OK for anyone but Spock to make the Vulcan V. OK, go ahead, we'll wait. Make the space between your pinky/ring fingers and your middle/index fingers. Waiting ... Oh! Ring finger doesn't want to play along with pinky? Then stop!
Here's Nimoy looking awesome and totally living longer and prospering.
AP
Lea Thompson did this because she thinks starring in "Back to the Future" gives her some sort of sci-fi-hand-gesture cred.
Getty Images
Director J.J. Abrams might only be waving here, but let's just pretend the Vulcan salute is another thing he got wrong, and now his stomach is rumbling because he's nervous.
Getty Images
Zoe "Uhura" Saldana is that person at the party who doesn't know what to do with her hands, because she knows making the V is forbidden.
Getty Images
Zachary Quinto knows better. "Hands by side. Hands by side. There's only one Spock. There's only one Spock."
Getty Images
Oh, Kirk. You just couldn't help yourself, could you? Give us five reasons why Chris Pine should have taken his cue from Quinto.
AP
John "Sulu" Cho tries to run off the red carpet before anyone notices his strange double-pointing move. Too late. George Takei just got 100,000 likes on his Facebook page for a meme of this.
AFP - Getty Images
Peace? Victory? How about neither, Fran Drescher?
Getty Images
When all else fails, Peter Weller at least resorts to jazz hands.
Getty Images
Nimoy is still too cool. "Watch, I'll do it again without even looking ..."
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Public release date: 21-May-2013
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While we don't have all of the details on the new Xbox Live features announced at today's Xbox One launch, it's clear that Microsoft is going all-in when it comes to social and multiplayer gaming. First, they are upping the number of dedicated servers for online play from 15,000 to 300,000 and nearly all of your content and game data will be store in the cloud.
