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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
'Game Of Thrones' Season Two Has 'A Fair Amount' Of Dragons Says Emilia Clarke
For all of our fellow "Game Of Thrones" fans, that April 1 season two premiere date just can't come soon enough. What is going to happen in Westeros?!? Which beloved characters will live and die this time around?!? And while those of us who've read the books know a few answers to those questions, you [...]
[OOC] Farmhand Two
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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Farmhand Two?. Anything posted here will also show up there.Topic Tags:
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Monday, January 30, 2012
World lacks enough food, fuel as population soars: U.N. (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) ? The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.
As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.
Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply.
And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.
Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, the United Nations' high-level panel on global sustainability said.
"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.
"Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms."
Although the number of people living in absolute poverty has been reduced to 27 percent of world population from 46 percent in 1990 and the global economy has grown 75 percent since 1992, improved lifestyles and changing consumer habits have put natural resources under increasing strain.
There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year - an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.
The panel, which made 56 recommendations for sustainable development to be included in economic policy as quickly as possible, said a "new political economy" was needed.
"Let's use the upcoming Rio+20 summit to kick off this global transition towards a sustainable growth model for the 21st century that the world so badly needs," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in response to the report, referring to a U.N. sustainable development summit this June in Brazil.
ACTION
Among the panel's recommendations, it urged governments to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the eight Millennium Development Goals to 2015 and create a framework for action after 2015.
They should work with international organizations to create an "evergreen revolution," which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.
Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.
To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.
National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.
Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.
Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or "tipping points" and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organization, the report said.
The report is available at http://www.un.org/gsp/
(Reporting by Nina Chestney)
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Gingrich makes play for evangelicals, tea partiers
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks to media during a news conference outside the Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks to media during a news conference outside the Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lutz, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his wife Callista, campaign at The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, meets with supporters during a campaign event at the The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
LUTZ, Fla. (AP) ? Facing the possibility of a stinging defeat, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich combined sharp attacks on Mitt Romney with unspoken appeals for support among the state's evangelicals on Sunday, two days before the pivotal Florida primary.
In an unusual commitment of campaign time, the former House speaker attended a pair of Baptist worship services, where he sat in a pew, accompanied by his wife, Callista, and made no remarks.
In between a morning stop at a megachurch in the Tampa area and an evening visit to a church in Jacksonville, Gingrich unleashed an attack on Romney as a "pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase liberal" who could not be trusted to bring conservative values to the White House.
He also drew rousing cheers from a large crowd, numbered in the thousands, at a retirement community, where a Tea Party Express bus rolled slowly behind the platform where he was speaking.
Increasingly, Gingrich has reached out to evangelicals and tea party advocates as the Florida primary approaches, touting an endorsement from campaign dropout Herman Cain as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's recent accusation that the establishment was trying to "crucify" him.
Standing outside the First Jacksonville Baptist church as dusk fell, Kurt Kelly, chairman of Florida Faith Leaders for Newt Gingrich, said the candidate held a midweek conference call with an estimated 1,000 evangelical pastors around the state.
He said the goal of the call was to solidify support as much as possible behind Gingrich, at the expense of rival contender Rick Santorum, who is running a poor third in the pre-primary polls in the state.
In the course of the conversation, Kelly said, Gingrich "shared his faith, shared his vision and shared his past."
Kelly did not expand on his reference to Gingrich's past, although the former speaker has been married three times.
He said one of the other pastors on the call questioned Gingrich further, and the candidate "showed a contrite heart and showed true confession and true repentance."
Gingrich was anything but repentant in his remarks about Romney during the day.
During a pair of Sunday morning television interviews, he said his chief rival had adopted a "basic policy of carpet-bombing his opponent."
One of the ads being run by Romney suggests that Gingrich is exaggerating his ties to Ronald Reagan. Gingrich chafed at that, noting that the former president's son Michael was joining him on the campaign trail Monday "to prove to everybody that I am the heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts."
Cain, a tea party favorite, will also appear with Gingrich on Monday.
At a large rally Sunday at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida, Gingrich accused Democratic President Barack Obama of coddling foreign leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"I believe we need to be stronger than our potential enemies," Gingrich told the crowd. "The president lives in a fantasy world where there are no enemies, there are just misguided people with whom he has not yet had coffee."
He said Chavez "deliberately, cynically and insultingly gave him an anti-American book and Obama didn't have a clue that he'd been insulted."
He said the Obama administration should be focused on Ahmadinejad's "pledge to wipe out Israel and drive America out of the Middle East."
"But if I were a left-wing Harvard law graduate surrounded by really clever left-wing academics I would know that this was really a sign that (Ahmadinejad) probably had a bad childhood," Gingrich said.
He described Obama's approach to Ahmadinejad as, "If only we could unblock him we could be closer to him and we could be friends together."
Gingrich, who served in the House for two decades, also made a populist pitch as a Washington outsider. He said the GOP's "old establishment" is trying to block his path to nomination.
"It's time that someone stood up for hard-working, taxpaying Americans and said, 'Enough,'" Gingrich said. "And if that makes the old order uncomfortable, my answer is, 'Good.'"
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Natural Products for Stressed Out Pets | Care2 Healthy Living
We live in a world of sensory overload. Human made sounds are constantly buzzing, beeping, dinging, and ringing. Each sound represents something that is calling our attention. And if we treat ourselves well, we have mechanisms for providing our bodies and souls with de-stressing techniques such as yoga, meditation, drinking green tea, etc. But, how about our pets? They don?t know what a text message sound or the buzz of the laundry machine finishing it?s cycle means. If they are lucky, they get a lot of exercise, but what about environmental enrichment that helps calm them?
We put domesticated dogs and cats in our human world and basically say, ?Please adjust?. I feel it?s our responsibility as loving pet owners to provide them with natural remedies to relieve the stressful human world they live in with us. Recently on Good Morning America, Dr. Marty Becker, known as America?s Veterinarian, recommended four products that help de-stress pets. Each is a natural product that appeals to a different sense. Since dogs and cats rely so heavily on their senses, it?s no surprise that these products help to calm them while engaging their auditory, tactile, olfactory, or visual capabilities.
Here are Dr. Becker?s recommendations of stress relieving calming pet products:
1. Scent: Feliway Electric Diffuser (for cats) and Adaptil (for dogs)
The scent hormone in the diffuser duplicates the smell of a cat?s natural scent glands and permeates throughout the environment. The diffuser helps to restore a feeling of calm in cats. Adaptil contains DAP? (Dog Appeasing Pheromone) and is recommended for preventing and reducing stress-related behavior in puppies and adult dogs. Dr. Becker sprays this on his hands to help calm his patients.
2. Sound: Through a Dog?s Ear
This specially designed and simplified classical music is clinically demonstrated to calm the canine nervous system. Anxiety issues were greatly reduced with 85% of dogs when tested in their home environments, and over 70% of dogs in shelters calmed to the soothing sounds of Through a Dog?s Ear. As a side benefit, the music also calms the human nervous system. Listen to sound samples and watch the video (on the next page) to see how the shelter dogs at the Humane Society of New York chill very quickly when Calm your Canine Companion is played for them.
3. Sight: Gentle-Leader Calming Cap
The Calming Cap reduces the visual stimulus that makes a dog agitated by filtering his vision. Like horses, sometimes reducing some of their visual stimulus helps to calm them. While the gentle fitting cap covers their eyes, it is sheer so they still have some visibility.
4. Tactile: Thundershirt
This pressure wrap uses gentle, constant pressure to calm dogs, effectively aiding anxiety, fearfulness, barking and more. Using pressure to relieve anxiety has been a common practice for years. Originally developed to help dogs with thunder-phobia, it has also helped with many other anxiety issues.
Next: Watch Dr. Becker on Good Morning America discuss his recommendations.
Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/natural-products-for-stressed-out-pets.html
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Very good experiences don't just happen for patients
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 28-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Nancy Jean
njean@lifespan.org
Lifespan
Rhode Island Hospital's new simulation-based customer service training program for emergency department staff makes it CLEAR
PROVIDENCE, R.I. A new training program for emergency department staff at Rhode Island Hospital (www.rhodeislandhospital.org) teaches communication skills by having staff take part in simulations of real patient experiences. The goal is to improve the patient experience by standardizing both team and patient communication in an emergency department (ED) setting. The program will be presented at the 12th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in San Diego, Calif.
Principal investigator and lead author Lynn Sweeney, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, is a member of the hospital's Simulation Center. Sweeney and her colleagues developed Project CLEAR! (Communication Leading to Excellence and Ameliorating Risk) to give structure and consistency to the manner in which staff communicate with each other and with patients. "This is the first program that we know of its kind to combine traditional teamwork training with simulation-based customer service training," Sweeney says.
"Excellence in health care is no longer defined merely by the quality of clinical care offered, but also by the superiority of service provided to those who seek care. The importance of patient satisfaction has grown over the past decade," she adds. "To be recognized as a top-quality organization, we have to not only provide exceptional care, but our patients and their families have to truly feel how much we care about them."
Project CLEAR! has provided training for a staff of nearly 400, including nurses, physicians, medical assistants and secretaries in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. The CLEAR! training day includes a 7-hour interactive experience that features three medical simulation scenarios using both standardized patients and high-fidelity manikans, to teach both Crew Resource Management concepts and customer-service. The simulation scenarios are used to elicit specific teaching points that will impact quality of care, safety and service.
The CLEAR! team formed a unique collaboration with the Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications aimed at sustainment of the lessons taught during the training day. The TTU team assisted in designing a logo to give a brand identity to the project, and on creating a variety of visual messaging instruments placed throughout the ED to reinforce the lessons learned during the training. "The goal of the collaboration, in essence, was to create an internal public relations campaign promoting the program's message," Sweeney says.
Sweeney concludes, "We believe Project CLEAR! will have a dramatic impact on the way our ED staff works with patients to provide not only the best possible care, but also an exceptional patient experience as well."
Sweeney's principal affiliation is the Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, where she serves as assistant professor of emergency medicine. The project is funded by a grant from Lifespan's Department of Risk Management and supported by the University Emergency Medicine Foundation, which staffs the emergency departments at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Hasbro Children's hospitals.
###
Other researchers involved in Project CLEAR with Sweeney include Leo Kobayashi, M.D., David Lindquist, M.D., Adam Rojek, R.N., and Linda Dykstra, R.N., all of Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School, and Coy Callison, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications.
About Rhode Island Hospital:
Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the principal teaching hospital of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Last year, Rhode Island Hospital received more than $55 million in external research funding. It is also home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care. For more information on Rhode Island Hospital, visit www.rhodeislandhospital.org, follow us on Twitter @RIHospital or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/rhodeislandhospitalpage.
[ | 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: 28-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Nancy Jean
njean@lifespan.org
Lifespan
Rhode Island Hospital's new simulation-based customer service training program for emergency department staff makes it CLEAR
PROVIDENCE, R.I. A new training program for emergency department staff at Rhode Island Hospital (www.rhodeislandhospital.org) teaches communication skills by having staff take part in simulations of real patient experiences. The goal is to improve the patient experience by standardizing both team and patient communication in an emergency department (ED) setting. The program will be presented at the 12th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in San Diego, Calif.
Principal investigator and lead author Lynn Sweeney, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, is a member of the hospital's Simulation Center. Sweeney and her colleagues developed Project CLEAR! (Communication Leading to Excellence and Ameliorating Risk) to give structure and consistency to the manner in which staff communicate with each other and with patients. "This is the first program that we know of its kind to combine traditional teamwork training with simulation-based customer service training," Sweeney says.
"Excellence in health care is no longer defined merely by the quality of clinical care offered, but also by the superiority of service provided to those who seek care. The importance of patient satisfaction has grown over the past decade," she adds. "To be recognized as a top-quality organization, we have to not only provide exceptional care, but our patients and their families have to truly feel how much we care about them."
Project CLEAR! has provided training for a staff of nearly 400, including nurses, physicians, medical assistants and secretaries in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. The CLEAR! training day includes a 7-hour interactive experience that features three medical simulation scenarios using both standardized patients and high-fidelity manikans, to teach both Crew Resource Management concepts and customer-service. The simulation scenarios are used to elicit specific teaching points that will impact quality of care, safety and service.
The CLEAR! team formed a unique collaboration with the Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications aimed at sustainment of the lessons taught during the training day. The TTU team assisted in designing a logo to give a brand identity to the project, and on creating a variety of visual messaging instruments placed throughout the ED to reinforce the lessons learned during the training. "The goal of the collaboration, in essence, was to create an internal public relations campaign promoting the program's message," Sweeney says.
Sweeney concludes, "We believe Project CLEAR! will have a dramatic impact on the way our ED staff works with patients to provide not only the best possible care, but also an exceptional patient experience as well."
Sweeney's principal affiliation is the Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, where she serves as assistant professor of emergency medicine. The project is funded by a grant from Lifespan's Department of Risk Management and supported by the University Emergency Medicine Foundation, which staffs the emergency departments at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Hasbro Children's hospitals.
###
Other researchers involved in Project CLEAR with Sweeney include Leo Kobayashi, M.D., David Lindquist, M.D., Adam Rojek, R.N., and Linda Dykstra, R.N., all of Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School, and Coy Callison, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University College of Mass Communications.
About Rhode Island Hospital:
Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the principal teaching hospital of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Last year, Rhode Island Hospital received more than $55 million in external research funding. It is also home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care. For more information on Rhode Island Hospital, visit www.rhodeislandhospital.org, follow us on Twitter @RIHospital or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/rhodeislandhospitalpage.
[ | 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/l-vg012712.php
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Old Masters auctions total more than $120 million (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Old Masters paintings brought in more than $120 million at auction sales this week, with several works selling for more than $5 million each and records set for some artists.
The top price in several days of sales at Christie's and Sotheby's was $5.9 million for Giambattista Tiepolo's "The Arrival of Henry VIII at the Villa Contarini" at Christie's, an auction record that was just under the work's high estimate.
Christie's sold $51.8 million worth of art including commission, up $21 million from its sales a year ago. But the total fell more than $15 million shy of the $67.7 million achieved at Sotheby's, which totaled more than $62 million on Thursday alone.
"The Old Masters paintings sales saw success across a wide variety of genres, including 18th century Italian views, the Dutch golden age, Flemish Baroque, as well as French Rococo," said Nicholas Hall, Christie's co-chair of Old Masters and 19th century art.
Frans Hals' "Portrait of a Gentleman, half length, in a black coat" which was sold from the collection of late Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor fetched $2.1 million, or more than twice the pre-sale estimate at Christie's.
The work hung in Taylor's bedroom in her Bel Air home, and was the actress's only Old Masters work, the auction house said.
At Sotheby's, Canaletto's "A View of the Churches of the Redentore and San Giacomo," sold for just under $5.7 million, toward the low end of its pre-sale estimate range. The work was from the collection of Britain's Lady Forte, whose husband founded the hotel and restaurant chain Trusthouse Forte.
Fra Bartolommeo's "Saint Jerome in the Wilderness" soared to nearly $4.9 million, or more than three times the estimate, setting an artist's record.
Botticelli's "Madonna and Child with the Young Baptist" fetched $4.5 million, about four times the estimate.
Sotheby's said the sale demonstrated that works of high quality continue to bring exceptional prices such as the top 10 works on Wednesday which each sold for more than $2 million.
"In the days before the sale we saw broad geographical interest in our exhibition, which translated to bidding from Europe, North and South America, and Asia," George Wachter, co-chair of Old Master paintings and Christopher Apostle, head of Sotheby's Old Master paintings in New York, added in a statement.
The sales were marked by institutional buying.
Washington's National Gallery of Art bought Thomas de Keyser's "Portrait of a gentleman," for $1.5 million, setting an artist's record, while California's J. Paul Getty museum purchased the Italian Renaissance "Portrait of a Young Man" attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo for $1.4 million, many times the $400,000 high estimate.
One of the oldest works on offer, the very rare "The Virgin Annunciate" by Simone Martini from the early 1300s, broke the artist's record when it sold for just over its $4 million high estimate at Sotheby's.
But several expected highlights failed to sell, including Hans Memling's "The Virgin Nursing the Christ Child," which had been estimated to sell for up to $8 million at Christie's.
(Editing by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney)
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Friday, January 27, 2012
The Oil Off Cuba: Washington and Havana Dance at Arms Length Over Spill Prevention (Time.com)
On Christmas Eve, a massive, Chinese-made maritime oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, arrived at Trinidad and Tobago for inspection. The Spanish oil company Repsol YPF, which keeps regional headquarters in Trinidad, ferried it to the Caribbean to perform deep-ocean drilling off Cuba -- whose communist government believes as much as 20 billion barrels of crude may lie near the island's northwest coast. But it wasn't Cuban authorities who came aboard the Scarabeo 9 to give it the once-over: officials from the U.S. Coast Guard and Interior Department did, even though the rig won't be operating in U.S. waters.
On any other occasion that might have raised the ire of the Cubans, who consider Washington their imperialista enemy. But the U.S. examination of the Scarabeo 9, which Repsol agreed to and Cuba abided, was part of an unusual choreography of cooperation between the two countries. Their otherwise bitter cold-war feud (they haven't had diplomatic relations since 1961) is best known for a 50-year-long trade embargo and history's scariest nuclear standoff. Now, Cuba's commitment to offshore oil exploration -- drilling may start this weekend -- raises a specter that haunts both nations: an oil spill in the Florida Straits like the BP calamity that tarred the nearby Gulf of Mexico two years ago and left $40 billion in U.S. damages.
The Straits, an equally vital body of water that's home to some of the world's most precious coral reefs, separates Havana and Key West, Florida, by a mere 90 miles. As a result, the U.S. has tacitly loosened its embargo against Cuba to give firms like Repsol easier access to the U.S. equipment they need to help avoid or contain possible spills. "Preventing drilling off Cuba better protects our interests than preparing for [a disaster] does," U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida tells TIME, noting the U.S. would prefer to stop the Cuban drilling -- but can't. "But the two are not mutually exclusive, and that's why we should aim to do both."
(MORE: Cuba Set to Begin Offshore Drilling: Is Florida In Eco-Straits?)
Cuba meanwhile has tacitly agreed to ensure that its safety measures meet U.S. standards (not that U.S. standards proved all that golden during the 2010 BP disaster) and is letting unofficial U.S. delegations in to discuss the precautions being taken by Havana and the international oil companies it is contracting. No Cuban official would discuss the matter, but Dan Whittle, senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, who was part of one recent delegation, says the Cubans "seem very motivated to do the right thing."
It's also the right business thing to do. Cuba's threadbare economy -- President Ra?l Castro currently has to lay off more than 500,000 state workers -- is acutely energy-dependent on allies like Venezuela, which ships the island 120,000 barrels of oil per day. So Havana is eager to drill for the major offshore reserves geologists discovered eight years ago (which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates at closer to 10 billion bbl.). Cuba has signed or is negotiating leases with Repsol and companies from eight other nations -- Norway, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Venezuela, Angola and China -- for 59 drilling blocks inside a 43,000-sq.-mile (112,000 sq km) zone. Eventually, the government hopes to extract half a million bpd or more.
A serious oil spill could scuttle those drilling operations -- especially since Cuba hasn't the technology, infrastructure or means, like a clean-up fund similar to the $1 billion the U.S. keeps on reserve, to confront such an emergency. And there is another big economic anxiety: Cuba's $2 billion tourism industry. "The dilemma for Cuba is that as much as they want the oil, they care as much if not more about their ocean resources," says Billy Causey, southeast regional director for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine sanctuary program. Cuba's pristine beaches and reefs attract sunbathers and scuba divers the world over, and a quarter of its coastal environment is set aside as protected.
So is much of coastal Florida, where tourism generates $60 billion annually -- which is why the state keeps oil rigs out of its waters. The Florida Keys lie as close as 50 miles from where Repsol is drilling; and they run roughly parallel to the 350-mile-long (560 km) Florida Reef Tract (FRT), the world's third largest barrier reef and one of its most valuable ocean eco-systems. The FRT is already under assault from global warming, ocean acidification and overfishing of symbiotic species like parrotfish that keep coral pruned of corrosive algae. If a spill were to damage the FRT, which draws $2 billion from tourism each year and supports 33,000 jobs, "it would be a catastrophic event," says David Vaughan, director of Florida's private Mote Marine Laboratory.
(MORE: Will BP Spill Lower Risk of Deepwater Drilling?)
Which means America has its own dilemma. As much as the U.S. would like to thwart Cuban petro-profits -- Cuban-American leaders like U.S. Representative and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami say the oil will throw a lifeline to the Castro dictatorship -- it needs to care as much if not more about its own environment. Because fewer than a tenth of the Scarabeo 9's components were made in America, Washington can't wield the embargo cudgel and fine Repsol, which has interests in the U.S., for doing business with Cuba. (Most of the other firms don't have U.S. interests.) Nor can it in good conscience use the embargo in this case to keep U.S. companies from offering spill prevention/containment hardware and services to Repsol and other drilling contractors.
One of those U.S. firms is Helix Energy Solutions in Houston. Amid the Gulf disaster, Helix engineered a "capping stack" to plug damaged blow-out preventers like the one that failed on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. (It later contained the spill.) Having that technology at hand -- especially since the Cuba rigs will often operate in deeper waters than the Deepwater rig was mining -- will be critical if a spill occurs off Cuba.
Helix has applied to the Treasury Department for a special license to lease its equipment, and speedily deliver it, to Cuba's contractors when needed. The license is still pending, but Helix spokesman Cameron Wallace says the company is confident it will come through since Cuba won't benefit economically from the arrangement. "This is a reasonable approach," says Wallace. "We can't just say we'll figure out what to do if a spill happens. We need this kind of preparation." Eco-advocates like Whittle agree: "It's a no-brainer for the U.S."
(MORE: U.S. Fails to Respond to Cuba's Freeing of Dissidents)
Preparation includes something the U.S.-Cuba cold-war time warp rarely allows: dialogue. Nelson has introduced legislation that would require federal agencies to consult Congress on how to work with countries like Cuba on offshore drilling safety and spill response, but the Administration has already shown some flexibility. Last month U.S. officials and scientists had contact with Cuban counterparts at a regional forum on drilling hazards. That's important because they need to be in synch, for example, about how to attack a spill without exacerbating the damage to coral reefs. Scientists like Vaughan worry that chemical dispersants used to fight the spill in the Gulf, where coral wasn't as prevalent, could be lethal to reefs in the Straits. That would breed more marine catastrophe, since coral reefs, though they make up only 1% of the world's sea bottoms, account for up to 40% of natural fisheries. "They're our underwater oases," says Vaughan, whose tests so far with dispersants and FRT species like Elkhorn coral don't augur well.
A rigid U.S. reluctance to engage communist Cuba is of course only half the problem. Another is Havana's notorious, Soviet-style secrecy -- which some fear "could override the need to immediately pick up the phone," as one environmentalist confides, if and when a spill occurs. As a result, some are also petitioning Washington to fund AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) that marine biologists use to detect red tides, and which could also be used to sniff out oil spills in the Straits.
What experts on both sides of the Straits hope is that sea currents will carry any oil slick directly out into the Atlantic Ocean. But that's wishful thinking. So probably is the notion that U.S.-Cuba cooperation on offshore drilling can be duplicated on other fronts. Among them are the embargo, including the arguably unconstitutional ban on U.S. travel to Cuba, which has utterly failed to dislodge the Castro regime but which Washington keeps in place for fear of offending Cuban-American voters in swing-state Florida; and cases like that of Alan Gross, a U.S. aid worker imprisoned in Cuba since 2009 on what many call questionable spying charges.
U.S. inspectors this month gave the Scarabeo 9 the thumbs-up. Meanwhile, U.S. pols hope they can still dissuade foreign oil companies from operating off Cuba. Last month Nelson and Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced a bill to hold firms financially responsible for spills that affect the U.S. even if they originate outside U.S. waters. (It would also lift a $75 million liability cap.) Others in Congress say Big Oil should be exempted from the embargo to let the U.S. benefit from the Cuba oil find too. Either way, the only thing likely to stop the drilling now would be the discovery that there's not as much crude there as anticipated. That, or a major spill.
PHOTOS: Fidel Castro Steps Down
View this article on Time.com
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Nigeria sect leader threatens president in message (AP)
LAGOS, Nigeria ? An audio message allegedly posted to the Internet by the leader of a radical Islamist sect in Nigeria threatens the oil-rich nation's president and denies its members killed Muslim civilians in an attack last week that left at least 185 people dead.
Meanwhile, unrest continued across the north with the kidnapping of a German on Thursday and the killing of 15 traders in a daylight attack by apparent armed robbers.
The video posted to YouTube on Wednesday, shows a still image of Imam Abubakar Shekau sitting on a beige sofa, a Kalashnikov rifle at his back. Speaking at times in Arabic, English and the Hausa language of Nigeria's Muslim north, Shekau said negotiations suggested by President Goodluck Jonathan between the sect and the government will not happen.
"He's lying. He cannot do it," Shekau said. "If Jonathan does not repent as a Muslim, even if I die myself, Jonathan's going to see. He's looking at me like I'm nobody, but he'll see."
In the message, Shekau acknowledged that Boko Haram carried out the Jan. 20 attacks in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city, that killed at least 185 people. Gunmen from the sect armed with explosives and assault rifles, some wearing army and police uniforms, others suicide car bombers, attacked police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria' secret police.
However, Shekau denied killing civilians in the attack, claiming the sect's gunmen tried to protect the more than 9 million people who live in the important city in Nigeria's north.
"We're killing police officers, we're killing soldiers and other government people who are fighting Allah and Christians who are killing Muslims and talking badly about our Islamic religion," Shekau said. "I am not against anyone, but if Allah asks me to kill someone, I will kill him and I will enjoy killing him like I am killing a chicken."
Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people split largely into a Christian south and Muslim north. The group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, has now killed at least 262 people in 2012, more than half of the at least 510 people the sect killed in all of 2011, according to an Associated Press count.
The attack by Boko Haram comes during continued unrest across Nigeria's north. In Kano, gunmen kidnapped a German citizen Thursday working for Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Ltd.
German Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke told journalists Friday that the embassy and a ministry crisis unit were working hard to resolve the case.
"I can't yet report any substantial progress," Peschke said.
Meanwhile, Zamfara state spokesman Ibrahim Muhammad Birnin Magaji said Friday that gunmen killed 15 Muslim traders on their way to market. Birnin Magaji said the gunmen burned the bodies of their victims in a rural village in Katsina state on Thursday, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Kano.
He said authorities suspect an armed robbery attack, but no goods were reported missing.
___
Associated Press writers Ibrahim Garba in Kano, Nigeria; Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
What is Mobile World Congress? [Android A to Z]
What is Mobile World Congress? The next big mobile trade show on our Android schedule is Mobile World Congress -- or MWC, for those in the know. It's in Barcelona, Spain, and has been since 2006 (and will be through 2018). Before that, it was known as 3GSM World and was in Cannes, France. This year will be the last at the Fira de Barcelona, a beautiful venue that actually allows for some sunlight (or dreary rain), with towers at the entrance and Palau Nacional rising at the far end.
MWC has a decidedly different feel than CES, which we just wrapped up in Las Vegas, or the bi-annual CTIA shows that rotate among different cities in the United States. Gone are the booth babes, and you'll see far more suits than you will in Sin City. That's not to say that Mobile World Congress is a boring show for Android -- far from it. MWC is where we'll see the latest and greatest from many of the major manufacturers. To wit:
- HTC unveiled the Legend and Desire lines in 2010, and sequels in 2011, including the ChaCha Facebook phone.
- Samsung at Mobile World Congress in 2011 unveiled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy S II.
- Sony Ericsson has improved its Xperia line each year at MWC -- including the Xperia Play in 2011.
- LG unveiled the Optimus 3D and Optimus Pad at MWC last year.
- Google had one hell of a "booth" -- more like an entire hall -- in 2011.
And we've got meetings. And dinners. And dinner meetings. A slow show for Android, Mobile World Congress is not. Plus it's in Barcelona -- this year from Feb. 27 through March 1, a few weeks later than in years past -- smack on the western edge of the Mediterranean, full of culture and food. And phones. Feel free to hate us now.
Previously on Android A to Z: What is a launcher; Find more in the Android Dictionary
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/GE36zryg_Hs/story01.htm
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NYC police chief apologizes for movie interview
NEW YORK (AP) ? New York's police commissioner apologized Wednesday for appearing in a documentary movie about terrorism that Muslim groups have criticized as inflammatory, and said his department acted wrongly when it later showed the film to counterterrorism trainees.
A spokesman for Raymond Kelly had previously denied the commissioner had any participation in the making of the "The Third Jihad," suggesting last year that footage of Kelly was lifted from another source.
But on Wednesday Kelly said he had sat for an interview in 2007 because the filmmaker had "bona fides" in television and with the White House. The movie later was shown on a continuous loop on the sidelines during New York Police Department counterterrorism sessions.
"While it never became part of the Department's curriculum, and was not authorized for any training, regrettably it was shown in a room where officers who were filling out paperwork or on break from actual training had an opportunity to view it over an extended period in 2010," Kelly said in a written statement.
Police stopped playing the film after one of the trainees complained, he said.
"I offer my apologies to members of the Muslim community, in particular, who would find the film inflammatory and its airing on Department property, though unauthorized, to be inappropriate," Kelly wrote.
Some Muslim groups reacted angrily at the news. The admission "marks the blatant bigotry and lack of transparency that permeates the NYPD's approach to New York's Muslim communities," the Muslim Civil Liberties Coalition said Wednesday.
On Tuesday Mayor Michael Bloomberg said police had used "terrible judgment" in showing the movie at its training sessions.
"The Third Jihad," produced by the conservative Clarion Fund, accuses some moderate Muslims of being more radical than they appear on the surface and uses vivid footage of bombings and terror attacks to illustrate the danger of radical Islam. Speakers interviewed in the film warn viewers repeatedly that Western civilization is under attack.
Nearly 1,500 police officers went through the training and may have seen the film, according to police documents obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University.
Muslim activists say they worry that the film teaches police officers to regard all Muslims as suspects. Last year an investigation by The Associated Press revealed the police department has operated a secret surveillance program targeting ethnic neighborhoods.
On Thursday activists planned to call for Kelly's resignation at an event outside New York's City Hall. Some of the activists were those singled out in the film.
The film's producer, Raphael Shore, issued a statement defending his work on Wednesday, saying, "Those that have blasted the film are attempting to stifle an important debate about the internal state of the Muslim community in America, and whether politicized Islam and indoctrination pose tangible security threats."
Kelly appears in "The Third Jihad" three times for a total of about 30 seconds, talking about prison converts, the Soviet Union and the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons. Other people who appear in the documentary include former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was in office when Muslim extremists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne told reporters last year that he believed the footage of Kelly speaking was lifted from another source.
"The New York Police Department did not participate in its production," Kelly wrote in a March 7, 2011, letter to Majlis Ash-Shura of Metropolitan New York, a Muslim group.
Clarion Fund spokesman Alex Traiman said Kelly spoke on camera for 90 minutes and was fully aware of the movie's focus.
"The commissioner wasn't duped," Traiman said. "If he was unhappy with the line of questioning you'd think he would have broken off the interview before 90 minutes."
He accused Bloomberg and Kelly of bending to the will of Muslim activists.
"People don't want to deal with so much of that pressure; they prefer to cave in to it," he said.
The Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, has produced other movies about terrorism and Iran's nuclear program.
Shore used to work for Aish HaTorah, a network of Jewish education centers, but there is no other link between the two groups, Traiman said.
___
Associated Press reporters Tom Hays and Colleen Long contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Art V Cancer, Illustrator Raid71 Sells Art Posters for Cancer Research
Hellnuts by Raid71
RCHOP by by Raid71
Cosmic Kiss by Raid71
Artist Chris Thornley (aka Raid71) was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and in response created a fundraising site called Art V Cancer that sells his art posters to benefit cancer research.
Art V Cancer is run by Chris Thornley (aka Raid71 the illustrator) & Julia Hall.
A couple of years ago our life, and our family?s lives were turned completely upside down when Chris was diagnosed with a very rare incurable non hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 37.
The first thing we thought of is death, cancer = death. But having lived for these years with cancer the first thing we can say is cancer doesn?t mean the inevitable; We soon discovered that there are over 200 differnt types of cancer and that most cancers are treatable, manageable and in some cases curable. More and more people can survive cancer but there is still a long way to go.
By buying a poster from Art V Cancer, we promise to donate all profits (only a small amount will be used to pay for posting and packaging etc.) to charities researching cancer cures and supporting those who are learning to survive cancer.
via OMG! Posters
Source: http://laughingsquid.com/art-v-cancer-illustrator-raid71-sells-art-posters-for-cancer-research/
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Alleged Uzbek terrorist arrested in Chicago
By Reuters
A refugee from Uzbekistan has been arrested in Chicago and charged with providing support to a suspected Islamic terrorist group that U.S. authorities say is seeking to overthrow the secular government of his Central Asian home country.
Jasmshid Muhtorov, 35, who resides in Colorado, was taken into custody on Saturday at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport by FBI agents and made his initial court appearance in federal court on Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said.
A criminal complaint charging him with providing and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization was unsealed on Monday in federal court in Denver.
Court documents filed in the case said Muhtorov indicated that he planned to travel overseas to fight on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based extremist group that opposes secular rule in Uzbekistan and seeks to replace the current regime there with a government based on Islamic law.
Federal prosecutors said his arrest, capping a "long-term investigation," highlights "the continued interest of extremists residing in the United States to join and support overseas terrorists."
If convicted of the charge against him, Muhtorov faces up to 15 years in prison.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
'Hugo,' 'Artist' inject cinema nostalgia to Oscars
In this image released by Paramount Pictures, Asa Butterfield portrays Hugo Cabret in a scene from "Hugo." The film was nominated Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 for an Oscar for best film. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, hosted by Billy Crystal and broadcast live on ABC. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Jaap Buitendijk)
In this image released by Paramount Pictures, Asa Butterfield portrays Hugo Cabret in a scene from "Hugo." The film was nominated Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 for an Oscar for best film. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, hosted by Billy Crystal and broadcast live on ABC. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Jaap Buitendijk)
FILE - In this Nov. 28, 2011 file photo, director Martin Scorsese arrives for the Royal Film Performance of "Hugo," in London. Scorsese was nominated Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for "Hugo." (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, file)
In this publicity image released by Fox Searchlight films, Brad Pitt, left, and Laramie Eppler are shown in a scene from "The Tree of Life." The film was nominated Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 for an Oscar for best film. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, hosted by Billy Crystal and broadcast live on ABC. (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight, Merie Wallace)
En esta imagen promocional difundida por The Weinstein Company, Jean Dujardin interpreta a George Valentin y Berenice Bejo a Peppy Miller en una escena de "The Artist". La cinta obtuvo 10 nominaciones al Oscar el martes 24 de enero del 2012, incluyendo a mejor actor y mejor actriz de reparto para Dujardin y Bejo. (AP Foto/The Weinstein Company, Archivo)
In this film publicity image released by The Weinstein Company, Michelle Williams portrays Marilyn Monroe in a scene from "My Week with Marilyn." The film was nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 for a Golden Globe award for best comedy or musical film. The Golden Globes will be presented Jan. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, televised live by NBC and hosted by Ricky Gervais. (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Laurence Cendrowicz)
BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) ? American master Martin Scorsese journeyed to France, putting Hollywood's newest technology to work for his dazzling 3-D re-creation of 1930s Paris in "Hugo." French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius came to America, reviving old-time Hollywood with his charming resurrection of early cinema in the silent film "The Artist."
The two films now head a 21st century Academy Awards show whose top nominees offer loving looks back to the infancy of moviemaking, when flicks really flickered and cutting-edge visual effects amounted to actors jumping out of the frame while the camera was stopped so they would seem to magically disappear.
Scorsese's Paris adventure "Hugo" led contenders Tuesday with 11 nominations, among them best-picture and the latest directing honor for the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
Hazanavicius' "The Artist" ran second with 10 nominations, including honors for the director and Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, the stars of the film that could become the first silent movie to win the best-picture prize since year one at the Oscars.
Also nominated for best picture: Alexander Payne's family drama "The Descendants"; Stephen Daldry's Sept. 11 tale "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"; Tate Taylor's Deep South drama "The Help"; Woody Allen's romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris"; Bennett Miller's sports tale "Moneyball"; Terrence Malick's family chronicle "The Tree of Life"; and Steven Spielberg's World War I epic "War Horse."
Arguably the world's most passionate moviemaker for preserving old films and the heritage of cinema, Scorsese tried his hand at 3-D filmmaking for the first time on "Hugo" and crafted a look with such depth that the images are almost tactile.
"Hugo" follows the adventures of a boy and girl caught up in a mystery surrounding French silent film pioneer George Melies (Ben Kingsley), who stretched the boundaries of cinema with fantastical short movies in the early 1900s.
Today's digital technology made it possible for Scorsese to create his elaborate illusion of long-gone Paris. But the process he describes sounds as experimental and innovative as the work Melies did a century ago.
"It was harder to do because every time we put the camera in a position I wanted, we discovered new ways to do things or wrong ways to do things. We were, in a sense, constantly breaking new ground," Scorsese said. "We had to rediscover how to make movies every day, every setup."
Among the nominations for "Hugo" are adapted screenplay, cinematography, musical score and visual effects.
"The Artist" is a throwback to black-and-white silent days as a superstar of the pre-sound era (best-actor nominee Dujardin) falls on hard times when talking pictures arrive, while a rising star (supporting-actress nominee Bejo) becomes guardian angel for the former screen idol.
"Who knows? It might be possible that he's set off a chain reaction, and we're off for 100 years of silent movies," Dujardin said. "I would love it. It's really fun for an actor. It's very playful, and it's pure emotion. In the end, you only see what is essential. You take away the intellect, and what's left is life."
Along with his directing honor, Hazanavicius was nominated for original screenplay on "The Artist." The film's other nominations include musical score, cinematography and costume design.
While "Hugo" and "The Artist" are testaments to early filmmaking, another key nomination is a tribute to the big-screen's most famous sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, a superstar who was never nominated for an Oscar. Michelle Williams earned a best-actress nomination as Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn."
"I would like to think that the recognition our film has received by the academy is a testament to Marilyn's legacy," Williams said.
Williams' competition includes Meryl Streep, who extended her record for most acting nominations to 17 with a best-actress honor as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."
Also nominated: Glenn Close for the Irish drama "Albert Nobbs," Viola Davis for "The Help" and Rooney Mara for the thriller "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
Dujardin, the Golden Globe winner for best actor in a musical or comedy, will be up against Globe dramatic actor recipient George Clooney for "The Descendants," in which the Oscar-winning superstar plays a down-to-earth role as a dad in crisis.
While Dujardin and Clooney were almost assured of nominations, there were big surprises across-the-board, with longshots making the cut and favorites getting skunked.
Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock's "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," which got mixed reviews and has not been much of a factor at earlier Hollywood awards, was a very unexpected best-picture nominee. Co-star Max von Sydow was a surprise nominee for supporting actor.
Malick's "The Tree of Life" also had been considered a bit of a best-picture longshot. The movie, which won top honors at last May's Cannes Film Festival but was a love-it-or-hate-it drama among audiences, also picked up a directing nomination for Malick.
Melissa McCarthy, a supporting-actress nominee for the wedding romp "Bridesmaids," is a rare funny lady competing at the Oscars, which seldom honor performances in mainstream comedies.
"I think it's a big coup for all of us," McCarthy said. "If you get the right thing and the right people, you can still make a really good movie that's still a comedy."
Demian Bichir also was a surprise nominee as best actor for "A Better Life," an immigrant drama that few people have seen. Bichir said he had been ill the night before and learned he was nominated when his girlfriend called with the news.
"I thought it was part of my hallucinations from the fever," Bichir said. "A nomination helps. I feel a lot better already."
Along with Bichir, Clooney and Dujardin, the best-actor contenders are Gary Oldman for the espionage tale "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and Brad Pitt for the baseball story in "Moneyball."
Pitt's third Oscar nomination came for a film that he fought to make after it went on the back-burner amid screenplay and director changes.
"This one is more satisfying than ever," said Pitt, who also shared a best-picture nomination as a producer on "Moneyball." ''This movie was dead in the water two and a half years ago."
Among those with strong prospects that came away empty-handed were Leonardo DiCaprio for "J. Edgar," from perennial Oscar heavyweight Clint Eastwood, whose latest film did not score a single nomination.
While Spielberg's best-picture contender "War Horse" picked up six nominations, the Oscar-winning filmmaker missed out in the directing category, a prize he has won twice. His first cartoon feature, the Golden Globe-winning "The Adventures of Tintin," also did not make the list for best animated film.
The animated films that did make it: "A Cat in Paris," ''Chico & Rita," Kung Fu Panda 2," ''Puss in Boots" and "Rango."
Besides von Sydow, supporting-actor nominees are Kenneth Branagh for "My Week with Marilyn," Jonah Hill for "Moneyball," Nick Nolte for the extreme-fighting drama "Warrior" and Christopher Plummer for the father-son story "Beginners."
Plummer won at the Globes for his role as an elderly dad who comes out as gay. At 82, Plummer would be the oldest acting winner ever at the Oscars; Jessica Tandy now holds that position for her best-actress win in "Driving Miss Daisy" at age 80.
Joining Bejo and McCarthy in the supporting-actress field is Octavia Spencer, whose Globe win as a fiery maid in "The Help" positions her as a possible front-runner.
Spencer's "The Help" co-star Jessica Chastain also is nominated, along with Janet McTeer for "Albert Nobbs."
Winners at the 84th annual Oscars will be announced at a Feb. 26 ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, with Billy Crystal returning as host for the first time in eight years.
___
Germain reported from Park City, Utah. Associated Press Writers Derrik J. Lang and Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.
___
Online:
http://www.oscars.org
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