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Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Man says Nigeria kidnapping like 'an action movie' (AP)
BOWDON, Ga. ? As the car an American man was riding in idled in traffic in a remote Nigerian town, two men appeared, one of them shooting the Georgia man's security guard five times, while the other forced him into a tiny getaway car that sped away.
The car weaved through traffic on side roads and then sped to a main road, where police, known there as "mopols," had erected a roadblock. Greg Ock's captors crashed through the barricade and traded fire with a truck of police officers, who narrowly missed the 50-year-old Ock.
"I felt like I was in an action movie," Ock told The Associated Press at his west Georgia home on Monday, a day after he returned to his family. As they were speeding away from the police, he said he told his guards: "I was more afraid of mopols than you guys."
Ock was kidnapped on Jan. 20 in Warri, a main city in the Niger Delta, an oil-rich area where foreign firms pump 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day. After being held seven days, he was released on Friday.
Ock worked in construction for decades, landing gigs all over the U.S. and as far away as Abu Dhabi. He loved the work, the camaraderie and the pay, which helped him support a wife and four daughters.
He landed in the Nigerian town of Sapele in September 2010 to begin one of his more adventurous assignments, maintaining gas turbines and other heavy machinery for Marubeni Corp.
It was tough work and the perks weren't enticing. The food was bad, he said, and the heat was unbearable. But he had chances to leave the "little prison" of the company's base camp, often going on Sundays with co-workers and a security guard to a golf course, or to neighboring Benin to eat at a Chinese restaurant.
His journey the day he was ambushed wasn't nearly as adventurous. He went with a driver, a security guard and a company secretary to a clinic in Warri, where he would get a checkup for a recent bout with malaria.
He took out some cash from an ATM, hopped in the car and tuned his iPod to Don Henley as the driver waited in traffic. What happened next seemed to unfold in a flash.
A gunman ran up to his vehicle and yelled "die, mopol, die" as he fired five bullets into the guard. The other gunman ordered Ock out of the car and pushed him toward a tiny red Audi.
"They told me we were an easy target. We didn't have tinted windows and only one mopol," he said. "They told me they wanted a white guy anyways."
They escaped the city, and one of the kidnappers then called Ock's boss and demanded about $330,000 for his safe return.
They drove about an hour, arriving at a squat shack where he was forced into a small room. He shared the room with two or three guards, a plastic chair, piles of dirty dishes, some scattered clothes and a mattress blocking the window.
The men dulled his senses by forcing him to smoke marijuana and drink Baron Del Valle red wine at all hours. He didn't have many food options, either. Early in his captivity, Ock said he asked for boiled eggs. From then on, he got four eggs in the morning and four at night. As a snack, he got apples.
He was told few details about the negotiations his captors were working with his company, adding to his unease. When he was able to sleep, his captors often woke him by cranking an odd mix of local music and Dolly Parton classics from a stereo.
"I was on the edge all the time," he said.
After a few days, he decided to escape. He found a butcher knife resting in a bowl and reached for it when he thought his captors were sleeping. They weren't. One alerted the others, who "slapped me around a bit" and chained him tighter to his chair. Despite the beating, Ock said he wasn't tortured.
The next morning, a guard pulled out a gun and threatened to kill his captive. Ock called his bluff.
"I told them I didn't care," he said. "I've had a good life."
On Thursday, Ock could tell the negotiations were heating up. His captors were celebrating and drinking moonshine. Two of the men left the house around noon, returning five hours later with wide smiles.
Around 3:30 Friday morning, the men dumped Ock in a desolate area with about $12 to hail a scooter to the nearest police station. Once there, he called his boss and his wife to let them know he was OK.
Ock said he wasn't told by either his captors or his company whether a ransom was paid.
"But they seemed happy," he said. "They let me go for a reason ? and I don't think it was because they were out of eggs."
Marubeni Corp. on Monday declined to comment on how Ock was released. U.S. embassy officials also declined to offer any details, citing privacy concerns.
He returned home on Sunday morning, arriving at Atlanta's airport to a rapturous greeting from family and friends. There, a limousine drove him the 60-mile route to rural Bowdon. Someone told Ock to peek out the sunroof as they approached, and when he did he saw about 500 people gathered to celebrate.
Among the gifts he received was a plastic bag with only an egg and an apple. The friend who offered it to him joked that she didn't know if he wanted breakfast or supper, so she brought both.
Ock has no plans to return to Nigeria, instead looking for work closer to home. But his wife Teresa said she doubts his kidnapping will scare him from working another faraway gig.
"It's in his blood to travel," she said. "He may work here for a while. But I know him. He'll get to itching to leave."
For now, Ock is catching up on sleep and making up for lost time.
"It's taken a while to process it all. For us, too," Teresa Ock said. "We're just so thankful for the prayers, from our church, from our community, from everyone who prayed for him."
She glanced at her husband, who summoned an impish smile.
"I guess I've got to go to church now," he said.
___
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Monday, 30 January 2012
Brad Pitt: Kids Want Me To Buy Mommy A Ring (VIDEO)
Brad Pitt: Kids Want Me To Buy Mommy A Ring (VIDEO)
In his interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Brad Pitt reveals his six children are putting on the pressure for him to propose to his longtime [...]
Brad Pitt: Kids Want Me To Buy Mommy A Ring (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
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PFT: Lions fear Best's career is over
Getty ImagesPatriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork is not an easy man to move. That?s especially true this season because you can?t get him off the field.
Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com notes that Wilfork played 51.8% of the team?s defensive snaps in 2009. That?s fairly typical for any run-stuffing nose tackle, especially one comically listed at 325 pounds. (He?s probably closer to 400 than 300 pounds.)
In 2010, Wilfork?s snap total went up to 69.8%. By this season, Wilfork was up to 86%. In the AFC title game, Wilfork played 67 of 70 snaps. That?s 95.7%.
You can measure leadership in a lot of ways. Wilfork leads by making his presence known almost every snap. He leads by playing more than younger counterparts like Haloti Ngata.
?He leads the way for us on defense,?? coach Bill Belichick said after the win over Baltimore. ?Vince is obviously our most experienced player and he?s been a great leader, great captain all year. His leadership has been tremendous.?
Wilfork was a valuable rookie on the last Patriots title team in 2004. That was a veteran-laden defense on the tail end of a dynasty. This time is different. This is Wilfork?s defense, Wilfork?s time. Now in his eighth season, the 30-year-old is in that career sweet spot where experience and talent meet up perfectly.
Wilfork?s performance against the Ravens was one for the ages: Six tackles, four hurries, three tackles for loss, and a sack. Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe says Wilfork was double or tripled teamed ten times.
?To be honest with you, Vince was ready last week to play this game,?? linebacker Jerod Mayo said after defeating Baltimore. ?He has a ring and no one else on this defense has a ring. And he just expressed the joy that you would get from winning this game and he?s not a liar.?
We are struck by Wilfork?s versatility. He has played defensive end instead of nose tackle quite a bit in the playoffs. He is rushing the passer in addition to being the team?s best run stopper. He?s even picked off two passes this year. (And he knows what to do with the ball.)
New England?s defensive line has put together its two best performances of the season in successive weeks. In a game where the Patriots struggle to match up with the Giants in many areas, don?t be surprised if New England?s defensive line creates all sorts of problems against a shaky New York offensive line.
Vince Wilfork will be leading the way. You can?t get him off the field, and you can?t block him either.
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Sunday, 29 January 2012
Summary Box: Dow slips; first losing week in 2012 (AP)
STOCK SLUMP: Stocks mostly fell after the government said the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the last three months of 2011. The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 each fell less than 1 percent. The biggest losers were utility stocks, down 1.3 percent.
BAD WEEK: The fall in the Dow capped a down week for the blue-chip index, the first weekly loss in 2012.
THE GOOD NEWS: Nearly two stocks rose for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, suggesting investors may still be bullish. And despite the drop for the day, the Dow is still up nearly 4 percent this year. The Russell 2000 index of riskier small stocks is up nearly 8 percent.
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UK police arrest Murdoch tabloid staff, raid offices (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) ? British police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sun tabloid plus a policeman on Saturday as part of an investigation into suspected payments by journalists to officers, police and the newspaper's publisher said.
Police also searched the paper's London offices at publisher News International, News Corp's British arm, in a corruption probe linked to a continuing investigation into phone hacking at its now closed News of the World weekly tabloid.
News Corp's Management and Standards Committee, set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, said Saturday's operation was the result of information it had passed to police.
"News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated," the committee said in a statement confirming the arrests of four "current and former employees" of the Sun.
The committee is conducting a lawyer-led internal review of News International's remaining titles, which also include The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, as part of a drive to mend the reputational damage done by the phone hacking scandal.
The committee's investigation into The Sun was "well advanced," News International chief executive Tom Mockridge said in an email sent to staff.
"News International is confronting past mistakes and is making fundamental changes about how we operate which are essential for our business.
"Despite this very difficult news, we are determined that News International will emerge a stronger and more trusted organization," he added.
News International was providing legal support for the four arrested "colleagues," Mockridge said.
The arrests included The Sun's crime editor Mike Sullivan, its head of news Chris Pharo, and former deputy editor Fergus Shanahan, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Also arrested was the paper's former managing editor Graham Dudman, now a training director at News International, the source said.
Police said a 48-year-old man from north London and two other men from Essex, east of London, aged 48 and 56, were arrested at their homes. The fourth man, aged 42, was arrested after reporting to an east London police station.
A Sun reporter, who asked not to be named, said: "Everyone is a bit shocked, there is disbelief really. But there is a big difference between phone hacking and payments to the police."
A 29-year-old policeman serving with the Met Police's Territorial Policing Command, was arrested at the central London police station where he worked.
All five were being questioned on suspicion of corruption.
OPERATION ELVEDEN
Police searched the arrested men's homes as well as The Sun's offices in Wapping, east London.
Thirteen people have now been arrested over allegations that journalists paid police in return for information.
Their detentions are part of Operation Elveden - one of three criminal investigations into news-gathering practices.
Last week, News International settled a string of legal claims after it admitted that people working for the tabloid had hacked in to the private phones of celebrities and others to find stories.
The phone hacking scandal drew attention to the level of political influence held by editors and executives at News International, and other newspapers in Britain.
It embarrassed British politicians for their close ties with newspaper executives and also the police, who repeatedly failed to investigate allegations of illegal phone hacking.
(Additional reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Ben Harding)
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Saturday, 28 January 2012
Facebook IPO could value it among top companies
FILE - In this May, 26, 2010 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the social network site's new privacy settings in Palo Alto, Calif. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 that Facebook is preparing to file initial paperwork for an offering that could raise as much as $10 billion and value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
FILE - In this May, 26, 2010 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the social network site's new privacy settings in Palo Alto, Calif. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 that Facebook is preparing to file initial paperwork for an offering that could raise as much as $10 billion and value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? When Facebook makes its long-expected debut as a public company this spring, the social-networking company will likely vault into the ranks of the largest public companies in the world, alongside McDonald's, Amazon.com and Bank of America.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Facebook is preparing to file initial paperwork for an offering that could raise as much as $10 billion and value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion. The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission could come as early as Wednesday, with an initial public offering of stock in three or four months.
The targeted amount would slot it among the world's 25 largest IPOs, although as recently as November 2010, General Motors raised $15.8 billion when it shed majority control by the U.S. government.
The IPOs of 14 companies would rank higher than Facebook's, according to investment adviser Renaissance Capital. Among them were Visa Inc.'s $17.9 billion IPO in March 2008, the largest for a U.S. company, and world-topper Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., which raised $19.3 billion in July 2010, not including extra shares issued to meet demand.
Facebook spokesman Larry Wu said the company will not comment on IPO-related speculation. The Journal had cited unnamed people familiar with the matter.
The Journal also said that Facebook was close to picking Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter, which would be a setback for rival Goldman Sachs. Both declined comment to The Associated Press.
The buzz surrounding an outsized haul for Facebook's founders, employees and early investors remains a hopeful sign for capital markets following a deep recession. At the reported price, Facebook's IPO would be the biggest for a U.S. Internet company ever ? topping the debut of one of its main rivals, Google Inc.
"We are expecting 2012 to be a year of recovery for the IPO market led by the Facebook IPO," said Kathy Smith, Renaissance Capital's principal.
The event will follow a string of tepid debuts by technology startups including social game maker Zynga and discount advertiser Groupon. The stocks of both companies are just pennies above their offering prices in December and November respectively. Zynga's stock fell 5 percent below the IPO price on its first day of trading.
Facebook's will be the most anticipated tech IPO since Google went public in August 2004. Not including shares sold by early investors, the Internet search giant raised $1.2 billion and grabbed a market value of $23 billion, the biggest so far for a U.S. Internet company. The IPO raised $1.9 billion, including shares sold by early investors and extra stock issued to meet the heavy demand. It's not known whether Facebook's $10 billion target includes shares owned by early investors.
Facebook's reported valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion compares with about $100 billion for McDonald's Corp., $90 billion for Citigroup Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. and $75 billion for Bank of America Corp. It would exceed the market cap of $55 billion for Hewlett-Packard Co., one of the world's largest technology companies by revenue.
Both Facebook and Google earn most of their money from advertising and are now competing to gain as much information as possible about their users to help advertisers target niche audiences.
According to eMarketer, Facebook is expected to grow its share of the U.S. display ad market to about 20 percent this year from 16 percent in 2011, above second-ranked Yahoo's expected share of about 13 percent. For overall online ad revenue, Facebook is seen grabbing just 8 percent of the market this year, compared with 45 percent for Google.
EMarketer estimates that Facebook's ad revenue will grow 52 percent to $5.78 billion this year and will reach $7 billion in 2013.
Despite presumably topping Google's public launch, Facebook spent more time growing behind the veil of private ownership than its rival.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates in 2004 and is debuting on stock markets in its eighth year. Google's IPO came six years after being founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. When Google turned eight in August 2006, its market cap was roughly $116 billion. Today, the company is worth nearly $190 billion ? down from a peak of about $235 billion in November 2007.
Investors may be asked to bet heavily on the belief that Facebook will continue to revolutionize the way people communicate around the globe. Even with Facebook's heady growth rate, Google had ad revenue last year of more than five times what Facebook is expected to get in 2013. Yet it is Google that is mimicking Facebook in building a rival social network called Plus.
"There's the general feeling that Facebook might be the future of the way the Internet works," said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
Zuckerberg, 27, is already worth $17.5 billion, based on the latest estimates from Forbes magazine. Most of that wealth is drawn from the value of Facebook shares that have traded among a small universe of well-heeled investors that buy stakes in companies before they go public.
As the company gauges public demand for its stock, the number of shares offered and the price asked could change significantly. Groupon had to refile its securities paperwork repeatedly as regulators questioned some of its accounting methods. Even Google took in less than it hoped as people shunned an unorthodox auction-based offering.
John Fitzgibbon Jr., publisher of IPOScoop.com, said it's too early to get excited.
"Until they actually put the ink on the paper and push it across the desk of the SEC, it's all speculation," he said.
The possible filing next week isn't all that surprising.
Federal rules require companies with at least $10 million in assets and more than 500 shareholders to disclose its quarterly financial results and other details. The reporting requirement kicks in 120 days after the fiscal year in which a company exceeds the shareholder threshold for the first time.
Facebook's fiscal year ends Dec. 31, so it has until late April 2012 to comply with this requirement, having hit the 500-shareholder threshold last year. Because it typically takes three or four months after filing paperwork to issue the IPO, a Wednesday filing would allow it to meet the deadline. If it happens in May, it could become a lucrative birthday gift for Zuckerberg, who will turn 28 that month.
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Friday, 27 January 2012
Yahoo cleaning house, lays some of their mobile apps to rest
I'm not exactly sure how many folks out there use apps from Yahoo but if you're among those that do, you'll want to check the list below. Reason being - Yahoo is laying some of their mobile apps to rest to focus on a whole new set of apps that more so meet users needs. So what apps got the cut?
- Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
- Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
- Yahoo! Answers (Android)
- Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
- Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
- Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
- Yahoo! Movies (Android)
- Yahoo! News (Android)
- Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
- Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)
That quite a few apps to kill off but from looking at the list, it's looks as though those apps are smaller on the chain and may have a minimal amount of users.
Source: Yahoo; via: Phonescoop
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Thursday, 26 January 2012
Scorpions inspire scientists in making tougher surfaces for machinery
ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? Taking inspiration from the yellow fattail scorpion, which uses a bionic shield to protect itself against scratches from desert sandstorms, scientists have developed a new way to protect the moving parts of machinery from wear and tear.
A report on the research appears in ACS' journal Langmuir.
Zhiwu Han, Junqiu Zhang, Wen Li and colleagues explain that "solid particle erosion" is one of the important reasons for material damage or equipment failure. It causes millions of dollars of damage each year to helicopter rotors, rocket motor nozzles, turbine blades, pipes and other mechanical parts. The damage occurs when particles of dirt, grit and other hard material in the air, water or other fluids strike the surfaces of those parts. Filters can help remove the particles but must be replaced or cleaned, while harder, erosion-resistant materials cost more to develop and make. In an effort to develop better erosion-resistant surfaces, Han and Li's group sought the secrets of the yellow fattail scorpion for the first time. The scorpion evolved to survive the abrasive power of harsh sandstorms.
They studied the bumps and grooves on the scorpions' backs, scanning the creatures with a 3-D laser device and developing a computer program that modeled the flow of sand-laden air over the scorpions. The team used the model in computer simulations to develop actual patterned surfaces to test which patterns perform best. At the same time, the erosion tests were conducted in the simple erosion wind tunnel for groove surface bionic samples at various impact conditions. Their results showed that a series of small grooves at a 30-degree angle to the flowing gas or liquid give steel surfaces the best protection from erosion.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Han Zhiwu, Zhang Junqiu, Ge Chao, Wen Li, Luquan Ren. Erosion Resistance of Bionic Functional Surfaces Inspired from Desert Scorpions. Langmuir, 2012; 120120101148000 DOI: 10.1021/la203942r
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/wM0GDY0fU0s/120125101950.htm
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U.S. raid frees two pirate hostages in Somalia (Reuters)
MOGADISHU (Reuters) ? U.S. helicopters swooped into central Somalia on Wednesday and rescued two hostages, an American and a Dane, from pirates in a rare raid into the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives.
American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted were working for the Danish Demining Group (DDG) when they were kidnapped from the town of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region in October.
"The Danish Refugee Council hereby confirms that Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted have been rescued earlier today during an operation in Somalia," the aid group said in a statement.
"The two aid workers from the Danish Refugee Council's demining unit, DDG, are both unharmed and at a safe location," it said.
Galmudug's president, Mohamed Ahmed Alim, told Reuters nine pirates were killed and five captured during the rescue operation near the pirate haven of Haradheere.
Alim was speaking from Hobyo, another major pirate base north of Haradheere, where he said he was negotiating to secure the release of an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.
"About 12 U.S. helicopters are now at Galkayo. We thank the U.S. Pirates have spoilt the whole region's peace and ethics. They are mafia," Alim said.
While U.S. and French forces have intervened to rescue pirate hostages at sea before now, attacks on pirate bases are very rare. The only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa is in neighboring Djibouti.
NBC News, citing U.S. officials, reported that two teams of U.S. Navy SEALs landed by helicopter and rescued the hostages after a gun battle with the kidnappers. The freed hostages were taken by helicopter to an undisclosed location, NBC reported.
President Barack Obama was overheard congratulating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, apparently for the success of the rescue operation, as Obama entered the House of Representatives chamber on Tuesday night to give his annual State of the Union speech.
"Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight," Obama said. He did not mention the rescue during his speech.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, John Acher in Copenhagen, David Clarke in Nairobi and Eric Beech in Washington; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by David Clarke)
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Neuroscientists explore how longstanding conflict influences empathy for others
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
MIT postdoc Emile Bruneau has long been drawn to conflict ? not as a participant, but an observer. In 1994, while doing volunteer work in South Africa, he witnessed firsthand the turmoil surrounding the fall of apartheid; during a 2001 trip to visit friends in Sri Lanka, he found himself in the midst of the violent conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.
Those chance experiences got Bruneau, who taught high school science for several years, interested in the psychology of human conflict. While teaching, he also volunteered as counselor for a conflict-resolution camp in Ireland that brought Catholic and Protestant children together. At MIT, Bruneau is now working with associate professor of cognitive neuroscience Rebecca Saxe to figure out why empathy ? the ability to feel compassion for another person's suffering ? often fails between members of opposing conflict groups.
"What are the psychological barriers that are put up between us in these contexts of intergroup conflict, and then, critically, what can we do to get past them?" Bruneau asks.
Bruneau and Saxe are also trying to locate patterns of brain activity that correlate with empathy, in hopes of eventually using such measures to determine how well people respond to reconciliation programs aimed at boosting empathy between groups in conflict.
"We're interested in how people think about their enemies, and whether there are brain measures that are reliable readouts of that," says Saxe, who is an associate member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research. "This is a huge vision, of which we are at the very beginning."
Before researchers can use tools such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate whether conflict-resolution programs are having any effect, they need to identify brain regions that respond to other people's emotional suffering. In a study published Dec. 1 in Neuropsychologia, Saxe and Bruneau scanned people's brains as they read stories in which the protagonist experienced either physical or emotional pain. The brain regions that responded uniquely to emotional suffering overlapped with areas known to be involved in the ability to perceive what another person is thinking or feeling.
Failures of empathy
Hoping to see a correlation between empathy levels and amount of activity in those brain regions, the researchers then recruited Israelis and Arabs for a study in which subjects read stories about the suffering of members of their own groups or that of conflict-group members. The study participants also read stories about a distant, neutral group ? South Americans.
As expected, Israelis and Arabs reported feeling much more compassion in response to the suffering of their own group members than that of members of the conflict group. However, the brain scans revealed something surprising: Brain activity in the areas that respond to emotional pain was identical when reading about suffering by one's own group or the conflict group. Also, those activity levels were lower when Arabs or Israelis read about the suffering of South Americans, even though Arabs and Israelis expressed more compassion for South Americans' suffering than for that of the conflict group.
Those findings, published Jan. 23 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, suggest that those brain regions are sensitive to the importance of the opposing group, not whether or not you like them.
However, because the study did not reveal any correlation between the expression of empathy and the amount of brain activity, more study is needed before MRI can be used as a reliable measure of empathy levels, Saxe says.
"We thought there might be brain regions where the amount of activity was just a simple function of the amount of empathy that you experience," Saxe says. "Since that's not what we found, we don't know what the amount of activity in these brain regions really means yet. This is basically a first baby step, and one of the things it tells us is that we don't know enough about these brain regions to use them in the ways that we want to."
Bruneau is now testing whether these brain regions send messages to different parts of the brain depending on whether the person is feeling empathy or not. He hypothesizes that when someone reads about the suffering of an in-group member, the brain regions identified in this study send information to areas that process unpleasant emotions, while stories about suffering of a conflict-group member activate an area called the ventral striatum, which has been implicated in schadenfreude ? taking pleasure in the suffering of others.
###
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice
Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for this article.
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012
BeagleBone board boots up XBMC Eden, shows off its media prowess
Continue reading BeagleBone board boots up XBMC Eden, shows off its media prowess
BeagleBone board boots up XBMC Eden, shows off its media prowess originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HBT: Posada to formally announce retirement
From the?New York Daily News? Andy Martino:
Jorge Posada is expected to hold a news conference at Yankee Stadium early this week, likely Tuesday, to formally announce his retirement, according to a person familiar with the plans.
The news comes as no surprise. Posada headed into this offseason with the intention of continuing his career, but his mind seemed to change as interest in him failed to grow and he confirmed to?MLB.com?s Adam Berry?last week that he was done for good.
Posada, 40, finishes with a .273/.374/.474 career batting line, 1,664 career hits and 275 career home runs.
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Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Pressure remains for higher education: Moody's (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? The financial conditions of many U.S. colleges and universities will likely not improve much this year, as states continue cutting funding for public schools, students become more price sensitive, and areas for other revenue remain stretched, a lead rating agency said on Monday.
"During the past year, public and political scrutiny of colleges and universities, both not-for-profit and for-profit, has escalated and we expect that the sector will remain under the microscope in 2012 and beyond," said Moody's Investors Services in a report outlining why it is maintaining a "mixed outlook for U.S. not-for-profit private and public colleges and universities, mirroring our 2011 outlook."
While undergraduates continue to enroll, "demand for some graduate programs and professional schools ... is softening," Moody's said, noting that "evolving demand trends for undergraduate and graduate programs highlight flight to quality and affordability."
Worries about affordability and unmanageable student debt levels are currently sweeping the country, as public schools push up tuition charges to compensate for fewer dollars coming from states.
"While state funding has been declining as a share of public university revenue for three decades, the declines of the last few years have been the sharpest ever," Moody's said, noting that 35 states expect to cut appropriations for four-year public universities this year.
Private and public colleges and universities are also under pressure from fewer donations and smaller research grants and contracts, especially from the federal government, Moody's found.
Many institutions are expecting their endowments to grow mildly this year, as well.
"For private colleges and universities that have weaker market positions and are less selective, we are observing clear signs of deterioration of net tuition revenue and growth of tuition discounting," Moody's said.
(Reporting By Lisa Lambert; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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CBS buys "The Words", "Tupelo 77" gets a director (omg!)
PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) - Buying activity at the Sundance Film Festival ramped up on Sunday after late-night negotiations on Saturday. CBS Films announced that it had acquired "The Words," a drama starring Brad Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Jeremy Irons.
The movie stars Cooper as a writer who at the peak of his literary success discovers the price he must pay for stealing another man's work. Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal co-wrote and co-directed the film.
Mickey Liddell's LD Distribution bought North American rights to the midnight entry "Black Rock."
And there was plenty of noise continuing around the hottest film in the feature competition, "Beast of the Southern Wild," which insiders said had Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and others seeking the rights through WME.
"Filly Brown," a fierce hip-hop drama, handled by WME, was also said to be in play.
Also on Sunday:
Julie Dash, who directed the television movie "The Rosa Parks Story," is in final negotiations to direct Angel Entertainment's feature "Tupelo 77," Angel's Bob Crowe said Sunday.
The movie is set in a small town in Mississippi in the summer of 1977. It tells the story of a group of women of various ages and races who are regulars at a roadside diner. The summer of 1977 -- the year Elvis Presley died -- is the hottest on record in Mississippi.
Casting for the film is under way. Crowe and Sean Hewitt are producing the movie, which begins shooting this summer.
Rich Mancuso wrote the screenplay, which shows the women as they struggle to "transcend the obstacles of poverty, racial and religious differences, and the persistent wounds of war."
Dash's "Daughters of the Dust" was selected as one of the "From the Collection" screenings at the Sundance Film Festival. That film first screened at the 1991 Sundance festival, where it earned the Excellence in Cinematography Award.
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Monday, 23 January 2012
UK trial of 9 on US Embassy terror plot begins (AP)
LONDON ? Nine men suspected of plotting attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the London Stock Exchange are to go on trial in London.
Prosecutors say the men arrested in December 2010 in the largest British anti-terror raid in two years had planned to blow up several prominent buildings. All have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to cause explosions. Their trial is scheduled to begin at Woolwich Crown Court in south London on Monday.
The men are aged between 20 and 30 and were arrested in London, Cardiff and Stoke-on-Trent in central England.
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Sunday, 22 January 2012
Bucky balls for next-generation spintronics devices
ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2012) ? The beauty of an electron's spin is that it responds very rapidly to small magnetic fields. Such external magnetic fields can be used to reverse the direction of spin. In this way, information can be carried by a flow of electrons. For instance, electrons with a left-hand spin could represent a "1," and those with a right-hand spin, a "0." It takes less time to flip the spin direction than it does to switch a current on or off. Accordingly, spintronics could potentially be very fast and extremely compact.
Organic materials
However, this would require a material that combines the characteristics of a semiconductor (such as silicon, the most widely used material in the chip industry) with magnetic properties. Research in this area (including work by Michel de Jong) has already delivered results. However, finding materials with this combination of properties is far from simple. For this reason, Michel de Jong is now hunting for an alternative. He is focusing on semiconductors consisting of carbohydrate chains, in other words, organic materials. "Such materials are already being used in the displays of the latest smart phones. Indeed, they are very much the 'in' thing. I expect it will ultimately be possible to make very cheap electronics from these materials, leading to a wide range of new applications. For instance, if supermarkets want to tag their products with pricing information, then the electronics involved will have to cost next to nothing."
Buckyballs
De Jong has been experimenting with buckyballs (spherical C60 molecules held together by weak bonds) sandwiched between two magnetic materials. "The great advantage of these molecules is that they have very little effect on electron spin. This enables them to store spin information for much longer periods of time than silicon." Depending on the orientation of the magnetic field in the upper and lower layers of magnetic material, electrons with the same direction of spin are either allowed through or held back, as if a valve were being opened or closed. This would make it possible to create sensitive magnetic sensors, for example. The "sandwich" might also form the basis for new electronic components that make use of spin.
"If we are to make truly effective components, we will need a detailed understanding of events at the interface between the magnetic and organic materials. However, this will require improvements in the quality of such interfaces. The current techniques for applying metallic layers to organic layers do not produce good interconnections. The organic material contains cavities that can fill with metal. This results in unpredictable behaviour. Over the next five years we will be seeking to improve the manufacturing process. This will help us to understand what exactly happens at the interface."
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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120120182916.htm
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Police: Dad threatened to shock girl inside cage
By NBC News and msnbc.com staff
A man accused of punishing his 12-year-old daughter by binding her hands and feet with duct tape and sticking her in a dog cage, then threatening to electrify the crate,?was just engaging in "some horseplay"?that "got out of control," his lawyer?says.
Here's what happened, according to a?report from NBC station WLWT of Cincinnati:
The Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Office said James Tapke restrained his 12-year-old daughter's hands and feet using?duct tape before placing her in a dog cage on Jan. 10. Then, while his daughter was in the cage, investigators said, Tapke dropped small amounts of water on her face.
According to court papers, the victim was in the cage for about 20 minutes before her 13-year-old brother let her out. When she got out, authorities said, the victim poured water on her father's head and in his ear.
Tapke then bound his daughter again with duct tape and put her back in the dog cage, investigators said, and while she was in the cage, Tapke told his son to go to the garage and retrieve an electrical jump pack so that he could electrify the cage. The girl's brother brought the jump pack and placed it in front of the cage, so his sister could see it.
Tapke never attempted to electrify the cage, but investigators said he told his daughter several times he would.
Tapke then let her out of the cage, and her grandmother helped her with taking off the duct tape, authorities said. During the entire incident, authorities said the girl's brother and her father took pictures of her in the cage.
Her brother posted the pictures on Facebook, investigators said, but the pictures were deleted.
In court on Thursday, Tapke's attorney, Christopher Jackson, said that the entire incident was a joke.
"We believe the evidence will eventually show that this was simply some horseplay that ended up, you know, taking pictures." Jackson said. "It just doesn't look that funny when you see it in pictures ... Maybe not the best joke in the world, but I believe that's what is going to come out later at trial."
"Judge, if this is a joke, it's about the most unfunny joke I've ever heard," said assistant prosecutor Matt Broo.?
Tapke, 41, was charged with child endangering. Bond?was set at $50,000.
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Saturday, 21 January 2012
Costa CEO says captain misled company, crew (AP)
ROME ? The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said Friday as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers.
CEO Pierluigi Foschi told Italian state TV that the company spoke to the captain at 10:05 p.m. (2105 GMT; 4:05 p.m. EST), some 20 minutes after the ship ran aground on Jan. 13, but could not offer proper assistance because the captain's description "did not correspond to the truth."
Capt. Francesco Schettino said only that he had "problems" on board but did not mention hitting a reef.
Likewise, Foschi said crew members were not informed of the gravity of the situation.
Passenger video shown on Italian TV indicates crew members telling passengers to go to their cabins as late as 10:25 p.m. (2125 GMT; 4:25 p.m. EST). The abandon ship alarm sounded just before 11:00 p.m. (2200 GMT; 5:00 p.m. EST).
"That's because they also did not receive correct information on the gravity of the situation," Foschi said.
The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-charted rocks off the island of Giglio a week ago. Eleven people have been confirmed dead.
The Concordia shifted again on its rocky perch Friday, forcing the suspension of diving search operations for the 21 people still missing and raising concerns about the stability of the ship's resting place. But the search in areas above the waterline resumed in the evening after the ship was deemed stable.
The remarks by Costa CEO Foschi are the latest to indicate a lack of proper communication with authorities on land as the emergency unfolded.
An audiotape of the Concordia's first contact with maritime authorities has a Concordia office repeatedly replying that the ship had experienced a blackout, even though it had hit the reef more than half an hour earlier.
Italian media reported the officer on the call was Schettino, but that could not be independently confirmed.
Costa Crociere SpA, which offered support to the captain in the hours after the emergency, has now turned its back on the man who is under investigation for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship. Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship, is under house arrest near Naples.
Costa in recent days has suspended Schettino, announced it is no longer paying his legal fees and has signed on as a civil party in the prosecution, a move that positions it as an injured party and would allow it to seek damages in the case of a guilty verdict.
Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro said crews will evaluate the ship's stability Saturday morning to see if the diving operation can resume, focusing on an area where passengers would have sought lifeboats, Nicastro said.
It was not clear if the slight movements registered by sensors placed on board the Costa Concordia were just vibrations as the ship settles on the rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio or if the massive ocean liner is slowly slipping off the reef. Salvage experts suggest it could be because of pockets of air gradually escaping.
The sensors detected that the ship's bow was moving about 15 millimeters (half an inch) an hour and the stern about 7 millimeters (one-quarter inch) an hour, said Nicola Casagli of the University of Florence, who was called in by Italian authorities to monitor the ship's stability.
The Concordia's movements are being watched since any significant shift could be dangerous for divers trying to locate those missing since the Concordia ran aground Jan. 13. An additional fear is that movement could damage tanks holding a 500,000 gallons of fuel oil and lead to leaks.
The sea floor drops off sharply a few meters (yards) from where the ship is resting, and Italy's environment minister has warned it risks sinking.
On Friday, relatives of some of the 21 missing were at Giglio's port getting briefings from rescue teams.
Casagli told Sky TG24 that some movement in the Concordia was only natural given the immense weight of the steel-hulled ship, which is being held in place by two huge rocks at bow and stern.
But the latest movements indicate it isn't stable, he said. "These are small, regular movements that are being monitored because they're going in the same direction," he told Sky.
Late Thursday, Carnival Corp., the U.S.-based company that owns Costa, announced it was conducting a comprehensive audit of all 10 of its cruise lines to review safety and emergency response procedures in the wake of the Costa disaster. The evacuation was chaotic and the alarm to abandon the ship was sounded after the Concordia had capsized too much to get many life boats down.
___
Colleen Barry reported from Milan. Andrea Foa contributed from Giglio, Italy.
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Michelle Obama heading to Leno's 'Tonight Show'
[unable to retrieve full-text content]BURBANK, Calif. (AP) ? First lady Michelle Obama is headed to Jay Leno's stage later this month.
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Friday, 20 January 2012
Oil hovers above $100 as gasoline stocks cap rise
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Oil hovered above $100 a barrel Friday in Asia as signs of economic improvement in the U.S. and Europe were tempered by a rise in gasoline stocks, which suggests weaker demand for crude.
Benchmark crude for February delivery was up 28 cents at $100.67 a barrel at late afternoon Kuala Lumpur time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 20 cents to finish at $100.39 on Thursday.
Jobless claims fell, consumer prices were steady and the dismal home construction market showed more signs of life at the end of 2011, raising hopes that the U.S. economic recovery is for real.
Worries about Europe's debt crisis and future energy demand receded as France and Spain staged successful bond auctions, indicating investors have not been scared off by Standard and Poor's recent downgrades of countries that use the euro common currency.
Analysts said the positive economic news was tempered by the weekly U.S. oil inventory report. The Energy Department said Thursday that the nation's crude oil supplies declined about 1 percent last week but gasoline stocks rose 1.7 percent while demand over the past four weeks is down 6.1 percent from a year earlier.
"The market focused on the rising gasoline stocks which indicated continuing weak oil demand in the U.S. This has capped oil futures from gaining further despite some positive economic news from the U.S. and Europe," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
Analysts say oil prices will continue to swing between gains and losses until there is more certainty about the direction of the global economy.
In other energy trading, heating oil rose 0.4 cent to $3.04 per gallon and gasoline futures rose 0.6 cent to $2.83 per gallon. Natural gas added 0.2 cents to $2.32 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Alabama football star arrested in Palmetto
Published: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 4:06 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 5:25 p.m.
MANATEE COUNTY - Fresh off a BCS National Championship win, an Alabama Crimson Tide cornerback who had become a top NFL draft prospect was arrested in Palmetto on a charge of marijuana possession.
Enlarge
Dandre "Dre" Kirkpatrick (Photo provided / Manatee County Sheriff's Office)
Dandre ?Dre? Kirkpatrick, 22, and another former Alabama defensive back were arrested early Tuesday when police stopped their car because they were driving on the wrong side of the road, according to the Palmetto Police report.
Kirkpatrick was the front-seat passenger of the vehicle driven by Chris Rogers, a Crimson Tide football player from 2006 to 2009.
Police stopped the pair at 12:39 a.m. Tuesday in the 900 block of Sixth Street West. A police dog walked the perimeter of the car and alerted its handler to drugs, the report said.
Nearly 8 grams of marijuana were found by Kirkpatrick?s feet, according to the report. Rogers admitted to buying the drugs at a nearby home.
Kirkpatrick and Rogers were booked into the Manatee County Jail on $120 bail each. They each face a misdemeanor charge of possessing fewer than 20 grams of marijuana, records show.
Neither remained in jail as of Tuesday afternoon.
Kirkpatrick declared he would pass up his senior season for the 2012 NFL Draft shortly after the Jan. 9 Bowl Championship Series game against the Louisiana State University Tigers in New Orleans. Alabama won the national title 21-0.
Kirkpatrick is regarded as a top defensive back in college football, and his presence gave the Crimson Tide top rankings in many defensive categories. He was named a second-team AP All-American in 2011.
ESPN Scouts Inc. rated Kirkpatrick as a No. 8 draft pick. The only cornerback beating him out in the prediction is LSU?s Morris Claiborne. A 2012 mock draft by SBNation.com shows Kirkpatrick as a top choice for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Rogers is listed in the police report as living in Baltimore, Mad.
The men could be in town for NFL combine training at IMG Academies in West Bradenton or with Athletic Edge Sports of Lakewood Ranch. Their participation in either of those programs could not be immediately confirmed.
Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120117/breaking/120119587
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Thursday, 19 January 2012
Now NY's Legislature gets Cuomo's budget
New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers the 2012 New York State Budget at The Egg, in Albany, N.Y. Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Stewart Cairns)
New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers the 2012 New York State Budget at The Egg, in Albany, N.Y. Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Stewart Cairns)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers the 2012 New York State Budget at The Egg, in Albany, New York, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Cuomo tried to turn the annual address into a kickoff for taming Albany's status quo of politics and special interests, which he said serves itself rather than taxpayers, or even children. (AP Photo/Stewart Cairns)
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? With a little cheerleading, a little cajoling and a little threatening, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has turned his 2012-13 budget into a rallying cry for reform of the status quo in Albany, demonizing some of its most powerful public labor unions.
The Democrat again cast himself as the outsider in Tuesday's presentation of his mostly flat $132.5 billion budget. He called for reform of the status quo of the Capitol he's been part of for 30 years since his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, held the office and after spending his own first year pulling the strings of state government more than any governor in decades.
"We created a sense of optimism and hope," Cuomo told lawmakers as he called the first-year accomplishments of himself and the Legislature staggeringly successful. New Yorkers "believe in government. ... They have hope once again for themselves, their state, their families and their communities and that is a great, great gift."
Cuomo seized the moment Tuesday in the state theater, well chilled as usual for when he speaks to a big crowd to keep spectators from acting logy from body heat. The budget address was one of only two certain joint meetings all year with intense statewide media attention.
Along the way, he made it clear to lawmakers from both parties that this legislative election year voters will either see them as partners in another year of "all-star" accomplishments, or as obstacles.
"This is a pro-economic growth strategy based on fiscal discipline, real reform and the exciting area of entrepreneurial government to lead us to a new New York," Cuomo said. "This is posing dramatic change in the system ... what we're talking about here are major shifts. Don't underestimate what we are trying to achieve ... we're changing it from the special interest focus to focus on the people."
One of Cuomo's biggest targets was the state's teachers unions, which he accused of blocking a tougher evaluation system for teachers that is threatening nearly $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds that require the action. The other big targets were the other major public employee unions that Cuomo wants to be forced to accept a new pension plan that would cut state and local government pension costs in half.
"I'm not sure we're going to adopt every last thing that he presented today, but if we can make progress on some of the big ones, I think the education piece is critical," said Senate Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Libous, a Broome County Republican. "We can't afford to lose money."
"If you lose funding, you lose jobs," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat. "So I think you'll see a lot of agreements across the state, and I think that's fine."
Silver also said he'd be open to discussing Cuomo's pension proposal, a long simmering proposal pushed by Senate Republicans and local governments with lighter ties to powerful public unions than Assembly Democrats.
"I think you've got to look at it," Silver said, "because that option saves a significant amount of money."
Cuomo's overall budget proposal would increase state spending by 2 percent, much of it involving 4-percent school aid and Medicaid spending hikes agreed to last year with legislative leaders. But the overall plan, including federal funding, is a fraction of 1 percent lower than the current budget, and eliminates a $2 billion deficit. Cuomo's plan calls for using $1.9 billion in revenue from a "millionaire tax" approved in December and making just over $1 billion in cuts while embarking on a three-year takeover of Medicaid costs from local governments, now cracking under the $8 billion a year strain.
Cuomo's proposal would also merge some state agencies and withhold increases in state aid to school districts that fail to enact tougher evaluations for teachers and principals. Failure to do so threatens $700 million in federal Race to the Top grants.
Union leaders ? primarily those representing teachers and public employees ? signaled Cuomo would get fierce opposition.
Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers union, said Cuomo's 4-percent increase for school aid is still $500 million short, and he'll pursue those funds in the Legislature.
Cuomo also wants a less costly pension tier for new hires, including a voluntary retirement using a type of 401(k) plan that would save state and local governments billions of dollars over 30 years.
"The proposal for a new public employee pension tier is an assault on the middle class and a cheap shot at public employees," said Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association union with 265,000 members. "It will provide no short-term savings and will mean people will have to work longer, pay more and gain less benefit."
But Cuomo was engaging in a fight some budget analysts have long sought in Albany.
"This budget, if enacted, will mark a second year of serious reform for New York state," said Elizabeth Lynam of the independent Citizens Budget Commission.
Like many who watched Albany through years of partisanship that threatened officials' once certain re-election bids, she was skeptical of the policies adopted last year that replaced the usual months-long battles over funding, rather than managing the funds.
"Now, they really seemed to have been able to focus on some of these key issues," Lynam said.
___
AP Writer Michael Virtanen contributed to this report from Albany.
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House rejects debt limit hike in protest vote (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The House of Representatives rejected a $1.2 trillion increase in the federal debt limit on Wednesday in a largely symbolic vote that allowed Republicans to stake out election-year positions to bash President Barack Obama's spending record.
The Republican-controlled House voted 239 to 176 along party lines in favor of a "resolution of disapproval" against the increase sought by Obama, a Democrat, but the winning tally fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
The Republican effort to deny the debt limit hike - seen by Democrats as political posturing - is expected to die in the Senate, which reconvenes in Washington next week. But should it pass, Obama is poised to veto it.
The vote was also largely an academic exercise, for Congress gave Obama the authority to increase the debt limit last August as part of a deal to end a rancorous budget battle that brought the United States to the brink of default and cost it its coveted top-tier credit rating from Standard & Poor's.
Republican lawmakers used Wednesday's vote to go on record as opposing more spending increases and to cast Obama as the architect of a massive spending binge. Exploiting voter worries over the ballooning federal debt, now over $15 trillion, is a central theme of Republicans' election campaign strategy.
SPENDING MORAL HIGH GROUND
During several hours of debate, a procession of Republican lawmakers railed against spending they said was ruining the U.S. economy.
"This president, I believe thinks that government has the answers and he wants to give the bureaucrats a blank check to move forward and spend this country into oblivion," said Ann Marie Buerkle, a freshman Republican from upstate New York.
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul even left a contentious primary race in South Carolina to come back to Washington to vote against the higher borrowing cap.
"We ought to face up to the reality and live within our limits," Paul, a Texas congressman, said on the House floor.
Democrats countered that Republicans were mounting a political "charade" that could again put investors' faith in U.S. Treasury debt at risk.
"If the Unites States of America were to renege on the full faith and credit of its obligations, it would be a disaster on the international economy, but that is the course of action being advocated by our Republican colleagues today," said Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Other Democrats pointed out that 174 Republicans voted in favor of the budget deal last year that authorized $2.1 trillion in new borrowing capacity in three stages. Yet there were 233 Republican votes against the final $1.2 trillion portion of this and only one in favor of it.
The increase would push the U.S. debt ceiling to $16.394 trillion. The U.S. Treasury essentially reached the prior limit at the end of December, but has been using special accounting maneuvers to delay the increase to allow for the vote.
In each of Obama's three years in office, the government has run up record deficits in the $1.3 trillion-plus range.
The White House argues that Obama inherited a deficit on track to exceed $1 trillion, and was forced to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulate the economy to prevent the worst recession since the 1930s from becoming another Great Depression.
Obama is expected next month to try to use his 2013 budget plan to turn the tables on Republicans and cast himself as working against an obstructionist Congress to tackle deficits by reviving his proposals to slash deficits by $4 trillion.
Those plans, which were stopped in their tracks when deficit reduction talks collapsed last year, relied partly on tax hikes for the wealthy, an idea that Republicans have staunchly opposed.
(Reporting By David Lawder; Editing by Sandra Maler and Philip Barbara)
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