Islamist sect kills 5 people in northeast Nigeria (AP)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria ? Police say suspected Islamic insurgents have killed five people in attacks on security targets in Nigeria's restive northeast.

The Borno state police spokesman said Tuesday that Boko Haram gunmen attacked an air force barracks, a police station and an army checkpoint Monday, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) north of the sect's stronghold in the city of Maiduguri.

Samuel Tizhe said the dead include a soldier, two policemen and two civilians.

An army official said a soldier was shot in the arm during the checkpoint attack.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a series of attacks that left at least 185 dead in northern Nigeria's largest city, Kano, earlier this month.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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In lab, Pannexin1 restores tight binding of cells that is lost in cancer

Monday, January 30, 2012

First there is the tumor and then there's the horrible question of whether the cancerous cells will spread. Scientists increasingly believe that the structural properties of the tumor itself, such as how tightly the tumor cells are packed together, play a decisive role in the progression of the disease. In a new study, researchers show that the protein Pannexin1, known to have tumor-suppressive properties, plays an important role in keeping the cells within a tissue closely packed together, an effect that may be lost with cancer.

"In healthy tissues, the recently discovered protein Pannexin1 may be playing an important role in upholding the mechanical integrity of the tissue," said first author and Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Brian Bao. "When we develop cancer, we lose Pannexin1 and we lose this integrity."

The results appeared in advance online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Jan. 20.

To conduct their research, the group at Brown University and the University of British Columbia employed a "3-D Petri dish" technology that allows investigators to watch closely how cells interact with each other, without scientists having to worry about additional interactions with surrounding scaffolding or the culture plate itself. How readily the cells form large multicellular structures therefore reflects their interactions with each other, not their in vitro surroundings.

Bao's advisor, Jeffrey Morgan, associate professor of medical science, developed the 3-D Petri dish technology. Morgan is the paper's senior author.

Cancer cells converge

Starting with rat "C6" glioma (brain tumor) cells that do not express Pannexin1, the researchers left some unaltered and engineered others to express Pannexin1. After putting the different cells into the 3-D Petri dishes and watching them interact for 24 hours, they saw that the Pannexin1 cells were able to form large multicellular tissues much faster and more tightly than the unaltered cancer cells.

To confirm that Pannexin1 was indeed causing these changes, Bao and his colleagues treated their samples with the drugs Probenecid and Carbenoxolone, which are well known inhibitors of Pannexin1. They saw that sure enough, the drugs negated Pannexin1's accelerating effect.

Then the team was ready to achieve the the study's main aim, Bao said, namely to determine how Pannexin1 was able to drive these cells to clump together faster and tighter. They found that Pannexin1 sets off a chain reaction involving the energy-carrying molecule ATP and specific receptors for it.

When all experiments were done, Bao, Morgan, and their collaborators had found that as soon as the cells touched each other, Pannexin1 channels were stimulated to open and release ATP. The ATP then bound to cell surface receptors, kicking off intracellular calcium waves that ultimately remodeled the network of a structural protein called actin. This remodeling increases the forces between the cells, driving them to bind together more tightly.

Figuring out that sequence, and Pannexin1's role in it, is perhaps the study's biggest contribution to cancer research, Bao said.

"Using their single-cell systems, others have been able to carefully study individual pieces of this cascade," he said. "We came from a different perspective. Because the strength of our assay is that we can look at gross multicellular behavior in 3-D, we could ask, 'Does this actually manifest into something tangible on the multicellular level?'"

Having gained this understanding of Pannexin1's role in the mechanics of tumors, Bao is now engaged in research to answer the obvious next questions: Does Pannexin1 affect the tumor's ability to spread and invade? When cancerous cells regain Pannexin1 expression, are they less likely to spread and leave the tumor?

###

Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117181/In_lab__Pannexin__restores_tight_binding_of_cells_that_is_lost_in_cancer

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Winter cold snap kills 36 in eastern Europe

A couple walks on a snow covered road near the Lake of Eymir, Ankara, Turkey, on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Winter temperatures and recent snowfall has partially paralyzed life in Turkey. (AP Photo/Selcan Hacaoglu)

A couple walks on a snow covered road near the Lake of Eymir, Ankara, Turkey, on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Winter temperatures and recent snowfall has partially paralyzed life in Turkey. (AP Photo/Selcan Hacaoglu)

Coots fight for a piece of bread on the frozen Lake of Eymir, near Ankara, Turkey, on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Winter temperatures and recent snowfall has partially paralyzed life in Turkey. (AP Photo/Selcan Hacaoglu)

Coots run for a piece of bread on the frozen Lake of Eymir, near Ankara, Turkey, on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Winter temperatures and recent snowfall has partially paralyzed life in Turkey. (AP Photo/Selcan Hacaoglu)

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ? A severe and snowy cold snap across central and eastern Europe has left at least 36 people dead, cut off power to towns, and snarled traffic. Officials are responding with measures ranging from opening shelters to dispensing hot tea, with particular concern for the homeless and elderly.

This part of Europe is not unused to cold, but the current freeze, which spread to most of the region last week, came after a period of relatively mild weather. Many were shocked when temperatures in some parts plunged Monday to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).

"Just as we thought we could get away with a spring-like winter ..." lamented Jelena Savic, 43, from the Serbian capital of Belgrade, her head wrapped in a shawl with only eyes uncovered. "I'm freezing. It's hard to get used to it so suddenly."

Officials have appealed to people to stay indoors and be careful. Police searched for the homeless to make sure they didn't freeze to death. In some places, heaters will be set up at bus stations.

Still, 18 people, most of them homeless, died in Ukraine from hypothermia and nearly 500 people sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia in just three days last week, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Temperatures in parts of Ukraine fell to minus 16 C (3 F) during the day and minus 23 C (minus 10 F) in the night. Authorities opened 1,500 shelters to provide food and heat and closed schools and nurseries. More than 17,000 people have sought help in such shelters in the past three days, authorities said.

In Poland, at least 10 people froze to death as the cold reached minus 26 C (minus 15 F) on Monday.

Malgorzata Wozniak, a spokeswoman for Poland's Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that elderly people and the homeless were among the dead. Police were checking unheated empty buildings for homeless people they could take to shelters.

Warsaw city authorities decided to place more than 40 heaters in the busiest city transport stops to help waiting passengers keep warm.

City authorities in the Czech capital of Prague set up tents for an estimated 3,000 homeless people. Freezing temperatures also damaged train tracks, slowing railway traffic.

In central Serbia, three people died and two more were missing, while 14 municipalities were operating under emergency decrees. Efforts to clear roads blocked by snow were hampered by strong winds and dozens of towns faced power outages.

Police said one woman froze to death in a snowstorm in a central Serbian village, while two elderly men were found dead, one in the snow outside his home. Further south, emergency crews are searching for two men in their 70s who are feared dead.

"We are getting some 'real' winter this week," Croatian meteorologist Zoran Vakula said.

In Bulgaria, a 57-year-old man froze to death in a northwestern village and emergency decrees were declared in 25 of the country's 28 districts. In the capital of Sofia, authorities handed out hot tea and placed homeless people in emergency shelters.

Strong winds also closed down Bulgaria's main Black Sea port of Varna, while part of a major highway leading to Bulgaria and Greece from Turkey was closed after a heavy snowfall. Nearly 200 Turkish Airlines flights to and from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport were canceled, and a city sports hall was turned to a temporary shelter for some 350 homeless people.

The temperature in Turkey's province of Kars, which borders Armenia, dropped to minus 25 C on Sunday night.

The situation was similar in Romania, where reports said four people have died because of freezing weather. There, authorities sent prison inmates to shovel snow and unblock paths leading to a shelter with some 300 stray dogs and puppies.

Weather forecasts say the cold snap will continue through the week.

_____

Associated Press writers across the region contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-30-EU-Europe-Weather/id-5ad7e01a4a3d4ba3aef4a7e2ef6420e6

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Source: http://www.cendresetsang-lefilm.com/uncategorized/investing-strategy-covered-call-things-you-need-to-know

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Tributes to Paterno highlight influence of wife (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? For decades, Joe Paterno was the public face of Penn State. For almost as long, his near-constant companion, wife Sue, seemingly wielded as much influence.

As tributes flowed this week for the late Hall of Fame coach, the extent of Sue Paterno's sway on her husband, the football program and the university became obvious, for those watching in or outside of Happy Valley.

She served as a host to potential recruits at the family home, a tutor to players, a counselor to concerned parents who entrusted their football-playing sons to her husband, and a prodigious fundraiser for the university and charitable organizations.

While a bronze statue outside Beaver Stadium memorializes the legacy of the winningest coach in major college football, it was Sue Paterno who was her husband's rock.

"For my dad, he never doubted my mother," their son Jay said at Thursday's memorial service for his father. "My mother had it all and continues to have it all. He could do his job and we could share him with Penn State because he knew my mother was in complete command on the home front."

Through the recent months of scandal that engulfed the university and a week's worth of private and public memorials for Penn State's longtime coach, other lasting images of Sue Paterno have emerged:

_She showed her spunk by coming to her husband's defense with a quick callback to a trustee after Joe Paterno was unceremoniously fired via a phone call. "After 61 years he deserved better," Sue Paterno said according to The Washington Post. Then, she hung up.

_A short time after being dismissed, she stood arm in arm with her husband as they stepped outside their modest State College home and greeted hundreds of well-wishers.

_And at the end of an emotional week in State College, Sue Paterno appeared composed, only occasionally fighting back tears, with her arms around some of her grandchildren as about 12,000 people gathered for public memorial. She rose from her seat and joined in a standing ovation as speakers defended his legacy against criticism that he failed to do more when told about an alleged child sexual assault involving one of his former assistants.

The Paternos were about as close to royalty as you can get in Happy Valley ? a modest first family of college football.

"They went everywhere together," former quarterback Daryll Clark said this week. "They were one and one."

Joe Paterno died Sunday at age 85, less than three months after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

"Joe Paterno indeed had an indomitable will with one exception: when his will ran counter to that of his wife and my mother," Jay Paterno said in a light moment from the memorial service for the man who became lovingly known around town as "JoePa."

Save for a few moments, 71-year-old Sue Paterno looked composed for a widow who just lost her husband under already emotional circumstances. Their family announced Paterno had been diagnosed with cancer just 10 days after he was ousted on Nov. 9 as Penn State coach following 46 seasons.

Sue and Joe Paterno were side by side on the family's front walk the night of the dismissal as he tried to console fans upset that he had been fired in the aftermath of child sex abuse charges against retired assistant Jerry Sandusky.

She joined the rest of the crowd at the memorial service giving Phil Knight a standing ovation after the Nike founder and CEO gave the most impassioned defense yet of her husband's legacy in the wake of the firing.

Appearing to nearly tear up at times, she otherwise looked poised during the emotional service that included several video tributes to Paterno, who amassed 409 victories.

Despite their recognition, they led lives similar to others who worked at Penn State. They raised five children in a ranch home next to a local park. There's no fence lining the front yard and no gates guarding the driveway.

The family's phone number is listed in the phone book. It was a way, Sue Paterno has said, for families of players to reach them in an emergency.

Besides tutoring players and helping to counsel players' parents, Sue Paterno was a prodigious fundraiser for the university library that bears the family's name ? it was, after all, where Joe and Sue met, when he was an assistant coach and she a freshman at the school.

He had a degree in English literature from Brown. She was an English student.

Outside of football, they rarely spent a moment apart.

"Besides Joe coaching and being at the football building, those two were inseparable," Clark said. He said the Paternos treated him as if he were one of their own children.

Sue Paterno baked spreads of cookies and desserts when the family hosted recruiting visits. Current and former players still rave about them.

At the memorial service, former receiver Kenny Jackson recounted a conversation Sue Paterno had with his family while he was being recruited. She reinforced the themes Joe Paterno promoted in his "grand experiment" of placing as much emphasis on academics as athletics.

"Sue only promised two things: the first, Kenny will go to class; second, he will get a quality education," Jackson said. "That's all she said. She never talked about anything else but my education. So I thank you Sue. ... You always made sure that was the first priority."

And she's responsible for perhaps one of the most lasting game-day memories of Joe Paterno.

Back in the late `60s, Sue Paterno suggested he raise the cuffs on his pants so mud wouldn't get on his wool slacks while coaching. It wasn't as much a concern when JoePa switched to his trademark khakis ? but Sue Paterno said her husband kept rolling them up anyway as a superstition.

"People don't realize how much she's done for this place," Joe Paterno said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2009. "I've said many times that they won't have any problems replacing me, but if they can find a coach's wife like Sue, they'll hit the jackpot."

The Paternos became renowned in the community for their generosity. They championed Special Olympics and THON, the Penn State student-organized dance marathon charity that raises millions of dollars annually for childhood cancer research and treatment.

They've contributed more than $4 million to the university during his tenure, including $3.5 million in 1998 to endow faculty positions and scholarships, and support two building projects.

Minus endorsements outside his university contract, Paterno made just more than $1 million a year, a relative bargain for a coach with two national championships.

Three years ago, the Paternos pledged $1 million to help build a new wing at Mount Nittany Medical Center, the State College hospital where Joe Paterno died Sunday.

There were no flowers or balloons in the room, Scott Paterno said ? not Joe's style. He suspected his mother had them redirected to other patients in the hospital.

Joe Paterno died less than three months after the emergence of the stunning scandal that led to his dismissal. University trustees ousted him Nov. 9, four days after charges were first filed against Sandusky. He is out on bail and awaiting trial after denying the allegations.

Paterno was a witness before a state grand jury investigating Sandusky, and authorities have said he was not a target of the probe. Paterno had testified he had relayed a 2002 abuse allegation passed on by a graduate assistant to campus superiors, fulfilling his legal obligation.

School trustees in recent weeks have cited, in part, Paterno's failure to fulfill a moral duty to tell police outside the university as a reason for his dismissal.

A tenure of more than six decades with the football program, including 15 years as an assistant before being promoted to head coach, had come to an end in early November. The cancer diagnosis came several days later.

Sue Paterno was constantly at her husband's side, Scott Paterno said.

One of Scott Paterno's lasting memories from the last few months, as his father fought illness, was the picture of his parents sitting at a table at home, surrounded by their children and 17 grandchildren on Dec. 21 as they celebrated his 85th birthday.

"She's got his hand on him and they're sitting there looking around and they've got their smiles on their faces," Scott Paterno said. "Just two of the most happy and contented people looking around the house, looking at their children and their grandchildren and it was like `You know, this is what our life is, this is what we built.'"

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_the_paternos

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US women's soccer team qualifies for Olympics (AP)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia ? The final goal in the game that put the U.S. women's soccer team into the Olympics was scored by Alex Morgan, the super-sub who made her name at last year's World Cup.

That's the same Alex Morgan who wasn't a sub at all in the Americans' previous game, leading to an interesting moment in a meeting with coach Pia Sundhage.

The formality is that the U.S. beat Costa Rica 3-0 Friday night to earn a ticket to London. The game was quite a bit more suspenseful than expected, with the Americans overcoming some early sloppiness and waiting until deep into the second half to put the game away.

The real fun now begins over the next six months as Sundhage figures out how best to use the best, deepest roster of women soccer players in the world. For instance, the newest hot-off-the-presses talent is Sidney Leroux, who got the call instead of Morgan in the second half of the big win over Mexico three days earlier.

"I asked her how she felt when Sidney Leroux came in the game and she didn't," Sundhage said. "I wanted an honest answer. She said `I don't think you want that answer.' Great. That tells a little about how badly she wants to play."

Morgan felt she got her point across.

"We both laughed," Morgan said. "And she said `That's all I need to know.' ... But that's the great thing with Pia. She lets you feel you can be honest with her. She lets you feel very comfortable around her."

Morgan's goal in the 89th minute made the score 34-0 ? the margin by which the Americans have outscored their opponents at the CONCACAF qualifying tournament. The only one that wasn't as lopsided as the score was Friday's London-or-bust semifinal.

"There were moments where I think Costa Rica were outplaying us, and it just shows you how important it was to all of us," forward Abby Wambach said. "Nobody wanted to make that mistake. And luckily we didn't."

Tobin Heath scored in the 16th minute to give U.S. all the offense it needed, and Carli Lloyd (72nd) and Morgan (89th) provided the insurance.

But the top-ranked Americans were certainly not as crisp as they were when they were drawing criticism for running up the score. Bad passes led to giveaways in the first half, forcing goalkeeper Hope Solo to work harder than she has all tournament.

Then again, so much was on the line that some jitters were understandable.

"We know that sometimes under big game circumstances players can get a little tight," Wambach said. "And you've just kind of got to deal with it. ... It was almost as if we scored that goal and nobody wanted to get stuck into a tackle. We were kind of playing a little bit soft, and we fixed that in the second half."

Costa Rica is ranked No. 41 in the world, has never qualified for an Olympics or a World Cup and has never scored on the U.S. in eight meetings. Las Ticas proved to be scrappy opponents, however, occasionally frustrating the Americans with physical play and just missing on two solid scoring chances in the first half in the London-or-bust match. As the possibility of an upset lingered deep into the second half, the plucky team in red gained the rousing support of the Canadian fans at BC Place.

"We put together three great games in group play," said Solo, who played despite a slightly pulled right quadriceps that had been bothering her all week. "You can't play four, five, six. Not every team is going to play perfectly every single game, but we got the job done."

The U.S. will be the two-time defending champions in London, having taken gold in Athens in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008. It will be the third straight Olympics in which the Americans will be trying to make amends for World Cup disappointment from the previous year. They finished second at last year's World Cup in Germany, losing to Japan in the final.

The victory also puts the Americans into the tournament final Sunday, a bragging-rights-only game against Canada, a 3-1 winner over Mexico in the second semifinal.

Sundhage's team arrived in Canada with a bit of apprehension. The Americans, having become somewhat complacent from years of uncontested success in the region, were stunned in a World Cup qualifier by host Mexico in November 2010, forcing them into a home-and-away playoff with Italy just to get for the World Cup. Also, the format for Olympic qualifying is such that everything hinges on one game ? the do-or-die semifinals ? regardless of how a team performs in the rest of the tournament.

Determined to take nothing for granted, the Americans had been full throttle for every game. They set a U.S. team record for goals in a game in a 14-0 win over the Dominican Republic, then nearly matched the feat in a 13-0 rout of Guatemala. Then came a 4-0 win in the much-anticipated rematch with Mexico to set up the semifinal against Costa Rica.

And even though the vital game didn't go quite as planned, the outcome was all that mattered.

"We," Sundhage said, smiling, "are going to London."

__

Joseph White can be reached at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_sp_ol/oly_soc_us_qualifies

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Justice unit to probe mortgage-backed securities (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Federal and state law enforcement officials announced Friday they have launched a fraud-fighting unit, starting with 55 prosecutors and investigators, to root out wrongdoing in the market for residential mortgage-backed securities.

Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference the team will benefit from existing probes and disclosed that investigators have issued civil subpoenas to 11 financial institutions in recent days, with the prospect that "more will follow." He said bringing full enforcement resources to bear will help expose abuses and hold violators accountable.

Residential mortgage-backed securities are the huge investment packages of what turned out to be near-worthless mortgages that bankrupted many investors and contributed to the nation's financial crisis.

Appearing with Holder, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chair of the initiative, held out the prospect that information sharing between federal and state investigators will produce more far-reaching results. He pointed out that New York state securities law is more flexible than federal securities law, which can make it easier to assemble cases.

As for those who engaged in misconduct in the financial industry, "we know what they did, they know what they did and, we know they know we know what they did," said Schneiderman.

"Mortgage products were in many ways ground zero for the financial crisis," said Robert Khuzami, director of the enforcement division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The collapse in value of mortgage-backed securities resulted in unprecedented losses, and "all of us" in law enforcement are dedicated to holding accountable financial institutions that lied and cheated and misled investors, said Khuzami.

President Barack Obama disclosed the new effort in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_financial_probers

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Did Gov. Jan Brewer pick a fight with President Obama to sell books? (+video)

After her finger-wagging tiff with Mr. Obama on Wednesday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has seen sales of her book soar to No. 8 on Amazon's bestseller list. Pure happenstance ... probably.

The subject of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her finger-wagging tiff with President Obama is still burning up the Internet. Just go to Twitter and type in ?Jan Brewer? ? the tweets will pile up faster than you can read them. It?s as if she?s suddenly become as Web-popular as Ron Paul.

Skip to next paragraph

So here?s the obvious question: Did she intend to have some sort of confrontation there Wednesday in front of the cameras at the Phoenix airport? We think probably not ? in politics, as in life, happenstance usually explains more incidents than does conspiracy. But whatever her plan, Governor Brewer has benefited from Waggate in at least one respect: She?s selling a lot more books.

That?s right. Her memoir ?Scorpions for Breakfast? was published last November to generally underwhelming sales. Earlier this week, Amazon listed it as the 285,685th?bestselling book in America. By way of comparison, Newt Gingrich?s Civil War novel, ?The Battle of the Crater,? is currently No. 39,967.

But for a conservative Republican political author, there?s nothing like an appearance with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Channel in which your book title gets mentioned. On Amazon?s bestseller list, ?Breakfast with Scorpions? on Friday was ... eighth! That?s an unbelievable jump. In terms of political bookmanship, that puts Brewer up there with Sarah Palin and ?Going Rogue.?

Sarah Palin wrote the forward to ?Breakfast with Scorpions,? by the way. In it she calls Brewer a ?down-to-earth mom committed to public service and principled leadership.? So Brewer is definitely a member of Ms. Palin?s "mama grizzly" club. Also, Brewer herself in the book calls New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ?incomparable,? so maybe she?s one of those conservatives who is still hoping he jumps into the presidential race.

Anyway, jealous authors of books critical of Obama policies are already pleading online with the White House to pass along a copy to the president, so he?ll get peeved and argue in public with them, too. Next stop: Swiss bank account!

As to the letter Brewer handed Mr. Obama, which was the MacGuffin that got the tiff started, the Arizona governor belatedly decided to release its contents. It?s not exactly combative, in terms of political rhetoric: ?We both love this great country, but we fundamentally disagree on how to best make America grow and prosper once again,? Brewer wrote.

As for Obama himself, he told ABC News Thursday that the incident was ?a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.? After reporters peppered him with questions on the subject, White House spokesman Jan Carney went further, saying, ?I really assume you guys have more important issues to cover than this.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/DhAyYQJhlZA/Did-Gov.-Jan-Brewer-pick-a-fight-with-President-Obama-to-sell-books-video

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Summary Box: Chevron 4Q profit down 3 pct. (AP)

STRUGGLING REFINERIES: Rising crude prices cut into fourth-quarter profits at Chevron Corp.'s refineries, which must buy crude to make gasoline and other fuels.

WEAKER PRODUCTION: The San Ramon, Calif., company also had a tougher time pumping more oil, with production declines across its global operation. One of the biggest concerns for the company is its operation in Brazil, where an offshore oil leak put Chevron in the crosshairs of the Brazilian government. Regulators there forced Chevron to shut down one of its offshore production wells in December, and prosecutors are seeking $10.6 billion in damages.

BOTTOM LINE: Chevron reported a 3 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits. Net income was $5.12 billion, or $2.58 per share, compared with $5.3 billion, or $2.64 per share, in the same part of 2010. Revenue increased 11.9 percent to $60 billion.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_chevron_summary_box

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Nokia loss tempered by Windows phone launch (AP)

HELSINKI ? Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of euro1.07 billion ($1.38 billion) as sales slumped 21 percent even as the company's first Windows smartphones hit markets in Europe and Asia.

The loss, widened by a euro1 billion loss booked on Nokia's navigation systems unit, compares with a profit of euro745 million in the same period a year earlier.

Nokia said net revenue ? including both its mobile phones and its network divisions ? fell from euro12.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 to euro10 billion, with smartphone sales plunging 23 percent.

Nokia has lost its once-dominant position in the global cellphone market, with Android phones and iPhones overtaking it in the growing smartphone segment.

The Finnish company is attempting a comeback with smartphones using Microsoft's Windows software, a struggle that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop characterized as a "war of ecosystems."

He said Nokia has sold "well over" 1 million such devices since the launch of the Lumia line in the fourth quarter, in line with expectations.

Including other models, Nokia sold 19.6 million smartphones in the quarter, down from 28 million a year earlier. By comparison, Apple sold 37 million iPhones.

The Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 hit stores in Europe and Asia in November, while T-Mobile started offering the 710 in the U.S. in January. Nokia hopes to boost its poor presence in the U.S. with the higher-end Lumia 900, which AT&T will offer later this year.

Elop said Nokia would be shipping Lumia phones to Canada next month and China and South America during the first half of this year.

"With Lumia, our specific intent has been to establish a beachhead in this war of ecosystems, and country by country that is what we are now accomplishing," Elop said in a conference call.

Nokia shares were up about 1.5 percent at euro4.12 ($5.33) in late trading in Helsinki.

Michael Schroeder, analyst at FIM bank in Helsinki, said markets had welcomed Elop's comments on Lumia sales.

"It definitely alleviated concerns about a horror scenario, expected by some. Although a million is not a lot in the market, it was better than expected," Schroeder said.

The company said it would not provide annual targets for 2012 since it was in a "year of transition" but added that it expects operating margins in the first quarter of this year to be "about break-even, ranging either above or below by approximately 2 percentage points."

It repeated the target of cutting costs by more than euro1 billion by 2013.

Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics in London said Nokia "was not out of the woods yet," but its quarterly result was in line with expectations.

"Nokia is not necessarily dead in the water. Profit margins were a bit higher than expected and Nokia has not lost its third position in smartphones, although it is suffering in North America and western Europe," Mawston said.

Nokia proposed a dividend of euro0.20 per share for 2011 and said that chairman and former CEO Jorma Ollila will step down at the annual meeting in May. A nomination committee proposed board member Risto Siilasmaa as the new chairman.

The average selling price of a Nokia handset rose by euro2 from the previous quarter to euro53 but was down from euro69 a year earlier, reflecting a higher proportion of cheaper mobile phones in Nokia's product mix.

The company also reported a 4 percent drop in sales for Nokia Siemens Networks, its joint network equipment unit with Siemens AG of Germany.

After selling four in 10 smartphones worldwide in 2010, Nokia has steadily lost market share to competitors, including Apple and Samsung. It didn't give any market share estimates in the report Thursday, but said its net revenue fell 9 percent to euro38.6 billion in the full year 2011, with smartphone sales plunging 27 percent and total mobile phone sales down 18 percent.

Nokia, based in Espoo near the Finnish capital, employs 130,000 people ? down from more than 132,000 a year earlier.

___

Ritter reported from Stockholm.

(This version CORRECTS Updates with CEO comment, share price, details. Corrects 18 percent drop was for all mobile phones, not just low-end ones. This story is part of AP's general news and financial services.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_hi_te/eu_finland_earns_nokia

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'Django Unchained' Might Feature Contemporary Music, Sounds Awesome

Waiting for a movie you're highly anticipating can be hard, but it can be tortuous when it's Quentin Tarantino's so-called southern, "Django Unchained." With little else known about the film besides its plot and cast, even the smallest scoop of non-news becomes an essential story.
The LA Times recently posted a story about movie ranches in [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/25/django-unchained-soundtrack/

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House committee challenges government investigation into Chevy Volt battery fires (Star Tribune)

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Gaming Everything ? Blog Archive ? European Metal Gear Solid HD ...

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Dramatic Turnaround (talking-points-memo)

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6-year-old girl missing in frigid Oregon river (AP)

ESTACADA, Ore ? An Oregon man raced along the rain-swollen Clackamas River but couldn't keep up with his 6-year-old daughter who had fallen into the stream and was swept on downriver, authorities said.

Rescue workers looked for Vinesa Snegur on Sunday afternoon and resumed their search Monday morning along the waterway that's running fast and cold from a recent winter storm.

"It was just a second of inattention," said Sgt. James Rhodes of the Clackamas County sheriff's office. "He turned away. Then, splash, and she fell in. He ran and tried to keep up with her, but he was unable to."

Rhodes said the girl and her parents, Igor and Marina Snegur, are from southeast Portland and drove Sunday to play in the snow. They parked near Austin Hot Springs in the Mount Hood National Forest where a road is close to the stream.

The spot is about 60 miles southeast of Portland. There's no cell service, and the family couldn't report her missing until they got to a phone at a ranger station an hour later to call for help, Rhodes said.

The water temperature Monday morning was just above freezing, and the river is carrying a heavy load of trees and roots, imperiling rescue workers, he said. Poor visibility kept a National Guard helicopter on the ground Monday morning.

About 100 rescue workers, including divers, worked a stretch of the river four miles downstream on Monday.

Like many streams in western Oregon, the Clackamas River is swollen by heavy rain that fell late last week as a winter storm moved into the region. The storm caused flooding in many communities in the Willamette Valley.

A mother and her 1-year-old son died after a creek swept away their car from an Albany, Ore. parking lot. A father and his son were able to escape.

Most streams have receded, but more rain is been forecast this week in western Oregon, raising the possibility of more floods.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_us/us_girl_swept_away

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Video: GOP Next Stop: Florida

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Violence keeps Syria on edge, Arab mission may extend (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) ? At least six people were killed in Syria on Friday and the bodies of six others were turned over to their families, activists said, two days before the Arab League decides whether to keep monitors there despite their failure to halt bloodshed.

But a source at League headquarters in Cairo said member states were leaning towards extending the mission, which expired on Thursday, because of an assessment that the monitors' presence has reduced violence in some areas.

Syrian security men were out in force in several restive towns and cities to counter protests against Bashar al-Assad that often erupt after weekly Muslim prayers, activists said, while supporters of the Syrian president rallied in Damascus.

Hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived in late December in Syria, where an armed insurgency has grown in recent months, challenging Assad's grip on several parts of the country.

Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo on Sunday to decide whether to prolong the monitors' one-month mandate.

Critics say the 165 monitors have provided diplomatic cover for Assad to carry on a military crackdown on unrest that the United Nations says has already killed more than 5,000 people.

But the Arab diplomatic source said although League member states remained deeply at odds over how to bring about a lasting solution to Syria's crisis, they now had little option but to renew the observer mission unchanged.

Factors militating for an extension, he said, included the lack of international will for a Libya-style military intervention and a perception that the monitors were helping to curb at least some violence and encouraging peaceful protest.

"The closer Sunday's meetings of the Arab committee and the Arab foreign ministers get, the more the conviction grows that the Arab monitoring mission in Syria should be extended," the source told Reuters.

"Yes, there is not complete satisfaction with Syria's cooperation with the monitoring mission. But in the absence of any international plan to deal with Syria, the best option is for the monitors to stay."

The Syrian authorities accuse foreign-backed militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces since the unrest began in March, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere that have toppled three autocrats.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "ferocious repression" of Assad's opponents by the authorities was dragging Syria towards chaos and would only benefit extremists.

He urged the Arab League to intensify its monitoring efforts and called on the U.N. Security Council, so far paralyzed by divisions over Syria, to act.

Security forces thwarted prayers for the fifth Friday in a row at the Omari mosque in the southern town of Deraa, where the anti-Assad revolt began 10 months ago, activists said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five civilians had been killed in gunfire around the country and a security officer had been assassinated in Deraa, possibly because he had changed sides. In the northwestern province of Idlib, security forces returned the bodies of six people who had disappeared two days earlier, it said.

It was not possible to verify the latest accounts of unrest in Syria, where tight media restrictions are enforced.

PRO-ASSAD CHANTS

At a small pro-Assad demonstration near the Omayyed mosque in Damascus, dozens of young men chanted: "We are your men, Bashar" and "Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Bashar," a reference to a militia that operates alongside security forces.

Houssam Younis, an army conscript at the rally, said Assad should use "full force" to crush armed insurgents.

"The army is facing hell from them in Homs and Hama. We do not want reforms. We want to finish those terrorists first. The people should be united against them," he told Reuters.

Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, head of the monitoring mission, was expected to fly to Cairo, headquarters of the Arab League, on Saturday to report on what his 165-strong team has witnessed since it deployed in Syria.

Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council, was also due in the Egyptian capital, where he planned to meet the League's secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the League should publish Dabi's report in full and should urge the U.N. Security Council to impose targeted sanctions, including an arms embargo, to stop the killing in Syria.

Russia and China, which wield vetoes in the Security Council, oppose any U.N. sanctions on Syria.

Sanctions imposed by Western countries, and disruption caused by the uprising, are battering the Syrian economy. Syria plans to introduce a managed float of its exchange rate, effectively devaluing the currency, its central bank governor Adib Mayaleh told the Financial Times on Friday.

The value of the Syrian pound has fallen by a third on the black market during the unrest, according to exchange dealers.

A Western embargo on Syrian oil exports has cost the country $2 billion since September, the state news agency SANA quoted Oil Minister Sufian Alao as saying.

Alao said Syria was still trying to replace European Union crude oil contracts with new customers, but was having trouble securing shipping insurance and trade credit.

The EU, which bought most of Syria's approximately 130,000 barrels per day of oil exports, imposed sanctions on Syrian oil on September 2, following a similar decision by the United States.

Syrian oil exports are tiny when compared to those of the main Middle East exporters and the sector does not dominate the economy as it does elsewhere in the region, but it does provide revenue the government relies on.

EU governments are expected on Monday to expand a Syria sanctions list against individuals, companies and institutions.

Alao said attacks on oil and gas pipelines and other energy installations had killed 21 workers, disrupted supplies and caused damage estimated at 2 billion pounds ($34 million).

The Arab League suspended Syria and announced sanctions for its failure to comply with a November peace plan which required that it halt the bloodshed, withdraw military forces from the streets, free detainees, provide access to Arab monitors and the media, and open a political dialogue with opposition groups.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Damascus, Lin Noueihed in Cairo and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/wl_nm/us_syria

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Video: Mom of missing tot doesn?t finish polygraph

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Warfare in 1912: A Look in Scientific American 's Archives [Slide Show]

Web Exclusives | Technology

Images of weapons technology from a century ago, two years before World War I broke out in Europe.

By Daniel C. Schlenoff ?| January 21, 2012

Image: Scientific American

These implements of warfare were developed to fill a perceived need or follow a specific doctrine. Some, such as the development of artillery, became a central facet during the Great War, the first ?total war? that involved all of its citizens, industries and scientific ingenuity.

? View the 1912 Weapons Technology Slide Show

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Putin: Russia may return beer for 2018 World Cup

/

updated 12:24 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2012

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he'll reconsider the ban on beer at sports stadiums ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

Putin was questioned about the ban Thursday when he and FIFA President Sepp Blatter met with fans in St. Petersburg as part of commemorations of the 100th birthday of the Russian soccer federation.

As president, Putin signed a 2005 law banning beer and beer advertisement at sports venues.

He told the fan who asked about lifting the ban that "when the decision was made about stadiums, it came from the best of intentions. OK, we'll return to it again and think about it."

Blatter noted that beer is popular among fans, saying "beer is like a part of life. Can you imagine holding a championship in Germany without beer?"

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

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Mourinho's 'woeful Barca loss

Another loss to Barcelona has piled pressure on Jose Mourinho, with support for the Real Madrid coach ebbing after another ill-tempered and ineffective display against its biggest rival.

Robert Cianflone / Getty Images

He's back

David Beckham has re-signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy, agreeing to a new two-year contract with the Major League Soccer club.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46058018/ns/sports-soccer/

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EBay reports higher 4Q earnings, revenue (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? EBay reported on Wednesday that net income grew sharply higher in the fourth quarter, helped by a gain from the sale of its remaining investment in Skype. Its results beat Wall Street's expectations, aided by strong holiday sales at its namesake website and growth at PayPal, its online payments business.

The company said it earned $1.98 billion, or $1.51 per share, in the October-December quarter. That's up from $559 million, or 42 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. Excluding special items, eBay Inc. says it earned 60 cents per share in the latest quarter, above the 57 cents that analysts were expecting.

Revenue grew 35 percent to $3.38 billion from $2.5 billion.

On average, analysts polled by FactSet expected revenue of $3.32 billion.

The e-commerce and online payments company said its PayPal business continued to grow, ending the quarter with more than 106 million active accounts. That's up 13 percent from a year earlier. Revenue jumped 28 percent to $1.24 billion and the business processed $33.4 billion worth of payments during the quarter. That's up 24 percent from a year earlier.

As more people used their smartphones and tablets to buy things online, payments made through mobile devices accounted for $4 billion of the total payments processed through PayPal ? a more than fivefold increase from the prior year.

EBay has been working on expanding PayPal's reach beyond the Web. In addition to mobile payments, the company is testing a service that will let people use their PayPal accounts to shop in brick-and-mortar stores.

The company's marketplaces business, which includes eBay.com and other e-commerce sites and businesses, saw its revenue grow 16 percent to $1.77 billion.

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay is forecasting adjusted earnings of 50 cents to 51 cents per share in the first quarter. That's below Wall Street's expectations of 54 cents.

The company's stock climbed 24 cents to $30.58 in after-hours trading after closing down 19 cents at $30.34.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_ebay

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Solving the mystery of an old diabetes drug that may reduce cancer risk

ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2012) ? In 2005, news first broke that researchers in Scotland found unexpectedly low rates of cancer among diabetics taking metformin, a drug commonly prescribed to patients with Type II diabetes. Many follow-up studies reported similar findings, some suggesting as much as a 50-per-cent reduction in risk.

How could this anti-diabetic drug reduce the risk of developing cancer and what were the mechanisms involved?

In a paper published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, researchers from McGill University and the University of Montreal reported an unexpected finding: they learned that exposure to metformin reduces the cellular mutation rate and the accumulation of DNA damage. It is well known that such mutations are directly involved in carcinogenesis, but lowering cancer risk by inhibiting the mutation rate has never been shown to be feasible.

"It is remarkable that metformin, an inexpensive, off-patent, safe and widely used drug, has several biological actions that may result in reduced cancer risk -- these latest findings suggest that it reduces mutation rate in somatic cells, providing an additional mechanism by which it could prevent cancer, explained Dr. Michael Pollak, professor in McGill's Departments of Medicine and Oncology, researcher at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital and the study's director.

The study, carried out in collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Gerardo Ferbeyre at Universit? de Montr?al's Department of Biochemistry, suggests that metformin reduces DNA damage by reducing levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are known to be DNA-damaging agents produced as by-products when cells generate energy from nutrients. This action appears to take place in mitochondria, the cellular organelles that produce energy in cells by "burning" nutrients. Past studies have identified the mitochondria as a site of action for metformin related to its anti-diabetic function, but those studies had not considered that the drug also acted here to reduce ROS production, thereby reducing the rate at which DNA damage accumulates. "We found that metformin did not act as a classic antioxidant," said Ferbeyre. "The drug seems to selectively prevent ROS production from altered mitochondria such as those found in cells with oncogenic mutations."

"This study opens an exciting new direction in cancer-prevention research," said Pollak. "This doesn't imply, however, that metformin is now ready to be widely used for cancer prevention. We do not yet know if the drug accumulates to sufficient concentrations in human tissues at risk for cancer, such as breast or colon, when taken at the usual doses used for diabetes treatment, nor do we know if the findings from the original studies showing reduced cancer risk, which were carried out in diabetics, also apply to people without diabetes. But the possibility of protecting DNA from oxidative damage by the use of a well-tolerated drug was not expected, and this topic now needs further study at many levels."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Carolyn Algire, Olga Moiseeva, Xavier Deschenes-Simard, Lilian Amrein, Luca A Petruccelli, Elena Birman, Benoit Viollet, Gerardo Ferbeyre, and Michael N Pollak. Metformin reduces endogenous reactive oxygen species and associated DNA damage. Cancer Prev Res;, January 18, 2012 DOI: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-11-0536

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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White House says Obama's health overhaul on track

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is on track in many states, the White House asserted Wednesday. But officials said the administration is preparing a federal backstop anyway for states in which opposition to the new law has blocked planning.

The law calls for states to build new health insurance markets called exchanges, so that millions of middle-class people who are currently uninsured can buy taxpayer-subsidized private coverage. It also expands eligibility for Medicaid so low-income adults who have no dependent children can get government insurance. Putting the two approaches together, more than 30 million Americans are expected to gain coverage starting in 2014.

But 26 states are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the health care law, and many of those have made little progress in planning their exchanges, even though the deadline clock is ticking. The law says state plans must be approved by January 1, 2013 ? a year in advance of the program's launch ? or the federal government will step in and run things.

"No matter where you live, on January 1, 2014, an exchange will be up and running," deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle said on the White House blog.

An accompanying progress report said 28 states and Washington, D.C., are "on their way" toward establish exchanges, widely considered the operational linchpin of the health care law.

With a presidential election and Supreme Court decision on the fate the health care law coming first this year, 2014 seems like a long way off even if Obama's signature domestic accomplishment is upheld. But to federal and state officials planning for exchanges, time is short. A totally new marketplace must be created, along with systems for verifying and safeguarding confidential personal information used to determine eligibility.

The White House report put a rosy outlook on the progress in some states.

For example, the report highlighted Idaho among states advancing. Republican Gov. Butch Otter strongly supports a state-run exchange, and his administration has received a $20-million federal grant to start work. But the legislature has to approve the actual spending of the money, and Republican foes of the federal health care overhaul are trying to block Otter from moving ahead. The issue is one of the most highly contested in this year's legislative session.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-18-Health%20Overhaul/id-af3bfa93e70648c5bee6f22f6bb908ef

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Saudi Arabia doubts Iran oil blockade claim (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Saudi Arabia on Monday expressed doubts over Iran's claim it could block the main oil shipping route out of the Gulf and made clear it was ready to pump more oil after sanctions threatened to cut Iranian sales of crude.

Brent crude rose above $111 on concerns about global oil supplies if sanctions freeze OPEC's second biggest producer out of the market or push it towards military conflict, while Saudi Arabia said it would work to stabilize the price at $100.

Israel, which has often said it could strike Iran to stop it developing nuclear weapons, called for tough new sanctions against Tehran to stop its nuclear program.

But it said that for sanctions to work effectively, all countries must join in - a subtle swipe at Russia and China which oppose the latest Western moves.

"Iran must be stopped and the good news is that Iran can be stopped with economic and diplomatic means once the entire international community gathers together with effective sanctions," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the BBC.

Tehran has been under a growing array of U.N. and unilateral sanctions for years, but a U.S. bill that President Barack Obama signed into law on New Year's Eve went far further than previously, aiming to stop countries paying for Iranian oil.

The European Union - Iran's second biggest oil customer after China, buying some 450,000 barrels per day of its 2.6 million bpd exports - is also expected to agree to embargo Iranian oil at a foreign ministers meeting on January 23.

The measures go far further than U.N. sanctions agreed by China and Russia and have helped cause a currency crisis in Iran where dollars are now a scarce commodity for Iranians seeking a safe haven for their vulnerable rial-denominated savings.

DANGEROUS

The new sanctions prompted Iran to threaten to close the Gulf to oil trade if it was prevented from selling its oil and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's senior military adviser reiterated Iran would act decisively to protect itself.

"Iran would use any tools to defend its national interests, if it was exposed to any dangers," Major-General Yahya Rahim-Safavi said, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Israel - reputed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal - said such talk was more evidence of the need to act quickly against Tehran.

"A nuclear Iran would mean a new world order where a very dangerous terroristic regime has impunity and also can control oil flow and oil prices," Ayalon said.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey is to make his first visit to Israel on Thursday. Israeli media say he will try to persuade his hosts not to "surprise" Washington on Iran.

Saudi Arabia, Iran's main rival for influence in the Middle East which would play a key role in replacing Iranian oil in he event of an embargo, played down Tehran's talk of closing the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping lane for Gulf exports.

"I personally do not believe that the Strait, if it were shut, will be shut for any length of time. The world cannot stand for that," Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told CNN.

"I don't think all these pronouncements are helpful to the international oil market or to the price of oil. It's really disturbing."

Iran's warning to its Gulf Arab neighbors not to raise oil output to replace its crude appeared to have fallen on deaf ears. Naimi said Riyadh could increase production by about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) "almost immediately."

"Our wish and hope is we can stabilize this oil price and keep it at a level around $100," Naimi said.

The leader of China, Iran's biggest oil customer was in Abu Dhabi on Monday, on a six-day tour of the region where he hopes for greater access to its huge oil and gas reserves.

Although Beijing opposes further international sanctions on Iran, it has already cut its purchases of Iranian oil by more than half for the first two months of this year.

A senior Iranian oil official denied reports that Iran's exports to Asia were already suffering due to the intensified sanctions pressure, saying contracts were bring renewed on schedule.

In addition to the confrontation with the United States over sanctions, Iran has accused it of being behind the latest murder of a nuclear scientist, blown up by a bomb attached to his car last in Tehran week, a charge Washington denies.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said "some people have been arrested" in connection with the assassination, the fifth such killing in the last two years.

Larijani gave no further details but told state-run Arabic language al Alam TV Tehran was ready to deal with sanctions.

"We are prepared for oil sanctions and have different scenarios, but we would not announce them in order to avoid alerting our enemies," he said.

(Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths in London; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/wl_nm/us_iran

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Romney says he may release tax returns in April

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, right, speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, listens Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidateTexas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) ? Mitt Romney's four remaining challengers are keeping the spotlight on the Republican front-runner's wealth and business dealings by pressing him to release his income tax returns. Romney says he might make them public in April. By then, he hopes to have the presidential nomination in the bag.

His rivals did their best to knock the former Massachusetts governor off stride in a contentious debate Monday night, going after him on several fronts. Romney didn't bend under heavy pressure on the issue of his job-creation record at his former private equity firm Bain Capital, nor did he apologize for his evolving views on abortion. Blamed for negative commercials flooding South Carolina's airwaves, he stressed the independence of the super PACs that have been running ads in his behalf against former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other rivals, including former Sen. Rick Santorum.

Romney said that while he might be willing to release his tax returns, he wouldn't do so until tax filing time. The multimillionaire former businessman didn't get much gratitude from his rivals, who want him to release the information in time to influence South Carolina voters going to the polls on Saturday.

Gingrich was quick to suggest Romney wouldn't delay for months if he had nothing to hide and that his hesitation wouldn't sit well with voters. "Last night weakened him," Gingrich told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.

Romney seemed hesitant when confronted with the tax issue on stage. He at first sidestepped calls from his rivals to release his returns, then said later that he'd follow the lead of previous presidential candidates.

"I have nothing in them that suggests there's any problem and I'm happy to do so," he said. "I sort of feel like we're showing a lot of exposure at this point," he added.

Monday's night's debate was as fiery as any of the more than dozen that preceded it. Romney, the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination after back-to-back wins in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, was under fire not only from Gingrich and Santorum, but also from Rick Perry and Ron Paul.

The five will meet again in debate in Charleston Thursday night, the last time they will share a stage before the primary two days later.

The first Southern primary could prove decisive in the volatile contest. Gingrich has virtually conceded that a victory for Romney in South Carolina would assure his nomination as Democratic President Barack Obama's Republican rival in the fall, and none of the other remaining contenders has challenged that conclusion.

That only elevated the stakes for Monday night's debate, where the attacks on Romney often were couched in anti-Obama rhetoric.

"We need to satisfy the country that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to Barack Obama in a very effective way," said Gingrich.

The five men on stage also sought to outdo one another in calling for lower taxes. Texas Rep. Ron Paul won that competition handily, saying he thought the top personal tax rate should be zero.

In South Carolina, a state with a heavy military presence, the tone turned muscular at times.

Gingrich drew strong applause when he said: "Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear idea about America's enemies. Kill them."

Perry also won favor from the crowd when he said the Obama administration had overreacted in its criticism of the Marines who were videotaped urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Gingrich and Perry led the assault against Romney's record at Bain Capital, a private equity firm that bought companies and sought to remake them into more competitive enterprises, with uneven results.

"There was a pattern in some companies ... of leaving them with enormous debt and then within a year or two or three having them go broke," Gingrich said. "I think that's something he ought to answer."

Perry referred to a steel mill in Georgetown, S.C. where, he said, "Bain swept in, they picked that company over and a lot of people lost jobs there."

Romney said the steel industry was battered by unfair competition from China. As for other firms, he said, "Four of the companies that we invested in ... ended up today having some 120,000 jobs." And he acknowledged, "Some of the businesses we invested in were not successful and lost jobs."

It was Perry who challenged Romney to release his income tax returns. The Texas governor said he has already done so, and Gingrich has said he will do likewise later in the week.

"Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so the people of this country can see how you made your money. ... We cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now," Perry said.

Later, a debate moderator pressed Romney on releasing his tax returns. His response meandered.

"If that's been the tradition I'm not opposed to doing that," Romney said. "Time will tell. But I anticipate that most likely I'm going to get asked to do that in the April time period and I'll keep that open."

Prodded again, he said, "If I become our nominee ... what's happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that's probably what I'd do."

April is long after the South Carolina primary and the Republican nomination could easily be all but decided by then, following Super Tuesday contests around the country in March.

Santorum stayed away from the clash over taxes, instead launching a dispute of his own. He said a campaign group supporting Romney has been attacking him for supporting voter rights for convicted felons, and asked Romney what his position was on the issue.

Romney initially ducked a direct answer, preferring to ask Santorum if the ad was accurate.

He then said he doesn't believe convicted violent felons should have the right to vote, even after serving their terms. Santorum instantly said that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney hadn't made any attempt to change a law that permitted convicted felons to vote while still on parole, a law the former Pennsylvania senator said was more liberal than the one he has been assailed for supporting.

Romney replied that as a Republican governor, he was confronted with a legislature that was heavily Democratic and held a different position.

He also reminded Santorum that candidates have no control over the campaign groups that have played a pivotal role in the race to date.

"It is inaccurate," Santorum said of the ad assailing him. "I would go out and say: 'Stop it. That you're representing me and you're representing my campaign. Stop it.'"

That issue returned more than an hour later, when Gingrich said he too has faced false attacks from the same group that is criticizing Santorum. He noted that Romney says he lacks sway over the group, "which makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president."

Romney said he hoped no group would run inaccurate ads, and he said the organization backing Gingrich was airing a commercial that is so false that "it's probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot."

He called for scuttling the current system of campaign finance laws to permit individuals to donate as much money as they want to the candidates of their choice.

Noting that the debate was occurring on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, one moderator asked Gingrich if his previous statements about poor children lacking a work ethic were "insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans."

"No," Gingrich said emphatically, adding his aim was to break dependence on government programs. "I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn to get a better job and learn someday to own the job," he said.

Romney is the leader in the public opinion polls in South Carolina, although his rivals hope the state's 9.9 percent unemployment rate and the presence of large numbers of socially conservative evangelical voters will allow one of them to slip by him.

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Associated Press writer Dave Espo contributed to this report.

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Follow Shannon McCaffrey at www.twitter.com/smccaffrey13

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-17-GOP%20Campaign/id-22e5767a061141c785a9b29dbe21664e

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