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Friday, June 29, 2012
Seeking solace: Celebrity deaths often have pronounced effects on their audiences
ScienceDaily (June 28, 2012) ? When singer Whitney Houston died in February, expressions of grief and solidarity surfaced quickly. Facebook status updates, tweets and related postings captured shared expressions of mourning for a person many of the social media users had never met. Similar results occurred with the recent deaths of Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys and television host and producer Dick Clark, among others.
The common responses to celebrity deaths demonstrate important realities about how people build relationships with the media they consume, according to a Kansas State University cognitive psychologist. Richard Harris, professor of psychology, has studied a number of aspects of the psychology of mass communication. His focus has been on how people acquire knowledge from media. Among his studies has been an examination of how watching certain media with different people influences the experience. He has also studied how people remember certain media experiences.
Harris says many people develop relationships with media characters in a similar manner to how they do so in real life. This phenomenon is referred to as parasocial interaction. The one-sided relationship is most commonly observed between celebrities and their fans. A prominent example cited by Harris was the popular television show "Friends." The show aired for 10 years and revolved around six principal characters.
"Many people have probably spent more time with the characters on 'Friends' than they have with most of their real-life friends," Harris said. "Of course they haven't interacted with them -- it's very one-sided. People can, if drama is particularly well acted and written, identify with the characters. That's a significant relationship. That becomes particularly acute often when a character dies or a famous person dies with whom you have such a relationship with."
Spontaneous displays of grieving after the death of a famous person or celebrity are not new. For example, impromptu memorials appeared for Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and John Lennon following their deaths.
Harris said these losses have a distinct difference from the loss of a family member.
"We don't have the social structures and support for grieving the loss of a media character or, in particular, a fictional character," Harris said. "Somebody's real upset that their favorite soap opera character was killed off yesterday and they tell someone about that and they laugh. It's a very different reaction than if their grandmother had died."
As a result, social media postings can turn therapeutic for some devoted fans or supporters, Harris said. Fellow celebrities have also taken to social media sites and other mediums to mourn the loss of fellow stars or influential people.
While parasocial interaction was first written about as early as the 1950s, instances only began increasing with the rise of television and movies and the more realistic depictions of fictional characters.
"Both have the visual and auditory modality," Harris said. "Television and movies look a lot more real than radio or print media. I think the degree of identification and emotional response is much greater."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Kansas State University.
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Thursday, June 28, 2012
Contempt of Congress issue may fizzle after vote
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A House vote finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress on Thursday would create election-year fireworks but maybe not much lasting sizzle. Federal judges who've been called into similar disputes often sound like frazzled moms, in essence telling Congress and the president, "I don't care who started it, you two end it."
Time appears to be limited for the House to pursue a criminal contempt case against Holder or a civil case to compel President Barack Obama's administration to turn over subpoenaed documents. A contempt citation against Holder presumably would expire when the current Congress ends in January.
If the courts do end up deciding the case, however, they could shed some light on a foggy patch of constitutional law: What happens when Congress demands that a president turn over documents he says should be kept secret?
Particularly, once the president invokes executive privilege to deny Congress documents it has subpoenaed.
The Supreme Court last took up the constitutional question of executive privilege during Watergate in the 1970s. But beginning with George Washington, presidents have asserted authority to withhold executive branch records from Congress. The bickering over the proper reach and limits on this authority has never stopped. It's "vague and essentially undefined terrain," according to the Congressional Research Service.
This time the argument is whether Obama is within his rights to order Holder to withhold some Justice Department documents subpoenaed by a House committee. The lawmakers are investigating a flawed anti-smuggling investigation in Arizona known as Operation Fast and Furious that tried to track guns ? suspected of being purchased illicitly in the U.S. ? all the way to gun-smuggling kingpins, who long have eluded prosecution. Agents lost track of about 1,400 guns and some have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S.
Formal Justice Department policy forbids using this risky strategy dubbed "gun-walking" and instead calls for agents to arrest people they suspect of buying guns for smugglers or others as soon as they leave gun stores. But that old strategy failed to stop guns from reaching Mexico ? more than 68,000 in the past five years ? and generated wide criticism. So Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents in Arizona, beginning in the administration of President George W. Bush, experimented with versions of the gun-walking tactic.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., says because the Justice Department initially denied but later acknowledged that Fast and Furious tried "gun-walking," he needs the documents to determine whether officials intentionally lied to Congress. The White House calls the demands for more and more documents an "election-year fishing expedition."
Claims of executive privilege tend to be viewed through a political lens.
As a Democratic senator in 2007, Obama accused Republican President George W. Bush of hiding behind executive privilege. Mitt Romney, at the time, defended Bush as simply trying to preserve the powers of the presidency.
These days, Obama is claiming the power of executive privilege, and Romney, his Republican presidential rival, accuses him of hiding behind it. Likewise, congressional Democrats and Republicans are trading charges of hypocrisy. That's nothing new.
History tells us a few things about the executive privilege fights:
NIXON'S LEGACY
It wasn't until Watergate that the Supreme Court formally recognized the doctrine of executive privilege, as part of the balancing of power between the president and Congress. The justices said conversations and memos between presidents and their top aides were presumed to be confidential in most cases.
Yet Nixon lost that case, but it dealt with the power of criminal prosecutors, not the power of Congress. The court ruled that in this case, Watergate prosecutors' need for the tapes as evidence in their criminal cases outweighed the president's authority to keep them secret. Congress is not the same as a criminal prosecutor and the court didn't spell out when Congress might be able to overcome executive privilege.
PRESIDENTS KEEP PUSHING FOR MORE
Through history, presidents of both parties have sought to expand executive privilege. And Congress has pushed back.
There are two main types of executive privilege. One privilege, for "presidential communications," only covers the president and the work of top aides preparing advice for the president.
The other, known as "deliberative process privilege," covers a much wider swatch of administration officials, even if they weren't working on something for the president specifically. Presidents are required to have a stronger argument to justify keeping secrets under this broader authority, which can involve documents they never saw or were even intended to see.
WHICH EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE IS IT?
Issa and the White House seem to be arguing right past each other when they talk about the president's assertion of executive privilege.
The White House says Obama is claiming "deliberative process privilege" to cover Justice Department documents that don't involve the president or his top aides directly but instead relate to the department's decision-making process. The idea is that officials throughout the executive branch need to discuss policy decisions freely, in private, without worrying that their words or recommendations will be nitpicked by Congress later.
Issa argues, however, that the president can only legitimately claim executive privilege for documents that involve himself or his top advisers. This would be true, if Obama were claiming the communications privilege, but so far he hasn't. He's claimed only "deliberative" privilege.
The potentially bad news for Obama: A federal appeals court has ruled that this broader privilege is easier for Congress to overcome and it "disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct has occurred."
AFTER THE VOTE
The Republican-led House plans a contempt of Congress vote for Holder on Thursday. If approved, the next step would be to send the contempt citation against Holder to the local U.S. attorney for enforcement. Traditionally the Justice Department doesn't pursue criminal contempt of Congress cases against its own administration.
If, as history suggests, the Justice Department won't prosecute a criminal case against Holder, the House could hire its own lawyer and file a civil lawsuit in federal court. Such a case could lead to an order for Holder to turn over the documents. But the federal District Court in Washington has been reluctant to rush into such cases.
TAKE IT OUTSIDE
When a House subcommittee subpoenaed AT&T for documents about President George W. Bush's program of using national security wiretaps on Americans without court approval, the Justice Department objected. The dispute moved to the District Court in Washington, but it declined to jump into the fray quickly. The court said framers of the Constitution expected such disputes between Congress and the president to be resolved in "a spirit of dynamic compromise."
Sound naive? It worked.
The court ? like an annoyed parent ? said the two sides hadn't tried hard enough to work things out and sent them back to talk more. In the end, a compromise allowed subcommittee staff members to review some unedited memos about the wiretaps and tell lawmakers what they had read.
Similarly, in a Reagan administration case, the District Court declined to get involved in a dispute over whether the Environmental Protection Agency could refuse to turn over documents to Congress. The court called for "compromise and cooperation" ? and eventually agreement was reached outside of the courtroom.
TIME'S RUNNING OUT
Judges tend to move slowly and cautiously.
The hopes of the House winning a legal resolution before the November elections are dim. And the authority behind House subpoenas or contempt citations traditionally are considered to expire when that Congress ends, according to the Congressional Research Service. That happens in January 2013.
In any event, if Obama loses his re-election bid the case becomes moot. If Obama wins and Republicans retain control of the House, they could vote to restart the fight. But Holder might no longer be in office.
HOLDER'S FUTURE
A contempt of Congress vote against Holder probably would amplify calls from some Republicans for his resignation. Although the administration's shown no signs of that so far, it's widely believed, even among Holder's close associates, that he doesn't intend to return should Obama win a second term. When asked about it, Holder has been noncommittal.
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Rewriting quantum chips with a beam of light: Laser technique brings ultrafast computing closer to reality
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2012) ? The promise of ultrafast quantum computing has moved a step closer to reality with a technique to create rewritable computer chips using a beam of light. Researchers from The City College of New York (CCNY) and the University of California Berkeley (UCB) used light to control the spin of an atom's nucleus in order to encode information.
The technique could pave the way for quantum computing, a long-sought leap forward toward computers with processing speeds many times faster than today's. The group will publish their results on June 26 in Nature Communications.
Current electronic devices are approaching the upper limits in processing speed, and they rely on etching a pattern into a semiconductor to create a chip or integrated circuit. These patterns of interconnections serve as highways to shuttle information around the circuit, but there is a drawback.
"Once the chip is printed, it can only be used one way," explained Dr. Jeffrey Reimer, UCB professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the study co-author.
The team -- including CCNY Professor of Physics Carlos Meriles and PhD graduate students Jonathan King of UCB and Yunpu Li of CCNY- saw a remedy for these problems in the emerging sciences of spintronics and quantum computing.
They have developed a technique to use laser light to pattern the alignment of "spin" within atoms so that the pattern can be rewritten on the fly. Such a technique may one day lead to rewritable spintronic circuits.
Digital electronics and conventional computing rely on translating electrical charges into the zeros and ones of binary code. A "spintronics" computer, on the other hand, would use the quantum property of electron spin, which enables the electron to store any number between zero and one.
Imagine this as if the electron were a "yin-yang" symbol in which the proportions of the dark and light areas -- representing values from zero to one -- could vary at will. This would mean that multiple computations could be done simultaneously, which would amp up processing power.
Attempts at using electrons for quantum computing have been plagued, however, by the fact that electron spins switch back and forth rapidly. Thus, they make very unstable vehicles to hold information. To suppress the random switching back and forth of electrons, the UCB and CCNY researchers used laser light to produce long-lasting nuclear spin "magnets" that can pull, push, or stabilize the spins of the electrons.
They did this by illuminating a sample of gallium arsenide -- the same semiconductor used in cell phone chips -- with a pattern of light, much as lithography etches a physical pattern onto a traditional integrated circuit. The illuminated pattern aligned the spins of all the atomic nuclei, and, thus, their electrons, at once, creating a spintronic circuit.
"What you could have is a chip you can erase and rewrite on the fly with just the use of a light beam," said Professor Meriles. Changing the pattern of light altered the layout of the circuit instantly.
"If you can actually rewrite with a beam of light and alter this pattern, you can make the circuit morph to adapt to different requirements," he added. "Imagine what you can make a system like that do for you!"
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by City College of New York.
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Journal Reference:
- Jonathan P. King, Yunpu Li, Carlos A. Meriles, Jeffrey A. Reimer. Optically rewritable patterns of nuclear magnetization in gallium arsenide. Nature Communications, 2012; 3: 918 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1918
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
A day later, other Williams wins at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) ? On one point Tuesday at Wimbledon, Serena Williams dumped a forehand into the net and dropped to a knee, her jaw clenched as she let out a shriek.
On another, she pushed a backhand into the net while her feet gave way, yet again leaving her awkwardly splayed on the grass at Court 2, the same place where her sister Venus lost a day earlier.
By the end, the younger Williams was screaming after nearly every point, good or bad ? and, well, there were plenty of both. Her harder-than-the-score-looked 6-2, 6-4 victory over the 62nd-ranked Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic in the first round at the All England Club wasn't exactly perfect or pretty.
"Definitely a little relief," the sixth-seeded Williams said. "I was letting out a lot of cries. I was happy to get through that."
Yes, Williams got the job done, something she couldn't say the last time she was at a major championship. Last month at the French Open, the 30-year-old American tossed away a big lead ? nine times, she was two points from victory ? and lost to a woman ranked 111th, the only first-round exit of Williams' career in 48 Grand Slam tournaments.
"I learned that you got to ... keep going," Williams said about that stunning defeat. "I was really disappointed. Obviously, I was extremely disappointed. But as Kelly Clarkson says, 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.'"
In part because of a series of health scares that sidelined her for about 10 months, Williams has gone two years since the most recent of her 13 major titles, including four at Wimbledon. And even though she bowed out quickly in Paris, Williams is a popular pick to do well this fortnight.
"For me, when I'm playing a match," Williams said, "I either win it or lose it."
She'll want to play better than she did against Zahlavova Strycova, who is 0-21 against top-10 opponents, 13-27 in Grand Slam matches, and never has made it past the third round at any major.
Some other top players were sluggish at the start against unheralded foes Tuesday, when action was cut short in the evening because of rain.
Two-time Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal, for instance, trailed 4-0 against 80th-ranked Thomas Bellucci of Brazil before turning it around and winning 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-3.
"Fantastic for me," Nadal said, "but I have to improve a lot for the next round."
Defending women's champion Petra Kvitova fell behind 3-0 and 4-1 but eventually used a seven-game run to take control and beat 96th-ranked Akgul Amanmuradova 6-4, 6-4. The match was halted by a 30-minute rain delay in the second set; when they returned, Kvitova needed all of three minutes to wrap things up.
"In the beginning," Kvitova acknowledged, "I think I was nervous."
Twelve singles matches were suspended in progress and four were postponed altogether. Among those that began but didn't finish, 2003 U.S. Open champion and three-time Wimbledon runner-up Andy Roddick led British wild-card entry Jamie Baker by a set and a break; French Open finalist Sara Errani was a point from beating U.S. qualifier CoCo Vandeweghe; and 21st-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada was a game from eliminating Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, leading by two sets and 5-4 in the third.
Winners included 10th-seeded Mardy Fish of the United States, playing his first match since having a medical procedure on his heart a month ago. The 30-year-old Fish hit 24 aces and defeated Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo of Spain 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-6 (1), then didn't attend a postmatch news conference; a tour spokesman said Fish wasn't feeling well, but didn't elaborate.
All three Australian men in action Tuesday exited, meaning none reached the second round at the All England Club for the first time since 1938. No. 20 Bernard Tomic, a quarterfinalist at 18 years old in 2011, was knocked out by David Goffin, the Belgian wild-card recipient who took a set off Roger Federer in the fourth round of the French Open; 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt lost to No. 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga; and Matthew Ebden was beaten by Benoit Paire of France.
"The boys didn't have the best day," said Hewitt, who used to be ranked No. 1 but has dealt with a series of injuries, is now 202nd, and needed a wild card to get into the field.
He hadn't bowed out in the first round at Wimbledon since 2003. Williams never has. Never lost before the third round, actually, and now is 13-0 in openers at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.
Last year, Williams questioned why tournament organizers assigned her and her sister to play on Court 2 rather than the larger and more prestigious Centre Court or Court 1. They have, after all, won a total of nine singles championships at Wimbledon and faced each other in four of those finals.
Given that Venus lost in straight sets on Court 2 on Monday, and Serena went through a workout to win there on Tuesday, the issue came up.
"I can't even talk about it. I'm over it," Williams said, raising her left palm. "I just can't talk about that right now. I'm not in the mood."
___
Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
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Home based business Achievement -- Not only Earning money ...
From Multiverse
home business
Be Part of the house Business Group
Are you considering starting your personal business from home? If that's the case, brace your self for a relaxing fact. Specialists estimate that more than nine from every ten home based businesses fail. You heard right, the failing rate is more than ninety percent!
If you wish to run a effective business online, you will need to do everything possible to join the little minority of people that actually succeed from operating their own home-based smaller businesses.
How can you do this? What sets apart those who cannot make it work from those who thrive? There are at least three factors that play a huge role in making someone part of the profitable minority. When you understand them, you'll understand what sets apart the home based winners from its losers.
"First, the home business winners are prepared to learn".
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Second, profitable business owners are action-oriented. While they'll plan and research, they'll also follow up with actual implementation. One of the most common reasons for failure is that operators acquire information but fail to put it to use. Only those who are willing to take action and forge ahead defy the odds.
Third, those in the successful minority persevere. They don't give up in the face of a challenge and they don't allow themselves to surrender when they suffer a setback. The road from getting started to becoming wealthy isn't always smooth. It can be challenging at times and those with a tenacious streak are more likely to follow it to success than those who shrink in the face of difficulty.
That's what it takes to defy the numbers. You can put yourself in the profitable home business minority by combining a willingness to follow proven, smart guidance with a commitment to action and the ability to confront challenges head on.
If you're ready to do things the right way, there are huge financial and personal awards for successful home business operation.
If you're not, however, the odds are stacked high against your success. Remember that scary number?EURoover ninety percent of new businesses simply don't make it.
People can fall into the large group of small business flops due to variety of reasons. They may be under financed. The root idea of the business may be fatally flawed. The competition might eat them alive. That being said, the most common reasons why people fail to make their at-home businesses work are related to learning, working and persevering.
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Moody's cuts debt ratings of 28 Spanish banks
Spain's battered banks have taken another hit, this time in the form of a sweeping downgrade by Moody's.
The rating agency said that it is cutting its views on the debt issued by 28 Spanish banks, including international heavyweights Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
The Spanish government's fragile finances are making it more difficult for that country to support its lenders, according to Moody's. And it says the banks are vulnerable to further losses from Spain's real-estate bust.
The announcement late Monday from Moody's Investors Service came on the same day that Spain's government formally asked for help from its European neighbors in cleaning up its stricken banking sector. The request left many questions unanswered, including how much Spain would ask for out of the $125 billion loan package it has been offered.
That uncertainty over Spain led to losses Monday in global stock markets. Bond investors, meanwhile, pushed Spain's borrowing costs higher, a sign of wilting confidence in the country's ability to support its banks.
The downgrades reflect Moody's dimming view on the ability of the Spanish banks to repay their debts. Moody's said the lower ratings stemmed from its having downgraded the Spanish government's credit rating by three notches earlier this month.
A downgrade usually means that banks will have to pay more to service their debt. Investors demand higher interest for riskier debt implied by lower credit ratings.
Spain formally asked the European Union on Monday for rescue loans to help clean up its troubled banking industry. The Spanish economy, the fourth-largest of the 17 countries that use the euro currency, is suffering from the aftershocks of a real estate bust that has devastated families as well as banks. Unemployment is nearly 25 percent.
The Spanish government's financial fate is intertwined with that of the country's banks. Two-thirds of the government's bonds are owned by Spanish banks, pension funds and insurance companies.
Moody's long-term rating on Banco Santander SA, the eurozone's largest bank by market capitalization, remains in investment grade despite a two-notch downgrade. The rating agency cited Santander's diversified holdings that reduce its exposure to the government's finances. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA's new long-term rating is one notch below Santander's and just one notch above non-investment, or "junk" status.
The debt of several others, however, is now considered junk. Those include Banco Popular Espanol, Bankinter SA and Bankia.
Moody's did say in a statement that the agency is encouraged by measures being taken by Spain to support its banks.
The rating agency's move came four days after the rating agency downgraded some of the world's biggest banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, reflecting concern over their exposure to the violent swings in global financial markets. Moody's also cut the ratings on seven German and three Austrian banks this month.
The downgrades haven't come as a surprise. But they come at a time of great uncertainty in the global economy. Europe's 17-nation currency union is under threat, the U.S. economy is slowing and the economies of India, Brazil and China are cooling.
EU leaders are meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels for another summit aimed at reining in Europe's debt crisis. Debt-wracked Greece is looking to renegotiate some of the budget-cutting measures it has agreed to in exchange for continued support from international lenders. The summit comes just a week after Greece's new coalition government was formed following months of political turmoil and two inconclusive elections.
Two international audits last week found that Spain could need as much as $77 billion. The government wants the loans to go directly to the banks so that it won't be responsible for repayment in case of a default. That idea has met with resistance.
The size and interest rates of the loans likely will be discussed at the EU summit this week.
Investors are concerned that beyond a rescue for its troubled banking sector, Spain itself may ultimately need a full country bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Steep losses stung stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 138 points to close at 12,502.66, a loss of 1.1 percent. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell even more, 1.6 percent.
In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 stock index fell 1.1 percent, France's CAC-40 slumped 2.2 percent, while Germany's DAX dropped 2.1 percent. The selling spilled over to Asian on Tuesday, with Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 percent and South Korea's Kospi was 0.2 percent lower in early trading.
Many analysts believe big banks, including those in the U.S., would be the first to feel the hit of a freeze-up in Europe's financial system if Spain isn't able to convince bond markets that it can rescue its hobbled banks.
The uncertainty pushed borrowing costs higher for Spain's government on Monday. Its stock market plunged 3.7 percent.
The other 23 banks downgraded by Moody's are Caja Laboral, Banca March SA, Caja Rural de Navarra SCC, Caixa Bank, Instituto de Credito Oficial, Banco Cooperativo Espanol SA, Banco Sabadell SA, Kutxabank SA, Unicaja Banco SA, Banco Pastor SA, Confederacion Espanola de Cajas de Ahorro, Caja Rural de Granada SCC, Bankoa SA, Liberbank SA, Ibercaja Banco SA, Cajamar Caja Rural SCC, Ahorro Corporacion Financiera SV SA, Banco CEISS, Catalunya Banc SA, NCG Banco SA , Banco CAM, Dexia Sabadell SA and Banco de Valencia SA.
__
AP Business Writer Seth Sutel contributed to this story.
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Kim Kardashian, Beyonce Bond At Watch The Throne Concert
Kanye West and Jay-Z's lady loves look chummy while dancing together at Birmingham, England, show.
By Jocelyn Vena
<P>Kim Kardashian and <a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/knowles_beyonce/artist.jhtml">Beyoncé</a> got chummy while watching their men perform at a <a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/west_kanye/artist.jhtml">Kanye West</a>/ <a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/jay_z/artist.jhtml">Jay-Z</a> gig in Birmingham, England, on Friday.</P><P>The women were photographed giggling with one another among the <i>Watch the Throne</i> tour concertgoers. <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/kim-kardashian-dances-with-beyonce-at-kanye-west-and-jay-zs-concert-2012236#ixzz1yoZVf9sE" target="_blank">Usmagazine.com</a> reports that the ladies, dressed rather casually, had a full-on ladies' night. "Kim and Beyoncé were dancing all night!" a source said. "They even went into the mosh pit! It was the most hectic thing ever!"</P><P></p><div class="player-placeholder right" title="'Kim Is So Happy' With Kanye West, Khloe Kardashian Says" id="vid:768812" width="415" height="255"></div><p></P><P>In another photo taken Friday night, Kim looked like she was singing along while Queen B rested her head on the reality star's shoulder. It's the first time Jay and Yeezy's lady loves have been photographed together. There had been previous reports that B was shunning K even though Kim had been scrambling to make a connection to the pop star. A source adds that it was just a rumor. "Kim and Beyoncé have always been cool," the insider said. "Beyoncé and Jay love Kim and think she's a good match for Kanye."</P><P>On Sunday night, the second half of <a href="/news/articles/1688065/kim-kardashian-oprah-kanye-west-dating.jhtml">Oprah Winfrey's interview</a> with the Kardashian family aired. In this installment Kim opened up about being friends with the rapper for years before they took a chance on love.</P><P>"We met maybe almost a decade ago. I've known him for a really long time — we've been friends for like six or seven years — so it's very comforting to have someone that knows everything about you that respects you, understands, has gone through similar things," the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star said. "I can really relate to his mother passing, he can really relate to my father passing. I mean, there's so many similarities in our life that I feel like I'm at a really happy, good space.</P><P>"I don't know why it took so long for us to kind of get together," she added. "But I think I needed to go through all my experiences and some that he's gone through."</P><P><a href="http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1617615"><img src="http://www.mtv.com/news/photos/s/spotted/banner/spotted.jpg"></a></p>
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Philippines' musicians sing their way out of poverty
On a mock-up stage in a Philippine music studio, single-mum Joanna Talibong is singing for her life.
The former church-choir girl is nervous and struggling to stay in key as she battles through more than a dozen takes of the syrupy Olivia Newton-John ballad "Suddenly".
If she and keyboard-playing friend Jason Panggoy can get their video-demo right, they stand a chance of securing a series of gigs in South Korea that would enable them to start a long journey out of crushing poverty.
"I did not finish college, so I don't have many job options... overseas I can earn a lot more," the carpenter's daughter tells AFP during a break from singing at the studio in a rundown quarter of Manila, the country's capital.
Roughly nine million Filipinos, or 10 percent of the population, work overseas because there are so few job opportunities in their largely impoverished homeland.
While many toil as largely anonymous maids, sailors, construction workers and labourers in foreign countries, tens of thousands also stand under spotlights entertaining crowds as singers and musicians.
From high-class hotel bars in the Middle East to Las Vegas casinos, ex-pat pubs in Asia and luxury cruise liners sailing the Caribbean, Filipinos are often found performing near-perfect cover versions of almost any genre.
Talibong is desperate to join them, or she will be forced back to a bar in a small northern Philippine city where for the past three months she and Panggoy have played to tobacco traders and travelling salesmen for $3.50 a night.
Adding to her problems is her nine-month-old son, who has a clubbed foot and lives with his grandparents while Talibong pursues her musical career.
Her manager has lined up a six-month booking for Talibong and Panggoy at bars in South Korea that would pay them each $800 a month, and she knows exactly where her first pay cheques would be be spent.
"My priority is an operation for my son's clubbed foot. That's really my goal. That's what's pushing me to work really hard," says Talibong, who is just 21 years old.
But first the duo's demo tape -- which also includes a Taylor Swift and Matchbox 20 numbers -- must pass muster with the artist review board in Seoul, a review process that takes about a month.
Their manager, Wilma Ipil, who has been sending an average of two bands to South Korea every month since 2008, concedes the duo may not get the gig, amid growing competition from other Filipino talents trying to make it overseas.
"Previously, even inexperienced musicians got hired," says Ipil, who sang in Hong Kong, Thailand and China herself before going into band management.
"But now, with the wealth of talent available, promoters have become more discriminating."
Nevertheless, the demand for Filipino performers overseas is enormous, according to Jackson Gan, the head of the music studio where Talibong is recording her demo.
"Our only competition is ourselves. The whole world knows that if you have a low budget but need quality, you get Filipino talent," says Gan, who also acts as an agent for other export acts.
Gan estimates between 25,000 and 30,000 Filipino musicians and singers play in 3,000 clubs, hotels, cruise ships and restaurants around the world at any one time. The pay generally ranges from $800-1,500 a month, according to Gan.
He says even Malaysian, Indonesian, Australian, and Chinese bands tend to recruit Filipina lead singers.
Gan attributes the success of Filipino performers overseas to the deep roles music and dance have in local culture.
Singing contests are often the highlights of village fairs and beauty contests, while song and dance are a staple of the most popular national television game shows.
Karaoke is one of the country's most loved forms of entertainment, with guests at weddings and birthday parties expected to be able to belt out songs behind a microphone to entertain their hosts.
Karaoke is also a mainstay at bars, restaurants and shopping centres.
"Some of my singers were discovered at karaoke joints," says Gan, a 20-year veteran of the business, whose scouting regimen sees him serving as judge at singing contests in remote villages across the country.
Gan says Philippine musicians are also well-known for their warm audience rapport, a reflection of a general easygoing nature for which Filipinos are famous.
"That is a very important part of the music. It's not just plain singing," he says.
However Gan says most performers have a short shelf-life overseas, particularly the female lead singers who often have to end their foreign sojourns when they have babies or for other family reasons.
And although many can copy perfectly the world's most popular songs, few cover band members will ever get a recording contract.
But there are some inspirational success stories for those who continue to dream of making it big.
The most famous is Arnel Pineda, who for many years fronted Filipino bands in Manila bars and in Hong Kong.
His big break came in 2007 when members of US rock group Journey were looking for a new lead singer and saw clips of him singing the band's songs on YouTube.
Pineda was hired soon after an audition in the United States, and his first album fronting the band debuted in the top 10 of the American Billboard Charts. Pineda and Journey continue to perform at sold-out concerts around the world.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012
Inglewood Oil Field's neighbors want answers about land shift
Gale Swan has lived for 62 years by the eastern slope of the hills below where La Cienega Boulevard and La Brea Avenue crest a few miles south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The upscale homes that spider down these curving streets offer enticing views of the Los Angeles Basin.
Yet, Swan is worried.
She has been through L.A.'s heavy winter rains and the 1963 collapse a few neighborhoods away of the Baldwin Hills Dam.
But now the foundation of her 1946 house in View Park has cracks. Although it's true these hills sit on the Newport-Inglewood fault, Swan is circumspect.
"I've lived through all kinds of earthquakes, and suddenly they're appearing," she said of the cracks.
Farther west, Cheryl Slesthenter and Vivian Harris stand in their Baldwin Hills kitchen where the cabinets are splitting from the ceiling. They have lived here since 1974. In the last few years, hairline cracks have randomly appeared on their walls.
"It's gotten worse over the last year," Harris said. "I'm afraid the walls are going to break open."
No one who lives here doubts that the land is shifting. There are cracked swimming pools, broken driveways, uneven garage doors and displaced sidewalks.
The problem is, no one knows why.
"We've always suspected it was them," Harris said, eyeing their neighbor to the west ? the Inglewood Oil Field.
Now operated by Plains Exploration & Production Co., or PXP, the nation's largest urban oil field is at the center of a study that may provide some answers for residents.
The study is on fracking ? an efficient but controversial method of extracting oil and natural gas from areas once thought to be depleted ? and results should be in hand by next month.
Steve Rusch, vice president of the Texas-based company, said the study is the first of its kind in California.
He acknowledges having received about a dozen claims from residents who allege damage to their homes was caused, at least in part, by PXP's drilling operations.
"We've made contact with those folks," Rusch said, adding that the process of addressing the complaints is ongoing. "We know we have to be a responsible operator."
That didn't stop more than 400 people from gathering at Culver City Hall this month to push for a ban on fracking in California.
Fracking, shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, involves drilling a hole in the earth, then blasting millions of gallons of water infused with sand and chemicals to shatter rock formations deep underground to release natural gas and oil trapped in the shale.
The method has come under criticism. Late last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report in a Wyoming case in which federal regulators said fracking was the probable cause of tainted water supplies. Then in March, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said fracking may be behind an increase in seismic activity near extraction sites.
L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes the oil field, said residents have contacted his office about property damage, but he wants to see the results of the study before drawing any conclusions.
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Google Announces Sharp Price Cuts for Google Maps [VIDEO]
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
Another reason why dads and hopeful dads should quit smoking now
ScienceDaily (June 23, 2012) ? As you decide what to get dad for Father's Day, you might want to consider what he gave you when you were conceived. If he smoked, your genes are likely damaged, and your odds for cancers and other diseases throughout your life could be increased. A new research report appearing online in the FASEB Journal, scientists show for the first time in humans that men who smoke before conception can damage the genetic information of their offspring. These inherited changes in DNA could possibly render an offspring in the womb susceptible to later disease such as cancer.
This provides evidence showing why men should be urged to stop smoking before trying to conceive in the same way women have been urged to quit. Interestingly, a fertile sperm cell takes about three months to fully develop; therefore men would ultimately need to quit smoking long before conception to avoid causing genetic problems.
"That smoking of fathers at the time around conception can lead to genetic changes in their children indicates that the deleterious effects of smoking can be transmitted through the father to the offspring," said Diana Anderson, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Bradford, in the United Kingdom. "These transmitted genetic changes may raise the risk of developing cancer in childhood, particularly leukemia and other genetic diseases. We hope that this knowledge will urge men to cease smoking before trying to conceive."
To make this discovery, Anderson and colleagues used DNA biomarkers to measure genetic changes in the paternal blood and semen around conception, as well as maternal and umbilical cord blood at delivery in families from two different European regions in central England and a Greek island. Information regarding the lifestyle, environmental and occupational exposures of these families was taken from validated questionnaires. The combined analysis of exposures and DNA biomarkers was used to evaluate the role of exposures before conception and during pregnancy in the causation of genetic changes in the offspring. These results have strong implications for the prevention of disease.
"This report shows that smoking is a germ cell mutagen. If dad uses cigarettes, his kids will be affected even before they are born," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. "As Father's Day approaches, family members may want to give dads and prospective dads the help they need to quit smoking for good."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- J. Laubenthal, O. Zlobinskaya, K. Poterlowicz, A. Baumgartner, M. R. Gdula, E. Fthenou, M. Keramarou, S. J. Hepworth, J. C. S. Kleinjans, F.-J. van Schooten, G. Brunborg, R. W. Godschalk, T. E. Schmid, D. Anderson. Cigarette smoke-induced transgenerational alterations in genome stability in cord blood of human F1 offspring. The FASEB Journal, 2012; DOI: 10.1096/fj.11-201194
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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A Blind Woman's Empowering Journey into Computers - Techlicious
Sit down in front of your computer, but don't turn it on yet. Cover your eyes so you can't see anything; don't cheat, and don't peek! Now, turn on your computer, if you can find the switch, which, hopefully, you can from memory, right? Now, try doing something on your computer after it has booted up. Open your browser and read the latest news on CNN.com. Check your email in Outlook.
Darn near impossible, right? But not for me.
My name is Marcia Ilene Baran and I have been totally blind since birth. Yet, with blind/accessible technology, I can do everything I need to on a computer, including writing the story you?re reading right now.
My Journey
I was a Social Worker for twenty years and now I dedicate my life to giving back to society as the volunteer coordinator for the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.
Yet it was only four years ago that I decided to become computer educated. I kept hearing advertisements on television to go to this and this web site to read about this and this topic. I had a vague notion of what a computer could do, but I realized that I was not in the loop, and that I'd better do something about it, really fast. I began researching technology schools for the blind throughout the United States, and chose Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh, where all the instructors where blind, as well.
When I first got to school, I literally knew nothing about computers. I didn't even know what a cursor was or how it worked. To help me learn to navigate, the instructor would insert a disc into the computer with jumbled up words and sentences. My assignment was to correct and arrange them so that they were readable and made sense.
Soon, I was sending my first email. I was so overjoyed that I let out a scream of joy and then started to cry. The whole school came running, and everyone wanted to know what happened. I just sent my first email successfully; this was a living miracle!!
When I was relatively new to the computer, I was like a kid in a candy store! I would find lists and lists of free email newsletters that I could receive. I was so excited by the whole prospect, in general, that I signed up for everything in sight! My inbox became overloaded ? I was on my way to becoming an email junkie! I quickly learned to become more discriminating in my selections. Now I subscribe to ?only? 63 newsletter emails ranging from perfume to music to computer technology.
I also learned that email was not the impersonal version of a telephone call. I would write a friend in California ? who had been extremely ill for three years before she passed away ? at least ten emails every day, encouraging her, letting her know how much I loved and respected her, etc. Before she died, she wrote and told me how much she depended upon my daily emails for strength and courage!
Computer accessibility has enabled me to search the web extensively, pursuing in-depth information on topics I am interested in. I participate in an online community bulletin board that specializes in music, one of my greatest loves, and I browse Amazon and other shopping web sites to view their merchandise. I can't do my own purchasing yet, however, because it is extremely difficult if you are blind, so my friends do it for me.
The history of computer tools for the blind
My computer skills and abilities are increasing every day, because I am constantly educating myself to learn more. But I could never accomplish what I have without the tools specifically created for the blind and visually impaired.
When I was attending college at the University of Hartford, earning my B.S. Degree in Secondary Education and a minor in Spanish, I would have to first put my term papers into Braille, and then type them on a regular typewriter. However, if you are blind, you can't correct your errors. Many times I would make no mistakes until the very bottom of the page. Then, I had to type the whole page all over again.
According to Michael Hingson, a leading authority on the advances in adaptive technology (and visually impaired, himself), "Forty years ago?there was no general attempt by industry or the college world to create a device which reading/disabled individuals could use. Those devices which did exist in the early and mid-seventies were primarily expensive hardware-based technology, as computers had not progressed to the extent where technology to create alternatives to print and video displays could reside within the computers themselves nor their programming. One Braille producing computer terminal, for example, consisted of a modified teletype printer and a PDP-8E minicomputer solely to drive it.?
Even well into the eighties, those who wished to hear what was being displayed on the computer screens needed to purchase a separate hardware devices. But we began to see the emergence of primitive software which resided directly on your computer and could create synthesized speech as an alternative to sight-oriented video displays.
By the early nineties, the processing of computers finally reached the point where screen reading technology could provide blind and other print disabled persons the opportunity to have a real shot at using computers at school, on the job, and at home, just like their sighted colleagues and friends. Even so, only a few specialized companies stepped forward to manufacture the technology, and the cost for the screen reading software was sometimes greater than the price of the computer itself.
Today, I use a program called Dolphin Guide, which reads out loud to me, in the most beautiful, human-sounding voice you could ever imagine. Using voice commands, I can read and write emails; organize my email into folders; search the web; keep an address book; manage my calendar; scan and read a book, magazine and some hand-written notes; play CDs and DVDs; and even read labels on bottles. And this is only a partial list of everything it allows me to do on my computer.
And unlike my student days at the University of Hartford, now, I can type with perfect ease. Now, guess what my two most favorite keys are on the computer? Spellcheck and delete! What a feeling of total freedom and empowerment!
According to Laura Mills of Evas.com, distributors of Dolphin Guide in the United States, "An engineer in the U.K. originally designed Guide for his elderly relative who had degenerative eye disease and wanted to access email on the web. Once he saw how helpful it was for his relative, he began building the program for the consumer market and it grew from there.?
Obviously, access technology for the blind and visually impaired has come a very long way. All of the companies producing accessible technologies are constantly improving, updating, and producing new versions of their software.
And Web accessibility of web sites is constantly evolving, as well. The National Federation of the Blind is happy to assist any company or individual with making on-line content accessible to blind computer users. In most cases, a complete redesign of a web site is not necessary in order to make it accessible.
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Friday, June 22, 2012
Mexico marines detain suspected son of drug lord
A Mexican marine escorts Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, left, during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A Mexican marine escorts Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, left, during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A Mexican marine escorts Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, left, during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, who is allegedly one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Mexican marines escort aJesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, in the back with red T-shirt, and Kevin Beltran Rios, during their presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, who is allegedly one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, and his alleged accomplice Beltran Rios in the western state of Jalisco thanks to intelligence work, the Navy said in a brief statement. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Mexican marines escort Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.(AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Mexican marines escort Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, left, during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Thursday, June 21, 2012. Mexican marines detained Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexican marines on Thursday detained a young man they believe is one of the sons of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
The presumed son, identified by the Navy as Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, was allegedly taking on an increasing leadership role in Mexico's most powerful drug cartel and purportedly served as the administrator of his father's fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine at about $1 billion.
The boyish, heavyset Guzman Salazar, known as "El Gordo," or "Fattie," was captured early Thursday during a raid by marines in Zapopan, an upscale suburb of the western city of Guadalajara, thanks to intelligence work and information from U.S. authorities, Navy spokesman Jose Luis Vergara said at a news conference.
Also captured in the raid was an alleged 19-year-old Sinaloa cartel member, Kevin Daniel Beltran R?os. The pair was caught with a grenade launcher and four grenades, two assault rifles, two pistols and $135,000 in cash.
Vergara said Guzman Salazar was "a key element" in the Sinaloa cartel, "not just because of his blood tie to the leader ... but because he was presumably in charge of managing his assets."
"Intelligence sources say that Guzman Salazar was coordinating the majority of the drug shipments sent to the United States by the Sinaloa cartel, including cocaine and heroin," Vergara said, adding that "several sources also say Guzman Salazar was taking increasing control of Sinaloa cartel operations."
When he was paraded before news media, the paunchy Guzman Salazar mostly kept his eyes down or closed. Dressed in a red polo shirt and jeans, he did not answer when asked where his father is.
Vergara said the capture was due to months of Navy intelligence work and information from U.S. authorities. He said Guzman Salazar is wanted in the United States on an outstanding extradition request, to face charges in Chicago, Illinois related to drug trafficking.
Guzman Salazar and his father were indicted on multiple drug trafficking charges in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in August 2009, the U.S. Treasury Department said earlier this month, when it announced it had placed financial sanctions on Guzman Salazar and his mother, Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez.
The designation bars American citizens from doing business with them and allows authorities to freeze their assets in the U.S.
U.S. authorities have said they believe "El Chapo" Guzman has at least six children with three women, including a woman whom he married in 2007 and who last year gave birth to twin girls in California. The Treasury Department described Salazar Hernandez, 53, as a wife of Guzman, without providing details.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said that U.S. officials believe the younger Guzman "oversaw many of the drug transportation and money laundering operations ... (and) operated from Jalisco, Colima and Sinaloa" states.
In May, the department announced similar sanctions against Guzman's sons Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, 31, and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 22.
Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, also known as "El Chapito," was also detained in Zapopan, in Jalisco state, on money laundering charges in Mexico in 2005, but was later released. Guzman Lopez plays a significant role in his father's drug trafficking activities, the department said.
Another son, Edgar Guzman Lopez, was killed in 2008 in a gunfight in the parking lot of a shopping center in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan. Authorities recovered more than 500 bullet casings from AK-47 rifles from the site where the capo's son laid dead in a pool of blood.
"El Chapo" Guzman was put on the Treasury Department's list in 2001, the year he escaped from a maximum security prison hidden in a laundry truck. He has evaded authorities ever since, moving from hideout to hideout as he directs the operations of his cartel and a fight against rivals that has left thousands of people dead across Mexico.
The western state of Jalisco ? where Guzman Salazar was arrested ? as well as the nearby states of Colima, Nayarit and Sinaloa have seen a spike in drug-related killings in the last few years as the Sinaloa drug cartel battles its former allies in the Beltran Leyva cartel and its archrival the Zetas drug gang.
Similar battles have been seen in the northern border state of Coahuila, where nine people were killed Thursday in a pair of shootouts between police and gunmen on one of the main avenues in the state capital, Saltillo.
State security spokesman Sergio Sisbeles said eight suspected gunmen and one civilian who was caught in the cross fire died. The shootouts started after police tried to stop a sport utility vehicle, whose occupants opened fire.
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Associated Press writers Katherine Corcoran and Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.
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