Gabby Giffords testifies on gun violence | Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider | www.krmg.com
Posted: 10:29 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013
By Jamie Dupree
Ex-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) made an appeal for action in Congress on gun violence, as she spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee at the start of Congressional hearings on guns and gun violence.
In a slow and measured voice, which made clear the extent of her injuries when she was shot two years ago in Arizona, Giffords told Senators to "Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you."
Here is the video of the just over one minute that she testified before Senators.
About Jamie Dupree
Jamie Dupree is the Radio News Director of the Washington Bureau of the Cox Media Group and writes the Washington Insider blog. A native of Washing...
China's foulest two-week period for air pollution in memory has rekindled a tongue-in-cheek campaign by a multimillionaire with a streak of showmanship who is selling canned fresh air.
Chen Guangbiao, who made his fortune in the recycling business and is a high-profile philanthropist, on January 30 handed out soda pop-sized cans of air, purportedly from far-flung, pristine regions of China such as Xinjiang in the northwest to Taiwan, the southeast coast.
"I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: don't just chase GDP growth, don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment", Chen said.
China's air quality is closely watched as it fluctuates dramatically from day to day but in recent weeks has registered far into the unhealthy zone.
Air pollution is measured in terms of PM2.5, or particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which are absorbed by the lungs and can cause heart and lung disease. The World Health Organisation recommends a daily PM2.5 level of 20 and says that levels greater than 300 are serious health hazards.
Beijing's air quality frequently surges past a level of 500, and on Jan. 12 soared to 755, the highest in memory.
"I go outside, walk for about 20 minutes, and my throat hurts and I feel dizzy", Chen told Reuters in an interview on a busy Beijing sidewalk.
He handed out green and orange cans of "Fresh Air", with a caricature of himself on them saying, "Chen Guangbiao is a good man".
"Be a good person, have a good heart, do good things," reads a message along the bottom of each can.
The 44-year-old entrepreneur, whose wealth is estimated at $740 million according to last year's Hurun Rich List of China's super-wealthy, is an ebullient and tireless self-promoter.
He is something of a celebrity in China, with more than 4 million followers on Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like microblogging platform.
He concedes that his canned-air effort is tongue in cheek, but says it's a way to awaken people to the importance of environmental protection. His campaign is attracting bemusement but also plaudits from the media and from people desperate to escape the smog.
"Beijing's air really needs to improve, so we need a good man like him to appear," said a 21-year-old resident surnamed Hu. "It reminds people to use less fuel and do what they can for Beijing's air".
The cans of air were free on January 30, but usually sell for 5 yuan (80 cents) with proceeds going to poor regions of China, and places of historic revolutionary importance.
Sales, which had been moderate, took off after the recent streak of bad air days, with 8 million cans sold in the last 10 days, Chen said.
Jenn Lyon plays Raylan's girlfriend, Lindsey Salazar, on FX's Justified. Read below for her thoughts on Lindsey's true feelings for Raylan and how much she loves Ellen May.
Photo by Prashant Gupta/FX
Rachael Larimore: Jenn, thank you for chatting with me. It?s fitting to be discussing Justified with someone who is affectionately known around the Slate offices as "Raylan's hot bartender girlfriend," because tonight's episode might as well have been called "Ladies' Night." Lindsey and Ellen May were both in the spotlight. I have a million questions for you about Lindsey.
Jenn Lyon:??You?re welcome and thank you for having me.
Larimore: In the big story line, Lindsey has disappeared with Randall (and Raylan's money) and we catch up with them at the slimy fight promoter's house. Lindsey had a moment where she seemed to be there reluctantly. Randall gave you a big hug and you turned away, a little distracted or conflicted. What was going on with Lindsey's emotions?
Lyon: The script said: ?Lindsey smiles, allowing herself to be manhandled by way of affection. But her eyes are on the money and nowhere else.? It was clear to me that they wanted the ambiguity and the distance between these conflicted actions she?s taking. You see her at the party and just think she?s bad, but then she makes that phone call from the gas station: Is she leaving clues for Raylan to follow or just flying by the seat of her pants? The writers don?t say one way or the other.
Larimore: I definitely felt that ambiguousness. Even up to the end, when Lindsey shot Raylan with the bean bag gun but then turned and shot Randall, too. What does Lindsey get out of this adventure, besides Randall's car, which admittedly is a pretty great car? I feel like she got her freedom?Randall won't be able to bother again.
Lyon: I know! She?s pretty inscrutable and I like that. As the lady playing her, I had to make decisions as to why she is doing what she is doing, but I probably won?t tell those. It?s more fun to wonder, did she love him or is she even capable of that? Is she just a predatory creature or is it a mix of appetites within one person? I will, personally, always go with the last one because its more interesting and gives you an obstacle to play. But yeah, she escapes with her freedom for now because the money has already been turned into fowl.
Larimore: Inscrutability is a great trait for Lindsey, but geez, but I?m talking to Jenn!Can you tell us a little bit about your take on Lindsey?
Lyon: ?OK, OK! Maybe I'm being too precious about all that. For me, Lindsey was falling for Raylan and was working hard to live on the straight and narrow. She imagined being a good woman, the right woman for Raylan, but then her old life came for her and she had to do what she had to do to escape it.
Larimore: Lindsey?s escape kind of hits that note. We think she?s being sweet and good, when she tells Raylan his money was in the van, and then he makes his way over to the van and finds the chickens! That was a great comic moment, by the way.
?Lyon: Dude, the whole episode is so funny, I laughed a lot watching it: the scene where Ellen May is trying to tell Ava that she would never let it slip that she killed Delroy and people keep walking past, or when Shelby hangs up on Boyd while he?s still talking, or Randall and Raylan?s repartee, or Rachel and the chicken breeder.
Larimore:Justified's comedy is underrated. And the best moments are when the characters aren't supposed to be funny. Like Ellen May with Ava, and all the people walking by. I'm sure that nailing the comedy aspect is as hard or harder than the drama. What are some of the other challenges you?ve encountered playing Lindsey?
Lyon: One challenge was wearing so little clothing: It was my first time ever making out on camera or just standing there half naked and that?s real vulnerable and strange.Oh ?and kissing Timothy and Robert was also a hardship that I had to endure for art.
Larimore: My (cough, cough) sympathies to you on all that making out with ruggedly handsome actors. Lyon: if my boyfriend is reading this: "It was awful. They reeked of Chipotle." (It was great!! They smelled like dreamboats!!)
Lyon:: A lot of actors and actresses mention that all that staged making out is awkward/boring/uncomfortable, but I?m sure that doesn?t stop the folks at home from thinking it must be simply dreamy. How do you prepare for those scenes?
Lyon: I prepare for those scenes by listening to hard-core rap and furiously brushing my teeth, both of which give me a false sense of confidence.
Larimore:??I'll file that advice away! What would fans of Justified be surprised to hear about from behind the scenes? What is the creative process like on set?
Lyon: The speed and virtuosity of every department is crazy. From sound to lighting to art direction to props to hair and makeup/wardrobe, everyone is so on the ball and ready to collaborate, not just tell you what to do, which I?m told is pretty rare. The writers are constantly revising: The script you have worked on and memorized the night before could be totally different by the time you get to set, or they could change it while you?re rehearsing the scene. Tim might say that it feels clunky or the director doesn?t feel the right information is getting across, so the writers take that and go into a trailer and in five minutes you have a completely new monologue or they have pared down and reversed the order of things. On Tuesday you can get a version of a scene that has an armed robbery and a hostage crisis, and by Thursday, it?s been turned into a sweet conversation and a standoff. So, everybody has to be on their toes and the speed with which the regulars on the show can adjust and memorize new material is astounding. ?
Larimore: The show comes across as so carefully done, especially the dialogue. On the one hand you can imagine it going through a lot of rewriting; on the other, it's something else to think that it has to be relearned so quickly.
Lyon:??It?s such a specific kind of dialogue, too, and these writers are brilliant at it.
Larimore:Justified loves having parallels between its story lines, I've noticed. And in this episode we saw Lindsey disappear, and in the other storyline, Ellen May disappeared at the gas station after she wised up to the fact that Colt wasn't taking her to the bus stop. Ellen May has always represented to me a kind of "innocence lost." We see Boyd with his crime-lording and Ava with her brothel, and you don't necessarily think about how their actions trickle down to the people in Harlan. But then there's sad little Ellen May, who is an addict and a prostitute, but who somehow hangs on to this sweet naivete.
Lyon: I love it when you talk about the parallels and when people appreciate the show for how layered and multifaceted it is. I?m fucking nuts for Ellen May, and the actress that plays her is so wonderful both on the show and off. She plays her with such a lack of guile but at the same time, she is a survivor and has scrapped her way to staying alive many times.
?Larimore: What do you think made Ellen May wise up to Boyd and Ava's plan to kill her? And do you think she'll be OK?
Lyon: Ellen May may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but she is sensitive and observant and when you have always been dependent on someone else for your survival, you watch them for signs of pleasure or disapproval or abandonment, not to mention she has been sober since the church stuff happened and that heightens her senses. I think she could tell by the way Ava was saying goodbye to her and the way Colt was treating her. It was all too good to be true.
Larimore:?I wasn't totally surprised to see her gone when Colt came out (He's turning into a real liability for Boyd, I think), but I was glad. I have a feeling will see her again. I wish I could say the same for Lindsey, but I suppose that is up to the writers, isn't it? They have left themselves some wiggle room
Lyon: The writers say that if you don?t take a bullet you could always come back, so maybe Lindsey could figure in later but Raylan needs to be a lone wolf, I think. I?m incredibly grateful to have gotten to work on it at all so I don?t mind disappearing into the ether.
Larimore: That is something to look forward to. In the meantime, it?s time for us to escape. Thanks for chatting, and for not taking $20,000 money from my sock drawer or shooting me with a bean-bag gun.
Prezi has come a long way since the days it was a struggling startup in Budapest building a new way for people to create presentations to blow the mind of an audience. Today they have over 100 employees and a San Francisco HQ. It's become a popular alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote, and the company is even now advised by Jack Dorsey. At DLD in Munich last week I ran into Peter Arvai, Prezi CEO and Co-founder, where he revealed - on the video here - that after announcing 15 million users last October, they are now on 18 million users. He said they are also course to book 2 million more users per month over the next year. Clearly they are hitting an exponential growth curve.
The photo above could well be our first look at the LG Nexus 4 in white. The shot was sent in to PhoneArena by an anonymous tipster, and seems to show the current Nexus phone with a white exterior and silver-trimmed LED flash. As with any image of unknown origin, there's no way to guarantee its veracity, but we have to say it looks real enough to us.
The full 13MP original can be inspected over at the source link, and we've got an expanded view of the lens and flash after the break. If nothing else, the difficulty involved in fabricating an image of this size is a point in its favor.
We've also heard whispers of a white Nexus 4 being in the works in the weeks since the original black model launched. And remember that LG already offers a white version of the Optimus G, the phone upon which the N4 is based. The previoustwo Nexus phones have been available in white too, albeit in limited quantities.
Anyone in the market for a white Nexus 4? Shout out in the comments!
Jan. 29, 2013 ? A 2011 warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about the popular antidepressant citalopram (Celexa) left many patients and physicians with more questions than answers. Now an analysis of the medical records of more than 38,000 patients by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators clarifies the contribution of citalopram and other antidepressants to lengthening of the QT interval, an aspect of the heart's electrical activity that -- when prolonged -- may increase the risk of dangerous arrhythmias. The study supported the FDA's warning that higher doses of citalopram were associated with a prolonged QT interval but also found that the effects of some other antidepressants were quite different.
"It was important to confirm the effects of citalopram -- one of the most widely prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. -- because the FDA warning really gave us minimal clinical guidance," says Roy Perlis, MD, of the MGH Department of Psychiatry, corresponding author of the report that will appear in the journal BMJ and is being released online. "The impetus for this study came directly from the phone calls we received from colleagues and from patients taking citalopram asking what they should do. We realized that to get a satisfying answer, we needed to get more data."
Many medications -- including some older antidepressants -- are known to increase the QT interval, which is the time from the beginning of electrical activation of the heart to the end of electrical relaxation. While the vast majority of individuals with QT prolongation have no heart rhythm abnormalities, it is a recognized risk factor for a rare but dangerous arrhythmia called torsades de pointes. To get a better idea of the real-world prevalence of QT prolongation associated with citalopram and other antidepressants, the MGH team embarked on an analysis of the medical records of thousands of patients treated at the MGH and other Partners HealthCare facilities.
"We are fortunate that our colleagues at MGH and Partners have developed incredibly useful tools to answer specific questions by rapidly and simultaneously looking across electronic health record data from tens of thousands of patients while protecting patient confidentiality," Perlis explains. "Working with them we developed a way to look at each EKG report and pull out QT interval information and other relevant results. Doing this by hand -- flipping through individual patient charts -- would have taken a year or more. Doing it with electronic health records took about an hour."
The study examined the health records of 38,397 patients who had an EKG reading taken at a Partners facility between 14 and 90 days after receiving a prescription for one of 11 different antidepressant drugs or for methadone, which is known to prolong QT interval. Their analysis confirmed the association of a slight but significant QT prolongation with higher doses of citalopram, along with the known associations with methadone and with the older antidepressant amitriptyline. The results also associated QT prolongation with the newer antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro); but many other drugs -- including fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft) -- had no effect on QT interval. The antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin/Zyban) was actually associated with shortening the QT interval.
Perlis cautions that the results of this study should not cause patients taking citalopram or escitalopram to stop taking their medication. "I worry more about people stopping their antidepressants unnecessarily than about the QT prolongation risks," he explains. "For patients starting a new antidepressant who have other risk factors for arrhythmias, a drug other than citalopram would probably be a wise choice. But for those already taking lower doses of either of these drugs, the QT prolongation effects seem to be modest. The real message to patients taking these drugs is to have a conversation with their doctors."
The speed with which the investigators were able to complete their study reflects the power of electronic health record analysis to answer important research questions, he adds. "Finding the QT-shortening effects of bupropion shows how this approach can help us find drugs with unexpected benefits and not just unexpected problems. As long as we're willing to accept the limitations -- particularly the fact that people aren't randomly assigned to different treatments -- this strategy allows us to study many more patients and get answers much faster. In terms of patient privacy, this is actually much safer than the older methods, which required a person to look through a pile of medical records one by one. This way we only extract the data we need and never see anything that would allow us to identify an individual patient." Perlis is an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in a Malaysian forest under mysterious circumstances, and wildlife officials said Tuesday that they probably were poisoned.
Carcasses of the baby-faced elephants were found near each other over the past three weeks at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, said Laurentius Ambu, director of the wildlife department in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island.
In one case, officers rescued a 3-month-old calf that was apparently trying to wake its dead mother.
Poisoning appeared to be the likely cause, but officials have not determined whether it was intentional, said Sabah environmental minister Masidi Manjun. Though some elephants have been killed for their tusks on Sabah in past years, there was no sign that these animals had been poached.
"This is a very sad day for conservation and Sabah. The death of these majestic and severely endangered Bornean elephants is a great loss to the state," Masidi said in a statement. "If indeed these poor elephants were maliciously poisoned, I would personally make sure that the culprits would be brought to justice and pay for their crime."
The WWF wildlife group estimates that fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants exist. They live mainly in Sabah and grow to about eight feet (245 centimeters) tall, a foot or two shorter than mainland Asian elephants. Known for their babyish faces, large ears and long tails, pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies only in 2003, after DNA testing.
Their numbers have stabilized in recent years amid conservation efforts to protect their jungle habitats from being torn down for plantations and development projects.
The elephants found dead this month were believed to be from the same family group and ranged in age from 4 to 20 years, said Sen Nathan, the wildlife department's senior veterinarian. Seven were female and three were male, he said.
Post-mortems showed they suffered severe hemorrhages and ulcers in their gastrointestinal tracts. None had gunshot injuries.
"We highly suspect that it might be some form of acute poisoning from something that they had eaten, but we are still waiting for the laboratory results," Nathan said.
(Reuters) - Chevron Corp has paid $10 million in claims stemming from the August 6 crude unit fire at its 245,000-barrels-per-day refinery in Richmond, California, the company said.
So far, 23,900 claims have been made due to the blaze that sent a smoke column over San Francisco Bay, according to a letter Chevron sent on Monday to the Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Program, a local health department.
At least 15,000 people complaining of respiratory problems went to area hospitals in the hours and days after the fire broke out.
In addition to individuals, Chevron said it had paid compensation to area hospitals, city of Richmond agencies and the Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Program. The compensation to the hospitals and government agencies is for costs incurred in responding to the fire.
The company disclosed the figures in updating the progress of an internal investigation into the fire.
The crude unit, which carries out the initial refining of crude oil coming into the refinery and provides feedstock for all other units, has remained shut since the blaze.
Chevron has said that because of the shut unit, motor fuel output at the refinery has been at least halved, with other production units operating on feedstock the company has bought.
Chevron is repairing the unit and expects to restore full production in the first quarter of this year, the company has said.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board and the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health are also investigating the fire.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston; Editing by Dale Hudson)
Jan. 28, 2013 ? Patients with early stage breast cancer who were treated with lumpectomy plus radiation may have a better chance of survival compared with those who underwent mastectomy, according to Duke Medicine research.
The study, which appears online Jan. 28, 2013, in the journal Cancer, raises new questions as to the comparative effectiveness of breast-conserving therapies such as lumpectomy, where only the tumor and surrounding tissue is surgically removed.
"Our findings are observational but do suggest the possibility that women who were treated with less invasive surgery had improved survival compared to those treated with mastectomy for stage I or stage II breast cancer," said E. Shelley Hwang, M.D., MPH, chief of breast surgery at Duke Cancer Institute and the study's lead author.
Taking advantage of 14 years of data from the California Cancer Registry, a source of long-term outcome data for women diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer in California, the research team found improved survival to be associated with the less invasive treatment in all age groups, as well as those with both hormone-sensitive and hormone-resistant cancers. Women age 50 and older at diagnosis with hormone-sensitive tumors saw the largest benefit of choosing lumpectomy plus radiation: they were 13 percent less likely to die from breast cancer, and 19 percent less likely to die from any cause compared with those undergoing mastectomy.
Prior randomized trials have shown that when it comes to survival, lumpectomy with radiation is as effective as mastectomy in treating early stage breast cancer. As a result, the rate of women electing lumpectomy with radiation has climbed in the past few decades.
However, a recent trend has emerged with more early stage breast cancer patients, often younger women with very early cancers, opting for mastectomy. These women may perceive mastectomy to be more effective at eliminating early stage cancer and therefore reducing the anxiety accompanying long-term surveillance.
"Given the recent interest in mastectomy to treat early stage breast cancers despite the research supporting lumpectomy, our study sought to understand what was happening in the real world, how women receiving breast-conserving treatments were faring in the general population," Hwang said.
The team analyzed data from 112,154 women diagnosed with stage I or stage II breast cancer between 1990 and 2004, including 61,771 who received lumpectomy and radiation and 50,383 who had mastectomy without radiation.
The researchers looked at age and other demographic factors, along with tumor type and size to decipher whether each treatment had better outcomes for certain groups of women. Patients were followed on average for 9.2 years.
The researchers evaluated whether illnesses other than breast cancer, such as heart and respiratory disease, may have influenced whether women chose lumpectomy or mastectomy. Within three years of diagnosis, breast cancer patients who underwent lumpectomy and radiation had higher survival rates than those who chose mastectomy when all other illnesses were evaluated. This suggests that women choosing lumpectomy may have been generally healthier.
However, Hwang and her colleagues were surprised to also find that early stage breast cancer patients treated with breast-conserving treatment had a significantly better short-term survival rate from breast cancer than women who underwent mastectomy. A subset analysis limited to women with stage I cancer only showed consistent results.
"The hopeful message is that lumpectomy plus radiation was an effective alternative to mastectomy for early stage disease, regardless of age or tumor type," said Hwang. "Our study supports that even patients we thought might benefit less from localized treatment, like younger patients with hormone-resistant disease, can remain confident in lumpectomy as an equivalent and possibly better treatment option."
The authors emphasize that observational studies such as this one cannot establish causality between type of surgery and outcome and that longer follow up is needed. Nevertheless, this is a provocative observation that requires more research to understand whether patient factors that were not available for analysis might contribute to these observed survival differences.
In addition to Hwang, study authors include Daphne Y. Lichtensztajn, Scarlett Lin Gomez, and Christina A. Clarke of the Cancer Prevention Institute of California. Barbara Fowble of the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center also contributed to the research.
The study was supported by National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program (HHSN261201000140C) awarded to the Cancer Prevention Institute of California. The collection of cancer incidence data used in this study was supported by the California Department of Health Services.
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Journal Reference:
E. Shelley Hwang, Daphne Y. Lichtensztajn, Scarlett Lin Gomez, Barbara Fowble, Christina A. Clarke. Survival after lumpectomy and mastectomy for early stage invasive breast cancer. Cancer, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/cncr.27795
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
If you were to poll gamers at large and ask them what they felt were the worst things about the Wii, chances are you'd hear "waggle" and "bad minigame collections" pretty frequently. In fact they often went hand in hand, and Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is trying its hardest to make sure both of things carry over into the Wii U generation. We can only hope that they don't.
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade ? it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? ? is, as you might guess, a collection of short games that you can play with up to three friends. You might also guess that the games would revolve around an "obstacle" theme, but you'd be wrong; many of them are standard rounds of target practice, hide and seek, or, erm, picking the balloon with the number two on it after the game tells you to pick the balloon with the number two on it. That last one's not much of a game really, but there you go.
The collection is given a sort of theme park approach, with the games broken up into smaller, unlockable areas. Again, you'd expect the space area to contain space-themed games and the Western area to host games with a cowboy flair but by and large everything is just thrown at the wall with no regard for where it lands, and there's no telling what you'll encounter where. Fortunately, we guess, whatever you encounter will be reliably awful, so there's that to look forward to.
The games are hosted by a dead-eyed teddy bear with a stare so cold and creepy that we were constantly on edge for that inevitable moment when he'd pull out a knife. Half of his face is frozen in a bizarre semblance of what we can only assume is the developer's attempt at "'tude", while the other half just passively smiles. This, combined with the fact that his lips don't move when he talks, makes it seem like we've walked in on the bear in the middle of a massive coronary that's doomed to go untreated.
The entire package feels like a holdover from the previous generation; none of the graphics come anywhere near the capabilities of Nintendo's newest console, and the Wii U GamePad barely factors in at all, with each of the games requiring instead a Wii Remote and, often, Nunchuk. This means Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade plays identically to every other poorly-responsive, uninteresting, lazily slapped together mini-game collection you've been doing your best to avoid since 2006.
Every game supports four players; if there are fewer human players than that, the CPU will fill the void. Human players can enter any name for themselves that they like, but oddly the game also requires you to choose a separate name for the bear to call you by. This is because the developers only gave the bear a limited bank of audio files from which to draw, so you may tell the game that your name is William, but then you'll have to choose whether it calls you Chano or Shamus or Julio instead. It's bizarre to say the least.
In each game you'll compete against the other three for points. This nearly always involves waggling as quickly as possible, but sometimes it can rely on maneuvering crosshairs around the screen instead. No game is any more complicated than that, and it often feels as though the developer went out of its way to assign the most frustrating control schemes possible. Some games, for instance, are races that see you hopping from platform to platform. Despite the fact that each player has a perfectly good D-Pad and A button to use, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade requires you to thrust the Wii Remote in the direction you wish to jump. Not that it cares where you actually thrust; it's a crapshoot whether or not the game will ever recognise your input. It's a needless and mandatory use of the least reliable control scheme possible, which is pretty much par for the course here.
The Wii U GamePad only comes into play during the bonus rounds. The rest of the time it features the glass-eyed bear glowing creepily at you and loudly narrating minor gameplay developments without moving his mouth. During the bonus rounds the winner of the previous game spins a roulette wheel, which determines what the bonus game will be. Here the GamePad is used differently than the Wii Remotes, but it's certainly no more fun, and it really does feel like a tacked on addition to what's essentially a low budget Wii cash-in.
The sound effects are beyond terrible, as the four players on-screen avatars laugh and hoot and holler over each other throughout every event, turning everything into a clamorous, cluttered aural monstrosity. The bear barks meaningless platitudes about every minor thing that happens ? from a player grabbing a coin to a player not grabbing a coin ? and while you're not likely to come away from this game feeling fulfilled you're more or less guaranteed a headache.
We'd like to close on a positive note of some kind, but we genuinely can't. This is an absolutely terrible game, and you don't want it. Trust us.
As clunky and poorly considered as its title, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is awful. Relying entirely on the shallow and repetitive waggle that should have died along with Wii, there's absolutely no reason to recommend this obnoxious, screaming, clattering monstrosity at all. It's mindless entertainment at its worst, but, on the bright side, it might be the perfect way to cure your childrens' burgeoning video game addiction.
Virginia Tech expands sports concussion-risk studies to include hockey and baseballPublic release date: 29-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Mackay 540-231-4787 Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/) is expanding its ground-breaking research of testing football helmets to reduce the number of concussions to now include hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse.
The five-year plan will see the Virginia Tech research center, headed by Stefan Duma (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/duma.php), rate helmets worn by hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse athletes in their ability to lessen the likelihood of a concussion resulting from a violent head impact.
Ratings on hockey helmets are expected in fall 2013, followed by youth football in 2015, and then baseball, softball, and lacrosse in 2016. During that time, all ratings for adult and youth football helmets will continually be updated and released to the public.
The expansion into helmeted sports other than football comes on the heels of new research that allows for better prediction of sports-related concussions resulting from linear and rotational head accelerations. These accelerations result from head impacts that cause the head to translate and twist about the neck. The new research is published this month in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (http://www.editorialmanager.com/abme/).
The new research is being funded by Virginia Tech, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (http://www.ictas.vt.edu/) at Virginia Tech.
New ratings for football helmets will include data for linear and rotational accelerations starting in 2015, said Duma, professor of biomedical engineering and department head of the Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Serving as lead author on the research paper is Steven Rowson (http://www.cib.vt.edu/people/bios/faculty_bios/bio_rowson.html), assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech.
All head impacts result in both linear and rotational accelerations, and this publication provides the foundation for our research to address both accelerations relative to reducing the risk of concussion, said Duma. Our goal with the five-year plan is to provide manufacturers with a schedule detailing when we will release helmet ratings for each sport.
The helmet rating system is based on more than a decade of data collection by Duma and his research staff, and utilizes the STAR, or Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk, formula that assesses the ability of football helmets to reduce concussion risk. Sport-specific testing methodologies will be added to the website that lists the rated helmets prior to the initial release of each sports helmets ratings.
Using data collected from more than 63,000 head impacts during a period of 10 years, Duma and Rowson related linear and rotational head acceleration to the probability of sustaining a concussion in the form of an injury risk function.
This new analysis utilizes data measured from 62 concussions sustained by high school, college, and professional football players, said Rowson. We use these data to determine the best method to predict concussions when we test helmets in our laboratory.
In their research paper, the researchers write, With as many as 3.8 million sports-related concussions occurring annually in the United States and research suggesting possible long term neurodegenerative processes resulting from repetitive concussions, reducing the incidence of concussion in sports has become a public health priority.
Indeed, long-term, repetitive injuries that can cripple or eventually kill years after play have prompted dozens of headlines in major media outlets and several national studies, and even President Obama to recently weigh in on the subject. Dozens of former NFL players are suing the league over injuries sustained during years of play, and headlines were made this summer when former football great Alex Karras died at age 77 from various ailments, several allegedly said to be caused by years of hard hits.
In studying football-related injuries during the past decade, Duma and his research team have used on-field real-time sensors installed in the helmets of hundreds of adult and youth football players to study injuries, as well as a mechanical lab-tested 5-star rating system to track and grade commercially sold helmets.
The former can help indicate head injuries that require immediate attention while on the field of play. The latter has provided the only independent biomechanical data for consumers to make helmet purchasing decisions, Duma said.
Dumas goal is not to end the sport of football, but make it safer while still keep the same expected adrenaline rush and action for players, and viewers.
It is important to note that no helmet can prevent all concussions. The most effective strategies to reduce concussions in sports involve modifying league rules and player technique to limit exposure to head impacts, Duma said.
Beyond this, head impacts are a given in sport. Our research focuses on identifying helmets that reduce concussion risk so that athletes can make informed decisions based on independent data when purchasing equipment, which in turn, incentivizes helmet manufacturers to design helmets that better reduce head acceleration.
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Virginia Tech expands sports concussion-risk studies to include hockey and baseballPublic release date: 29-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Mackay 540-231-4787 Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/) is expanding its ground-breaking research of testing football helmets to reduce the number of concussions to now include hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse.
The five-year plan will see the Virginia Tech research center, headed by Stefan Duma (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/duma.php), rate helmets worn by hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse athletes in their ability to lessen the likelihood of a concussion resulting from a violent head impact.
Ratings on hockey helmets are expected in fall 2013, followed by youth football in 2015, and then baseball, softball, and lacrosse in 2016. During that time, all ratings for adult and youth football helmets will continually be updated and released to the public.
The expansion into helmeted sports other than football comes on the heels of new research that allows for better prediction of sports-related concussions resulting from linear and rotational head accelerations. These accelerations result from head impacts that cause the head to translate and twist about the neck. The new research is published this month in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (http://www.editorialmanager.com/abme/).
The new research is being funded by Virginia Tech, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (http://www.ictas.vt.edu/) at Virginia Tech.
New ratings for football helmets will include data for linear and rotational accelerations starting in 2015, said Duma, professor of biomedical engineering and department head of the Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Serving as lead author on the research paper is Steven Rowson (http://www.cib.vt.edu/people/bios/faculty_bios/bio_rowson.html), assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech.
All head impacts result in both linear and rotational accelerations, and this publication provides the foundation for our research to address both accelerations relative to reducing the risk of concussion, said Duma. Our goal with the five-year plan is to provide manufacturers with a schedule detailing when we will release helmet ratings for each sport.
The helmet rating system is based on more than a decade of data collection by Duma and his research staff, and utilizes the STAR, or Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk, formula that assesses the ability of football helmets to reduce concussion risk. Sport-specific testing methodologies will be added to the website that lists the rated helmets prior to the initial release of each sports helmets ratings.
Using data collected from more than 63,000 head impacts during a period of 10 years, Duma and Rowson related linear and rotational head acceleration to the probability of sustaining a concussion in the form of an injury risk function.
This new analysis utilizes data measured from 62 concussions sustained by high school, college, and professional football players, said Rowson. We use these data to determine the best method to predict concussions when we test helmets in our laboratory.
In their research paper, the researchers write, With as many as 3.8 million sports-related concussions occurring annually in the United States and research suggesting possible long term neurodegenerative processes resulting from repetitive concussions, reducing the incidence of concussion in sports has become a public health priority.
Indeed, long-term, repetitive injuries that can cripple or eventually kill years after play have prompted dozens of headlines in major media outlets and several national studies, and even President Obama to recently weigh in on the subject. Dozens of former NFL players are suing the league over injuries sustained during years of play, and headlines were made this summer when former football great Alex Karras died at age 77 from various ailments, several allegedly said to be caused by years of hard hits.
In studying football-related injuries during the past decade, Duma and his research team have used on-field real-time sensors installed in the helmets of hundreds of adult and youth football players to study injuries, as well as a mechanical lab-tested 5-star rating system to track and grade commercially sold helmets.
The former can help indicate head injuries that require immediate attention while on the field of play. The latter has provided the only independent biomechanical data for consumers to make helmet purchasing decisions, Duma said.
Dumas goal is not to end the sport of football, but make it safer while still keep the same expected adrenaline rush and action for players, and viewers.
It is important to note that no helmet can prevent all concussions. The most effective strategies to reduce concussions in sports involve modifying league rules and player technique to limit exposure to head impacts, Duma said.
Beyond this, head impacts are a given in sport. Our research focuses on identifying helmets that reduce concussion risk so that athletes can make informed decisions based on independent data when purchasing equipment, which in turn, incentivizes helmet manufacturers to design helmets that better reduce head acceleration.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? Almost four decades after he was arrested and tortured and his sister disappeared into a maze of Philippine police cells and military houses, playwright Bonifacio Ilagan is finally seeing his suffering officially recognized.
A writer for an underground communist newspaper, Ilagan and thousands like him were rounded up by dictator Ferdinand Marcos' security forces after he placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972. Detentions, beatings, harassment and killings of the regime's opponents continued until Marcos was toppled in 1986.
Even though democracy was restored, it would take another 27 years for the Philippine Congress to vote on a bill awarding compensation and recognition to martial law victims. The bill was ratified Monday and will be sent to Pres. Benigno Aquino III for signing into law, said Sen. Francis Escudero, a key proponent.
"More than the monetary compensation, the bill represents the only formal, written document that martial law violated the human rights of Filipinos and that there were courageous people who fought the dictatorship," said a statement from SELDA, an organization of former political prisoners that campaigned for the passage of the bill.
Ilagan's story is more of a rule than exception among leftist activists of his generation.
"The torture started in the house. We were beaten up, punched and kicked," he said, recalling a police raid on his residence in April 1974 and the beginning of his two-year detention ordeal. He said he vomited blood after being kicked in the thighs and had the soles of his foot burned by an iron.
"The one episode in my torture that I cannot forget was when they ordered me to remove my pants and underwear and they inserted a piece of stick into my penis. 'Oh my God,' I said, this is one torture I could not bear,'" the 61-year-old said in an interview. He said that interrogators wanted him to decode documents and identify people in pictures that were seized from suspected communist activists.
"Compared to others, mine was not the worst torture," he said. "The others were electrocuted and injected with truth serum. ... But the threats continued."
Ilagan's sister, Rizalina, disappeared in 1976 along with nine other activists, many of them students involved in anti-Marcos publications, he said. One of the women arrested by the same government unit that he suspected was involved in his sister's abduction had escaped to recount her rape and torture. Ilagan said he has no doubt that his sister went through the same abuses.
His parents died still hoping his sister would turn up alive, but the family has found no closure, Ilagan said.
Lawmakers in two chambers of the Congress agreed last week on the text of the compensation bill.
Aquino is the son of an assassinated anti-Marcos activist and a mother who led the 1986 "people power" revolt that ousted Marcos and sent him into U.S. exile, where he died three years later without ever facing prosecution for human rights abuses.
Many of Marcos' men reinvented themselves as powerful politicians or businessmen, and not one was successfully prosecuted for any of the crimes allegedly committed during the martial law years.
Two martial law figures, former Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and the deputy military chief of staff, Fidel Ramos, led a mutiny against Marcos as part of the 1986 revolt. Ramos later served as president from 1992 to 1998, and Enrile is currently the president of the Senate.
Despite cases filed by former political prisoners, "there have been no convictions of perpetrators," Marie Hilao-Enriquez, chairwoman of SELDA, said Monday.
The Marcos family, meanwhile, returned from exile in 1990s and again wields influence. Former first lady Imelda Marcos is a lawmaker, son Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcosis is a senator, and daughter Imee is a provincial governor.
"Governments after Marcos did not move or did not do anything to go after Marcos seriously, so we filed a case in Hawaii," Hilao-Enriquez said.
In 1992, victims won a class action suit against the Marcos estate in Hawaii.
Under the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, the 9,539 victims will be awarded compensation using $246 million that the Philippine government recovered from Marcos' ill-gotten wealth. But all claims will have to evaluated by an independent commission and the amount each will receive will depend of the abuse suffered.
"Finally, over two decades after the fall of the dictatorship, we will have a law that puts the responsibility of human rights abuses square on the shoulder of Marcos and provides justice for all those who suffered under his reign," said Rep. Walden Bello, a member of a congressional committee that drafted and approved the bill.
___
Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski contributed to this report.
The Avengers successfully brought together the core roster of Marvel Studios cinematic heroes into an epic blockbuster that became the third biggest box office success of all-time. While director Joss Whedon was able to balance precious screen time and a multitude of story arcs between the likes of Captain America,?Iron Man, Hulk and Thor ? characters who all had a chance to shine in their own solo origins films beforehand ? the same cannot be said of the non-powered heroes.
Scarlett Johansson?s Black Widow had a starring role in Iron Man 2 before joining The Avengers, but for Jeremy Renner?s Hawkeye, his introduction was limited to a short cameo in Thor. With a chance to finally delve into the character in?The Avengers, Renner was none too pleased that Whedon?s script never gave him the opportunity to play character he signed on for.
In an interview with?Hero Complex three months after the record-breaking release of?The Avengers, Renner spoke honestly about the film and his limited role in it, highlighting the fact that the plot had his character essentially become a mindless grunt up until the final act and action set piece.
?At the end of the day, 90% of the movie, I?m not the character I signed on to play. I?m literally in there for two minutes, and then all of a sudden? All I could really work on was the physical part of it all, because that didn?t change. That was just the biggest challenge to overcome in playing the guy. Also, we?re pretty much introducing a new superhero character to everyone in a movie where there?s a thousand superheroes. So there?s not a lot of back story or understanding we can really tell about who Clint Barton is, or Hawkeye, and is he working for SHIELD or not. There?s a lot of unanswered questions, even for me. And I was OK with that. At least I was still in the movie. And I was glad for that. The closest thing I could really link to was Scarlett [Johansson's] character, Black Widow, because they have a history. And that definitely plays in the movie, I think. And obviously, you can?t go into too much just because there?s so much story to tell, but you definitely get a sense that they?re connected, and that there?s something really, really important that ties them together. And I could try to summarize it, but it can go a lot of places. That excites me, though, that there?s room for other things.?
While Scarlett Johansson will get to explore more of the backstory behind Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Renner may not get a chance to return to the big screen as SHIELD Agent Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye until?The Avengers 2 releases in the summer of 2015. Despite Marvel President of Production Kevin Feige teasing?potential Marvel Studios spinoffs for the two,?it?s rather safe to say that ? like Black Widow ? the Hawkeye character will never get a solo film.
What does that mean for the story of Clint Barton and star Jeremy Renner? In chatting with?MTV, Renner essentially confirms his (obvious) return and is hopeful that the second time around, the script for The Avengers 2 will let him play character he was pitched before signing on. In Marvel Comics, Hawkeye is more of a lone wolf, often clashing with the other members of?The Avengers.
?It?s what he was able to do with the first one. Now, there?s more opportunities to explore the characters a little more, I think, for everybody. I think that?s exciting.?
Renner stresses that he?s not trying to offer suggestions or make demands, jokingly admitting he?d ?screw things all up.? That being said, Hawkeye?s history in the books seems to lend itself well with what Whedon has been touting for the sequel, a film which he describes as more personal, not as ?happy.?
?The creation of the team is not the happy ending. It is the beginning of something that is complex and difficult, and now I get to dig a little deeper. And maybe, while I?m digging, just twist that knife. And that?s exciting for me.?
With potentially even more characters joining the fray for The Avengers 2, Whedon and co. have a challenge ahead of meeting lofty expectations and letting so many different characters have their chance to shine. Would you like to see more Hawkeye in Phase Two of the Marvel cinematic universe and should his role be expanded in?The Avengers sequel?
Iron Man 3?releases May 3, 2013,?Thor: The Dark World?on November 8, 2013,?Captain America: The Winter Soldier?on April 4, 2014,?Guardians of the Galaxy?on?August 1, 2014,?The Avengers 2?on May 1, 2015 and?Ant-Man?on November 6, 2015.
FIFA President Joseph "Sepp" Blatter, left, and French-Russian actor Gerard Depardieu, right, arrive for the FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala 2013 held at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland, on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. French actor Gerard Depardieu has received a Russian passport after he sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France. (AP Photo/Keystone/Walter Bieri)
FIFA President Joseph "Sepp" Blatter, left, and French-Russian actor Gerard Depardieu, right, arrive for the FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala 2013 held at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland, on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. French actor Gerard Depardieu has received a Russian passport after he sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France. (AP Photo/Keystone/Walter Bieri)
PARIS (AP) ? Actor Gerard Depardieu denied in an interview aired Monday that he accepted a Russian passport to escape the taxman in France, and said that while he may also seek Belgian nationality, he is still French.
Depardieu's first public remarks since acquiring a Russian passport on Saturday suggest that his threat last month to turn in his French passport was a bluff, or the indignant reaction of a wounded man.
"I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I will probably have dual Belgian nationality," he said in the interview with the sports channel L'Equipe21. "But if I'd wanted to escape the taxman, as the French press says, I would have done it a long time ago."
Depardieu, 64, is one of France's best known actors, has appeared in more than 150 films and has an international following. He has been at the center of a heated debate over tax exiles as France's Socialist government looks to fill state coffers with a hefty tax on the rich. Depardieu drew scorn and insults with his recent decision to move to neighboring Belgium, where taxes are less steep for the well-off.
After Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him "pathetic" and "unpatriotic," Depardieu penned an open letter in mid-December saying he was handing in his passport and social security card. Then, over the weekend, Depardieu showed up in Russia to accept a passport delivered personally by President Vladimir Putin.
Depardieu spoke to the sports channel from Zurich, Switzerland, on the sidelines of a soccer awards ceremony. Referring to tax exiles, Depardieu said that some high-profile rich in the entertainment industry had left France two decades ago.
Depardieu has a court date Tuesday in Paris, where he is expected to agree to a plea bargain in a case of alleged drunken driving. The burly actor was arrested after falling off his motorcycle in November and failing a sobriety test.
Elisabeth Depardieu, the actor's ex-wife, said in an interview on Monday with RTL radio that her former spouse is by nature very emotional.
"When he feels refused, he becomes provocative," she said. "Should we throw stones? He is a monument. He is a poet."
Jenn Lyon plays Raylan's girlfriend, Lindsey Salazar, on FX's Justified. Read below for her thoughts on Lindsey's true feelings for Raylan and how much she loves Ellen May.
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Public release date: 29-Jan-2013
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