Friday, May 22, 2009

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Off-Duty Cop Kills 13-Year-Old Boy In Hit And Run Top
CHICAGO (AP) -- Chicago police say they're conducting an internal investigation after a car allegedly driven by an off-duty police officer struck and killed a boy riding his bicycle. The department says a 39-year-old officer has been relieved of his police duties following the incident Friday around 1:30 a.m. on the South Side. A police spokeswoman says the crash was a hit-and-run. The Chicago Tribune is quoting witnesses who say the car was speeding and didn't stop after hitting the child. The family of 13-year-old Trenton Booker says he sneaked out with friends after going to bed. They say they didn't realize he wasn't home until police officers came to inform them he was dead. The boy's father, Terrence Booker, says the impact tore his son's body to pieces and killed him immediately. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Alleged Police Torture Victim Cortez Brown Granted New Trial After 18 Years Behind Bars Top
CHICAGO (AP) -- An inmate who claimed police tortured him into confessing to two murders he didn't commit was granted a new trial Friday after 18 years behind bars. Circuit Judge Clayton Crane granted the request from Victor Safforld, 38, following a hearing this week that included evidence Safforld was tortured. Based on his confession, Safforld was sentenced to death for murder. The sentence was later commuted to life. Safforld, who was listed in police records under his alias Cortez Brown, said he was tortured by Chicago detectives working under Commander Jon Burge. Burge, 60, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of lying under oath about the torture of African-American suspects by his police unit during the 1970s and 80s. At least 20 men in prison have said they are innocent but confessed to crimes under coercion. Safforld was convicted of two gang-related shootings in May and August 1990. He said he signed a confession only after three detectives assigned to Burge's unit beat him, deprived him of food and ignored his requests to see a lawyer. His attorney, Locke Bowman, said the ruling Friday "brings redemption not only to Victor Safforld and his family, but to all of those who have steadfastly fought for so long to hold Jon Burge and his henchmen accountable for their reprehensible acts." One of Burge's attorneys, William G. Gamboney, said the former commander "had nothing to do with this case." "The detectives who were working on the case reported to a sergeant who reported to a lieutenant who in turn reported to Burge," Gamboney said. He said there was no way Burge would have known about what happened to Safforld. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who is prosecuting the inmates' torture claims, has sought to have Safforld's conviction upheld. Flint Taylor, an attorney for Safforld, said Madigan "must come to the reality that she cannot in good conscience fight for the imprisonment of Burge's torture victims." Madigan spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said that the attorney general's goal "has been to ensure that the public is served by carefully reviewing the merits of each of these cases and presenting the facts of each case to the court for a decision." -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Quinn Campaign Sought Big Donations During Reform Effort Top
CHICAGO (AP) -- Gov. Pat Quinn says a campaign aide made an embarrassing mistake by calling Springfield interest groups to raise political money. But the Democratic governor denies he had any intention of demanding contributions in exchange for special access to him. Quinn said Friday that the aide was supposed to contact groups that had offered to raise money for him and make arrangements. He says the aide went further and called groups that had never volunteered to help. When asked how much they should donate, the aide suggested $15,000. Quinn says the aide made a mistake but will keep her job and won't be making any more fundraising calls until after the legislative session. Quinn denies the incident will hurt his credibility as someone who wants to clean up state government. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Brandon Perkins: Review: Eminem's "Relapse" Top
Once again, Eminem just doesn't give a fuck. Perhaps he never stopped, but the results of his, ahem , care-free attitude are vastly different on his fifth major label release. Call it a return to form (with a twist), as there's a sharp lyricist's fervor--recalling his days as a "true emcee"--one that was wholly absent from The Eminem Show and Encore (his third and fourth records). Relapse recaptures the angry verbal acrobatics from those first two records that sold a cajillion copies and caused every white kid in the suburbs to pour peroxide in his hair. And yet, despite re-bottling that immature angst, Relapse is different and, in a way, it's mature. Contemporary pop culture knows everything about Eminem. They've followed the violent turns and lawsuits of the marriages, divorces, re-marriages and re-divorces with his star-crossed and beloved Kim, mother of his also-famous daughter, Hailie. Even if we've rarely seen a photograph of Hailie, she's been a character in his rhymes since the now-teenager was a toddler. His life was fictionalized, tweaked really, for an Oscar-winning film. We know everything about Marshall Mathers...and on Relapse , he leaves Marshall behind. Instead, he embodies characters that we know aren't him, but allow him to re-channel the shock-and-awe rebellion (and skill) that made him great in the first place. Marshall never murdered anyone, but Eminem more than ably begins Relapse with a vicious serial killer anecdote called "3 AM." Marshall wasn't molested as a child, but Eminem can open up "Insane" with " I was born with a dick in my brain/Yeah, fucked in the head/My step-father said that I sucked in the bed/Till one night he snuck in and said/'We're going out back, I want my dick sucked in the shed'/Can't we just play with Teddy Ruxpin instead? " Marshall never had a relationship with Mariah Carey, but Eminem can sure piss off Nick Cannon with the lyrical mastery found on the completely surreal "Bagpipes from Baghdad." These characters aren't Eminem or Marshall or even Slim Shady...those personalities have finally solidified into an album of storytelling brilliance. The narrative no longer belongs to the writer. Relapse isn't perfect, but the missteps are at least predictable. "We Made You" is the jokey first single that sounds beyond-dated in 2009. "Hello" is lackluster. "My Mom" retreads familiar territory even as Eminem tries to make it meta. And yes, there is that ridiculous hint of an accent (normally reserved for songs like "We Made You") sprinkled throughout serious tracks like "3 AM"...but it's certainly better than Auto-Tune (if not an all-out snide response to T-Pain's trick-du-jour). Beginning with "The Way I Am," the final song recorded for arguably his best album, The Marshall Mathers LP , Eminem was stuck in a rut, dealing with his own fame. The Eminem Show and Encore were obsessed with his own celebrity and how he shielded himself from the public, and maybe from his creative center too. Relapse all but abandons that mantra, until the end, when he unearths that demon from his back, once and for all, on "Beautiful" (It might not be a coincidence that "Beautiful" is the only pre-sobriety track included on Relapse, according to a recent Shade45 interview with Em). The track is succinct and paranoid and just bizarre enough to work, and might've been one of his greatest ever had he not wasted two albums on the concept already. But in the big picture, he's no longer rhyming about how famous he is and how hard it is to be famous...he finally just doesn't give a fuck. And once you listen to the piggy-backing syllabic dexterity exploding all over "Underground," absolutely slaughtering an off-beat production few rappers (dead or alive) would ever even attempt, you won't give a fuck either. It's not the real story of Marshall Mathers, but it might be as close to real as rap gets.
 
Edward Lifson: Tour the New Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago Top
With a stunning addition by architect Renzo Piano -- filled with natural light and beautifully detailed-- the Art Institute of Chicago becomes the second-largest art museum in America. A pedestrian bridge as straight as a Chicago street connects the art museum to Millennium Park and offers great views. Take a photo tour here . Mr. Lifson blogs at Hello Beautiful!
 
Obama Admin Asks Cuba To Resume Talks On Legal Immigration Top
WASHINGTON — In a new overture to Cuba, the Obama administration asked the island's communist government on Friday to resume talks on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States suspended by former President George W. Bush. The State Department said it had proposed that the discussions, which were halted after the last meeting in 2003, be restarted to "reaffirm both sides' commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration, to review trends in illegal Cuban migration to the United States and to improve operational relations with Cuba on migration issues." President Barack Obama "wants to ensure that we are doing all we can to support the Cuban people in fulfilling their desire to live in freedom," said Darla Jordan, a department spokeswoman. "He will continue to make policy decisions accordingly." The move follows Obama's decision in April to rescind restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans with family there and on the amount of money they can send to their relatives on the island. It also comes ahead of a high-level meeting early next month of the Organization of American States, where Cuba's possible re-entry into the regional bloc will be discussed. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will attend the June 2 meeting in Honduras. Clinton, however, told lawmakers this week that the U.S. would not support Cuba's membership in the organization until and unless President Raul Castro's regime makes democratic reforms and releases political prisoners. She and Obama have also said that broader engagement with Cuba, including the possible lifting of the U.S. embargo on the island, is dependent on such steps. There was no immediate reaction from the Cuban government on Friday, but communist officials were angered when the Bush administration decided to scuttle the talks on grounds they were not crucial for monitoring agreements aimed at preventing a mass exodus from the island. In Miami on Friday, the influential Cuban American National Foundation welcomed the news, saying resumed migration talks could be "an opportunity to resolve issues of United States national interest." However, three Cuban-American members of Congress from Florida denounced the move as "another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship." "The United States suspended the 'migration talks' with the Cuban dictatorship in January 2004 because the Cuban regime refused to comply with basic aspects of the Migration Accord of 1995," Republican Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Mario and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said in a statement. "The Cuban regime continues to violate the accord by denying hundreds of exit permits annually to Cuban nationals who have received visas to enter the United States. The Obama administration should first insist that the Castro dictatorship complies with the accord before renewing 'talks.'" The twice-yearly meetings in alternating countries had been the highest level contacts between the two countries, which have no diplomatic relations. The suspension of the talks occurred during an especially prickly period during which then-president Fidel Castro publicly criticizing James Cason, at the time head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, as a "bully" and Washington condemning Havana for a crackdown that rounded up 75 dissidents and sentenced them to long prison terms. The talks were created so the countries could track adherence to 1994 and 1995 accords designed to promote legal, orderly migration between the two countries. The aim was to avoid a repeat of the summer of 1994, when tens of thousands of Cubans took to the sea in flimsy boats. ___ Associated Press writer Anita Snow in Havana contributed to this report. More on Barack Obama
 
Esther J. Cepeda: Another Midnight Run: Foreclosure Crisis Hits Close to (my) Home Top
I felt like I got hit in the chest with a two-by-four when my neighbor Greg broke the news. The reason why the lawn of the family who lives across the street from me looks like such crap these days is because they're gone. Gone. Marc and Marcy, high school sweethearts clocking in at year 15 of wedded bliss; young Jacob, who at the tender age of eight could pluck out "Smoke on the Water" on his tiny electric guitar; and Zoe, the baby girl who was born less than a year after we all moved into our brand-spanking-new homes in our suburban subdivision, are gone. Grandma and Frank the big black lab, too -- all gone. No "For Sale" sign in front of the house, no moving trucks, no teary goodbyes to us neighbors who'd had the extra cup of sugar for these last eight years, just a silent midnight run. I'd heard they'd hit a rough patch -- Marc losing hours at work and Marcy pulling double-shifts at the hospital to make all the ends meet -- but I never once imagined that the intermittent vanloads of stuff leaving the house these last few weeks signified any more than just your standard spring cleaning. Greg filled in the details: in November Marcy had confided that things had gotten desperate with the money situation and they were looking for a new school for the kids. Then last Thursday night when he was mowing his own grass, passing close to their house's windows, he noticed everything was just ... gone. He called me over and we peeked through windows where just two weeks ago a happy, vibrant, upper-middle-class white family had dwelled -- apparently suffering in silence and so scared to lose it all that they pulled a preemptive strike and took off. This is what foreclosure feels like from the outside ... all of a sudden, trusted neighbors whose children I was watching grow up were gone and all that's left is a littered, empty home. Not that it's the only one in my upper-middle-class neighborhood. There are at least 18 empty townhomes in my little slice of subdivision. Of the single-family homes, there are four abandoned and empty homes literally rotting away from mold and disrepair. Like my other neighbors do, I will now have to mow Marc and Marcy's front yard so the house doesn't look abandoned. According to a Chicago Tribune story last week , 13,647 Illinois homes received a foreclosure filing in April, 54 percent higher than they were a year ago, according to data released May 13 by RealtyTrac . Mary Ellen Podmolik's story further reported that national foreclosure filings were flat for the month but up 32 percent from a year ago. Marc and Marcy's house will be in that pile in the coming months, the orange flier pasted to their front door like the others on my block. "Why, why?" I lamented. "The worst thing you can do is dump your house!" I called the good folks over at The Resurrection Project, a Chicago community development organization that frequently hosts workshops on avoiding home foreclosure, to get their take on the midnight run. "That's the worst thing you can do," Kristen Komara, director of financial services told me last Friday. "You're still the owner -- at least attempt to keep your home. The foreclosure process in Illinois is lengthy and can take as long as a year. "Nobody's going to come into your house in the middle of the night and tell you to leave your home," Komara explained, pinpointing everybody's worst nightmare. "You still have rights as a homeowner. If you know your back is to the wall and you're not going to be able to do anything because you have no income then at least you can put a plan into place with a sensible time frame to how you're going to make a soft landing into a new home, or start saving money for a security deposit for a rental." As a young homeowner who lost her job 16 months ago (but luckily landed on her feet, avoiding this tragedy), I know the fear that can grip even the most level head, and asked Komara for her best advice to others thinking of running from their house problems. "When people are facing missed mortgage payments there is so much hurt, pain, frustration and vulnerability," Komara said. "The first step is to not panic and understand that you have rights. Don't make irrational decisions, stop and learn where to go for solid information and talk to someone knowledgeable in these issues -- there may be several options available to you." How I wish Marc, Marcy and the brood I'll miss on warm summer nights had found Komara and her optimistic advice. Esther J. Cepeda is an opinion journalist and writes on www.600words.com
 
GM Borrows Another $4 Billion From Treasury Top
General Motors Corp. said Friday that it has borrowed an additional $4 billion from the Treasury Department, meaning the automaker has now accepted $19.4 billion in loans from the U.S. government.
 
Sarah Lovinger: Should a Former Playboy Model Trump an Experienced Health Care Expert? You Decide Top
This weekend, Chicago-area parents wondering whether or not to vaccinate their babies, toddlers, school-age kids or teenagers face a tough decision when it comes to expert advice: should they listen to Jenny McCarthy or to their pediatrician? McCarthy is slated to give the key-note speech at the Autism One conference in Rosemont on Saturday. Now don't get me wrong. I think Jenny McCarthy looks great wearing an orange bikini on the cover of a national magazine this month. Even with air-brushing, I could never look like that. I think that her partner, Jim Carrey, has done some exceptional work in several movies, and that the "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," one of my top 10 movies, is totally underrated. But I don't think that they should be making vaccination policy. I also fervently believe that organizations like Autism One that attempt to make the utterly unscientific claim that vaccines cause autism endanger all of our children. I don't grace magazine covers, and I have never starred in a movie, but like my daughter's pediatrician, I studied hard in college, learning a fair amount of science and decision-making skills, worked harder in medical school and harder still in residency training, and I have been taking care of patients for over a dozen years. I am an internist, and I know many important things about vaccinations, but the bottom line is they save lives. And there's no evidence that they cause autism. It's really too bad that The Lancet , one the of top five medical journals, once published an article suggesting that the MMR vaccine could increase the risk of autism. They have since retracted the article , publicly apologized for publishing it, and explained that the authors falsified their data. But the mere publication of this wrong-headed theory has helped to fan the flames of the anti-vaccination community intensely. And now babies and kids are not getting their vaccines, and they are getting sick. Some are even dying. I empathize with parents who are raising a child with autism, and find the skyrocketing rates of kids now diagnosed with this disease extremely worrisome, but demonizing vaccines is the wrong answer . Before kids were routinely vaccinated against, say diphtheria or measles, hundreds of thousands of children would contract these diseases every year. Some kids would get a fever and a cough. But many would struggle to breath and some kids would get encephalitis, (which can lead to permanent brain damage or deafness). Some kids would even die. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids not only put their own offspring at risk, they also put other children at risk through the well-known phenomenon of "herd immunity." This means that if almost all kids in a group have been vaccinated against a disease, an outbreak is much less likely to occur. Vaccination not only protects your own child, it also protects the other children in day care or third grade or on the soccer team. My friend K.S., a local pediatrician and the mother of three boys, said that a few years ago, a baby cared for by her practice died of pertussis. The baby had been receiving the appropriate vaccinations, but had not yet reached the age of full immunity, and contracted pertussis from her un-vaccinated teenage uncle. Pertussis had hit local high schools hard, and in this example of a failure of herd immunity, outbreaks that make teenagers miserable with months of coughing but don't actually kill them put babies at mortal risk. As a result, K.S. and her partners no longer allow children of parents who refuse to allow routine vaccinations into their pediatric practice. So as the recent H1N1 flu outbreak brought infectious disease and the role of vaccines once again to the forefront of parents' minds, I have some advice for parents who chose to listen to Jenny McCarthy and opt to forego vaccinations: pray, wash your hands a lot and find new playmates, because I will not let your child endanger mine. More on Autism
 
Elizabeth Hemmerdinger: Of Dinosaurs, and Daughters, And Legacies Top
When the dinosaurs roamed the earth, just after the Coming of PantyHose and the Death of the Girdle, when we still wore white gloves and waited for doors to be opened for us, Gloria Steinem went undercover - in a Playboy bunny suit - so she could tell us first hand what exploitation felt like. Then she told us we'd better start opening doors for ourselves. For those of us who struggled then with the concept of women's lib - and I confess I was one of them --it was a hard lesson. One day, Gloria stared me down in the first dusty Ms. office. "Listen," she said, "you've just got to peel those scales off your eyes!" Last night many of us, working in many ways for many years, came together to celebrate Gloria's birthday. And her work. And the work she inspires in others, some of whom were celebrated last night, too. My daughter, now 35, grew up hearing my Gloria stories. She knew I marched with Gloria more than once; stood in front of clinics with arms locked with strangers' to protect a woman's right to choose. Many battles; more skirmishes, so much has happened because Gloria paved the way - always with grace, always teaching us grace. I was, at first, astonished to be copied on this email from one of the newest friends of Women's Voices for Change: I attended the Ms. Foundation's Gloria Awards last night celebrating Gloria Steinem's 75th birthday (!) It was a remarkable evening. If I could look as good at 65 as she does now, I'd feel most blessed! And the young women honored are real, on the ground, daily heroes. When I remarked on how inspiring the celebration had been, my daughters asked, "Who is Gloria Steinem?!" How could that be?! Clearly time for a history lesson, but so worrisome that the next generation doesn't appreciate how hard-fought, new and fragile the freedoms and opportunities we and they have actually are and how different circumstances still are in many places around the globe! 
How do we make our daughters and their daughters mindful as well as fearless, as they need to be? I thought naturally of my friends at www.womensvoicesforchange.org, who were seated with me last night. It seems to me that the power that these mature women feel and express is part of Gloria's legacy. Silda Wall Spitzer I asked my dinner partner, a co-chair of WVFC and also the chair of the event, to comment on Silda's dismay over the gap in her daughter's knowledge. She said calmly: There is something to be said for the beauty of this blind spot. When well educated teens ask who is Gloria Steinem they are expressing feminism at the natural order of things. The icon's importance can easily be made clear. The taking for granted of womens rights is hard not to love. She set me straight. And I feel so proud.
 
Andrew Sargus Klein: Journalists, Your Tears Have Meaning Top
Leave it crusty media guru Nicholas Carr to dig up obscure quotes related to writing and journalism. Via Carr's Rough Type, a doozy from French poet and bureaucrat Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine who, in an 1831 letter, had this to say: Before this century shall run out, Journalism will be the whole press - the whole human thought. Through that prodigious multiplication which art has given to speech - multiplication to be multiplied a thousand-fold yet - mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad in the world with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood, at the extremities of earth, it will spread from pole to pole. Sudden, instant, burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth, it will be the reign of the human soul in all its plenitude. It will not have time to ripen, to accumulate into the form of a book - the book will arrive too late. The only book possible from today is a Newspaper. It's decidedly beautiful -- no " State of Play ", here. The problem is that it's painfully obvious Lamartine's "rapidity of light" applies more to the boundless Big Bang of the Internet and the subsequent marginalization of newspapers than it does to the idyllic broadsheets it proselytizes. Carr writes: The Newspaper arrives too late. The only Newspaper possible from today is a Text. A Tweet. Sudden, instant, burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth. Dailies, alt-weeklies and glossies are falling around us, and unlike the current recession this fate has been predicted for a long, long time. As for what will happen when there are no more Baghdad bureaus around, many are skeptical online media can fill the gap. After all, much of what is disseminated online for free stems from dollar-backed reporting. Another popular pro-newspaper trope wonders who will go to the boring-as-hell city hall meeting on zoning restrictions. The answer hasn't completely shown itself. But a good glimpse of it can be found in New York State Senate's website . If you've ever had to plow through any number of individual House member websites, you'd know they rarely resemble anything this side of 1999. And yet NYSenate.gov, a state legislature's website, runs with a precision a presidential campaign would envy. To a designer, the site is trim, streamlined and professional. But its roots as a great site are found in the fact that established local bloggers, namely Albany Project's Phillip Anderson, play a major role in the site's administration. By opening up the site to diarists, the site offers grounds for discussion in a format not unfamiliar to Daily Kos. Profiled here on Daily Kos, The new site is a stark contrast to the former status quo--one in which the assembly, when under Republican rule, denied Democrats access to its technology; now, every senator as a blog, as well as Facebook, Twitter and RSS links. Couple the site with the state's pledged drive for universal voter registration and there's concrete evidence of how Web 2.0 technology is inexorably bettering our political culture. Though the ever-evolving Whitehouse.org is breath of relief for anyone with a dial-up or better, the Obama administration has yet to fully back its campaign pledge to post all legislation online for public comment before Congress votes. Further, there is a considerable amount of red tape and cobwebs between the public and the efficient digitization of the federal government. But the New York State Senate's Website is a bold signpost toward the future. Journalists, your tears have meaning. The city hall meetings on zoning restrictions will be podcasted, streamed and blogged on public dimes. Widgets and iPhone apps will pipe all this information straight to the voter. And as Big Government slowly, inexorably drags itself into digital relevance, the most casual news reader can summon anything he or she would want to know about the local city council, Supreme Court nomination or PTA meeting from essentially a single source. Granted, the news media's roles as judge, jury and executioner will still have their merits. After all, just because you can watch your local government live-blog doesn't mean you have any idea how to run the NY Fed. Big and complex ideas will still need to be distilled for the greater public. New York now has a wonderful website at its disposal, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of money to see this sort of product succeed on a national scale. When it does, the dust will have already settled on the current recession--as well as the final verdicts on which traditional media outlets are left standing. As all levels of digital government converge, the news media will take on--here's hoping--a greater role as refined analysts. With facts so discernible, perhaps even the partisan puffery of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann will deflate. Just because vital public information is made easier to find doesn't mean people are going to look for it. But the bar has been raised, and with each passing generation we will see the further dissemination of civic knowledge and a broadening of our political awareness. This post originally appeared at Splice Today . More on Newspapers
 
U.S. Sets Aside $1 Billion For Swine Flu Vaccine Top
WASHINGTON — Inching closer to a swine flu vaccine, the government is beginning to analyze two candidates for the key ingredient to brew one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to deliver one or both to vaccine manufacturers by the end of next week so scientists can begin the months-long process of producing shots. Friday, the government set aside $1 billion for crucial testing of the first pilot doses and stockpiling of key vaccine ingredients _ in case world health authorities decide that people indeed need to be vaccinated starting sometime next fall. The stockpile will allow for quick production of shots to protect health workers and other people at high-risk from flu. Also on Friday, CDC scientists unveiled the most detailed genetic examination yet of the novel virus, finding that the new swine flu may have been circulating undetected in pigs for years. That report, in the journal Science, still fails to solve the bigger mystery of when and where the virus made the jump to people and what genetic change allowed it to start spreading so rapidly. The virus was first detected last month, and at least 42 countries now have confirmed it in more than 11,000 people. At least 85 people have died from it. The confirmed cases don't represent anywhere near the full scope of the outbreak: For every reported case of swine flu, there may be 20 people sickened with it, said CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat _ more than 100,000 people in the U.S. There are signs that it is declining in parts of the country, although school-related outbreaks in New York City and elsewhere have led to the closings of about 60 schools affecting 42,000 students, Schuchat said. The candidate vaccine viruses the CDC has begun analyzing contain a mix of genes from the new swine flu virus itself with components of other viruses that allow them to grow better in the eggs that manufacturers use to produce vaccine. If one or both prove usable, manufacturers could begin producing pilot lots for testing this summer to see if the shots are safe, trigger immune protection and require one dose or two. Influenza is a master of evolution, a quick-change artist that can rapidly swap genes to create new strains. Birds are the ultimate origin of influenza viruses, said CDC flu chief Nancy Cox, a senior author of the gene paper in Science. But Type A flu viruses have long circulated in pigs, too, dating to when the infamous 1918 pandemic strain was introduced to swine. All three global flu epidemics of the past century passed on traits to ancestors of this new flu. Among those ancestors was a triple-strain, or "triple reassortant," as scientists call it _ part pig, part bird, part human _ that first hit U.S. pig farms in 1998. Others are traced to pig viruses in Europe and Asia. In fact, viruses with genes that most resemble the new swine flu _ known scientifically as part of the H1N1 influenza family _ were identified 10 years ago. And a human case in Thailand in 2005 was found to share genes from both the North American and Eurasian swine flu lineages, but not in the exact never-before-seen genetic combination that this new flu contains, Cox said. Pig populations around the world need to be more closely monitored for emerging influenza viruses, the CDC-led team concluded. The researchers have asked veterinarian colleagues around the world to check their freezers for samples from pigs or other animals that might help narrow down how the new flu made the species jump to people. It could have involved yet another intermediate animal host, Cox noted. On the good side, the 51 virus samples from Mexico and the U.S. that the team analyzed were all very similar, in both their genetic characteristics and the way they interact with immune-system cells. That makes hunting a usable vaccine easier, Cox said. ___ On the Net: Science: http://www.sciencemag.org More on Swine Flu
 
Andrea Chalupa: A mindful proposal: Can you handle 24 hours of solitude? Top
In our BlackBerried, Twittered, internet-overload culture, our nervous systems are too overstimulated for us to have the time to think. My father, Dr. Leo Chalupa, a neurobiologist and head of research for George Washington University, in 2006 wrote an essay advocating overworked, web-junkie Americans to take 24 hours of absolute solitude. No books, no movies, no texting, no media intake or interaction of any kind. It's just you and your thoughts. For 24 hours. Pretty scary, huh? "Unless you've spent time in a monastery or in solitary confinement, it's unlikely that you've had to deal with this issue," my father wrote. "The only activity not proscribed is thinking. Imagine if everyone in this country had the opportunity to do nothing but engage in uninterrupted thought for one full day a year! A national day of absolute solitude would do more to improve the brains of all Americans than any other one-day program." This week, New York's cover story "In Defense of Distraction" presented some shocking facts about what technology is doing to our brains. "People who frequently check their e-mail have tested as less intelligent than people who are actually high on marijuana," Sam Anderson writes. And although technology has made our lives easier and entertainment cheaper, Anderson writes, pure, unadulterated, distraction-free thinking has become a luxury; what we really need, he argues, is time to think: "This sort of free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of mindfulness." There is a hope that managing and learning to master all this technology will make our brains adapt and evolve us into super-multitaskers. If anyone knows multitasking, it's my old man: hitting the gym every day by 7 a.m., overseeing a busy laboratory, writing grants and meeting grant deadlines in a competitive environment for science funding, being a babysitting grandpa, cooking, housekeeping, gardening, caring for my aging grandmother, and being a doting husband and dad. The only stimulant he uses to keep up with all these demands is herbal tea. Everything else is good old-fashioned prioritizing, organization, and a zero-tolerance policy on procrastination. (I did not inherit those particular genes.) So I asked my dad, for WalletPop's "Blogtalk Radio Show," how technology is shaping our brains, how to be an effective multi-tasker free of technologies' distractions, and about his radical idea of a daylong period of solitude.
 
Brian Dickie: Sunny Days Top
It's just gorgeous here today, yesterday and tomorrow. That raises the spirits -- but it would be nice to get out and enjoy it. Today is that excellent competition that I have been on the jury of these last six years or so, the Union League Civic Arts Foundation's scholarships for singers. This is a lucrative opportunity for Chicago-based singers, yielding as it does two Rose M. Grundman Scholarships of $15,000 each in Women's Voice and Men's Voice. It's pretty well first prize or nothing. And these days $15,000 is a very useful bonus. So we will be deciding the result of this between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. this afternoon. And there should also be a photo of my two fellow jurors -- check back later to see who they are! This morning I had a visit from one of our former Young Artists at COT, Kala Maxym - a very good mezzo with a good brain and an inquiring mind. She and her mother have set up a new Web site called The Opera Insider . You should all sign up for it -- it looks like an interesting addition to the collection and in these days of so much social networking maybe it will turn into a real money spinner for them. An operatic Facebook? Anyway, it's early days but they may have latched onto something different and useful, as well as fun. This evening we are at the Art Institute for an Owen Wingrave event . This will be a really special opportunity to connect with two people who were close to Britten. It is at 6 p.m. -- try to be there. This will be time well spent.
 
U.S. Jobless Rate May Soon Top Europe's Top
For many years, unemployment in the United States was lower than in Western Europe, a fact often cited by people who argued that the flexibility inherent in the American system -- it is easier to both hire and fire workers than in many European countries -- produced more jobs.
 
James Zogby: What a Difference a Decade Can Make Top
When Benyamin Netanyahu last came to Washington as Prime Minister of Israel the setting was quite different. Back then, President Bill Clinton was distracted, beset by scandals that culminated in his impeachment. Republicans, who had formed a partnership with Netanyahu's Likud party in opposition to both Clinton and the Labor Party-led Oslo Peace Process, were in control of both houses of Congress. And while many American Jews were uncomfortable with Netanyahu's anti-peace posture, there were only faint voices heard in opposition to his policies. What a difference a decade can make. In 2009, Netanyahu met a US President who had won election by a handsome margin, and whose victory helped his party expand their control over both the Senate and the House of Representatives. A popular President, Obama has wind in his sails, and has demonstrated both the vision and commitment to make real change on many issues--including the Middle East. At their White House press briefing last week, Netanyahu may have been stubborn, but Obama, too, held his ground. Addressing his remarks directly to the cameras, the US President lectured Netanyahu about the steps that must be taken: "all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations they previously agreed to," "settlements have to be stopped," "if the people of Gaza have no hope, if they can't even get clean water...if the border closures are so tight it is impossible for reconstruction or humanitarian efforts to take place, then that is not going to be a recipe for [the] peace track to move forward," and much more. But it wasn't only a new and tougher President that Netanyahu ran into last week, it was also a very different Jewish community. A recent poll of American Jews commissioned by J Street, the Jewish pro-peace lobby, found that substantial majorities of American Jews (in the 70% range) support President Obama and support a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and some limited "right to return." In addition, a strong majority oppose settlement construction and opinion is split down the middle on whether or not to cut aid to Israel if they become an obstacle to achieving peace! It has been clear for many years now that majority opinion in the Jewish community was not represented by AIPAC's hawkish voice. This pro-peace orientation has taken an institutional form, and is now stronger and more vocal than it was a decade ago. Groups like J Street, Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v'Shalomare, are active, working not only within the Jewish community, but also in coalition with Arab Americans to change US-Middle East policy. The efforts of this pro-peace lobby were on display this week for Netanyahu to see. Even before the Prime Minister's arrival in Washington, the Israel Policy Forum published full page ads in major US newspapers which urged President Obama to use his meeting with Middle East leaders to insist on a number of steps, including: A freeze on West Bank settlement construction, the dismantling of superfluous checkpoints and illegal settlements, and the cessation of demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem; The immediate reconstruction of Gaza with a focus on civilian needs, and the local economy; The pursuit of a comprehensive peace between Israel and its neighbors, including Syria, using the Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for negotiations. Also last week, a number of the pro-peace groups joined together in support of a congressional letter to the President. The letter was specifically designed to counter an earlier letter circulated by AIPAC which had called on the President to leave the parties to negotiate among themselves without US interference. The AIPAC letter asks nothing of Israel, instead putting stiff burdens exclusively on the Palestinian side, making fulfillment of these a prerequisite for statehood. The letter by pro-peace Members of Congress, on the other hand, was dramatically different in tone and substance. It expressed concern with settlements, "tensions in Jerusalem and other changes on the ground [which] threaten the opportunity for a two-state solution." Since "left to themselves, the parties have been unable to make progress," the peace letter urges the President to become directly engaged in peace-making. And then, in a bold move, the letter notes that while building Palestinian capacity in the economic and security sectors are important goals, "these goals can be effectively realized over time once a Palestinian state has been created." It is clear the AIPAC still remains a powerful lobby with a strong voice and strong support in Washington. The 280 or so congressional signatures on their letter is evidence of that strength. But the fact is that AIPAC is no longer uncontested in Washington, as evidenced by the near 70 (and still growing) list of congressional endorsers compiled by the pro-peace organizations. All this means that Washington is changing. The environment for Middle East peace making is better than it was a decade ago--with a strong President determined to take on big issues and pro-peace groups within the Jewish community working, with Arab Americans, to support the President's efforts. Would that the environment among Israelis and Palestinians were as ripe. More on Barack Obama
 
Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Be Happy as Wall Street walks off with Your Money Top
"Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn't a matter of insufficient funds. It's a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again -- if only we knew we had to." --Daniel Gilbert, New York Times op-ed I have a different take on the source of our national gloom: Wall Street crashed the economy. It gambled away our jobs and pensions by creating and trading highly risky, yet profitable, financial instruments that turned out to be junk. Banks and other financial institutions found their books, and their off-book entities, loaded with toxic assets. They became insolvent or nearly so. So the credit system froze pushing us towards the next Great Depression. To save the system, we opened the US Treasury vault and shifted more than a trillion dollars of resources into financial sector. When you add up TARP funds, loan guarantees, no-interest loans and the like you're talking trillions. Meanwhile, what would normally have been a reasonably mild recession turned into economic free-fall when the real economy became starved for lack of credit. Millions of jobs were lost, social services slashed and states had to face crippling deficits. And you wonder why we're not happy campers? I fear that Professor Gilbert's nuanced account of why we crave certainty will contribute to the growing zeitgeist that we must lower our expectations -- that we'd be a lot happier if we simply accepted our lot. We should get used to living with less. And the sooner we get used to that idea, the happier we will be. We shouldn't worry ourselves with things we can't really control or change - like Wall Street looting the economy. We should not worry about crisis-prone financial markets. And we certainly should not worry about the outrageous salaries and bonuses that Wall Streeters got, are getting right now, and will continue to get while we pour public funds into their institutions. No, we should stop whining and accept the new realities.....and then we'll be happy. No thank you. Gilbert, in fact, undercuts this fatalistic argument by reporting on research that suggests basic economic security contributes mightily to our sense of happiness. Of course, you can be economically secure and still be unhappy, but the research he cites implies that economic insecurity undercuts your well-being. He writes that "happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security." I'll buy that. In fact, I spend nearly all of my time and energy trying to provide that for my family. Clearly, we don't need more boom-bust economic turbulence. Casino capitalism, even at its best, provides economic security only to the super rich. However, in the spirit of Gilbert's focus on happiness, let's look at the brighter side of the crash. Here's a happy thought: Wall Street's debacle proves that our nation has more than enough resources to provide each and every one of us with basic economic security. Instead of allowing lavish profits to accumulate for those who bought and sold fantasy finance derivatives, we could easily finance free higher education at all public colleges and universities (about $50 billion per year.) Had we not been forced to pour trillions into the collapsed financial sector, we could make an enormous down payment on universal health care. Were we willing to shift resources from the bloated financial sector to the real economy, we could provide income maintenance and education for every worker who suffers through layoffs and plant closings. And if we had the courage to put a very small tax on each and every Wall Street financial transaction (see my proposal in Looting of America ), we would generate more than enough funds to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, promote alternative energy, create green jobs and finally slow down global warming. I don't know about you, but if my kids could go to college without accumulating massive debts, be assured access to decent health care, not worry that globalization would continually undermine their livelihoods, and finally see the waning of global warming, I'd be one happy Dad. Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It. (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009) More on Financial Crisis
 
Analysts: GM Bankruptcy May Not Be All That Bad Top
DETROIT — With General Motors' long-anticipated day of reckoning a little more than a week away, nearly all signs are pointing to the wounded auto giant limping its way into bankruptcy court, but experts say that might not be as bad as once expected. Car and truck buyers, they say, may not be as fearful of Chapter 11 as once thought, as evidenced by Chrysler's stronger-than-expected sales in the two weeks after it took the dreaded step into court. "I think in this case and in the eyes of the consumer, uncertainty is the enemy," said Jeff Schuster, executive director of automotive forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates. "Once they know what happened, it at least is better than uncertainty." GM borrowed an additional $4 billion from the government Friday on top of $15.4 billion it previously received. It faces a June 1 government-imposed deadline to finish restructuring or be forced into bankruptcy court. Restructuring demands from President Barack Obama's administration include cutting labor costs, reducing debt, shedding dealerships and brands, and closing excess factories. The company this week reached cost-cutting deals with Canadian and U.S. unions that still have to be ratified by members, but GM's unsecured bondholders have resisted an offer to take a 10 percent stake in the company to wipe out $27 billion in debt. They say that's too small a stake for the amount they are owed. But even if GM files for Chapter 11, Chrysler's performance since its April 30 bankruptcy filing has made analysts optimistic that GM sales won't "fall off a cliff" as the company's CEO predicted in February. Chrysler's sales to individual buyers are down 40 percent so far this month when compared with May of last year, a little worse than the overall market, which is down around 35 percent, the company has said. Schuster said that's better than he expected, and he predicted that GM might fare even better if it goes into Chapter 11. "Maybe optimistic is a little too strong, but I think there could be potential for, once it's announced and once we understand how it's going to work, the potential for an uptick in the second half of the year," he said. Chrysler is keeping its retail sales up to a large degree by offering rebates and other incentives. The company led major automakers in April with an average of $4,383 per vehicle, up from $3,795 in the same month last year, according to the Edmunds.com automotive Web site. GM was second with $4,107. With the government announcing that it would back GM and Chrysler warranties, people are taking advantage of deals to get cars on the cheap, said David Koehler, a clinical marketing professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "I think consumers right now know cars last for a long time," he said. "What they're looking at is the deals. I don't anticipate the doom and gloom that GM said, that this was going to kill them." GM's tentative labor deals have raised the pressure on bondholders to accept the debt exchange offer, which may keep the company out of bankruptcy. The offer expires on Tuesday, but GM said in a regulatory filing that it would decide Wednesday if it will be extended. Under GM's new capital structure, the government would forgive about $10 billion of its loans and get 50 percent of the company, and the United Auto Workers would own 39 percent for cutting in half the $20 billion GM owes to a union-run retiree health care trust. Given that, bankruptcy experts say it's unlikely that GM can round up enough bondholders to get the debt-reduction to go through. The Treasury Department, which is overseeing GM's government-funded restructuring, has required 90 percent participation, but a committee of some of GM's largest bondholders have said they won't take the offer. "The other bondholders are getting such a poor deal, there's just no way I can see them bringing those bondholders on board by June 1," said Jon Groetzinger, a visiting law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and 22 House Republicans wrote Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday to seek fairness for GM's debt holders. "The proposal seems to favor the rights and claims of the UAW, a political ally of the current administration and a powerful lobbying force in Washington, over the rights and claims of the company's diverse group of bondholders," Hensarling and the lawmakers wrote. A spokesman for the bondholders committee declined to comment Friday. Also in doubt is GM's plan to cut its network of about 6,000 dealers by 40 percent before the end of 2010. GM sent notices last week to 1,100 dealers telling them their franchise agreements won't be renewed when they expire next year, and many dealers plan to fight in court. State franchise laws generally protect dealers, so it's unlikely GM could accomplish the cuts without help from a bankruptcy judge, experts have said. Fear of bankruptcy and the possibility that it could come as early as next week drove GM shares down 49 cents, or 26 percent, to $1.43 Friday, erasing much of the 32 percent gain from Thursday when the UAW agreement was announced. As June 1 fast approaches, there's still an outside chance that GM could somehow pull it all together and complete restructuring out of bankruptcy court, said John Pottow, a University of Michigan professor who specializes in bankruptcy. Since the unions have given concessions and settled, there is pressure on GM's bondholders to do the same or risk becoming the entity that drove GM into bankruptcy, he said. "When they make those concessions, it becomes tougher for you not to make those concessions as well because everyone's doing it," Pottow said, adding that dissident Chrysler creditors gave up their fight as pressure mounted and other stakeholders fell in line. But with thousands of bondholders, it will difficult to get 90 percent of them to agree. "There's no sort of like central negotiating committee of bondholders and unsecured creditors," he said. ___ AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York and Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.
 
Burris A Hero On United Flight? Twitter User Says He's Lying Top
Earlier today, a United flight to Chicago carrying White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers and a bunch of Chicago Machine Politicians was forced to make an emergency landing in Pittsburgh after the flight experienced a malfunction of "on-air equipment." Sen. Roland Burris was on this flight apparently, and, according to his spokesman, got up to some heroics. Here's what Lynn Sweet was told : Jim O'Connor, a Burris spokesman, said Burris told him that he heard a loud bang at take-off, sometime near 11:30 a.m. One the plane was in the air, the noises became deafening and the plane began to shake, O'Connor said. There was also a great deal of turbulence. The pilot announced to the passengers there was a hydrolic system failure and the O'Hare Airport-bound plane would be making an emergency landing in Pittsburgh. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the tarmac upon landing. Burris helped an elderly woman off the plane. Sounds impressive! But, before Burris runs off to scrawl "SUPER AEROPLANE HERO" on his "Mausoleum of Accomplishments," he'd better get shot of the accusations of another passenger, who says, via Twitter , that Burris is not telling the truth: Obviously, we can't corroborate any of this! But here's a taste of your newspaperless future, where everyone on Twitter is either KEEPING THEM HONEST 140 characters at a time, or, you know...sending sexts to each other, like always. --- POSTSCRIPT: Is it just me or have there been many reports on this that have taken great care to point out that while Desiree Rogers and Roland Burris were on the same plane, they were not -- I REPEAT NOT! -- travelling together! Yes, great! A number of people went through a harrowing mid-air experience today, about which we'd like to know more, but first, BY ALL MEANS, TELL US IF BURRIS AND ROGERS ARE ATTEMPTING TO JOIN THE MILE HIGH CLUB! [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Twitter
 

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