Newt Gingrich Fails To Knock Out Mitt Romney At Final Florida Debate

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Newt Gingrich pulled out all his tricks at Thursday night's GOP presidential debate in Jacksonville: attack the moderator, attack Mitt Romney, let other candidates get twisted up in their own words and feed on the energy of the audience. In South Carolina, they propelled him to victory. This time, they weren't enough.

Gingrich, more than any other candidate, has benefited from his debate performances. His fiery, aggressive attacks appealed to hungry conservatives, and he frequently tells audiences he is the only candidate who could win a debate against President Obama. On Thursday, he didn't do that, and his campaign notably played down the debate's importance afterward.

CNN host and debate moderator Wolf Blitzer stole a chance for Gingrich to get a big head start. Blitzer allowed a member of the audience to ask a question about immigration and gave Rick Santorum, whose momentum from the Iowa caucuses has largely disappeared, the first chance to answer.

In South Carolina, Gingrich received one of his biggest boosts when he went after CNN's John King, the debate moderator. King led the questioning by asking Gingrich about claims that he once asked his wife for an "open marriage." Gingrich responded by attacking King and the news media, earning a standing ovation from the audience.

Gingrich's other South Carolina boost came in an earlier debate, when he went after moderator Juan Williams for questioning his statement that President Obama was a "food stamp president."

Blitzer, however, was ready on Thursday. He reminded Gingrich that he earlier said he was satisfied with the level of transparency from Romney on his taxes, but has since attacked the former Massachusetts governor for living in "worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts."

"Wolf, you and I have a great relationship -- goes back a long way," said Gingrich, adding, "This is a nonsense question. Look, how about if the four of us agree for the rest of the evening, we're going to talk about issues?"

When Blitzer replied that he was simply asking about a comment he made during a TV interview, Gingrich shot back, "I'm perfectly happy to say that in a TV interview. This is a national debate."

While there was some booing of Blitzer, the biggest applause came for Romney, who took Blitzer's side: "Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to defend?"

Gingrich even received some boos, for his claim that he balanced the budget.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who recently endorsed Romney, admitted that Gingrich wasn't able to deliver the punches he did in South Carolina.

"I think it's more of a question of the opportunities that were presented," said Thompson. "If someone gives you an opportunity to bear down on them, you do it. But you can't fake something like that and get away with it."

Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond downplayed the importance of the debates to the Florida primary.

"I think the dynamic's completely changed," Hammond said, referring to the difference between South Carolina and Florida. "I think if you look at the outside super PAC activity, I wouldn't want those ads up against me. That's pretty bad. They're reinforcing what everyone fears about Mitt Romney -- he's inconsistent, he will change, he will lie to you. The truth is sometimes an unfamiliar fact to him."

Attacks on Romney weren't easy on Thursday either, as he continued his aggressive stance of recent days.

Romney's backers were noticeably upbeat talking with reporters after the forum, saying they thought it was perhaps his best debate.

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Gingrich looked "deflated" on Thursday night and called him "erratic" and "unhinged." Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Romney "kicked butt."

"I think Newt lost his mojo a little tonight. He just didn't seem to have the get-up-and-go that he had in previous debates," Pawlenty said.

When asked whether this was Romney's strongest debate, Pawlenty replied, "I think he had an incredibly strong debate. He's had a lot of great debates throughout this campaign. I think this was the strongest of the series."

During the debate, Gingrich stood by a claim in one of his ads that Romney is the most "anti-immigrant" GOP candidate.

"Mr. Speaker, I'm not anti-immigrant," Romney indignantly replied. "My father was born in Mexico. My wife's father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don't use a term like that."

He reminded the audience that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) recently denounced Gingrich's ad that called Romney "anti-immigrant."

"And I'm glad that Marco Rubio called you out on it," Romney said. "I'm glad you withdrew it. I think you should apologize for it, and I think you should recognize that having differences of opinions on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets."

Romney's performance was far from flawless. He had his own slip-up on this topic later, when he was asked about his ad saying that Gingrich once said Spanish was "the language of the ghetto."

"I doubt that's my ad, but we'll take a look and find out," replied Romney. "There are a bunch of ads out there that are being organized by other people."

It actually is Romney's ad, as Blitzer later noted. In fact, at the end of the ad, Romney says in Spanish, "I'm Mitt Romney. I'm running for president, and I approve this message."

When asked whether Romney actually does approve his campaign ads, Fehrnstrom chalked the moment up to memory loss due to the large volume of ads.

"We've had, I think about 85 campaign videos and TV ads and radio ads that have been up and running in different states. He doesn't recall all of them. That particular ad is a radio ad. It was rated, by the way, by Politifact, as 'mostly true,'" Fehrnstrom said.

The debate capped a week of increasingly harsh attacks on Gingrich from some conservative establishment figures. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Gingrich is "erratic, undisciplined." Former Sen. Bob Dole called him "a one-man band who rarely took advice."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/debate-florida-newt-gingrich-mitt-romney_n_1235413.html

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U.S. Soldiers Face Host of Mental Health Issues (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. military personnel and veterans are plagued by substance abuse, depression and suicide, three new studies indicate.

In one study, researchers surveyed nearly 600 veterans returning from war zone deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan, and found that they were at increased risk for mental health problems and alcohol and drug abuse.

Nearly 14 percent of the veterans screened positive for probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 39 percent for probable alcohol abuse, and 3 percent for probable drug use. Men reported more alcohol and drug use than women, but there were no gender differences in PTSD or other mental health conditions.

Veterans returning from Iraq reported more depression or functioning problems and more alcohol and drug use than those returning from Afghanistan. Army and Marine veterans reported worse mental and physical health than Air Force or Navy veterans.

The studies were published online Jan. 25 in the American Journal of Public Health and are scheduled to appear in the March supplement print issue of the journal.

In the second study, researchers found that major depression and substance use disorders have increased among active duty combat-exposed veterans. The finding comes from an analysis of data from 678,382 active personnel serving between 2001 and 2006.

Those who were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan were more likely to be diagnosed with major depression or substance abuse than non-deployed personnel. Army and Marine Corps personnel were more likely to be diagnosed with the conditions than Navy and Air Force personnel.

"Our study provided valuable insight for the mental health readiness of the U.S. armed services and implications for potential, continued support of ongoing operations and their post-deployment health care needs," the researchers wrote in a journal news release.

"Given the continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and other parts of the world, and the increasing trend in major mental health conditions reported in the U.S. military, it would be important for the Department of Defense to assess whether the current system has adequate resources and manpower to handle the increasing number of active duty personnel who need mental health services," they concluded.

The third study found that suicide rates for all U.S. military services increased between 2005 and 2007, particularly for members of the regular Army and National Guard.

The analysis of data from 2,064,183 active duty personnel in 2005 and 1,981,810 active duty personnel in 2007 also showed that mental health diagnoses, mental health visits, prescriptions for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants and sleep medicines, reduction in rank, enlisted rank and separation or divorce were all associated with suicides.

Deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan were associated with an elevated risk of suicide among all services in 2007, and for the Army in 2005.

The increased risk of suicide associated with deployments in 2007 compared with 2005 may be due to the extended duration of war and increasing lengths of deployment for Army and Air Force personnel, the researchers suggested.

"Additional research needs to address the increasing rates of suicide in active duty personnel. This should include careful evaluation of suicide prevention programs and the possible increase in risk associated with SSRIs and other mental health drugs, as well as the possible impact of shorter deployments, age, mental health diagnoses and relationship problems," the researchers concluded.

More information

The American Psychiatric Association has more about military mental health.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120126/hl_hsn/ussoldiersfacehostofmentalhealthissues

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Romney is the aggressor in final Florida debate (AP)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. ? An aggressive Mitt Romney repeatedly challenged Republican rival Newt Gingrich Thursday night in the final debate before next week's critical Florida primary, demanding an apology for an ad saying he harbors anti-immigrant sentiments and ridiculing the former House speaker's call to colonize the moon.

"If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, `You're fired,'" Romney declared. That was just one particularly animated clash between two rivals struggling for supremacy in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall.

Gingrich responded heatedly. "You don't just have to be cheap everywhere. You can actually have priorities to get things done." He said that as speaker of the House he had helped balance the budget while doubling spending on the National Institutes of Health.

The debate was the 19th since the race for the Republican nomination began last year, and the second in four days in the run-up to Tuesday's Florida primary. Opinion polls make the race a close one ? slight advantage Romney ? with two other contenders, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Texas Rep. Ron Paul far behind.

Gingrich's upset victory in the South Carolina primary last week upended the race for the nomination, and Romney in particular can ill-afford a defeat on Tuesday.

While the clashes between Gingrich and Romney dominated the debate, Santorum drew applause from the audience when he called on the two front-runners to stop attacking one another and "focus on the issues."

"Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress ... and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy?" he said in a tone of exasperation.

There were some moments of levity, including when Paul, 76, was asked whether he would be willing to release his medical records. He said he was, then challenged the other three men on the debate stage to a 25-mile bike race.

He got no takers.

In the days since Romney's loss in South Carolina, he has tried to seize the initiative, playing the aggressor in the Tampa debate and assailing Gingrich in campaign speeches and a TV commercial.

An outside group formed to support Romney has spent more than his own campaign's millions on ads, some of them designed to stop Gingrich's campaign momentum before it is too late to deny him the nomination.

With polls suggesting his South Carolina surge is stalling, Gingrich unleashed a particularly strong attack earlier in the day, much as he lashed out in Iowa when he rose in the polls, only to be knocked back by an onslaught of ads he was unable to counter effectively.

Thursday night's first clash occurred moments after the debate opened, when Gingrich responded to a question by saying Romney was the most anti-immigrant of all four contenders on stage. "That's simply inexcusable," the former Massachusetts governor responded.

"Mr. Speaker, I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife's father was born in Wales. ... The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don't use a term like that," he added.

At the same time, Romney noted that Gingrich's campaign had been pressured to stop running a radio ad that called Romney anti-immigrant after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called on Gingrich to do so.

He called on Gingrich to apologize for the commercial, but got no commitment.

About an hour later, Romney pounced when the topic turned to Gingrich's proposal for an permanent American colony on the moon ? an issue of particular interest to engineers and others who live on Florida's famed Space Coast.

A career businessman before he became a politician, Romney said: "If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, `You're fired.'"

The audience erupted in cheers, but Romney wasn't finished.

He said the former speaker had called for construction of a new Interstate highway in South Carolina, a new VA hospital in northern New Hampshire and widening the port of Jacksonville to accommodate the larger ships that will soon be able to transit the Panama Canal.

"This idea of going state to state and promising people what they want to hear, promising hundreds of billions of dollars to make people happy, that's what got us into trouble in the first place," Romney said.

Gingrich responded that part of campaigning is becoming familiar with local issues, adding, "The port of Jacksonville is going to have to be expanded. I think that's an important thing for a president to know." He went on to refer to completion of an Everglades project that he did not describe, then noted he had worked to expand NIH while he was speaker.

Gingrich raised questions about Romney's wealth and his investments. "I don't know of any American president who's had a Swiss bank account," Gingrich said. Romney replied that his investments were in a blind trust over which he had no control. "There's nothing wrong with that," declared Romney, who has estimated his wealth at as much as $250 million.

Earlier Thursday, it was disclosed that Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, failed to list an unknown amount of investment income from a variety of sources including a Swiss bank account on financial disclosure forms filed last year. His campaign said it was working to correct the omissions.

Gingrich also failed to report income from his 2010 tax return on his financial disclosure. The former Georgia congressman will amend his disclosure to show $252,500 in salary from one of his businesses, spokesman R.C. Hammond said.

Debating in a state with a large and influential Jewish population, Romney and Gingrich vied to stress their support for Israel rather than criticize one another.

And all four men were quick to name prominent officials of Hispanic descent who deserved consideration for the Cabinet. Gingrich trumped the other three, saying, "I've actually thought of Marco Rubio in a slightly more dignified and central role," an evident reference to the vice presidential spot on the ticket.

Immigration was a recurring theme.

Gingrich said Romney was misleading when he ran an ad accusing the former House speaker of once referring to Spanish as "the language of the ghetto." Gingrich claimed he was referring to a multitude of languages, not just Spanish.

Romney initially said, "I doubt it's mine," but moderator Wolf Blitzer read it aloud and pointed out that Romney, at the ad's conclusion, says he approved the message.

As for immigration policy, it was difficult to discern their differences.

Both men said they want to clamp down in illegal immigration, create programs to make sure jobs go only to legal immigrants and deport some of the 11 million men and women in the country unlawfully.

Gingrich has never said how many illegal residents he believes should be deported, preferring to say that the United States is not going to begin rounding up grandmothers and grandfathers who have lived in the United States for years.

Romney agreed that was the case ? and Gingrich said that marked a switch in position.

"Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers," Romney said. "Our problem is 11 million people getting jobs that many Americans, legal immigrants would like to have."

Romney and Gingrich also exchanged jabs over investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage giants that played a role in the national foreclosure crisis that has hit Florida particularly hard.

Gingrich said Romney was making money from investments in funds that were "foreclosing on Floridians."

Romney quickly noted that Gingrich, too, was invested in mutual funds with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He then added that the former House speaker "was a spokesman" for the two. That was a reference to a contract that one of Gingrich's businesses had for consulting services. The firm was paid $300,000 in 2006.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Bakst, Kasie Hunt and Steve Peoples contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_el_ge/us_republicans_debate

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In schizophrenia research, a path to the brain through the nose

Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Rhiannon Bugno
biol.psych@utsouthwestern.edu
214-648-0880
Elsevier

From a new study in Biological Psychiatry

Philadelphia, PA, January 25, 2012 A significant obstacle to progress in understanding psychiatric disorders is the difficulty in obtaining living brain tissue for study so that disease processes can be studied directly. Recent advances in basic cellular neuroscience now suggest that, for some purposes, cultured neural stem cells may be studied in order to research psychiatric disease mechanisms. But where can one obtain these cells outside of the brain?

Increasingly, schizophrenia research is turning to the nose. Strange as it may seem, the idea makes sense because the olfactory mucosa, the sense organ of smell in the nose, is continually regenerating new sensory neurons from "adult" stem cells. These neurons are among the very few nerve cells outside of the skull that connect directly to nerve cells in the brain.

Over several decades, researchers found that these cells can be collected directly by obtaining a small tissue sample, called a biopsy. By taking small pieces of olfactory tissue from the nose, researchers of this new study were able to gain access to the stem cells from patients with schizophrenia and compare them to cells from healthy individuals.

"We have discovered that patient cells proliferate faster - they are running with a faster speed to their clock controlling the cell cycle - and we have identified some of the molecules that are responsible," explained Dr. Alan Mackay-Sim from the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research in Brisbane, Australia, an author of the study. The findings clearly indicate that the natural cell cycle is dysregulated in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"This is a first insight into real differences in patient cells that could lead to slightly altered brain development," Mackay-Sim added. This is an important finding, as scientists are already aware of many developmental abnormalities in the 'schizophrenia brain'.

Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented: "The current findings are particularly interesting because when we look closely at the clues to the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, we find new and often unexpected mechanisms implicated."

###

The article is "Altered Cell Cycle Dynamics in Schizophrenia" by Yongjun Fan, Greger Abrahamsen, John J. McGrath, and Alan Mackay-Sim (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.004). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 71, Issue 2 (January 15, 2012), published by Elsevier.

Notes for editors

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Dr. Alan Mackay-Sim at +61 7 373 57563 or a.mackay-sim@griffith.edu.au.

The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.

The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.

Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 4th out of 126 Psychiatry titles and 15th out of 237 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters. The 2010 Impact Factor for Biological Psychiatry is 8.674.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Media contact
Rhiannon Bugno
Biological Psychiatry Editorial Office
+1 214 648 0880
biol.psych@utsouthwestern.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Rhiannon Bugno
biol.psych@utsouthwestern.edu
214-648-0880
Elsevier

From a new study in Biological Psychiatry

Philadelphia, PA, January 25, 2012 A significant obstacle to progress in understanding psychiatric disorders is the difficulty in obtaining living brain tissue for study so that disease processes can be studied directly. Recent advances in basic cellular neuroscience now suggest that, for some purposes, cultured neural stem cells may be studied in order to research psychiatric disease mechanisms. But where can one obtain these cells outside of the brain?

Increasingly, schizophrenia research is turning to the nose. Strange as it may seem, the idea makes sense because the olfactory mucosa, the sense organ of smell in the nose, is continually regenerating new sensory neurons from "adult" stem cells. These neurons are among the very few nerve cells outside of the skull that connect directly to nerve cells in the brain.

Over several decades, researchers found that these cells can be collected directly by obtaining a small tissue sample, called a biopsy. By taking small pieces of olfactory tissue from the nose, researchers of this new study were able to gain access to the stem cells from patients with schizophrenia and compare them to cells from healthy individuals.

"We have discovered that patient cells proliferate faster - they are running with a faster speed to their clock controlling the cell cycle - and we have identified some of the molecules that are responsible," explained Dr. Alan Mackay-Sim from the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research in Brisbane, Australia, an author of the study. The findings clearly indicate that the natural cell cycle is dysregulated in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"This is a first insight into real differences in patient cells that could lead to slightly altered brain development," Mackay-Sim added. This is an important finding, as scientists are already aware of many developmental abnormalities in the 'schizophrenia brain'.

Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented: "The current findings are particularly interesting because when we look closely at the clues to the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, we find new and often unexpected mechanisms implicated."

###

The article is "Altered Cell Cycle Dynamics in Schizophrenia" by Yongjun Fan, Greger Abrahamsen, John J. McGrath, and Alan Mackay-Sim (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.004). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 71, Issue 2 (January 15, 2012), published by Elsevier.

Notes for editors

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Dr. Alan Mackay-Sim at +61 7 373 57563 or a.mackay-sim@griffith.edu.au.

The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.

The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.

Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 4th out of 126 Psychiatry titles and 15th out of 237 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters. The 2010 Impact Factor for Biological Psychiatry is 8.674.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Media contact
Rhiannon Bugno
Biological Psychiatry Editorial Office
+1 214 648 0880
biol.psych@utsouthwestern.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/e-isr012512.php

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US, Philippines eye more war drills, but no bases (AP)

MANILA, Philippines ? Officials say Manila and Washington are discussing how to intensify joint military exercises in the Philippines as America tries to reassert its presence in Asia.

Filipino officials say the defense talks in Washington from Thursday to Friday will not include the possibility of U.S. troops re-establishing permanent military bases in the country. That is forbidden by the 1987 Philippine constitution.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Thursday that Washington intends to station troops in Australia, dock military ships in Singapore and intensify military exercises in the Philippines.

Filipino senators in 1991 voted to close U.S. military bases in the country. The allies later signed an accord allowing U.S. troops to join war drills in the country.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_us_military

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Okla. hospital must pay $1M to Garth Brooks

Country singer Garth Brooks leaves a courtroom during a civil trial at the Rogers County Courthouse in Claremore, Okla. on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. Brooks says an Oklahoma hospital pledged to name a women's center for his late mother in return for $500,000, but a deposition unveiled Monday showed that, after filing a lawsuit, the country singer couldn't remember what he had been promised. (AP Photo/Tulsa World, Matt Barnard)

Country singer Garth Brooks leaves a courtroom during a civil trial at the Rogers County Courthouse in Claremore, Okla. on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. Brooks says an Oklahoma hospital pledged to name a women's center for his late mother in return for $500,000, but a deposition unveiled Monday showed that, after filing a lawsuit, the country singer couldn't remember what he had been promised. (AP Photo/Tulsa World, Matt Barnard)

CLAREMORE, Okla. (AP) ? An Oklahoma hospital that failed to build a women's health center in honor of Garth Brooks' late mother must pay the country singer $1 million, a jury has ruled.

Jurors on Tuesday evening ruled that the hospital must return Brooks' $500,000 donation plus pay him $500,000 in punitive damages. The decision came in Brooks' breach-of-contract lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon. Brooks said he thought he'd reached a deal in 2005 with the hospital's president, James Moore, but sued after learning the hospital wanted to use the money for other construction projects.

Jury member Beverly Lacy said she voted in favor of Brooks because she thought the hospital went back on its word. As far as the punitive damages, she said: "We wanted to show them not to do that anymore to anyone else."

The hospital argued that Brooks gave it unrestricted access to the $500,000 donation and only later asked that it build a women's center and name it after his mother, Colleen Brooks, who died of cancer in 1999.

"Obviously we are disappointed, particularly with the jury's decision to award damages above and beyond the $500,000," Integris spokesman Hardy Watkins said. "We're just glad to see the case come to a resolution."

Brooks called the jurors "heroes" and said he felt vindicated by their verdict.

"I no longer feel like I'm crazy," he said.

During the trial, Brooks testified that he thought he had a solid agreement with Moore. Brooks said the hospital president initially suggested putting his mother's name on an intensive care unit, and when Brooks said that wouldn't fit her image, Moore suggested a women's center.

"I jumped all over it," Brooks told jurors in tearful testimony. "It's my mom. My mom was pregnant as a teenager. She had a rough start. She wanted to help every kid out there."

His attorney told the jury during closing arguments that Brooks kept his end of the agreement.

"This case is about promises: promises made and promises broken," lawyer John Hickey told jurors shortly before they started deliberating. "Mr. Brooks kept his promise. Integris never intended to keep their promise and never built a new women's center."

But hospital attorney Terry Thomas said Brooks' gift initially came in anonymously and unrestricted in 2005. He also noted that Brooks couldn't remember key details of negotiations with the hospital's president ? including what he'd been promised ? when questioned during a deposition after filing his lawsuit in 2009.

"At most, it was a misunderstanding between these two," Thomas told jurors during his closing argument. "Am I calling Mr. Brooks a liar? Absolutely not. It's perfectly understandable that he does not remember these events."

The jury began deliberating Tuesday afternoon in Rogers County District Court, and the judge told jurors she wanted them to work as late as midnight to come to a decision.

Before the verdict was read, Brooks said the day had been emotional. The country music star said he was simply trying to honor his mother.

"This little pistol, she deserves nothing but good," Brooks said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-25-People-Garth%20Brooks/id-19107cba6c4946d6bee262c9deafef8b

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Dutch court refuses to ban sales of Samsung tablet (AP)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands ? Dutch appeals judges ruled Tuesday that Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet is not a copy of Apple's popular iPad, handing the Korean consumer electronics maker its latest legal victory over its American rival.

The Hague Appeals court ruling upheld a lower court's refusal to grant Apple Inc. an injunction banning the sale of Galaxy Tabs in the Netherlands.

Apple argued that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and earlier 10.1v model copied the iPad that dominated the tablet market from its 2010 launch.

An Apple spokesman didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking the company's comment. A call to Samsung was not immediately answered.

Last year, Apple sued Samsung Electronics Co. in the United States, alleging its Galaxy devices "slavishly copy" the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung fought back with lawsuits of its own, accusing Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.

A Dutch court refused last year to grant Samsung an injunction banning Apple from selling iPhones and iPad tablets in the Netherlands.

The civil court in The Hague rejected Samsung's argument that Apple should not be allowed to sell devices such as tablets and smartphones that use 3G mobile technology patented by Samsung because the Cupertino-based company does not have licenses to use the technology.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_hi_te/eu_netherlands_samsung_apple

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to Blu-ray March 6th, brings an iPad app

Even in 2012 there are a number of classic films that have yet to be released on Blu-ray, but we can knock one off that list March 6th when Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes home from Sony Pictures. Beyond being remastered in HD and featuring a 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack, the release will also bring exclusive Lost Animations, extended scenes and outtakes features running for over 30 minutes. iPad owners will also be able to snag a companion Second Screen app called The Holy Book of Days that includes special background content from each of the 28 days of the movie's filming. It will cost $4.99 on its own, but for a "limited time" there's a $5 rebate available for those who purchase both disc and app. The disc comes with an Ultraviolet Digital Copy and has an MSRP of $19.99, but Amazon's preorder pricing is already down to $12.99. Check out the full list of extras in details in the press release after the break, and if you're not already familiar with the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (African or European) we've included the old DVD trailer from a few years ago as well.

Continue reading Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to Blu-ray March 6th, brings an iPad app

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At NY civil trial, Mets hope to shed Madoff taint (AP)

NEW YORK ? With spring training just weeks away, nobody's working harder to prepare for the New York Mets' future than their lawyers.

A March trial may decide how much the team owners' disastrous investment in the fraudulent business of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff will cost the club.

"It's going to garner tons of attention and comes at a horrible time for the Mets. It's not a great way to start the season," said Neal H. Levin, who heads the fraud team at the Chicago law firm Freeborn & Peters and is not involved in the case.

A court-appointed trustee is trying to recover money for investors in the massive Ponzi scheme in which 4,900 investors were told their $20 billion investment had grown to $68 billion by November 2008. But when investigators finally reached him, only a few hundred million dollars actually remained in Madoff's accounts. Madoff admitted the fraud and is serving a 150-year sentence.

To the trustee, Irving Picard, the Mets owners were winners in Madoff's multi-decade fiasco, pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars in fictitious profits.

Picard has demanded more than $1 billion for investors, saying Mets co-owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz either knew or should have known Madoff was up to no good. The two men have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, saying they were victims themselves.

After the lawsuit was filed, the Mets announced they were considering selling up to 25 percent of the franchise because of "uncertainty" caused by the lawsuit. Now, the need for such a sizable infusion of cash might be diminishing. The Mets have shrunk their payroll and the legal prospects seem to have improved, as two decisions by the presiding judge may have limited the chances that Madoff's downfall will doom the team's finances.

In the first, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff limited what the team's owners might have to pay to other Madoff investors to $386 million. He also made it possible the payout won't top more than $83.3 million, saying that the potential penalty would be limited to that amount unless Picard can prove at the trial that the Mets owners "willfully blinded" themselves to Madoff's fraud.

In a second ruling Tuesday, Rakoff blocked Picard from appealing the earlier ruling until after the trial, despite claims that the judge's reasoning will affect the calculation for the entire recovery effort, possibly costing jilted Madoff investors billions of dollars.

The Mets declined to comment Friday about the coming trial. A spokeswoman for Picard said his lawyers also would not comment because the litigation was ongoing.

This week, lawyers will submit written arguments to Rakoff on their pretrial requests. Rulings will define the perimeters of the trial, set to start March 19, and perhaps clear the way for former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo to step to the plate in his role as mediator to try to broker a settlement.

The likelihood of a deal seemed to diminish, though, when Picard and his lawyers concluded that Rakoff's reasoning might be applied to other cases, costing billions of dollars for investors.

So far, about $325 million has been distributed to the holders of 1,230 investor accounts, in addition to $798 million disbursed as a result of an industry fund that reimburses victims of fraud up to $500,000. Agreements so far resulted in the recovery of about $8.6 billion and the recoveries exceed prior restitution efforts related to Ponzi schemes in both dollar value and percentage of stolen funds recovered, Picard's office reported. Legal appeals were delaying disbursement of the rest of the money to investors.

Levin said there is a trend in courts that could work against the Mets, with the legal term "willful blindness" being loosely defined as having a level of knowledge that exists somewhere between actual knowledge and something that should have been known.

"As a baseball fan, I'm disappointed that one of baseball's prize franchises is under such a cloud," said Robert Berliner, an attorney who runs the Berliner Group mediation service in Chicago and is not involved in the case. "The Wilpons dealt with their childhood friend and he turned out to be a crook. It's hard for me to see that that makes them accessories."

He said it was too early to rule out a settlement.

"After the narrowing of the issues by the judge, I thought they ought to be in a position to settle it. I was a little surprised that it hasn't happened yet," he added. "There are a lot of cases that settle on the courthouse steps on the day of trial and this could be one of them."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbn_madoff_mets

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S&P hits back at Italian investigators (Reuters)

MILAN (Reuters) ? Ratings agency Standard & Poors hit back at Italian prosecutors on Thursday after sources said its offices in Milan were visited by tax police pursuing a probe into the impact of S&P's reports on Italian share prices.

"S&P is surprised and dismayed by these investigations into our independent ratings," S&P said in a statement sent by email. "The claims being made are baseless and entirely without merit, and we will vigorously defend our actions, our reputation and that of our analysts."

A source close to S&P confirmed Italian tax police had carried out the visit but declined further comment.

An investigative source said the move was part of a probe being carried out by prosecutors in the southern Italian town of Trani.

"I only know that it's part of the Trani investigations, but I don't know any more," S&P defence lawyer Giuseppe Fornari said on his way in to the S&P offices.

In August Italian prosecutors seized documents at S&P's offices in Milan following complaints from Italian consumer groups over the impact of its reports about Italy on Milan stock prices.

One of the complaints filed in May last year targeted Standard & Poor's after it threatened to downgrade Italy's credit rating because of its huge public debt.

Prosecutors are investigating whether crimes of market manipulation and illicit use of privileged information were committed when S&P's reports were released in May, June and July 2011, prompting a sell-off of Italian assets.

Earlier this month S&P hit the euro zone with a downgrade of half the countries in the single currency area, including Italy, fuelling long-standing frustration with rating agencies.

A day after the downgrades, a leading political ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged legislation to reduce the reliance of institutional investors on ratings agencies.

Separately on Thursday, sources said tax police had carried out routine checks at S&P's Milan headquarters at the end of November, which had thrown up "interesting" findings, but added that Milan prosecutors had not opened an investigation.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters and David Holmes)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/bs_nm/us_italy_sp

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Diaz hits late FTs, Nebraska upsets No. 11 Indiana

Nebraska fans storm the court after Nebraska defeated Indiana 70-69 in an NCAA college basketball game in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Nebraska fans storm the court after Nebraska defeated Indiana 70-69 in an NCAA college basketball game in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Nebraska's Jorge Brian Diaz, center, is guarded by Indiana's Matt Roth, left, and Tom Pritchard, in the first half of their NCAA college basketball game in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Indiana's Cody Zeller (40) and Christian Watford (2) go for a rebound against Nebraska's Brandon Richardson (3) in the first half of their NCAA college basketball game in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Indiana's Cody Zeller (40) scores against Nebraska's Jorge Brian Diaz (21) in the second half of their NCAA college basketball game in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Nebraska's Bo Spencer (23) cheers from the bench in the final minutes of an NCAA college basketball game against Indiana in Lincoln, Neb., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. Nebraska defeated Indiana 70-69. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) ? Jorge Brian Diaz made two free throws with 11 seconds left to give Nebraska the lead, Indiana couldn't score on its last possession, and the struggling Cornhuskers upset No. 11 Indiana 70-69 on Wednesday night for the Hoosiers' third straight loss.

Indiana (15-3, 3-4) squandered a 13-point, second-half lead as Nebraska (10-8, 2-5) posted its biggest victory as a new member of the Big Ten.

Jordan Hulls missed on a driving layup, then recovered the loose ball and missed a desperation shot from in front of his bench as time ran out. The ball bounced back toward Hulls, and he kicked it in defeat as Nebraska's student section emptied and rushed the court.

Bo Spencer led the Huskers with 23 points, Toney McCray had 11 and Diaz and Dylan Talley 10 apiece. Cody Zeller led the Hoosiers with 18 points, and Hulls added 12.

The Hoosiers had been hoping to break out of a mini funk from losses to Minnesota and Ohio State after a 15-1 start that included upsets of then-No. 1 Kentucky and the then-No. 2 Buckeyes.

But Nebraska, coming off a five-point loss at Wisconsin on Sunday, wouldn't quit after the Hoosiers looked to have taken control.

The Hoosiers were up 69-66 with 39 seconds left after Hulls made two free throws.

Spencer missed on the other end, but Talley followed with a putback, and it was a one-point game.

Brandon Richardson fouled Hulls in the backcourt on Indiana's next possession, and the point guard missed the front end of a one-and-one with 24 seconds to play.

That allowed Nebraska to set up its winning possession.

Richardson, who rebounded Hulls' missed free throws, fed Diaz and the 6-foot-11 center went right to the basket. He got fouled by Hulls and then made the tying free throw. After Indiana called timeout, he calmly swished the go-ahead free throw.

Indiana was within seconds of posting its first Big Ten road win against an opponent other than Penn State under fourth-year coach Tom Crean. The Hoosiers are 2-29 in conference road games since Crean took over.

Playing in Lincoln for the first time since 1942, the Hoosiers led by eight points in the first half and were up 41-34 at the half after shooting 62 percent from the floor. Spencer scored 15 points in the first 20 minutes to keep the Huskers in it.

But the Huskers went more than 5 minutes without a field goal to start the second half and fell behind by 13 points.

Indiana, however, scored just one field goal in the last 6 minutes.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-18-T25-Indiana-Nebraska/id-ae3186419eda4d8f80a3b1d99691cb7f

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Prosecutor: Killer of homeless had list of targets

An Iraq war vetern accused of stabbing four homeless men to death had a list of targets and "relished" media reports about his crimes, according to prosecutors.

Each victim was knifed dozens of times in a bloody killing spree that rattled Orange County, California.

Former U.S. Marine Itzcoatl Ocampo, whose father is reportedly homeless, was charged Tuesday with four counts of first degree murder with special circumstances, making him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

"This 23-year-old man was a vicious killer," Rackauckas said at a press conference in Santa Ana. "He had it in his mind to kill people and followed through with that. He is a monster."

Ocampo was chased down by bystanders and arrested on Friday night following the stabbing death of John Berry, a 64-year-old homeless man who Rackauckas said was targeted after appearing in a Los Angeles Times news story about the sensational case.

"We believe that the evidence is going to show that the defendant specifically sought out the victim for participating in this article," Rackauckas said. "He relished media attention of the crime and he stalked the victim until he got his prey."

Victim knew he was being stalked
The New York Times reported that Berry told Anaheim police on Thursday, the day before he was killed, that he thought he was being stalked. Chief John Welter, of Anaheim Police, said that Berry had refused an offer of some sort of police protection and decided to stay on the street alone.

Video: Police announce arrest in Calif. homeless murder (on this page)

Rackauckas said Ocampo is accused of first killing 53-year-old James McGillivray on December 20, attacking him as he slept behind a shopping center in the Orange County suburb of Placentia and stabbing him more than 40 times.

Video footage of the crime captured by a recently installed security camera shows the killer, dressed in dark pants and a black hooded sweatshirt, kneeling on McGillivray's chest as he stabs him in the head, neck and upper torso.

Pinkberry co-founder accused of homeless beating

Eight days later the body of a second transient, Lloyd "Jimmy" Middaugh, 42, was found under a freeway underpass in Anaheim, stabbed more than 50 times in the head and torso.

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Ocampo is also charged in the murder of 57-year-old Paulus "Dutch" Smit, who was stabbed more than 60 times behind the Yorba Linda Public Library. His body was found on December 30.

Rackauckas said all four of the victims were attacked with a 7-inch military-style knife and that "in each of these cases the violence, the number of stabs wounds to each victim increased."

"I became increasingly concerned about the viciousness of the attacks. I wondered whether this murderer would ever quench his thirst to kill and who his next victim might be," Rackauckas said, according to the Orange County Register.

A knife matching that description was recovered near the spot where Ocampo was arrested, along with bloody clothing and gloves, Rackauckas said.

Suspect warned homeless father
Ocampo was jobless after he was discharged from the Marines in 2010, the Register said. He had taken the loss of his best friend, a Marine killed in Afghanistan, hard and began drinking heavily, the paper said.

His father is homeless, the Register reported. It added that Refugio Ocampo had said that his son had warned him last week about reports of a serial killer of transient people.

Ocampo's attorney, Randall Longwith, told Reuters he saw his client for the first time on Tuesday in the psychiatric ward of the Orange County Jail, where he was undergoing a mental evaluation.

"I saw him for 15 seconds. He was naked but for underwear, and he was wrapped with a blanket and curled up in the corner of the cell," Longwith said.

"I got on my hands and knees and talked to him through the food slot," he said. "I introduced myself and told him what he should and should not do, and what his rights were and that his parents loved him."

Rackauckas said his office had not yet determined whether to seek the death penalty in the case, the first serial killings in more than two decades to hit largely suburban Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles.

Ocampo served in the Marines from July 2006 to July 2010 and was deployed to Iraq in 2008, a Marine spokeswoman said.

? 2012 msnbc.com

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46035524/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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Afghan officials: We'll find tortured bride's husband

Jawed Basharat / AP

This photo taken Dec. 28 shows Sahar Gul, a 15-year-old Afghan wife, being carried in a wheelchair to a hospital in Baghlan, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.

By msnbc.com staff and news services

A 10-man police force is hunting down the husband of a teen bride who was tortured and locked away in a toilet by her in-laws for months after she refused to become a prostitute, Afghan officials told the BBC.

"This is incredibly serious and not acceptable and all those responsible will be brought in to make an example to others," an Interior Ministry spokesman told the?BBC on Tuesday.

Sahar Gul, 15, was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in Afghanistan?s northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbors reported hearing her crying and moaning in pain.

The case has shocked Afghanistan, though rights activists say serious abuses against women and girls in the ultra-conservative?society are common. President Hamid Karzai has said that whoever used violence against Gul will be punished.

Her?mother-in-law and sister-in-law were arrested, but her husband, Ghulam Sakhi, 30,?has eluded authorities, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said.

Sakhi was?identified as a soldier in the Afghan National Army who served in Helmand Province, The New York Times?reported.

'One of the worst cases'
According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, Gul's in-laws kept the girl in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers.?

"She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money," Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan, told Reuters.

Gul was covered in scars and bruises, with one eye still swollen shut six days after her rescue. She was being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but her recovery needed extensive care and she may have to be sent to India, doctors said.

"This is one of the worst cases of violence against Afghan women. The perpetrators must be punished so others learn a lesson," health minister Suraya Dalil told journalists after meeting with the victim last week.

"This is an un-Islamic and inhuman act,? Baghlan governor, Munshi Abdul Majid, told?The New York Times.?

Distressing chapter in Afghan culture
Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban a decade ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.

It can be difficult for women to escape violent situations at home, because of?relentless social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.

Running away from an abusive husband?is considered a?"moral crime," for which women can be imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another "moral crime."

Msnbc.com's Sevil Omer and Reuters contributed to this report.?

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9929737-afghan-officials-were-hunting-tortured-teen-brides-husband

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Walkman Flask Holds Other Kinds Of Mixes [Booze]

The next time you find yourself in 1983 trying to sneak some hooch into your high school prom, you'll have no problem fooling your principal with this Drinkman flask disguised to look like Sony's classic cassette Walkman. More »

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Crisis talk, austerity calls mark euro anniversary (Reuters)

BERLIN (Reuters) ? Policymakers marked the 10th anniversary on Sunday of the introduction of euro notes and coins by urging governments in the currency bloc to save and consolidate to overcome their debt crisis.

While German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the euro "a clear success story" and pledged the currency would remain stable, he also urged vulnerable debtor states to follow a tough savings course in 2012, boost their competitiveness and work to win back market confidence.

"This is not a euro crisis, it is a debt crisis in some euro states," Schaeuble told German newspaper Bild in an interview to be published in Monday's edition of the paper.

The crisis that began in Greece more than two years ago has since forced Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts and now threatens the efforts of the bloc's third largest economy, Italy, to raise 450 billion euros ($580 billion) to finance its debt burden this year.

The head of Standard Chartered bank told a British Sunday newspaper that political leaders had yet to offer a meaningful solution to the bloc's debt crisis.

"We enter 2012 with a very difficult outlook for the euro zone ... with an increasing possibility of countries actually leaving the euro zone," Peter Sands, chief executive of the Asia-focused bank, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper in an interview.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel herself warned 2012 would be harder than 2011 and Europe still had a long way to go in overcoming the crisis.

In Italy, President Giorgio Napolitano called for sacrifices. "No one today can shirk his or her responsibility to contribute to putting the public accounts on track and averting Italy's financial collapse," Napolitano said in a 20-minute, nationally televised address late on Saturday.

"It's hard to regain credibility after having lost so much ground, and our bonds -- despite some encouraging signs in recent days -- remain under attack in the financial markets," the 86-year-old president said.

In France, the European Central Bank's Christian Noyer defended the currency union, saying the euro could yet become the world's leading currency if leaders of the 17-nation bloc succeed in tightening fiscal integration.

European Union leaders agreed at an emergency summit on December 9 to draft a new treaty for deeper economic union, with Britain the only country among the 27 EU nations declining to join the initiative.

"If we implement all the decisions taken at the Brussels summit we will emerge stronger," Noyer said in an article for Journal du Dimanche to mark the euro coin anniversary. Notes and coins were introduced in 2002, three years after the currency began trading electronically.

ONE LAST SCHNAPS

In a separate interview, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann revived an analogy between over-spending governments and alcoholics, saying some politicians reminded him of the drunk "who promises to be sober from tomorrow but asks for the Schnaps bottle one last time today."

Weidmann repeated that Berlin, which itself has flouted European budget rules over the last 10 years, should also be saving more, particularly given its economic strength and special responsibility as an anchor for the euro bloc.

In a advance copy of the interview with Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper, due to appear on Tuesday, Weidmann praised the German government for cutting its budget deficit in 2011 but added: "The government's consolidation pause in the new year is not convincing ... we need to see a balanced budget achieved swiftly."

Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament last November approved a 2012 budget which sees net new borrowing of 26.1 billion euros, up from net new borrowing of 22 billion in 2011.

The country's Spiegel magazine reported net new borrowing this year could reach 35 billion euros, without citing sources, due to contributions Germany must pay into the permanent euro zone rescue fund. A Finance Ministry spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, but said contributions to the rescue fund would likely be settled at the end of January.

The budget deficit is seen at around 1.3 percent in 2011, down from 4.3 percent in 2010, helped by strong tax revenues. The government sees a deficit of 1 percent in 2012, 0.7 percent in 2013 and a balanced budget by 2014.

While Weidmann has frequently encouraged the government to set a good example to euro zone peers by saving, German consumers are being urged to spend more by euro zone peers to support the regional economy. However, the German economy is forecast to slow sharply in 2012 from the likely 3 percent growth pace of 2011.

Turning to the ECB, Weidmann rejected suggestions he is isolated on the governing council in his strong opposition to the central bank buying up government bonds in the open market to hold down borrowing costs.

While investors and traders say the ECB could stop the crisis by buying up sovereign bonds in much bigger quantities, the Bundesbank has led opposition to even the current smaller scale purchases.

"We can only maintain the necessary pressure on politicians when the ECB limits itself to its primary aim of keeping inflation under control and doesn't jump into the breach for fiscal policy... we must set clear boundaries," Weidmann said.

"I don't see how we can overcome a crisis of confidence by ignoring the rules."

(Reporting by Alexandra Hudson; Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Rome and Vicky Buffery in Paris; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120102/bs_nm/us_eurozone

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Lifelike Steve Jobs Figurines Show Uncanny Resemblance [PHOTOS]

A toy company has launched figurines, capturing, in quite some detail, the appearance of Steve Jobs, the now legendary Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple Inc., complete with?his signature black turtle neck, blue jeans and rimless circular glasses.

The 12-inch Steve Jobs action figures are, according to makers In Icons, "dedicated to the genius, great inventor and visionary." Brilliantly designed, the figurines, priced at $99, even sport wedding rings!

The toys will go on sale in the U.S. in February.

Apple and Steve Jobs' estate have not responded to the announcement, which could be construed as an effort to commercially capitalize on the widespread popularity Jobs enjoyed.

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Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/275521/20120103/lifelike-steve-jobs-figurines-show-uncanny-resemblance.htm

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Santorum Surges, Romney Shrugs

While we were talking, the candidate who completely ignored this strategy was a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. Rick Santorum, who will have spent 104 campaign days in Iowa by caucus night, was heading to conservative northwest Iowa in a truck, chauffeured by his stalwart sidekick Chuck Laudner, accompanied by author Brad Thor and radio host Sam Clovis. Unable to teleport across the state?a technological problem, but one that more funding for ethanol could surely fix?I bargained with another reporter to share audio. I heard Clovis introduce Santorum in Sioux City with an odd comparison between caucus-going and The Untouchables, and tell the crowd, ?Vote for your flag! Vote for your country.?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=2c02682f00ee97113666696c20d886f6

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Hawaii GOP sees caucus as recruiting opportunity

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