Blizzard conditions blamed for at least seven deaths (Reuters)

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) ? Blizzard conditions that shut down highways in five states on Monday were blamed for at least seven deaths, officials said on Tuesday.

The storm filled roadside hotels and motels from eastern New Mexico to Kansas on Monday and triggered nearly 100 rescue calls from the Texas Panhandle. It moved deeper into the Great Plains on Tuesday.

A tornado sparked by thunderstorms along a cold front racing ahead of the storm damaged a hospital in DeQuincy, Louisiana, on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

"The system has basically broken itself apart and it's slowly weakening," NWS meteorologist Kurt Van Speybroeck told Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.

Four people died on Monday in east-central New Mexico when the car they were traveling in spun out of control on an icy road and slammed into a pickup truck, according to Curry County Undersheriff Wesley Waller.

Further south in New Mexico on Monday, a man was killed when the sports utility vehicle he was driving overturned, said State Police Lieutenant Robert McDonald.

And in eastern Colorado on Monday, a prisoner and a corrections officer were killed when the driver of a van transporting nine prisoners lost control on Interstate 70, authorities said.

An additional five people also died in a single-engine plane crash in Central Texas on Monday, but the crash was not near the severe weather in the Texas Panhandle.

"Weather may have been a contributing factor," Texas Department of Public Safety Corporal Jimmy Morgan told Reuters on Tuesday. "There was some rain in this area and some lightning."

The storm system moved from New Mexico into Oklahoma on Monday, leading to blizzard conditions in New Mexico, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, eastern Colorado and western Kansas, said Mark Wiley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

New Mexico received up to two feet of snow in the mountains, and eastern Colorado and western Kansas saw snow drifts of 4-6 feet as winds were gusting up to 50 miles per hour, he said.

By Tuesday afternoon, the storm had brought snow from Oklahoma into Kansas, Van Speybroeck said.

Some major roadways that had closed were reopening on Tuesday, such as much of Interstate 40 between Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Amarillo, Texas, as well as Interstate 25 between Santa Fe and Raton, New Mexico.

"We are just mopping up now and highways are beginning to move," Paul Gray of the New Mexico Department of Transportation told Reuters Tuesday.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory, about 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, reopened on Tuesday.

In Texas County, Oklahoma, where two shelters opened Monday night, snowplows were clearing roads on Tuesday.

"We're just going to have to wait till it melts," Harold Tyson, emergency management coordinator for the county, told Reuters. "A lot of people are getting stuck."

The snowfall was welcomed by many in the drought-stricken panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma.

"We need all the moisture we can get so we're really glad," said Vicki Roberts, co-owner of the Black Mesa Bed & Breakfast in Kenton, Oklahoma, an area dominated by ranching.

(Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio, Dennis Carroll in Santa Fe and Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Writing by Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/us_nm/us_weather

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Previously unconnected molecular networks conspire to promote cancer

Thursday, December 22, 2011

An inflammation-promoting protein triggers deactivation of a tumor-suppressor that usually blocks cancer formation via the NOTCH signaling pathway, a team of researchers led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in Molecular Cell.

Working in liver cancer cell lines, the team discovered a mechanism by which tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF?) stimulates tumor formation, said senior author Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology. Hung also is MD Anderson's vice president for basic research.

"We've discovered cross-talk between the TNF? inflammation and NOTCH signaling pathways, which had been known to separately promote cancer development and growth," Hung said. Liver cancer is one of several cancers, including pancreatic and breast, associated with inflammation.

Their findings have potential implications for a new class of anti-cancer drugs currently in clinical trials. "Pharmaceutical companies are developing NOTCH inhibitors," Hung said. "TNF? now presents a potential resistance mechanism that activates NOTCH signaling in a non-traditional way."

Pathways also unite in colon, lung, prostate cancers

"In addition, co-activation of these two pathways was also observed in colon, lung and prostate cancers, suggesting that the cross-talk between these two pathways may be more generally relevant," Hung said.

However, TNF? also presents an opportunity to personalize therapy, Hung said. The presence of TNF? or a separate protein that it activates called IKK alpha may serve as useful biomarkers to guide treatment.

"If a patient has only NOTCH activated, then the NOTCH inhibitor alone might work. But if TNF? or IKK? are also activated, then the NOTCH inhibitor alone might not work very well and combination therapy would be warranted," Hung said.

"We'll try this in an animal model and then go to clinical trial if it holds up," Hung said.

A path from inflammation to liver cancer

In a series of experiments, Hung and colleagues connected the following molecular cascade:

  • TNF?, a proinflammatory cytokine, signals through a cell's membrane, activating IKK?, a protein kinase that regulates other proteins by attaching phosphate groups (one phosphate atom, four oxygen atoms) to them.
  • IKK? moves into the cell nucleus, where it phosphorylatesFOXA2, a transcription factor that normally fires up the tumor suppressor NUMB.
  • NUMB usually blocks a protein called NICD, the activated portion of NOTCH1 that slips into the cell nucleus to activate genes that convert the normal cell to a malignant one.
  • But when FOXA2 is phosphorylated, it does not activate NUMB. With NUMB disabled, NOTCH1 is activated. New understanding, new targets for cancer therapy

In liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) tumors, IKK?, the phosphorylated version of FOXA2 and NOTCH1 are expressed more heavily than in normal liver tissue. Expression of all three is correlated in liver cancer tumors, the team found.

The authors conclude that identifying the link between TNF? and NOTCH1 pathways provides a new starting point for understanding the molecular basis for TNF?-related tumor growth and for identifying new targets for cancer therapy.

Finding ways to inhibit FOXA2 phosphorylation or to activate NUMB would provide new options for treating and perhaps preventing cancer, Hung said.

###

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116280/Previously_unconnected_molecular_networks_conspire_to_promote_cancer

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Quora Expands Beyond Q&A, Launches ?Boards? ? A Way To Personally Curate Information

Screen Shot 2011-12-19 at 3.45.54 PMQuora is taking a step beyond Q&A this morning with its latest product launch, boards. Users can now set up their own personal-themed bookmarking boards, sort of like a Pinterest for text-based information. Writes Quora CEO ?Adam D'Angelo in a blog post, "As Quora has grown, we've learned that people want to read the most interesting content regardless of whether it happens to be in question and answer format or not." D'Angelo tells me that this shift fits in better with Quora's new goal, "to connect you with everything you want to know about." Its old goal was described as "a continuously improving collection of questions and answers."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/k-gRWf_TuMk/

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Online holiday spending rises 15 percent: comScore (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Consumers spent $30.9 billion toward online purchases during the current holiday season, a 15 percent increase from the year-ago period, as shoppers took advantage of free shipping and other online deals, according to comScore.

comScore also said spending has reached a crescendo for this season and will begin to slow as Christmas nears.

Sales surpassed $1 billion on four days during the work week of December 12-16, said comScore, a closely watched Web-tracking firm.

"Free shipping is undoubtedly one of the most important incentives for consumers and has become a key driver of online buying activity over the past few years," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement.

comScore said "Cyber Monday" has become the top-ranked shopping day for the second year in a row.

Cyber Monday is traditionally the first Monday after Thanksgiving when employees return to offices and purchase items with their work computers.

J.C. Penney and other department stores, including Kohl's Corp and Macy's, used Facebook a lot more this year to attract online shoppers.

J.C. Penney released its Black Friday deals on Facebook, allowing customers to browse the promotions, create shareable wish lists and send tips to friends.

comScore said it measured the data for the first 46 days of the November-December 2011 holiday season.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Vinu Pilakkott)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111219/wr_nm/us_holidayspending_comscore

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This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

Dec 17, 2011 5:00 PM 9,867 0
  • Google Currents Is a Gorgeous Magazine-Style Newsreader for iOS and Android (iOS/Android) Currents, Google's long-awaited and rumored competitor to apps like Flipboard and Zite, finally launched yesterday, offering Android and iOS users a clean, attractive layout and a fresh way to read blogs, RSS feeds, and other trending news and topics right on your smartphone or tablet for free.
  • Better Explorer Brings a Windows 8-Style Explorer to Windows 7, Ribbon and All (Windows) If you like the look of Windows 8's new version of Windows Explorer, but don't want to use the developer preview, free app Better Explorer brings some of the perks to your Windows 7 desktop.
  • Microsoft's Beloved Note-Taking Tool OneNote Now Available for iPad (iPad) You guys listed OneNote as one of your favorite note taking applications, and today Microsoft finally released an iPad-optimized version of the awesome tool, while adding a tabbed interface, quick note creation, and more.
  • Unstuck Is Your iPad Toolkit for Curing Indecisiveness, Tiredness, Lack of Motivation, and Other Life Issues (iPad) We've all had our "stuck" moments, from the big ("What should I do with my life?") to the everyday ("I'm tired of the same old lunches"). Unstuck is a brilliant app that coaches you through challenges to a better life.
  • PDroid Gives You Control Over the Personal Information Your Android Apps Can Access (Android, rooted) PDroid is a free Android utility that allows you to see and block access by apps on your Android phone to your personal data and individually identifying information. The tool shows you which apps have access to information like your phone number, your Device ID (IMEI/MEID/ESN), SIM serial number, and more, and lets you disable access without breaking the apps in question.
  • Snapheal Performs Complex Photo Touch Ups and Object Removals in Two Clicks (Mac) You're probably well aware that you can use Photoshop to perform touch ups and remove objects, but that comes with the obvious disadvantage of a hefty price tag. Snapheal is a new Mac app that's designed to handle just about every kind of photo touch up you could want, but for far less money.
  • FlashControl Prevents Web Sites Automatically Loading Flash Videos (Chrome) Some sites automatically play Flash videos which can be annoying, troublesome at work, and suck up bandwidth. The Chrome extension FlashControl stops Adobe Flash from loading unless you have authorized a particular site to bypass the restriction.
  • Picasa Now Shares Photos on Google+, Adds More Photo Effects and Side-by-Side Picture Viewing (Web) Picasa 3.9 finally has great integration with Google+, allowing you to easily upload and share photos on the service and tag friends. Even if you don't use Google+, you might want to download the update for new editing features.
  • MyUnity Fixes Annoyances in Ubuntu's Unity Interface (Ubuntu) If you're using the newest versions of Ubuntu, you probably have an annoyance or two with the Unity interface. MyUnity is a system tweaker based around changing Unity's behavior and appearance.
  • iTunes Updates to Version 10.5.2, Fixes iTunes Match and Audio Glitches (Mac/Windows) Today Apple released the latest update to its popular audio and video behemoth to improve performance with their iTunes Match service and general audio glitches experienced by some users. The update is available for download right now, so just run Software Update on your Mac or Windows PC or head on over to Apple to download it from their web site directly.
Related Stories

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/zFCG-C3lcJI/this-weeks-top-downloads

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Gringrich and science (Time.com)

The busy mind of Newt Gingrich has been much in the news lately. He's the man of grand ideas -- a thinker, a theorist, the big brain in a GOP field of bureaucrats and simpletons. Don't believe it? Don't worry, Gingrich himself will tell you.

Gingrich's mind indeed does churn. The problem is, he approaches ideas the way a gluttonous gourmand approaches food -- with a rich, complex and subtle appetite, but also a hopeless weakness for corn dogs and Twinkies. If it's edible -- or, in his case, imaginable -- he's interested. This can be awkward, particularly when he steps outside of his comfort zone of history and public policy and starts to muck around with science. (Watch "10 Questions for Newt Gingrich.")

Much has been made of some of Gingrich's wackier ideas in the past few weeks, beginning with his oft-repeated worry that a rogue state with a nuclear weapon could shut down the U.S. power grid. To give Gingrich his due, there's a grain of truth in his fears. Scientists agree -- theoretically at least -- that a missile detonated at the right altitude could trigger what's known as an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could fry the circuits of whatever country lay below. The one experiential data point that supports this idea occurred in 1962, when an atmospheric test of an American atomic weapon caused street lights in Hawaii to go temporarily dark.

Of course, it's a big step from there to shutting down an entire country, especially when the bad actors Gingrich imagines blacking out America are the Iranians and North Koreans, who have nowhere near the missile technology or targeting know-how to pull off such a stunt -- at least without being detected -- and in the case of Iran, don't even have a bomb yet. What's more, if either country did want to launch a strike, it would be a whole lot easier to go the point-and-shoot route -- pick a city and try to take it out directly. Yet Gingrich has continued to sound the EMP alarm, arguing that preparing for an attack should be an important part of the country's defense posture.

"In theory, a relatively small device detonated over Omaha would knock out about half the electricity generated in the United States," he warned in Iowa last week, according to the New York Times.

Gingrich's advocacy of space mirrors -- albeit years ago, in a 1984 book -- has provoked eye rolling too. The thinking is that scientists could position giant mirrors in space that would point toward Earth, reflecting sunlight downward and creating as much illumination as several full moons. This would eliminate the need for nighttime lighting on highways and brighten shadowy neighborhoods as a deterrent to crime. (Read "Newt Gingrich: Potential President, or Skilled Showman?")

Put aside what this would also do to the day-night cycle under which all life on Earth is accustomed to operating; put aside what it would do to the simple business of looking up and trying to see a star. The technical obstacles are dizzying. The U.S. has already orbited one whopping big mirror -- a slab of polished glass inside the Hubble Space telescope that measures close to 8 ft. (2.4 m) in diameter. But reflective space mirrors would have to be far bigger, perhaps the size of a football field. Even the massive International Space Station, which measures 357 ft. (109 m) across, appears to be little more than a moving star at the lowest point of its orbit, 234 mi. (376 km) above ground. To provide permanent illumination to a target area, you'd have to position your mirrors a whole lot farther away -- in geosynchronous orbit, 22,236 mi. (37,786 km) above sea level, so that their rate of revolution matches the rotation of the globe.

The weight problem alone makes this impossible -- at least if you were trying to fly a giant mirror made of glass, like the Hubble's. While University of Arizona engineers have developed mirror material only .04 in (1 mm) thick, this doesn't address other problems like the cost of launching and maintaining the mirrors, not to mention keeping so big a target safe from meteors and other space debris. All of this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for an illumination problem that highway lights and porch lamps already solve rather neatly.

It's Gingrich's advocacy of moon mining, however, that is getting the most attention -- and drawing the most derision -- partly because this is a drum he doesn't seem willing to quit banging. For the most part, the moon is a pretty prosaic mix of very familiar materials -- including silicon, iron, calcium, aluminum, potassium and phosphorous. There is, however, also helium-3. A light isotope of common helium, helium-3 streams toward Earth all the time as part of the storm of charged particles coming from the sun, but our planet's magnetic field deflects most of it. This is not so on the moon, which has a magnetic field far weaker than Earth's. What makes this important is that helium-3 also turns out to be a cracker jack fuel for fusion reactors -- far more efficient than the deuterium currently used. But it's not just a matter of going to the moon, scooping up what you need and powering the world on it. (Watch TIME's video "Earth Is Running Out of Helium.")

First of all, a practical fusion reactor has not yet been invented and there's no realistic projection for when it might be -- though scientists have been trying for decades. What's more, the moon's helium-3 is not just there for the taking. Apollo samples revealed that the isotope is present in lunar soil in concentrations no greater than 30 parts per billion. Harrison Schmitt, the lunar module pilot on Apollo 17 and the only geologist to walk on the moon, estimates that it would take 220 lbs (100 kg) of helium-3 to power one city the size of Dallas for one year, and to collect that much you'd have to dig a trench three quarters of a mile square by 9 ft. deep (1.9 sq km by 2.7 m).

That's a lot of digging, and it doesn't even touch the cost of getting the stuff home. Even aboard cheap rockets like the Russian Proton, it costs $2,200 to launch a pound of payload to low Earth orbit. The shuttle, nobody's idea of a bargain ship, cost $8,100 per lb. Things are a lot cheaper on the moon, where lower gravity means everything weighs less, but that doesn't mean every ounce doesn't cost -- a lot. There's a reason the skin of the Apollo lunar module was no thicker than three sheets of aluminum foil and that its windows were triangular, a shape that shaved a few ounces off of the framing and sealant that would have been needed for round windows of approximately the same size.

In the last presidential debate, Gingrich responded to Mitt Romney's criticism of the moon mining concept by not responding. "I'm happy to defend the idea that America should be in space and should be there in an aggressive, entrepreneurial way," he said -- which most people agree with and which is not what Romney was questioning at all.

Answering evasively, of course, is what politicians do, as is dreaming big dreams of New Frontiers and Great Societies and shining cities on hills. But dreams aren't science -- and politicians, for the most part, aren't scientists. Newt Gingrich may play one on TV, but that doesn't mean anyone is required to listen.

See TIME's top 10 everything of 2011.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111217/us_time/08599210247100

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Jennifer Mrozowski: When You've Exhausted All Your Parenting Skills, What's Next?

Arlyssa Heard, a completely engaged and very involved Detroit Public Schools parent, was at her wit's end recently on two occasions with her two children who are vastly different ages and have vastly different learning styles.

Her youngest son, now a first grader at Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, was struggling with spelling and rhyming last year as a kindergartner, and Heard felt like she was running out of ways to help him. He'd also been undergoing learning evaluations for his inability to focus.

Meanwhile, her oldest son, an eleventh grader at the Cody Academy of Critical Thinkers, who is into everything "hip hop, iPod, and things like that," said his mother, was increasingly thinking mom and dad were "old and uncool." Engaging him a conversation was sometimes tough.

If you're a parent or guardian or even an uncle or aunt, you may not have been through these exact situations, but you know the feeling of helplessness when you are at a loss for helping your child or children grow and succeed.

Maybe your daughter is having out-of-control temper tantrums, and you just can't figure out why. Maybe your son is starting to neglect his homework when he used to be a straight-A student. Maybe your oldest child just can't understand Trigonometry (and you can't either).

Heard was right there. Feeling helpless.

She remembered hearing about the academic toolkits that Detroit Public Schools and Detroit Parent Network created for parents to use with their children over holiday breaks last year. The toolkits were billed as something to engage your child in lessons in fun and engaging ways during school breaks.

There are a variety of toolkits that are age-appropriate by various subjects, like Word Study, Comprehension, Writing, Numeration, Geometry and Measurement. They are based on the state's academic standards and developed and vetted by academic experts. Parents can even "check them out" like you check out books at the library by going to any one of DPS' 8 Parent Resource Centers.

Heard was skeptical. She'd seen the kits and they seemed like a waste of time.

But Heard is an explorer when it comes to parenting. And she believes in "differentiated instruction," which basically means that kids learn in different ways and need a variety of different ways to be taught.

"Sitting at a desk for 6 hours just doesn't work," she said of her first-grader. Still, she was at a loss. "And it makes me cry to say this, but sometimes you just don't know how to help your child."

So Heard decided finally to give the toolkits a try. She was surprised at some of the items in the toolkit geared for teaching reading and letters. Many of the reading kits contain books, as well as other interactive items geared at a particular age group, like Junior Scrabble for the middle school set. One of the kits for kindergartners contained a metal cookie sheet and the kind of magnetic letters that you typically see on the fridge.

Heard took the toolkit home and got down on the floor with youngest son. He quickly became engrossed with arranging and re-arranging the colorful letters on the cookie sheet. Heard started with the first word -- "pan." Then she worked with her son to exchange the first letter for another. "Ran." They did that repeatedly. "Tan." "Man." "Can." "Fan." "Van." His eyes lit up!

"He had so much fun doing it," Heard said, and she marveled that he was spelling and finally "getting it."

With her high schooler, the story was different. He was not communicating with mom and dad like he used to. As parents, this is an awesome fear. We all love when our kids are little, and they think we are the center of their universe. And we absolutely fear the time when they grow up and mom and dad are so uncool that they won't even talk to us.

So Heard tried another toolkit, and she was completely fully skeptical about this one. It had toothpicks in it and the user was required to make shapes with only a certain number of toothpicks. The skill was to practice spatial reasoning.

"It was a high school kit and I almost didn't check it out for that reason because I wasn't convinced. But you had to use a certain number of toothpicks to complete each of the diagrams, and it was NOT as easy as it looked," she said.

Her eleventh-grader and his father worked on the project together.

First, no talking. Then a little talking. Before long, through their frustration of figuring out the puzzles, dad and son were talking and laughing and sharing. Unintended consequence: a conversation starter.

"That just jump-started my interest," Heard said. "I thought, 'You should never shut down a strategy.'"

Heard is taking that interest to a new level. During DPS' first Annual Holiday Learning Fest, when the district is going to have 18 schools open for academic enrichment academics (using the toolkits and other strategies) and offering free meals to students, Heard is going to volunteer.

Her reasons are two-fold. First, she hopes to learn more learning tactics for her children while there volunteering.

"What I found is that a lot of parents are struggling like I was. Some of us don't know how to help our children effectively. But sometimes, it just takes getting on the floor with your child and trying something."

Secondly, she wants to help other parents.

"What better testimony can you have than someone who has been through it and tried something?" she said.

Heard plans to devote three days to the DPS' brand new Holiday Learning Fest, a program sponsored in part by the Office of Food Services. Schools will remain open to students for six days (December 27, 28, 29, 2011 and January 3, 4, 5, 2012) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to provide learning, fun activities and nourishment for students.

DPS needs more people like Heard to volunteer their time for this first-time effort. The district is only seeking volunteers who have already undergone a criminal background check with fingerprinting and can show proof. To volunteer, call 313-873-7490, fax the registration to 313-873-7446 or email parent.engagement@detroitk12.org

But we also need more parents like Heard to get engaged in their children's learning. (Heard also regularly uses the DPS Learning Village, one of two online parent portals. More on that later.)

Parenting is an awesome responsibility. Sometimes , like Heard, we just don't intuitively know all the answers. A little bit of expert help can go a long way. To learn more about DPS' parenting programs, go to www.detroitk12.org/parents

?

Follow Jennifer Mrozowski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/detroitk12

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-mrozowski/what-do-you-do-when-you-e_b_1154258.html

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Romania's ex-PM cleared of corruption charges (AP)

BUCHAREST, Romania ? A top court in Romania ruled Thursday that former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase is not guilty of bribery in a corruption case.

The Bucharest court dismissed the charges against Nastase, who hailed the ruling as "the right solution." Two other former government officials also were acquitted in the case.

Livia Saplacan, a spokeswoman for the anti-corruption prosecutor's office, said it will appeal the decision.

Nastase had been accused of paying a bribe to a government official in charge of preventing money laundering in order to destroy documents regarding a bank deposit of $400,000 (euro308,000) by Nastase's wife. He said the money deposited in his wife's account came from her wealthy aunt's sales of paintings and rare books.

Nastase, who was served as prime minister from 2000 to 2004, is the most senior Romanian politician to ever have been tried for corruption. He still faces two other corruption trials, but says those cases are politically motivated.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_romania_corruption

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Hunger up in U.S. cities, more to come: mayors (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A survey of 29 cities shows hunger has risen in most of them in the last year and is largely expected to increase in 2012 as the United States faces a sluggish economy, the U.S. Conference of Mayors said on Thursday.

Homelessness also rose an average of 6 percent for the surveyed cities, with the increase in homeless families far outpacing the number for individuals.

Mayors said the figures showed the depth of problems facing poor and low-income families as the United States slowly recovers from a deep economic downturn and joblessness that was at 8.6 percent last month.

They urged that food and housing programs be defended as the government moved closer to $1.2 trillion in mandatory cuts aimed at reducing a ballooning federal deficit.

The survey "should be a wakeup call for cities involved and the country," Kansas City Mayor Sly James said in a conference call with reporters.

"Here in the richest country of the world we have people who cannot find a place to live and we are failing to address it such that the numbers are increasing, not decreasing."

Eighty-six percent of the cities reported requests for emergency food aid had increased in the last year, the survey by the mayors' group said.

Kansas City showed the sharpest increase, at 40 percent. It was followed by Boston and Salt Lake City, both at 35 percent.

Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.

No survey city expected requests for emergency food aid to drop over the next year, and 93 percent expected a rise.

HOMELESSNESS UP

Forty-two percent of the survey cities reported an increase in homelessness and 19 percent said the number stayed the same.

The number of homeless families was up an average of 16 percent, but the number of unaccompanied homeless people was up less than 1 percent.

Charleston, South Carolina, had by far the biggest increase in homelessness, at 150 percent. Los Angeles was second at 39 percent.

Officials in 64 percent of the cities expected the number of homeless families to increase, and 55 percent of them expected the number of homeless individuals to rise.

The report of rising numbers of hungry and homeless American came after the Census Bureau reported last month that about 48 percent of Americans, or 146 million, were living in poverty or considered low income.

Based on a new supplemental measure designed to provide a fuller portrait of poverty, the Census Bureau said about 97.3 million Americans fell into the low-income category. Another 49.1 million are considered poor.

In another indicator of hunger, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported this month that 15 percent of the U.S. population, or almost 43.6 million people, took part in its main food program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, in September.

The figure is up almost 8 percent from the year before, and up 77 percent in five years.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors groups mayors from 1,139 cities with populations of 30,000 or more.

(Reporting By Ian Simpson; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111215/us_nm/us_cities_hunger

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Insurance Claim Delays Deliver Massive Profits To Industry By ...

WASHINGTON -- Unlike many other businesses, the insurance industry is bound by law to act in good faith with its customers. Because of their protective role in the lives of ordinary citizens, insurers have long operated as semi-public trusts. But since the mid-1990s, a new profit-hungry model, combined with weak regulation, has upended that ancient social contract.

"Claims has been converted into a money-making process," said Russ Roberts, a New Mexico-based management consultant and former business professor at Northwestern University who has studied the insurance industry's evolution from a service business to a profit-driven machine.

The change started when consulting giant McKinsey & Company sold Allstate and other leading insurance companies on a new system to boost the bottom line: Rather than adjusting claims the traditional way, which gave claims managers wide latitude to serve customers, insurers embraced a computer-driven method that produced purposefully low offers to claimants.

Those who took the low-ball offers received prompt service, while those who didn't had their claims delayed and potentially were reduced to bringing expensive lawsuits to fight for their benefits. As former Allstate agent Shannon Kmatz told the American Association for Justice, the trial lawyers' lobby, the strategy was to make claims "so expensive and so time-consuming that lawyers would start refusing to help clients." The strategy was dubbed "Good Hands or Boxing Gloves" by the consultants, riffing on Allstate's advertising slogan.

McKinsey, which was reportedly hired by Allstate in 1992, prepared about 12,500 PowerPoint slides to present its plan. The slides were introduced in litigation in 2005, when the insurer turned them over under a temporary protective order. David Berardinelli, a New Mexico-based trial lawyer who was working on the case, detailed the slides in his 2008 book, "From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves: The Dark Side of Insurance."

McKinsey's strategy put profits above all. One slide in the McKinsey presentation illustrated this philosophy by painting the insurance business as a zero-sum game: "Improving Allstate's casualty economics will have a negative economic impact on some medical providers, plaintiff attorneys, and claimants. ... Allstate gains -- others must lose."

Allstate has certainly gained: It made $4.6 billion in profits in 2007, double its earnings in the 1990s. The stunning increase, said Russ Roberts, came through "driving down loss values to an average of 30 percent below the actual market cost" -- that is, paying dramatically less on claims.

"An insurance company can make a lot of money on the small claims," said Jay Feinman, a professor at Rutgers University School of Law, "because if you save a few dollars on a huge number of claims, it's worth more than saving a lot of dollars on a very small number of claims."

Allstate is the best-known user of the McKinsey model, topping the list of the "Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America" published by the American Association for Justice. But Allstate's rise in profits has led most of the industry to adopt the same approach. McKinsey has worked with State Farm, another insurance giant, and other companies in redesigning their claims systems. Feinman cautioned in his book "Delay, Deny, Defend" that the two major names "are just the largest players in the industry ... [the ones] whose involvement with McKinsey & Company in the transformation of claims is the best documented."

Roberts told HuffPost that, by his estimate, the companies that take in 70 percent of total insurance profits in the United States now abuse their obligations to their policyholders. When Allstate CEO Tom Wilson earned $9.3 million last year, he was not even on the top 10 list of best-paid insurance executives, compiled by New York Law School's Center for Justice and Democracy. (The top 10 list was led by William R. Berkley of W.R. Berkley, who made $24.6 million in 2010.)

Yolande Daeninck, spokeswoman for McKinsey & Company, said, "In line with our firm's longstanding policy to not discuss our client work, we decline to comment."

A HOUSE BURNS DOWN

According to an unpublished Harris Interactive Poll conducted in September, 16 percent of surveyed adults have experienced financial hardship while waiting for an insurance claim to be settled or know someone who has. The same poll found that 59 percent of adults believe that most insurers intentionally delay claims -- and those with an income of $35,000 or less were more likely to agree.

With 15.3 percent of Americans -- about 46.2 million people -- living in poverty, close to 10 percent unemployment, and roughly 2 million people who've been looking for work for more than two years, Allstate's business model is profiting off many consumers at their most vulnerable. A claim delayed by even a month can spell financial disaster for a family. As a National Bureau of Economic Research study found, about 25 percent of Americans could not come up with $2,000 in a 30-day period.

Madeleine Burdette, a retiree, is an Allstate customer who reported her experience on the popular website AllstateInsuranceSucks.com. When her Georgia home burned in November 2010, Burdette was in Ohio, where she lives most of the year. She said the fire marshal in Georgia told her that her house would have to be torn down. "The entire middle of the house was gone," Burdette said. "It took out everything. Just the outside walls were left untouched."

The next day, she said, Burdette's Allstate adjuster told her the house could be repaired. Allstate also said it would have to do a thorough investigation to determine if the fire was caused by arson. If it was arson, the adjuster told Burdette, Allstate would not pay for any damages. According to former employees, such investigations are a common practice at Allstate and are encouraged by supervisors as a way to avoid paying claims quickly.

Burdette, who lives on her Social Security checks, flew from Ohio to survey the damage herself. While in Georgia, she contacted public adjuster Anita Taff. Public adjusters serve as advocates for individuals who feel they need another set of eyes on a claim. Taff met with Burdette at the house, Burdette said, and discussed the damage with the contractor Burdette had hired. Upon returning to Ohio, Burdette spoke with Taff over the phone to find out what her impression was. Burdette said Taff warned her that the contractor might go along with Allstate's insistence that the house could be repaired.

"I believe [delaying claims] is an effort to put the squeeze on policyholders," Taff told HuffPost. She explained that while a claim is being held up, the insurance company may stop paying the policyholder's additional living expenses, forcing the policyholder to cover mortgage and rent entirely out of pocket. "That's something that many people cannot afford to do, so they're forced to take a lower settlement," Taff said.

Burdette said she immediately called the contractor and told him not to go near her house. According to Burdette, she received a phone call within 10 minutes from her Allstate adjuster asking her not to hire Taff or any other public adjuster. "He said, 'If you hire a public adjuster, I'm going to deny and delay this claim for as long as possible,'" Burdette told HuffPost. Taken aback, she then asked if it wasn't in his best interest to settle the claim. "Not really," he replied, according to Burdette.

Although the Allstate adjuster eventually agreed to work with Taff on Burdette's claim, her troubles did not end. The contractor who had been banned from her property nevertheless worked on the house and billed Allstate for $22,000. Burdette had explicitly told Allstate not to pay the contractor a dime, she said, but the company paid him under her policy anyway. The contractor couldn't be reached for comment.

More than a year later, Burdette's home is still being repaired and Allstate refuses to reimburse the $22,000. She consulted four different lawyers to see if she had a legal case. While she said they all agreed that she was entitled to reimbursement, she said they also agreed that she lacked the funds to fight the insurance giant. "They told me, 'You'll run out of money,'" she said.

NO FLUKES

Roberts, the management consultant, said that companies like Allstate attempt to pass off claims delays as fluke occurrences. But, he said, they are actually routine and intentional products of the McKinsey system: "The Allstate/McKinsey system for 'lowballing' claims payments ... is driven by the claims performance management and pay systems from the top to the bottom of the organization."

Feinman, the Rutgers law professor, also suggested the deck is stacked against individuals who make claims. "You have an accident or a fire in your house. You call up the insurance company. You describe the circumstances. Maybe they send an adjuster out, and they say it's not covered, or it's covered but here's the dollar amount that we're obligated to pay you," he said. Most people, Feinman said, do not have the expertise "to know whether or not that's right."

Allstate spokeswoman Laura Strykowski said the company can't comment on specific cases because of privacy requirements, but considers its claims process both legal and effective. "Our customers and claimants receive prompt and courteous claim service and our goal is to settle each claim fairly and efficiently," she wrote to HuffPost. "As a regulated company, Allstate's claim practices are available to and regularly reviewed by state departments of insurance."

But experts like Feinman argue that insurance regulation has become little more than a fig leaf. State insurance departments are usually understaffed and overwhelmed. And even if they had the legal firepower to contend with giant insurance companies, Feinman said, "the regulators are closer to the industry than they are consumers." Eleven of the past 15 presidents of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) went on to work for the insurance industry after leaving office, while a 17-year study from two Georgia State University professors found that around half of state-level insurance commissioners did so as well.

When combined with penalties that Feinman described as "laughably low" in many states, this close relationship means that regulation does not provide an effective check on insurance companies. And state governments themselves have incentive to place consumers on the backburner. Because insurance taxes are a major source of revenue for the states, said Roberts, insurance oversight commissions are usually more concerned with keeping companies solvent than resolving the problems of policyholders.

With the exception of the federal Affordable Care Act, insurance is regulated on a state-by-state basis. Although most states set a specific timeline for how quickly an insurance company must initially respond to claims, there is much more leeway when it comes to settling those claims. For example, in Missouri, an insurer must acknowledge receipt of a claim within 10 days and either pay or deny it within 15 days of receiving all necessary documentation. However, if the insurer decides it needs more time to investigate, it may keep delaying as long as it updates the policyholder every 45 days. In Georgia, where Burdette's house burned down, the insurer must notify the policyholder if it will affirm or deny a claim within 60 days. However, the insurer does not have to settle the amount it will pay within that period. Many states have similar provisions that allow insurers to put off paying claims indefinitely.

According to NAIC data, claim delays have long been the most frequent cause of policyholder complaint. As of Nov. 28, 2011, the NAIC had received 11,053 delay-related complaints this year alone, comprising almost a quarter of the year's total complaints. These data only reflect confirmed complaints -- the ones that the state insurance commission has investigated -- so the actual number of delayed claims is likely much higher.

Complaining to state regulators about the insurer's delay is always an option, but its effectiveness is questionable at best. "I have not seen it be successful," said Taff.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/insurance-claim-delays-industry-profits-allstate-mckinsey-company_n_1139102.html

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