Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/303880850?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Column: Rebounds typically follow sex scandals
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The philandering Mark Sanford and the sexting Anthony Weiner are running on redemption.
Based on the comebacks attempted by plenty of other politicians, athletes and celebrities felled by scandal, the strategy just may work.
To a certain degree, it already has: Both men are back in the national political spotlight just a few short years after their dalliances led many observers to declare their careers over. Chalk up their rebounds thus far to a conflicted public that initially revels in the sagas, then segues to outrage before ultimately forgiving personal indiscretions and allowing people to reinvent themselves.
Even so, fully winning back the public's trust after lying often proves more difficult. Particularly now, when people generally report having little faith in their elected leaders and not much confidence in the institutions where they serve.
Not that the scandal-scarred don't try to get over that hurdle. They attempt as much by acknowledging ? and apologizing for ? their faults.
"None of us goes through life without mistakes. But in their wake, we can learn a lot about grace, a God of second chances and be the better for it," Sanford says in a campaign TV ad in his race to return to Congress.
The former South Carolina governor, who won the Republican nomination for his old seat in Congress, wants people to have faith in him after he had an extramarital affair while in office in 2009 with an Argentine woman and falsely told people he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail when he disappeared for days, it turned out, to visit his mistress in South America.
In New York, the coincidentally named Weiner is flirting with a mayoral candidacy two years after he tweeted a picture of his underwear-clad crotch and then claimed his Twitter account had been hacked. When more pictures surfaced, the married Weiner acknowledged exchanging inappropriate messages with several women, and resigned from Congress.
Recently, he's re-emerged, with a new account on the very technology that ensnared him in scandal.
"To some degree, it's now or maybe never for me, in terms of running for something," Weiner said in a long and candid interview in The New York Times Magazine. "Also, I want to ask people to give me a second chance."
And why wouldn't they?
This country has proven willing to do just that for others whose indiscretions were arguably more severe.
America has a forgive-and-mostly-forget mentality when it comes to sex scandals. That partly can be explained by the inherent tension in this country over matters that once were typically personal but now often become public. In the Internet age, the inundated public barely even blinks at intimate details of life. And the media is prone to temporary feeding frenzies over whatever's trending online.
Here's the conflict:
?People tell pollsters they want politicians, celebrities and athletes to be authentic. Digital technology like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube makes it easier for those in the limelight to appear more real than ever by closing the distance between themselves and the public. Yet, their fans also lambaste them ? often mercilessly ? when they mess up.
?People also tend to hold politicians and others to a higher moral standard. Yet, no matter the title or the position or the career, everyone is fallible.
?People tend to chastise the media for digging into the private lives of public figures. Yet, they also can't seem to get enough of live-action reality TV chronicling the downfall of someone on top.
?People ? and the media ? usually are quick to call a career doomed when someone in the spotlight is tainted by a sex scandal. Yet, they often can't get enough of the spectacle of the disgraced attempting a comeback.
Perhaps the biggest turnarounds came from Bill Clinton and his one-time nemesis Newt Gingrich.
The Democratic president was impeached by the House in 1998 ? but acquitted by the Senate ? after a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Fifteen years later, he's not just enormously popular, but he's also seen as a world leader on global issues. At the same time, former House Speaker Gingrich ? who engaged in an extramarital affair with a congressional employee while pushing the GOP-controlled House to impeach Clinton ? went on to build a lucrative consulting business and make a serious run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Others found their careers sidetracked but not derailed entirely.
Republican David Vitter was identified as a prostitution ring client but went on to win a second term as a senator from Louisiana in 2010 and remains in office today. Democrat Barney Frank, the openly gay former congressman from Massachusetts, served for two more decades after he admitted to a relationship with a male prostitute in 1989.
Hollywood and the sports world are filled with similar comebacks. Think Rob Lowe, the "Brat Pack" actor who rebounded from a 1989 sex-tape scandal to star in TV and movies. Or, more recently, Tiger Woods, who returned to golfing glory after his marriage collapsed ? and career teetered ? in 2010 following revelations the year before of multiple extramarital affairs.
Perhaps one reason the public is so quick to offer redemption is that politicians as a whole aren't expected to be ethical or honest. Gallup's polling consistently shows people think House members are about as honest as car salesmen, with senators and governors faring only slightly better.
Of course, there are crash-and-burn examples, too.
Arguably the biggest: John Edwards, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife while offering himself on the campaign trail as a devoted family man. Later it came out that he'd lied about fathering a child with his mistress. Now he's a political pariah, raising his two young kids in North Carolina and absent from public life.
Former Nevada Sen. John Ensign, a Republican, admitted in June 2009 that he'd had an extramarital affair with a former member of his campaign staff. He resigned much later, in the midst of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation looking into whether he covered up the affair. No longer a public servant, he returned last year to his previous career of being a veterinarian.
Those who fall off the map completely after such a scandal tend to be the exceptions these days.
Consider that former Gen. David Petraeus is attempting to rebound in mere months. He abruptly resigned last fall from his CIA directorship after acknowledging an extramarital affair with his female biographer. Now he's joining The University of Southern California's faculty and the City University of New York as a visiting professor, while also carefully wading back into public life.
So what does all this add up to?
Perhaps it's this: That despite an initial pile of political obituaries by a horse race-obsessed media and calls by the scandal-hungry public for a full accounting of who-knew-what-when, sex scandals in modern America usually don't end careers ? political or otherwise. Typically, it's just a matter of time before the fallen attempt to rise again ? and an underdog-loving public gives them a second chance.
__
EDITOR'S NOTE ? Liz Sidoti is the national politics editor for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/lsidoti
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/column-rebounds-typically-sex-scandals-072843323.html
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New fairyflies or mymarid wasp species named after university
May 6, 2013 ? An entomologist at the University of California, Riverside discovered a new wasp species in Russia and named it after the university, commonly abbreviated as UCR.
Serguei V. Triapitsyn, principal museum scientist at the Entomology Research Museum on campus, had been sorting wasps from the Russian Far East, when he discovered several tiny female fairyflies, or mymarid wasps, 1.1 to 1.2 millimeters in body length.
He named the species Gonatocerus ucri in a research paper he published April 30 in the international scientific journal Zootaxa.
A Russian Academy of Sciences collaborator of Triapitsyn used a trap during 1999-2002 to collect minute wasps for the Entomology Research Museum in a remote location in Primorsky Kray, Russia, a region that has a largely unknown and very rich fauna of this group of insects. The trap contained alcohol that wasps dropped into, also serving as a preservative for the insects until they could be sent to UCR for study. It took Triapitsyn several years to complete the study, since identification of these minute wasps, which are hardly visible to a naked eye, requires special preparation.
Gonatocerus ucri is mostly brown in color and has long antennae and wings. Its host is unknown but other species in the same genus are beneficial insects known to parasitize eggs of leafhoppers, some of which are economically important agricultural pests worldwide.
"I decided to name it after UCR because that's where I work," Triapitsyn said. "The UCR Entomology Research Museum has extensive collections of parasitoid wasps from throughout the world, and I routinely discover newspecies among the collected material. I will soon also be describing another new species, this one from southern California, and name it after the Entomology Research Museum."
Triapitsyn received his doctoral degree in agricultural entomology from the Moscow Timiriazev Agricultural Academy, Russia. As principal museum scientist at UCR, he is in charge of the Entomology Research Museum and its collection of about three million specimens. He also conducts research in the taxonomy and biology of parasitic Hymenoptera as well as biological control.
He is the author or coauthor of more than 100 scientific publications in refereed journals, including several monographs.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/BPa5mrikFQs/130506181724.htm
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'Iron Man 3' Shells The Box-Office Competition
Only Tony Stark's last outing, 'Marvel's The Avengers,' had a bigger opening weekend.
By Ryan J. Downey
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in "Iron Man 3"
Photo: Marvel
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706871/iron-man-3-box-office.jhtml
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Monday, May 6, 2013
Orb comes from behind to win Kentucky Derby
Joel Rosario rides Orb during the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)
Joel Rosario rides Orb during the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)
Joel Rosario rides Orb reacts after the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Joel Rosario rides Orb during the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Joel Rosario reacts after riding Orb to victory in the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Joel Rosario rides Orb reacts after winning the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) ? Way back in the pack heading into the final turn, Orb was calm even if his jockey wasn't.
Churning through a sloppy track that resembled creamy peanut butter, the bay colt picked up speed and, one by one, blew past rivals.
By that time, jockey Joel Rosario knew he was aboard the Kentucky Derby winner.
Orb powered to a 2?-length victory Saturday at Churchill Downs, giving trainer Shug McGaughey and Rosario their first Derby wins.
"I was so far behind," Rosario said. "He was very relaxed. It's exactly what I wanted."
Rosario had Orb in the clear on the outside and they forged to the lead in deep stretch, with enough momentum to hold off 34-1 shot Golden Soul.
It was a popular victory before a crowd of 151,616, which poured enough late money on Orb to make him the 5-1 favorite, a position Revolutionary had owned most of the day.
McGaughey, a 62-year-old native of Lexington, finally got the Derby win he had long sought. Orb was just his second starter since 1989, when he settled for second after Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer on a muddy track.
"It means everything to me," the Hall of Famer said. "I've always dreamed of this day and it finally came."
The race was dominated by closers. Golden Soul rallied from 15th to second, while Revolutionary was 18th at one point and finished third for trainer Todd Pletcher. Normandy Invasion finished fourth.
Orb paid $12.80, $7.40 and $5.40. Golden Soul returned $38.60 and $19.40, while Revolutionary paid $5.40 to show.
Mylute was fifth, followed by Oxbow, Lines of Battle, Will Take Charge and Charming Kitten. Giant Finish was 10th, then came Overanalyze, Palace Malice, Java's War, Verrazano, Itsmyluckyday, Frac Daddy, Goldencents, Vyjack and Falling Sky.
The second leg of thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown will be May 18 when the Preakness Stakes is held at Pimlico.
The rain that pelted the track earlier in the day had stopped by the time 19 horses paraded to the post for the 139th Derby. While it created a gloppy surface, it didn't seem to bother Orb, who had never previously run on a wet track.
"I said, 'A day like today might have cost me one Kentucky Derby, maybe it'll turn around and help us today," McGaughey said.
His triumph was a victory for the old school of racing, where a private trainer like McGaughey works exclusively for wealthy owners ? in this case Stuart Janney and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps.
"The Phippses and Janneys has been my whole life for 20 some years now, and have really kind of given me everything I've got," said McGaughey, who never lost his thick Southern drawl despite years of working in New York.
"I'm extremely proud to be able to work with people such as this. To bring a day like today into their lives is just a huge, huge thrill for me. All I can do is just say thanks for the opportunity," he said.
First cousins Janney and 72-year-old Dinny Phipps, who are among the sport's blue bloods that include the old-money Whitney and Vanderbilt families, also got their first gold Derby trophy.
"I just couldn't be more delighted that we're doing this together," the 64-year-old Janney said.
Phipps' late father, Ogden, owned Easy Goer and undefeated Personal Ensign. Janney's parents owned star filly Ruffian.
"This horse's bloodline goes back to our grandmother," Janney said. "Dinny's father was very instrumental in getting me to take over my parents' horses 20 some years ago."
When the horses burst from the gates, Palace Malice and Mike Smith set a sizzling pace that couldn't be sustained.
On the far turn, the pack closed in on the leader, with Oxbow attacking from the inside and Normandy Invasion moving up on the outside to take the lead.
Rosario positioned Orb in the clear on the outside and they reeled in Normandy Invasion in mid-stretch before surging clear.
History was denied on several fronts:
? Pletcher's Derby record fell to 1 for 36 after sending out a record-tying five horses for the second time in his career. Besides Revolutionary, Charming Kitten was ninth; Overanalyze was 11th; early pacesetter Palace Malice was 12th; and previously unbeaten Verrazano was 14th.
? Rosie Napravnik's bid to become the first woman jockey to win ended with a fifth-place finish aboard Mylute. It was still the highest finish by a woman rider, bettering her ninth-place showing two years ago.
? Kevin Krigger failed in his attempt to be the first black jockey to win since 1902. He rode Goldencents to a 17th-place finish for trainer Doug O'Neill, who won last year with I'll Have Another. Rick Pitino owns 5 percent of the colt, who couldn't deliver a horses/hoops double for the coach of the national champion Louisville basketball team.
? D. Wayne Lukas missed out on becoming the oldest trainer to win at 77. He saddled two horses: Oxbow was sixth with 50-year-old Gary Stevens making a Derby comeback after seven years in retirement, and Will Take Charge was eighth.
Orb was the second Derby starter for both Janney and Phipps, whose previous entries were in 1988 and '89. Their family wealth allows them to race the horses they breed, unlike the majority of current owners who are involved through partnerships that split up the exorbitant costs of the sport.
"Take your time," Phipps said, referring to the group's way of doing things. "Let the horse bring you to the race."
The cousins' grandfather, Henry Phipps, founded wealth management firm Bessemer Trust in 1907. Janney serves as chairman, while Dinny Phipps is its director. He also chairs The Jockey Club, which regulates the registration of thoroughbreds, while Janney is vice chairman.
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Israel launches airstrike in Syrian capital
BEIRUT (AP) ? Israel launched an airstrike in the Syrian capital Sunday targeting a shipment of extremely accurate guided Iranian-made missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, an intelligence official in the Middle East said.
The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war.
The confirmation came hours after Syria's state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a research center near the Syrian capital, setting off explosions and causing casualties.
The official told The Associated Press that, as with Friday's strike, the target was Fatah 110 missiles, which have very precise guidance systems with better aim than anything Hezbollah has in its arsenal.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to disclose information about a secret military operation to the media.
Israel has said it will not allow sophisticated weapons to flow from Syria to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and a heavily armed foe of the Jewish state.
An airstrike in January also targeted weapons apparently bound for Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials have said.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported early Sunday that explosions went off at the Jamraya research center near Damascus, causing casualties. "Initial reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles that targeted the research center in Jamraya," SANA said.
A Syrian activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also reported large explosions in the area of Jamraya, a military and scientific research facility northwest of Damascus, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.
An amateur video said to be shot early Sunday in the Damascus area showed a huge ball of fire lighting up the night sky. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.
Israel's first airstrike in Syria, in January, also struck Jamraya.
At the time, a U.S. official said Israel targeted trucks next to the research center that carried SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. The strikes hit both the trucks and the research facility, the official said. The Syrian military didn't confirm a hit on a weapons shipment at the time, saying only that Israeli warplanes bombed the research center.
Israeli lawmaker Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and a former chief of staff, declined to confirm the airstrike but said Israel is concerned about weapons falling into the hands of the Islamic militant group amid the chaos of Syria's civil war.
"We must remember that the Syrian system is falling apart and Iran and Hezbollah are involved up to their necks in Syria helping Bashar Assad," he told Israel Radio. "There are dangers of weapons trickling to the Hezbollah and chemical weapons trickling to irresponsible groups like al-Qaida."
___
Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-launches-airstrike-syrian-capital-061451356.html
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Sunday, May 5, 2013
Varsity Show delivers laughs, shows off array of student talent ...
From start to finish, the 119th Varsity Show, ?The Great Netscape,? is the most fun you?ll have in Lerner?or anywhere else on campus?this year. The talented principals and ensemble, the hilarious book, and the original score?all brought together under the direction of Chris Silverberg, CC ?13?make the show a testament to the talent found at the school and a hilarious skewering of its culture.
With lines like ?Go down on me like Courseworks? and a performance by a boy band formed in Wien called N?Sink In My Room, the jokes punctuate and move along the plot, without distracting from it.
The plot centers around Kat, a School of Engineering and Applied Science student played by Rebecca Farley, CC ?16. Kat built her own computer, which isolates her from her friends, Millie (Molly Heller, GS/JTS ?15), a Barnard student who is deathly scared of leaving the Morningside bubble, and Julian (Jonah Weinstein, CC ?16 and a Spectator arts and entertainment columnist), a cross country runner who spouts ?90s references and can?t figure out how to adequately express his attraction to Kat.
Mike Discenza/ Senior Staff Photographer
VEESH | Scott Bacon (l.), GS ?13, and Cole Hickman, CC ?16, perform at this year's Varsity Show, "The Great Netscape."When the Internet goes out?a side effect of University President Lee Bollinger?s secret weather machine, which he uses to make it sunny for Days on Campus?Millie and Kat have to figure out how to fix it, lest they have to actually interact with people. Throwing a wrench into their plans is Kat?s RA, Vivica (Olivia Harris, CC ?14), who coerces people?s attendance at study breaks with the help of her rider, Dylan (Ethan Fudge, CC ?15).
The quest to find the weather machine and fix the Internet is almost stopped by Kat?s feelings of inadequacy, which she sings in ?Little Fish, Big SEAS,? and the Columbia bureaucracy, which prompts the most entertaining number of the show, ?The Administrative Runaround.? ?Little Fish, Big SEAS? is incredibly poignant, highlighting a common concern among Columbia students?not feeling as good as your peers?while still evoking laughter. ?The Administrative Runaround? tackles the absurdity of dealing with administrators with spot-on satire that?s hilarious only because it?s so accurate, from the difficulty in getting straight answers to the ennui that possesses many a Columbia desk clerk.
Other high points include Kat and Mollie?s run-in with Alice (of Go Ask Alice! fame), Solitaire-solving Public Safety officers, and the hilarious ways the characters deal with life offline. One student, played by Cole Hickman, CC ?16, takes to selling Nutella on the black market. Hickman is a standout member of the ensemble, stealing every scene he?s in, especially when he reveals his trenchcoat lined with Nutella wrappers. Another student, played by John Fisher, CC ?16, can?t figure out how people found pornography before the Internet, but Alice helps him. Fisher, like Hickman, is another bright spot in an already bright ensemble. Other standouts include Paulina Pinsky, BC ?15, and Ankeet Ball, CC ?16, who bring big laughs with every different character they play.
Farley and Heller both gave fine performances, though at times it sounded like they were shouting into their microphones and singing louder than necessary, which sometimes translated to missed notes. Harris gives probably the best performance of all the principal cast members, displaying an impressive vocal range and just enough villainous laughter to cement her character as opposed to Farley?s and Heller?s cheerful ones.
The plot sometimes got bogged down in places it didn?t need to, like the unnecessary and short-lived break between Kat and Millie in the second act. The writers, Eric Donahue, CC ?15, and Isabel Lopez, CC ?13, were smart not to dedicate too much time to the romantic subplot, focusing instead on packing the show with jokes, especially a greater-than-expected number of extra-timely ones (including a hilarious shoutout to columnist and former Spectator editorial page editor Lanbo Zhang?s column about merging Barnard and Columbia). These nicely balance out the more stale ones, specifically a reference to Robert, made infamous online for waiting by Alma Mater for a girl he met at 1020.
While many of the songs were excellent, ?the standouts were concentrated largely in the middle and end of the first act, with the first song, ?Columbia Let?s Connect,? trying to do too much exposition work to really take off. ?Or Else? would have similarly fallen flat if it weren?t for Harris? singing. And while some songs try to do too much with plot, the music, composed by Max Druz, CC ?15, and the lyrics, by Nick Parker, CC?14, never fall short.
?The Great Netscape? comes to a satisfying conclusion, with everyone but Vivica getting what they want. Though the show packs in the comedy, it doesn?t overwhelm the main thrust of the play: that nothing on the Internet can connect you with your peers quite as well as actually spending time with them.
Correction: An earlier version of this article listed the incorrect class year for Skylar Gottlieb, BC??16.?Spectator regrets the error.
david.salazar@columbiaspectator.com | @davidj_salazar
Source: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/05/03/varsity-show-delivers-laughs-shows-array-student-talent
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Saturday, May 4, 2013
Engadget Podcast 342 - 05.03.13
With something old, and something new (we'll let you figure out what), this podcast has the makings of a wedding. There's even a brief mention of something blue... hmmm.
Hosts: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater, Peter Rojas
Guest: Ryan Block
Producers: James Trew, Joe Pollicino
Hear the podcast:
Filed under: Podcasts
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3Y6sUS5-huE/
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93% The Sapphires
All Critics (120) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (112) | Rotten (8)
The harmonies they strike in this reality-inspired charmer are sweetly sublime.
You could drive an Abrams tank through the film's plot holes, but you'll likely be too busy enjoying yourself to bother.
"The Sapphires" feels like a movie you've already seen, but it's nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable, like a pop song that's no less infectious when you know every word.
"The Sapphires" sparkles with sass and Motown soul.
Sapphires is hardly a cinematic diamond mine. But this Commitments-style mashup of music and melodrama manages to entertain without demanding too much of its audience.
A surefire crowdpleaser with all the ingredients for the type of little-movie-that-could sleeper success that Harvey Weinstein has nurtured in years and award seasons past.
You've seen this story before, but never pulled off with so much joie de vivre.
They can put a song across just like the Dreamgirls. What's not to like?
Exuberant but fairly formulaic.
Doesn't always mix its anti-prejudice message and its feel-good nostalgia with complete smoothness. But despite some ragged edges it provides a reasonably good time.
Director Wayne Blair -- another veteran of the stage show -- finds his footing during the film's many musical numbers.
Despite the prosaic plot and reserved approach taken by Blair, Briggs, and Thompson, it's tough to get cynical about such a warmhearted picture that strives to tell so uplifting a story.
A movie with enough melody and camaraderie to cover up its lack of originality.
Draining most of the blood, sweat and tears from a true story, this music-minded movie capably covers a song we've heard a hundred times before.
"Sapphires," which was inspired by a true story, is propelled by a strong sense of music's power to connect people and change lives.
Fires on all cylinders when it drops all pretense and allows its talented cast to simply belt out a series of pure, unfiltered slices of ear candy.
A rousing soundtrack helps to compensate for some of the historical embellishments in this Australian crowd-pleaser.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_sapphires_2012/
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Friday, May 3, 2013
Justice Department appeals morning-after case
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration on Wednesday appealed a federal judge's order to lift all age limits on who can buy morning-after birth control pills without a prescription.
In appealing the ruling, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn't have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available.
A day earlier, the Food and Drug Administration lowered the age that people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 ? younger than the current limit of 17 ? and decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near the condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters.
That decision appeared to fly in the face of a judge's decision last month that women of any age should be allowed to buy both Plan B and its cheaper generic competition as easily as they can buy aspirin. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of New York gave the FDA 30 days to comply, and the Monday deadline was approaching fast, prompting the administration on Wednesday to ask the court to put the ruling on hold while it reconsiders.
With the appeal, the Obama administration is making clear that it's willing to ease access to emergency contraception only a certain amount ? not nearly as broadly as doctors' groups and contraception advocates have urged. Still, the FDA decision moving the pill from behind the counter to drugstore shelves reflected a societal shift in the long battle over women's reproductive rights, marking a major milestone for those who believe all forms of birth control should be easy to buy.
Reluctant to get drawn in to a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials insisted Wednesday that both the FDA and the Justice Department were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. But the decision to appeal was certain to irk abortion-rights advocates who say they can't understand why a Democratic president is siding with social conservatives in favor of limiting women's reproductive choices.
"We are deeply disappointed that just days after President Obama proclaimed his commitment to women's reproductive rights, his administration has decided once again to deprive women of their right to obtain emergency contraception without unjustified and burdensome restrictions," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit that prompted Korman's ruling.
Current and former White House aides said Obama's approach to the issue has been heavily influenced by his experience as the father of two school-age daughters. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have also questioned whether there's enough data available to show the morning-after pill is safe and appropriate for younger girls, even though physicians groups insist that it is.
In Wednesday's filing, the Justice Department said Korman exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while that appeal is under way, meaning only Plan B One-Step would appear on drugstore shelves until the case is finally settled. If Korman's order isn't suspended during the appeals process, the result would be "substantial market confusion, harming FDA's and the public's interest" as drugstores receive conflicting orders about who's allowed to buy what, the Justice Department concluded.
Rather than take matters into his own hands, the Justice Department argued to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Korman should have ordered the FDA to reconsider its options for regulating emergency contraception. The court cannot overturn the rules and processes that federal agencies must follow "by instead mandating a particular substantive outcome," the appeal states.
The FDA actually had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn't be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own.
Sebelius' move was unprecedented, and Korman had blasted it as election-year politics ? meaning he was overruling not just a government agency but a Cabinet secretary.
More than a year later, neither side in the contraception debate was happy with the FDA's surprise twist, which many perceived as an attempt to find a palatable middle ground between imposing an age limit of 17 and imposing no limit at all.
Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it's not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages.
"We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high," Breuner said.
Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, "we know that it is safe for those under 15," she said.
Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone.
Contraception advocates see a double standard. No one is carded when buying a condom, but under the FDA's decision they would have to prove their age when buying a pill to prevent pregnancy if that condom breaks.
"This isn't a compromise. This is wrong," said Cynthia Pearson of the National Women's Health Network.
Social conservatives were outraged by the FDA's move to lower the age limits for Plan B ? as well as the possibility that Korman's ruling might take effect and lift age restrictions altogether.
"This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.
Obama aides bristled at the suggestion that the FDA decision was an attempt at political compromise, insisting the FDA merely responded to an application filed by Plan B's manufacturer. At the same time, however, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama's concern had been about girls younger than 15 having access, suggesting an age limit of 15 might be acceptable.
If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn't begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists ? and Korman, in his ruling ? said has been discredited.
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/justice-department-appeals-morning-case-005951018.html
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Lebanon: Main suspect in 2011 kidnapping arrested
BEIRUT (AP) ? Security forces have arrested the main suspect in the 2011 kidnapping of seven Estonian tourists and the more recent abduction of a Lebanese citizen that led to a wave of tit-for-tat kidnappings in areas near the Syrian border, police officials said Thursday.
The officials said Hussein Hojeiri was detained two days ago in the eastern Bekaa Valley. They said he confessed to carrying out the 2011 kidnapping, purportedly on the orders of an Iraqi al-Qaida figure. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.
The Estonians were cycling in the Bekaa Valley when armed men wearing masks kidnapped them in March 2011. They were released nearly four months later.
Another suspected was arrested earlier in the case, but police officials said Hojeiri was considered the main kidnapper.
Khaled Hamid, another fugitive suspected of being involved in the kidnapping, was killed in February while troops were trying to detain him in the Bekaa Valley. During the ambush, gunmen killed two soldiers and wounded several others in the town of Arsal.
The officials say Hojeiri also is suspected of being involved in the recent kidnapping of Lebanese citizen Hussein Jaafar, whose abduction led to a spate of kidnappings between members of his Shiite Muslim tribe and Sunnis from Arsal.
Lebanese Shiites and Sunnis are divided over Syria's civil war, with many Shiites backing President Bashar Assad's regime while a large numbers of Sunnis back the opposition. Lebanon and Syria share a complex network of political and sectarian ties, and many fear that violence in Syria will spread to Lebanon.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said in a report that the Lebanese government had failed to take adequate measures "to protect against, deter, and punish retaliatory kidnappings along sectarian lines in border regions." Human Rights Watch said it interviewed both victims and family members who carried out retaliatory kidnappings, prompted by alleged detentions and kidnappings of their relatives by Syrian government forces and armed opposition groups.
It said Lebanese government authorities have helped to facilitate the release of victims kidnapped by families in Lebanon in some cases, but have not taken law enforcement measures either to prevent kidnappings or to prosecute the kidnappers in the cases Human Rights Watch documented in the border regions.
"The Lebanese government needs to end a situation in which families desperate to have their kidnapped or detained relatives released resort to vigilante kidnappings in return," said Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should keep working to secure the victims' release but must also send a clear signal that these abductions are crimes that will be investigated and prosecuted."
Lebanese authorities should investigate, arrest, and prosecute the people responsible for the kidnappings, Human Rights Watch said.
Also Thursday, a man threw a grenade into a street in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, wounding seven people, including a young girl who is in critical condition, according to Munir Makeah, an official with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.
Rival Palestinian factions often clash at the camp, which is the largest in Lebanon.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lebanon-main-suspect-2011-kidnapping-arrested-181515151.html
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