White House photo shows Obama firing shotgun

On his 51st birthday last August, President Obama hit the links with a group of buddies and then flew by helicopter to Camp David. He changed into jeans, picked up an expensive shotgun and started shooting clay targets.

You’d be forgiven if you didn’t think this was headline-worthy news. But on Saturday morning, the White House released and promoted a photograph of Obama shooting skeet at the presidential retreat in Maryland.

White House aides were trying to end a growing distraction just as the president plans to make a fresh push to rally public support behind his ambitious agenda to tighten gun laws, traveling to Minnesota on Monday.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza, depicts a sunglasses-wearing Obama firing what appears to be a Browning Citori 725, the shotgun wedged against his left shoulder, a pillow of white smoke emerging from the barrel.

The photo was published a week after Obama claimed in an interview with the New Republic that he routinely shoots skeet at Camp David. The surprising assertion — Obama’s golfing and basketball hobbies are far better known — instantly stirred the political zeitgeist.

Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, was asked for evidence in the White House briefing room. “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart poked fun at the president’s apparent hobby. Gun-rights activists dismissed it, and some were skeptical that Obama was a routine skeet shooter.

A Republican congresswoman even challenged the president to a shooting contest.

“I’m sure they released the photo because there were folks raising questions about his answer, and those questions are a silly distraction in the midst of a serious debate,” David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to Obama, said in an e-mail.

“I know him pretty well. He doesn’t embellish,” Axelrod added. “If he says he’s done some shooting up there on occasion, I’m sure he has. He’s not a hunter or marksman and doesn’t pretend to be.”

The White House did not say how often Obama has gone shooting.

In the interview with the New Republic, Obama was asked if he had ever shot a gun.

“Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” he said.

Asked if his whole family goes shooting, Obama replied: “Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake.”

But while the White House made clear Saturday that the president has shot skeet at least once, the release of the photo seemed more likely to inflame passions around the issue than douse them.

Current and former advisers to Obama compared skeptics of Obama’s skeet-shooting prowess to a group of conservatives, known as birthers, who cast doubt on whether Obama was born in the United States and kept exerting pressure until the president released a long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii.

“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” David Plouffe, Obama’s senior adviser until last week, wrote on Twitter early Saturday. Later in the day, he wrote, “Day made. The skeet birthers are out in full force in response to POTUS pic. Makes for most excellent, delusional reading.”

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Argentina to launch new inflation data method

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina said Saturday it will start using a new method of measuring inflation after the International Monetary Fund censured Buenos Aires over the quality of its economic data.

Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino told C5N television that it would be "a new consumer price index to replace the current measure that has supposedly caused so many problems for the IMF."

Lorenzino said that officials expect to begin using the new method starting in the last quarter of 2013.

On Friday, the IMF's executive board took the unprecedented measure of issuing a "declaration of censure" against Argentina, opening the way for one of Latin America's largest economies to lose its voting rights at the multinational lender, or even lose its membership.

But the board put off that decision, giving Buenos Aires until September 29 to resolve the problem.

"It's an ongoing process and the Fund is aware of that," said Lorenzino, who criticized the decision as a "double standard."

In a statement, his ministry suggested that "many countries" have changed their unemployment and CPI measures, as well as they way they compile this data.

Official Argentine statistics are sharply different from those private sector economists issue.

For instance, last month the government said that inflation in 2012 was 10.8 percent, while a group of private economists who collate their data put the rate at 25.6 percent.

Buenos Aires benefits from understating the data because a large part of its sovereign debt is indexed to inflation.

In rejecting the IMF's decision, President Cristina Kirchner's government demanded that the lender's board hold a special meeting to review its policy toward Argentina and "its role in the origin of the global economic and financial crisis."

Brazil, an IMF board member and strategic ally of Argentina, criticized the censure as "counterproductive."

In a tweet, Kirchner herself suggested that her government's debt reduction policy "seems to be the real cause of anger from the IMF."

Argentina defaulted on some $100 billion in debt in 2001, and has since restructured its debt twice, covering around 75 percent of the nominal value of the bonds.

But the country is embroiled in a legal battle in the United States with hedge funds demanding that Buenos Aires repay $1.3 billion in bonds held by investment funds NML and Aurelius because they refused to take part in a 2005 restructuring agreed to by most of the other bondholders.

The IMF and Argentina have a long history of troubled relations, with successive governments blaming the Fund for domestic economic failures and the country's deep troubles in international debt markets.

In January 2006, the government paid off Argentina's debt with the IMF -- some $9.5 billion -- and cut links with the Fund.

Since then Argentina has been the only country in the G20 that does not allow annual economic assessments by official IMF teams. It has also promised not to ask for more financial aid.

But at the end of 2010, the IMF was invited back to assist with collection and formulation of economic data, opening the way to the current impasse.

-AFP/ac

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Haryana pineline scam: Deputy commissioner orders FIR against 5 govt officials, many others

CHANDIGARH: Jhajjar deputy commissioner, AjitBalajiJoshi, has ordered registration of an FIR against around a dozen persons, including five agriculture department officials, in the subsidy scam related to laying of underground pipelines.

Joshi told The Times of India on Saturday that they have also sought comments from the agriculture department in the matter. FIR has been sought against former assistant soil conservation officer Neena Sehwag, agriculture inspector Jagbir Singh, agriculture development officer Jain Singh Mann, accountant Satya Prakash, another employee Dharmpal, some farmers and officials of a Charkhi Dadri-based private firm for alleged involvement in the scam, he said.

The action follows an inquiry conducted by Jhajjar city magistrate, who detected that over Rs 1 lakh subsidy was claimed by five farmers in connivance with officers of agriculture department and the private firm. "There is possibility of more such cases coming to light," the inquiry report maintained.

According to official records, over Rs 25 crore was disbursed to 444 farmers as subsidy through the firm, for installing underground pipelines for irrigation purposes in Godhi village of Jhajjar district. The agriculture department has ordered physical verification in all these cases.

A retired agriculture economist, Ram Kanwar, had recently alleged a Rs 200 crore scam in subsidy to farmers by the agriculture department, for installation of sprinkler sets and laying underground pipelines. However, the department has been denying the scam.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Body of Missing Mom Reportedly Found in Turkey

The body of an American woman who went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey has been pulled from a bay in Istanbul, and nine people have been held for questioning, according to local media.

Sarai Sierra, 33, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.

The state-run Andolu Agency reported that residents found a woman's body today near the ruins of some ancient city walls in a low-income district, and police identified the body as Sierra.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who with his staff had been assisting the Sierra family in the search, said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of her death.

"I urge Turkish officials to move quickly to identify whomever is responsible for her tragic death and ensure that any guilty parties are punished to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.

Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family

Footage Shows Missing New York Mom in Turkish Mall Watch Video

NYC Woman Goes Missing While Traveling In Turkey Watch Video

New York Mother Goes Missing on Turkish Vacation Watch Video

The New York City mother, who has two young boys, traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. Sierra, who is an avid photographer with a popular Instagram stream, planned to document her dream vacation with her camera.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul last Sunday to aid in the search.

Steven Sierra has been in the country, meeting with U.S. officials and local authorities, as they searched for his wife.

On Friday, Turkish authorities detained a man who had spoken with Sierra online before her disappearance. The identity of the man and the details of his arrest were not disclosed, The Associated Press reported.

The family said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

She took two side trips, to Amsterdam and Munich, before returning to Turkey, but kept in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey.

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to a two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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Twitter hit by "sophisticated" cyber attack

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter said Friday it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber attack similar to those that recently hit major Western news outlets, and that the passwords of about 250,000 users were stolen.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter information security director Bob Lord said in a blog post.

Lord referred to an "uptick in large-scale security attacks aimed at US technology and media companies" as he told of Twitter detecting attempts this week to get unauthorized access to data in the firm's network.

The attack coincided with the revelation of several high-profile security breaches. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal said this week that they had been hacked, and pointed to hackers from China.

Twitter did not confirm the source of the intrusion.

But Lord noted that "the attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

He said that Twitter shut down a live attack as it was in process.

However, Lord added, cyber attackers may have gotten usernames, email addresses, passwords and other data.

As a precaution, Twitter invalidated passwords of accounts at issue and sent people email messages telling them to create new passwords.

-AFP/ac

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ED raids in 3 cities, hawala money seized

JALANDHAR: The enforcement directorate (ED) conducted simultaneous raids in Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Delhi on Friday and recovered money received through hawala channels. It is learnt that the directorate also seized documents pertaining to hawala transactions running into a few hundred crores.

The raid in Jalandhar was conducted at Happy Forex Pvt Ltd in Adda Hoshiarpur in the early afternoon. The team was accompanied by a heavy posse of CRPF and Punjab Police. They conducted thorough search in the office when according to eye witnesses one person escaped with a bag from the roof of the foreign exchange company.

Though ED officials remained tight-lipped about the raids, sources revealed that these people were on ED radar for a long and were carrying out hawala transaction at the behest of some individuals as well as some companies based abroad. These hawala operators were being used for sending funds in the country for anti-national activities.

Sources disclosed it is also being investigated if these people were conducting transactions at the behest of drug lord Raja Kandhola or other drug peddlers. Kandhola is main accused in the recovery of 40kg synthetic drug ice.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Hillary Clinton Says Goodbye...Until 2016?

Feb 1, 2013 6:48pm

Image Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

After four years, nearly a million miles traveled and 112 countries visited, Hillary Clinton stepped down as the 67th secretary of state on Friday. But even on this, her final day as America’s top diplomat, she could not escape the questions about what she’ll do four years from now.

Many of the 1,000 employees who gathered to see her off expressed hope that this was not the end of her political career.

“2016! 2016!” the crowd chanted as   Clinton waved and drove away. “We’ll Miss You!”

Right before her departure, Clinton gave the traditional farewell speech to staff on the steps of the State Department’s historic C street lobby. In a roughly 10 minute, often reflective speech she called the 70,000 State Department employees part of “a huge extended family.”

“I cannot fully express how grateful I am to those with whom I have spent many hours here in Washington, around the world and in airplanes,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.

Clinton’s trademark sense of humor was on display, even as she grew emotional  speaking about how much the State Department had  meant to her over the last four years.

PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton Through the Years

“I am very proud to have been secretary of state. I will miss you. I will probably be dialing ops just to talk,” she joked to a cheering and laughing crowd. “I will wonder what you all are doing, because I know that because of your efforts day after day, we are making a real difference.”

But  Clinton also was somber when discussing the danger diplomats and foreign service officers face all over the world, using Thursday’s suicide bombing attack against the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, in which a Turkish guard was killed, as an example.

“We live in very complex and even dangerous times, as we saw again just today at our embassy in Ankara, where we were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals, and others injured,” said Clinton “But I spoke with the ambassador and the team there. I spoke with my Turkish counterpart. And I told them how much we valued their commitment and their sacrifice.”

Clinton was flanked by trusted deputies, Bill Burns and Tom Nides, whom she gave warm hugs to at the end of the speech. With a huge “Thank You” sign behind her she walked a rope line after finishing her speech, greeting the hordes of employees who wanted to shake her hand and say goodbye before she walked out of the State Department as secretary of state for the last time.

“It’s been quite a challenging week saying goodbye to so many people and knowing that I will not have the opportunity to continue being part of this amazing team,” Clinton said. “But I am so grateful that we’ve had a chance to contribute in each of our ways to making our country and our world stronger, safer, fairer and better.”

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Senate ethics panel reviews gift accusations against Menendez

The Senate Ethics Committee is reviewing allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez accepted inappropriate gifts from a Florida doctor who has flown the New Jersey Democrat to his estate in the Dominican Republic, a senior member of the panel confirmed Thursday.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said the panel saw reports of the Tuesday FBI raid on the West Palm Beach offices of Salomon Melgen, a Menendez friend and political supporter who is also in an $11 million tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. That was followed by Menendez’s confirmation Wednesday night that he wrote a personal check of more than $58,000 to pay for flights on Melgen’s private jet to his Dominican estate — for a pair of trips there more than two years ago.

“The Senate Ethics Committee is aware of the article in the Miami Herald and other media outlets, and we are following established procedures,” Isakson said Thursday, declining to discuss any details of the review.

Menendez has denied any wrongdoing. His staff has said that most of his trips to visit Melgen in the Dominican Republic were paid for out of his own pocket and that the two trips he did not pay for were an oversight. A statement issued Wednesday also vehemently denied reports, mostly in the conservative news media, that he slept with prostitutes on the island, where prostitution is legal.

“Senator Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately. Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically-motivated right-wing blog and are false,” his office said in a statement.

Officials at the Justice Department declined to comment Thursday about the nature of its raid on Melgen’s office, which went on for several hours overnight.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has stood behind the embattled senator. “First of all, Bob Menendez is my friend. He’s an outstanding senator,” Reid told reporters Thursday, directing any detailed questions to Menendez’s office.

The investigations come at a particularly troubling time for Menendez and Democrats, just as Menendez steps into a new role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
That makes him the top diplomat on Capitol Hill, someone tasked with greeting heads of state visiting Washington, and affords him the kind of public profile that prompts regular appearances on the Sunday morning political talk shows. Last week, Menendez presided over outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony about the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attack on a mission in Libya and the confirmation hearing for Kerry.

The only Latino among Senate Democrats, Menendez was chosen to participate in a bipartisan group of senators who unveiled a strategic framework for comprehensive immigration reform amid much fanfare Monday.

Reid’s gesture signaled that Democratic leaders were not abandoning Menendez as he begins what could be a long legal and ethics process. Two days earlier, Reid rejected out of hand any suggestion of wrongdoing by Menendez, telling reporters to “consider the source” because the reports first emerged on the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site that published the stories just before Election Day.

The issue was originally regarded as a partisan dispute just before Menendez’s election. But the seriousness of the allegations heated up with the FBI raid and the revelations that repayments to Melgen were made so long after the trips occurred.

Senate rules and federal law forbid expensive gifts unless the lawmaker has a longtime friendship with the person giving the gift. Otherwise, the rules require a prompt repayment for the thing of value, according to ethics experts. If a lawmaker accepts the gift from a friend, it would have to be revealed as such in annual financial disclosure forms that are made public every June.

Menendez did not pay Melgen until two months after New Jersey Republicans first asked the ethics panel to investigate, and the trips were not reported on his disclosure forms.

Menendez, 59, who is divorced, is one of the most prominent Cuban Americans, with deep support in his home town of Union City, sometimes called “Little Havana North,” and in South Florida. He has two grown children active in politics. Elected to the House in 1992, he served in Democratic leadership there until he was appointed to the Senate in late 2005 and has since won two full terms.

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Sony invites press to mystery New York event

SAN FRANCISCO: Sony sent out invitations Thursday to a mystery event in New York City on February 20, sparking rumors that the world would get its first look at a new-generation PlayStation videogame console.

Both Sony and Microsoft are expected this year to show off successors to their competing consoles, which have been evolving into home entertainment hubs for films, television, music, social networking and more.

The PlayStation 3 was released in November 2006 and industry trackers believe a successor is on the near horizon.

In January, the number of PS3 units shipped by Sony hit an estimated 77 million units, according to market research firm International Data Corporation.

IDC gaming research manager Lewis Ward predicted at the time of the report that consoles will retain their strongholds in homes while expanding to include other digital entertainment.

"The console ecosystem is in a state of flux since these platforms need to support an ever-growing array of non-gaming features and services at the same time that game distribution and monetization is moving in a digital direction," Ward said.

"It doesn't appear that alternative platforms -- set-top boxes from cable companies, Web-connected smart TVs and so on -- are positioned to materially disrupt the trajectory of the 'big 3' console OEMs in 2013 or 2014."

Videogame industry sales should be bolstered by the arrival of next-generation videogame consoles from Sony and Microsoft, according to Ward.

"With the advent of eighth-generation consoles, starting with the Wii U, historical norms strongly imply that game disk revenue will stop bleeding in 2013 and rise substantively in 2014," he said in the report.

- AFP/ir

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TOI Social Impact Awards: When an IT mind took the organic route to farming

BORIAVI (ANAND): Devesh Patel, 30, graduated in computer applications in 2005. But the idea of flying off to the US didn't attract him. He followed in his father's footsteps and became a farmer, returning to the land of his forefathers — Anand's Boriavi village.

Until recently, Devesh's father Ramesh, 56, suffered from chronic breathing problems induced by the chemical fertilizers he used. Nausea and headaches were part of life. "Only when his health worsened did my father realize that increasing yield wasn't everything. There's no point making money if one can't enjoy it. We switched to organic farming," Devesh says. They shifted to Anand Agricultural University's newly developed liquid biofertilizer (LBF). That changed their lives.

"Dharti maa chhe (Earth is our mother)," Devesh says. "A farmer should give her what she deserves. My father doesn't fall sick now. Hundreds of farmers in Gujarat are living healthier lives, largely because of AAU." Devesh uses 70 litres of LBF a year on his 4ha. "The health of the soil has improved. Chemical fertilizers cost up to Rs 28,000 per ha for crops such as sweet potato and ginger. LBF has cut my cost to below Rs 4,000/ha," he says. Proprietor of an organic brand, he supplies potato chips, turmeric and ginger powder to retail stores, earning Rs 30-40 lakh annually.

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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What If Undocumented Immigrants Had Voted?

If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.

Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.

But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.

"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"

New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term.

See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace

"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.

Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.

Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.

See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform

"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."

There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.

In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Not All Hispanics Vote for Democrats. Most do, but not all, and voter preferences vary from state to state. In Florida, 60 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama, according to 2012 exit polls; in Arizona, 74 percent voted for the president. Even if all 11.2 million had voted in 2012, Obama would only have picked up North Carolina if they simply hewed to Hispanic voter trends. Romney still would have carried Arizona, Georgia and Texas, although he would have won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point. (Note: There were no exit polls in Texas or Georgia, and here the national rate provides rough estimates of how results would have changed.)

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Mass. governor taps friend to fill Kerry seat

Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D) selected William “Mo” Cowan, his former chief of staff, to temporarily fill Sen. John F. Kerry’s seat, bringing the number of African Americans in the Senate to two, a historic high.

Cowan, 43, will serve until a special election in the summer determines who will serve out the remainder of Kerry’s term, which ends in 2015. Kerry was picked by President Obama to be secretary of state.

Cowan, a lawyer,
will become the first African American to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since Republican Edward Brooke held the seat from 1967 to 1979.

A month ago, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley tapped fellow Republican Rep. Tim Scott to replace Sen. Jim DeMint. As a result, for the first time in history there will be two black senators serving simultaneously.

In picking Cowan, Patrick bypassed former Rep. Barney Frank, who openly campaigned for the seat.

Cowan, who said he was “honored and humbled by this appointment” will serve as Congress is set to begin another round of budget fights over entitlement programs and funding the goverment.

Patrick highlighted Cowan’s work on the economy in praising his close friend and former staffer.

“Mo’s service on the front lines in our efforts to manage through the worst economy in 80 years and build a better, stronger Commonwealth for the next generation has earned him the respect and admiration of people throughout government,” Patrick said in a statement.

Democrats will face off in an April primary to determine who will run in the general election. Rep. Edward J. Markey has already announced his intention to run, and Rep. Stephen F. Lynch is expected to announce Thursday that he will challenge Markey, who has already been endorsed by Kerry and former Rep. Barney Frank.

Former senator Scott Brown (R), who lost in November after winning the state’s other Senate seat in a 2010 special election, is strongly considering a run, according to a recent report.

A recent poll shows him leading Markey by more than 20 points.

Cowan is a native of Yadkinville, N.C., a rural tobacco town where, as a boy, he watched the Ku Klux Klan burn and march on his high school, according to a 2010 profile in the Boston Globe.

The son of a machinist and a seamstress, Cowan earned an undergraduate degree from Duke University and law degree from Northeastern University. He remained in Boston after law school and met Patrick in the 1990s.

In the 2010 Globe profile, Cowan described an early interaction between the two: “I essentially cold-called him and said: ‘Hey, you really don’t know me. I’m a young, know-nothing lawyer, but you seem to have a handle on this thing. Would you mind sparing a few minutes whenever you can to give me a bit of advice?’ And he said: ‘Sure. What are you doing right now?’ ’’

Cowan joined the Patrick administration in 2009 and became the governor’s chief of staff in January 2011. Before that, he served as Patrick’s chief legal counsel.

Before serving in the state government, Cowan was a partner at Mintz Levin in Boston, where he practiced civil litigation for 12 years.

Cowan announced his departure as chief of staff in November and returned to the private sector.

Cowan and Patrick have cultivated a close relationship, and his appointment keeps up a trend of governors appointing close allies to fill Senate vacancies. It also follows another trend: Since President Obama’s election, three African Americans, including Roland W. Burris, have been appointed to fill vacant Senate seats. (Burris replaced Obama in a seat representing Illinois.)

“The people of the Commonwealth have benefited from [Cowan’s] wisdom and good judgment during his time in our office, and will again in the Senate,” Patrick said in his statement Wednesday.

Ann Gerhart contributed to this report.

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Research links acute malnutrition to gut microbes

WASHINGTON: A dearth of calories may not be the only reason some children face acute malnutrition, according to a new study out this week that says the microbes living in our guts may also be to blame.

Within hunger-stricken communities, not all children fare the same. Some develop acute malnutrition, while others, even their brothers and sisters, may stay healthy.

And some children respond well to treatment -- generally a peanut-based nutrient-rich supplement -- while for others, the benefits cease when the treatment does.

To figure out why this happens, researchers studied more than 300 sets of twins in Malawi, where malnutrition is a common childhood ailment, during their first three years of life.

Among half the twin pairs, one or both twins became malnourished over the course of the study.

Even among identical twins, there were cases where one twin -- but not the other -- developed a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor, associated with swollen bellies, liver damage, skin ulcerations and loss of appetite, in addition to wasting.

That ruled out human genetics as a factor in the disorder, since identical twins share identical genomes.

But the researchers found something else at play: the microbes in the gut that extract nutrients and calories from the diet synthesise vitamins and nutrients and help shape the immune system.

When any of the twins became malnourished, both received treatment to limit food sharing.

In the healthy twin, the gut microbes thrived with the extra food and continued to mature after the treatment ended. But in the severely malnourished twin, the gut microbes stalled out or even regressed by four weeks after the treatment ended.

The findings were further bolstered when the researchers implanted into mice the gut microbes of the healthy and malnourished twins.

Both groups of mice were fed the same diet -- one similar to the nutrient-deficient diet common in Malawi -- but the ones who were transplanted with the malnourished children's microbes dropped weight, while the others did not.

"The gut microbes of malnourished children and malnourished mice do not appear to mature along a normal, healthy trajectory," said senior author Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University's Centre for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology.

"Our results suggest we need to devise new strategies to repair gut microbial communities so these children can experience healthy growth and reach their full potential."

Gordon said the new findings could be a crucial step towards finding better treatment for severely malnourished children.

"It may be that earlier or longer treatment with existing or next-generation therapeutic foods will enhance our ability to repair or prevent the problems associated with malnutrition," he said.

"We are also exploring whether it is possible to supplement the therapeutic food with beneficial gut bacteria from healthy children, as a treatment to repair the gut microbiome," he added.

"We hope that these studies will provide a new way of understanding how the gut microbiome and food interact to affect the health and recovery of malnourished children."

Their study is to be published Thursday in the US journal "Science".

According to UNICEF, a person dies of starvation every 3.6 seconds, and most of the deaths are among children under five.

"Some 300 million children go to bed hungry every day. Of these only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 per cent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency," the UN agency says on its website.

-AFP/fl

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Discoms to allow repayment of arrears in instalments

CHANDIGARH: In a bid to increase the case recovery of electricity bills, the Haryana power distribution corporations have decided to allow payment of arrears in installments.

Till now, the distribution companies were resorting to civil or legal recoveries after disconnection in case the arrears of bills crossed three billing cycles.

Chairman and managing director of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Devender Singh said this has been done to facilitate the consumers.

The sub divisional officer (SDO) concerned can accept the payment of arrears in instalments with the condition that minimum 50% amount of the arrears is paid in the first instalment. The number of instalments can be two for arrear up to Rs 10,000, three for up to Rs 30,000, four for up to Rs 50,000, five for up to Rs 2 lakh and eight instalments for the amount of arrear above Rs 2 lakh.

Singh reiterated the promise of 20-hour power supply in rural belts, if consumers ensured regular payment of electricity bills. "If consumers pay for the power they consume, there would be no hurdle in supplying electricity for 20 hours a day in villages. There is no shortage of electricity, but the power distribution utilities should have sufficient money to purchase it,'' he said

Singh also elaborated on the campaign to maintain strengthen and renovate the electricity distribution system all over the state would help consumers bring down the aggregate technical and commercial (AT and C) losses to the level of below 25% on their feeders to qualify for taking power supply on urban mode.

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee

Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.

But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on random headings rather than fly straight home, said Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist who authored a study that may help researchers understand how homing pigeons navigate.

Hagstrum's paper, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation—that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

Called infrasound, these sound waves propagate at frequencies well below the range audible to people, but pigeons can pick them up, said Hagstrum, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

"They're using sound to image the terrain [surrounding] their loft," he said. "It's like us visually recognizing our house using our eyes."

Homeward Bound?

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in. (Learn about how other animals navigate.)

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.

Until now, the two main theories say that pigeons rely either on their sense of smell to find their way home or that they follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, she said.

If something screwed up their sense of smell or their ability to follow those fields, the thinking has been, that could explain why pigeons got lost in certain areas.

But neither explanation made sense to Hagstrum, a geologist who grew interested in pigeons after attending an undergraduate lecture by Cornell biologist William Keeton. Keeton, who studied homing pigeons' navigation abilities, described some release-site biases in his pigeons and Hagstrum was hooked.

"I was just stunned and amazed and fascinated," said Hagstrum. "I understand we don't get dark matter or quantum mechanics, but bird [navigation]?"

So Hagstrum decided to look at Keeton's pigeon release data from three sites in upstate New York. At Castor Hill and Jersey Hill, the birds would repeatedly fly in the wrong direction or head off randomly when trying to return to their loft at Cornell University, even though they had no problems at other locations. At a third site near the town of Weedsport, young pigeons would head off in a different direction from older birds.

There were also certain days when the Cornell pigeons could find their way back home from these areas without any problems.

At the same time, homing pigeons from other lofts released at Castor Hill, Jersey Hill, and near Weedsport, would fly home just fine.

Sound Shadows

Hagstrum knew that homing pigeons could hear sounds as low as 0.05 hertz, low enough to pick up infrasounds that were down around 0.1 or 0.2 hertz. So he decided to map out what these low-frequency sound waves would have looked like on an average day, and on the days when the pigeons could home correctly from Jersey Hill.

He found that due to atmospheric conditions and local terrain, Jersey Hill normally sits in a sound shadow in relation to the Cornell loft. Little to none of the infrasounds from the area around the loft reached Jersey Hill except on one day when changing wind patterns and temperature inversions permitted.

That happened to match a day when the Cornell pigeons had no problem returning home.

"I could see how the topography was affecting the sound and how the weather was affecting the sound [transmission]," Hagstrum said. "It started to explain all these mysteries."

The terrain between the loft and Jersey Hill, combined with normal atmospheric conditions, bounced infrasounds up and over these areas.

Some infrasound would still reach Castor Hill, but due to nearby hills and valleys, the sound waves approached from the west and southwest, even though the Cornell loft is situated south-southwest of Castor Hill.

Records show that younger, inexperienced pigeons released at Castor Hill would sometimes fly west while older birds headed southwest, presumably following infrasounds from their loft.

Hagstrum's model found that infrasound normally arrived at the Weedsport site from the south. But one day of abnormal weather conditions, combined with a local river valley, resulted in infrasound that arrived at Weedsport from the Cornell loft from the southeast.

Multiple Maps

"What [Hagstrum] has found for those areas are a possible explanation for the [pigeon] behavior at these sites," said Bowling Green State's Mora. But she cautions against extrapolating these results to all homing pigeons.

Some of Mora's work supports the theory that homing pigeons use magnetic field lines to find their way home.

What homing pigeons are using as their map probably depends on where they're raised, she said. "In some places it may be infrasound, and in other places [a sense of smell] may be the way to go."

Hagstrum's next steps are to figure out how large an area the pigeons are listening to. He's also talking to the Navy and Air Force, who are interested in his work. "Right now we use GPS to navigate," he said. But if those satellites were compromised, "we'd be out of luck." Pigeons navigate from point to point without any problems, he said.

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Obama Confident Immigration Reform Will Pass

President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.

In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.

See Also: What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?

When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."

"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.

"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.

Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.

But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.

"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."

Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.

"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."

The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.

The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.

While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.

"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."

The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.

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Union says Congress can save money by lowering amount paid for contractor salaries

As policymakers prepare for the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, the largest federal employee union is taking the opportunity to press a pet peeve — large payments to federal contractors.

Labor leaders, including those with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), have long pushed Congress to lower payments for contractor salaries. The cap on Defense Department contractor pay now stands at $763,000, which is much more than President Obama makes.

AFGE said billions could be saved each year if the cap were set at $200,000, as the Obama administration has proposed. A cap would not prevent contractors from paying their employees more, but it would limit the amount the government provides for contractor salaries.

“Think about it,” said AFGE President J. David Cox, billions could be cut “from federal spending over the next decade with no impact on government services, simply by subsidizing these almost unimaginably wealthy contractor employees at a slightly less generous level.”

Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, which represents contractors, said the cap was put in place for two reasons: to “ensure companies can attract top executive talent but also ensure the government is not subsidizing egregious executive salaries.”

Lowering the cap, he added could “deny both the contractor and the government access to the talent it needs.”

The Obama administration also has pushed Congress to lower the amount paid to contractors. A year ago, a blog post from Leslie Field, acting administrator of the Office of Management and Budget’s office of federal procurement policy, said Obama wants “Congress to scrap an outdated law that requires taxpayers to foot the bill for excessive payments to CEOs and other senior executives of companies that contract with the Government.”

Because of that law, Field said taxpayers “have their hard-earned resources spent reimbursing contractor executives far in excess of what can be justified.”

In December, Congress considered, but did not approve a proposal to lower the cap. Instead, Congress told the Government Accountability Office to study the effect of reducing contractor compensation.

“Congress has had no problem freezing wages for one group of federal workers, yet many lawmakers have turned a blind eye to the outrageous salaries earned by another group,” Cox said. “Both workforces are paid for by American taxpayers. What’s the difference?”

Poll: Workers’ opinions

With the federal government going through an extended period of shrinking budgets, government managers will have to become better stewards of the workforce.

That’s the message from a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) report issued Tuesday.

The report is based on a survey of more than 42,000 federal workers. Although done in 2010, the survey has lessons that are relevant today as supervisors increasingly try to figure out how to get the job done with fewer resources.

Having few resources, namely staffers, is the reason the report was issued so long after the survey was done, according to MSBP.

“If agencies find they can no longer ‘do more with less,’ they may need to make hard decisions about what they can do with the resources they have,” says the report on “Managing Public Employees in the Public Interest.”

Dealing with workers who are not getting the job done can be a difficult task for managers. Federal managers are not very good at that, according to the surveyed employees. The managers also don’t fare well, in the eyes of employees, when it comes to making hard decisions about using their diminished resources.

Less than a quarter of federal employees said their agencies deal with poor performers effectively. Only 29 percent said their organizations eliminate unnecessary functions and positions.

On the positive side, agencies rate better, although not great, on standards of conduct, training and guarding the public interest. Sixty-four percent of employees said their agencies hold employees to high standards of conduct. Sixty percent said they get the necessary training and their agencies put the public interest first.

“Employees are being asked to make personal and professional sacrifices and they need to feel confident that leaders are using limited resources wisely,” MSPB Chairwoman Susan Tsui Grundmann said in a news release. “That requires agency leaders to make tough choices about the programs, functions or positions that they can support.”

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

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Tibetans in India launch drive against China

NEW DELHI: The Tibetan government-in-exile in India on Tuesday announced plans for a four-day campaign to bring global pressure on China in a bid to end a string of self-immolations in their Himalayan homeland.

Penpa Tsering, speaker of the exiled Tibetan parliament based in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala, said the drive would include rallies and meetings and begin in New Delhi on Wednesday.

"The situation is getting more and more grim," Tsering said at a joint news conference with Lobsang Sangay, who in 2011 took over political duties from revered Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and was named prime minister.

The two leaders said 99 Tibetans had set themselves on fire between 2009 and January 22 this year in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. Of that number, the government-in-exile says 83 have died.

"Instead of trying to address the main causes as to why self-immolations are taking place, as to why Tibetans are protesting in various other forms, the Chinese government has resorted to a blame game," Sangay said.

The Havard-educated scholar said India, home to tens of thousands of Tibetan exiles, "ought to speak out forcefully on Tibet".

The four-day campaign will call for visits to Tibet by UN fact-finding teams and the publication of details of human rights discussions between Beijing and foreign powers, Sangay said.

He said the Tibetan government as well as the parliament, which has been based in Dharamshala since the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising against China in 1959, were determined to highlight "repression of Tibetans in Tibet".

Both the Dalai Lama and the prime minister have appealed to Tibetans not to resort to self-immolation.

"We are against drastic action but we must highlight it (the situation in Tibet) to the international community," Sangay said.

Many Tibetans in China accuse the government of religious repression and eroding their culture, as the country's majority Han ethnic group increasingly moves into historically Tibetan areas.

China rejects that, saying Tibetans enjoy religious freedom. Beijing also points to the huge ongoing investment that it says has brought modernisation and a better standard of living to Tibet.

-AFP/fl

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Harbhajan Singh to produce Punjabi movies

JALANDHAR: Cricketer Harbhajan Singh (Bhajji) has moved on to film production and would start with Punjabi movies. He revealed this on Tuesday and said that he has started a production house named " Bhajji and Madan Production" which would be producing two Punjabi films initially.

"Work on the first movie would start around April or May. We are doing a lot of spade work and we also plan to call in Bollywood actors," Bhajji said.

Harbhajan clarified that his role would be confined to being a producer only and he would not act in these films.

Bhajji, however, said that he will making guest appearances in the movies.

"You will see some important personalities in these films," he said, but refused to elaborate further.

He said that cast of for his first production has been decided and Sumeep Kang, who directed Punjabi movie "Carry on Jatta", would be the director.

Asked about cricket as his profession, he said that he would be concentrating on the game while a team would be looking after film production.

Bhajji had earlier sung a song with a social message on "mother".

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Timbuktu’s vulnerable manuscripts are city’s "gold"

French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier.

But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. There are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.)

On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists.

Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings.

However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. (Read "The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu" in National Geographic magazine.)

A Written Legacy

The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques.

The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture.

"The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"

This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named.

Hiding the Texts

In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.)

Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to the Malian capital Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city.

"The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe."

Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu.

Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks.

Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from speaking in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.

A spokesman for the Islamists said it was "un-Islamic" for locals to "worship idols."

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Jodi Arias Borrowed Gas Cans Before Killing Ex

Accused murderer Jodi Arias borrowed two five-gallon gas cans from a former boyfriend the day before she drove to Arizona to kill another ex, Travis Alexander, according to testimony in Arias' murder trial today.

In cross examination, prosecutors also forced Arias' former live-in boyfriend Darryl Brewer to describe his sex life with Arias as "pretty aggressive."

Brewer, 52, dated Arias for four years and shared a home with her in California for two years. He told the court today that Arias called him in May 2008, asking to borrow gas cans, but would not explain why. She called him again at least two more times, and arrived at his house on June 2008, to borrow the cans.

On the day she picked up the gas cans she told Brewer that she was going to visit friends in California and Arizona.

Prosecutors argue that Arias then drove to Mesa, Ariz., where she allegedly had sex with Alexander, took nude photos of him, and then stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. She is charged with murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Arias, who claims she killed Alexander in self defense, had approached prosecutors two years ago offering to plea to a second degree murder charge, which could carry a 25 year term, but the state rejected the offer, Nancy Grace reported on Good Morning America today.

Brewer said that Arias never returned the gas cans. The pair had been broken up two years earlier and they had only spoken "sporadically," he said.

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Reported Plea Deal Attempt Watch Video

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Jodi Arias Trial: Explosive Recordings Played in Court Watch Video

Prosecutors also showed receipts from Arias' trip from her California home to Alexander's home in Mesa, showing that she purchased a 10 gallons of gas at one gas station the night before she drove to Arizona, and then another 10 gallons from a different gas station 10 minutes later. Prosecutors are expected to argue she brought the gas with her to fill up her car secretly on the way to Alexander's home, showing premeditation for the murder.

Arias' attorneys called Brewer as one of their first witnesses as they began mounting their case that Arias killed Alexander in self defense, arguing that Alexander was controlling and abusive toward Arias.

They asked Brewer to explain how he and Arias had been in a stable relationship for four years, from 2002 to 2006, and had bought a home together before Arias met Alexander at a business conference and began to change.

"I saw a lot of changes in Jodi. She became a different person than I had known previously," Brewer said, describing how Arias' behavior changed in May 2006 when she joined a company called Pre-Paid Legal. There, she met Alexander and began seeing him. She continued to live with Brewer.

"She had continued to pay the mortgage, but she was not paying other household bills, she began getting into debt or financial trouble," Brewer said. "For me it seemed she was not as rational or logical."

Arias also converted to Mormonism while living with Brewer, telling him that he could no longer curse and she would no longer have sex with him because she was saving herself for marriage.

The pair had previously had an "enthusiastic" and "aggressive" sex life, Brewer admitted to prosecutors. They had engaged in anal sex, Arias had taken nude photos of Brewer, and Arias had purchased breast implants in 2006, he testified.

Brewer said that after Arias began to change, he made arrangements to move closer to his son from his first marriage, and he and Arias broke up.

They kept in touch with occasional phone calls until Arias asked to borrow the gas cans in June 2008, and then called him a week after borrowing the cans to say that her friend had been killed.

Martinez, reading notes from an interview Brewer gave to authorities during the investigation into Alexander's death, asked if Arias had ever mentioned needing an "alibi." Brewer said he did not recall any conversation about alibis.

"After this date of June 4, 2008," Martinez asked, "you received a call from Jodi Arias, and she was very agitated?"

"She was sad," Brewer said.

"Did she tell you that her friend had been killed and she did not have an alibi?"

"I don't remember that," Brewer said.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander was found dead, in July 2008.

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Bipartisan group of senators to unveil framework for immigration overhaul

A key group of senators from both parties will unveil on Monday the framework of a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants.

The detailed, four-page statement of principles will carry the signatures of four Republicans and four Democrats, a bipartisan push that would have been unimaginable just months ago on one of the country’s most emotionally divisive issues.

The document is intended to provide guideposts that would allow legislation to be drafted by the end of March, including a potentially controversial “tough but fair” route to citizenship for those now living in the country illegally.

[Do you think the new immigration plan will work? Discuss this and other immigration issues in The Washington Post’s new political forums.]

It would allow undocumented immigrants with otherwise clean criminal records to quickly achieve probationary legal residency after paying a fine and back taxes.

But they could pursue full citizenship — giving them the right to vote and access to government benefits — only after new measures are in place to prevent a future influx of illegal immigrants.

Those would include additional border security, a new program to help employers verify the legal status of their employees and more-stringent checks to prevent immigrants from overstaying visas.

And those undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship would be required to go to the end of the waiting list to get a green card that would allow permanent residency and eventual citizenship, behind those who had already legally applied at the time of the law’s enactment.

The goal is to balance a fervent desire by advocates and many Democrats to allow illegal immigrants to emerge from society’s shadows without fear of deportation with a concern held by many Republicans that doing so would only encourage more illegal immigration.

“We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited,” the group asserts in its statement of principles.

The framework identifies two groups as deserving of special consideration for a separate and potentially speedier pathway to full citizenship: young people who were brought to the country illegally as minors and agricultural workers whose labor, often at subsistence wages, has long been critical to the nation’s food supply.

Expanding visas

The plan also addresses the need to expand available visas for high-tech workers and promises to make green cards available for those who pursue graduate education in certain fields in the United States.

“We must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States,” the group will declare.

The new proposal marks the most substantive bipartisan step Congress has taken toward new immigration laws since a comprehensive reform bill failed on the floor of the Senate in 2007.

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Australia PM's partner apologises for Asian doctor joke

SYDNEY: The partner of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose fiery speech against sexism last year made global headlines, apologised Tuesday for making a quip about an "Asian female doctor".

Tim Mathieson made the comment during a reception at The Lodge in Canberra on Monday night attended by members of the West Indies cricket team.

Mathieson, who has worked to raise awareness about men's health issues, brought up the need for men to have regular checks for prostate cancer.

"Go and get that exam that none of us like to have done, but we know we should," Mathieson said. Gillard was standing behind him at the time.

"We can get a blood test for it but the digital examination is the only true way to get a correct reading on your prostate, so make sure you go and do that. And perhaps look(ing) for a small Asian female doctor is probably the best way..."

The comment was met with laughter at the time, but the opposition said Mathieson's remark was in bad taste and he later apologised.

"It was meant as a joke, and on reflection I accept it was in poor taste," he said in a statement.

"I apologise for any offence caused."

Gillard, the nation's first female leader, caused a global stir in October when she lashed out at opposition leader Tony Abbott in parliament, saying she would not be "lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man".

She said Tuesday that Mathieson was passionate about getting out the message to men to get recommended health checks, but agreed the apology was the right thing to do.

"Tim's apologised for a joke that was in poor taste," she said.

-AFP/fl

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Court adjourns Patiala gang rape case till Feb 4

PATIALA: Patiala court, on Monday, adjourned the Patiala gang rape and suicide case till February 4 after the defence lawyer sought the copy of a compact disc, allegedly containing statement of the victim.

"The CD was prepared by a cameraman of Samana and now police have made that a case property. We want to hear the exact wording of the girl," said Kundan Singh Nagra, counsel of the accused, after coming out of court. All five accused including Balwinder Singh, Gurprit Singh, Sandip Singh, Chinder Kaur and dismissed sub-inspector Nasib Singh were present in the court.

On November 13, 2012, Balwinder and Gurprit had allegedly kidnapped the minor girl from Badshahpr village, and repeatedly raped her at the tubewell room of Sandip Singh near Brahamanmajra village. Instead of taking any action, the cops had allegedly pressurized the family for compromise and had finally registered a rape case on November 27. But since the police did not arrest any accused, who continued to harass the victim, she consumed poison on December 26 and died in the evening.

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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US Mom Missing in Turkey Took Side Trips

Sarai Sierra, the New York mother who disappeared in Turkey while on a solo trip, took several side excursions out of the country, but stayed in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Turkish media reported today that police were trying to establish why Sierra visited Amsterdam and Munich. Police were also trying to establish the identity of a man Sierra, 33, was chatting with on the Internet, according to local media.

Rachel Norman, a family friend, said the man was a group tour guide from the Netherlands and said Sierra stayed in regular touch with her family in New York.

Steven Sierra, Sarai's husband, and David Jimenez, her brother, arrived in Istanbul today to aid in the search.

The men have been in contact with officials from the U.S. consulate in the country and plan to meet with them as soon as they open on Tuesday, Norman said.

After that, she said Sierra and Jimenez would meet with Turkish officials to discuss plans and search efforts.

Family of Sarai Sierra|AP Photo

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Sarai Sierra was supposed to fly back to the United States on Jan. 22, but she never showed up for her flight home.

Her two boys, ages 11 and 9, have not been told their mother is missing.

Sierra, an avid photographer, left New York on Jan. 7. It was her first overseas trip, and she decided to go ahead after a friend had to cancel, her family said.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul.

But when it came time to pick her up from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Sierra wasn't on board her scheduled flight.

Steven Sierra called United Airlines and was told his wife had never boarded the flight home.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey, he said.

The family is suspicious and said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the Turkish National Police are involved in the investigation, WABC-TV reported.

"They've been keeping us posted, from my understanding they've been looking into hospitals and sending out word to police stations over there," Steven Sierra said. "Maybe she's, you know, locked up, so they are doing what they can."

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Sensitive skin problems aren't skin deep

SINGAPORE: Most might assume that sensitive skin is mainly due to in an intake of the wrong food, or the application of the wrong product.

However, the main reason for sensitive skin lies on the surface of the skin, and what that layer is subjected to from the daily environment.

In a sensitive skin survey held by Curél, the dermatological research oriented brainchild of Japanese chemical and cosmetics giant Kao, almost half of the respondents from various countries claimed to suffer from sensitive skin.

And within this number, Singaporeans make up a whopping 70 percent.

Part of the reason lies in Singapore's tropical climate –from wet and rainy, to sunny but humid – coupled with hours spent in drying air-conditioned environments whether at work, home or even shopping.

More precisely, as explained by Curél's skincare expert Koicihi Ishida, skin in the Singapore environment is subject to "enhanced blood circulation and skin dryness due to the rapid change of the temperature and humidity within a short time frame".

"At high temperatures and humidity, skin cells swell when sweat is produced, reducing the skin's barrier function" he explains.

"On the other hand, low temperatures and a humidity level of 50 percent or less will cause the skin's moisture to decrease directly and become dry. Either way, the skin becomes sensitive and easily irritated."

In other words, the root of the problem of sensitive skin isn't skin deep.

In fact, it lies with the outermost layer of the skin, known as the stratum corneum (SC).

It is the first barrier between the skin and the external environment, and offers protection to the underlying tissue from infection, dehydration, chemicals and physical stress.

The top layer stratum corneum is largely held together by ceramide.

According to Curél, about half of all sensitive skin cases is due to the SC's impaired function, making it the main cause, as well as solution, to various sensitive skin conditions.

As skin expert Ishida points out, sensitive skins possess low levels of ceramide, a key element in the SC.

In developing a skincare range that targets sensitive skin, Curél therefore focused its attention on ceramide and replenishing the skin's supply of this intercellular lipid.

Tackling the problem from within also helps, with an intake of naturally occurring ceramide in food stuffs such as soya beans, spinach, rice, wheat flour and the high-fibre, jelly-like konjac or konnyaku, as the product is known in Japan where it's often served in oden or as noodle strips.

Ceramide works by fusing with the skin's moisture and oil to prevent moisture loss while holding skin cells together, similar to a brick and mortar structure that creates a barrier function for the SC.

With ceramide care, sensitive skin is directly treated to improve and replenish the impaired SC barrier which will in turn suppresses the sensitive symptoms and conditions, making the skin more resistant to external irritants.

But this is not a one-hit, one-week solution as the experts will point out.

The newly recovered skin can revert to its troubled state without proper maintenance, or in the case of more serious skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis, where ceramide drops to its original low state.

The Curél skincare range for sensitive skin runs a gamut of applications, from face and body to scalp and hair, and everyone from adults to babies, are supposed to be able to use the products.

How could so that be so?

"Although the two skin types may differ in thickness, appendices and sensitivity, the fundamental structure and function of the skin is common for the young and old of both sexes," explains Ishida.

"For the elderly, they have dry skin due to old age and it's usually accompanied with itchiness, which can be seen especially on the lower thigh area. In many cases, their SC's barrier function is damaged."

The same concept of reinforcing the SC's protective function applies to babies and the young, as the risk of sensitive skin is in fact higher in the young, than when a person ages.

"After birth, a baby's skin tends to be influenced by the environment and thus its skin condition might worsen as it is naturally delicate and sensitive," Ishida points out, while adding that "it is proven by the mild skin care from an early stage that a baby can maintain the healthy skin after growing up."

"Therefore, it is important to have a skincare regime from an early stage to prevent skin issues during their growing up process" he advises.

So even if you don't suffer from sensitive skin, there's little reason not to protect your skin the way it has been protecting you all this while.

-CNA/fl

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TOI Social Impact Awards: An evening to honour India's changemakers

They took the path less travelled, and on Monday it will lead a group of remarkable men and women to the stage for the second Times of India Social Impact Awards in association with J P Morgan. The awards are being given to changemakers within NGOs, corporates and the government who have quietly worked to transform the lives of millions of marginalized Indians.

President Pranab Mukherjee will be the chief guest at the awards function. Joining him, and a power-packed audience consisting of top achievers from diverse fields, will be beneficiaries of the organisations selected for the awards.

For some beneficiaries, this visit to the capital will mark the first time they have travelled beyond the boundaries of their district. Awards in 17 categories will be presented by the beneficiaries.

The awardees and beneficiaries collectively represent the very best of India in all its fascinating diversity. They range from nine-year-old Jyoti Prajapat from Ajmer district to 83-year-old Thokchom Ramani Leima from Imphal. Jyoti will join 10-year-old Ujala Kumari from Delhi to present the award for educat8ion in the NGO sector to Room to Read India, whose libraries gave both girls an abiding love for reading. Leima will take the stage with four other women members of Meira Paibi, the fearless group of women from Manipur who will share the Lifetime Achievement Award with the Naga Mothers Association. The two groups have battled social evils like alcoholism and drug abuse, and spearheaded peace efforts in the insurgency-ridden region.

Others who will present awards include Sarjubai Meena, a grandmother from Bhilwara who is known as the "woman with the turban". Sarjubai will present the award for Environment in the NGO category to the Foundation for Ecological Security, which helped her and others turn the village into a fertile, prosperous one, in which Sarjubai, a dalit woman, now feels she has earned the right to wear a turban.

Eleven-year-old twins Hiranya and Thiruvara Bhargavi who were born with cerebral palsy, will present the award for health in the Government category to the National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities, whose pioneering insurance scheme helped them access life-saving surgeries.

The hunt for India's real heroes began in August last year when the Times of India invited applications from NGOs, corporates and government organisations in five categories: livelihoods, advocacy and empowerment, education, health and the environment. Online applications were accepted between October 2 and 30, 2012 through a dedicated website. A National Search Panel of eight eminent persons with long experience in the development sector was also constituted in early August, which identified 126 organisations worth consideration, who were then motivated to apply.

Facebook and Twitter pages helped answer questions about application procedures and kick-start a discussion. Finally, over 1500 entries were received, spanning the length and breadth of the country. The majority of applications were from NGOs.

The eight key parameters to evaluate the entries were significance of the issue addressed, scale, replicability, sustainability, finances, people's participation, innovativeness and promotion of equity. Every claim had to be backed up with documents and financial details had to be transparent. A specialist group consisting of philanthropy specialists from Dasra, GiveIndia and GuideStar India screened the entries and 20 sector-experts then evaluated these entries to prepare a final shortlist of 41 entries. TOI reporters conducted field visits of each entry.

An eminent jury comprising Unique Identification Authority of India chairperson Nandan Nilekani; Magsaysay awardee and National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy; former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra; Magsaysay awardee and former Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh; Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed; former chairperson of Thermax Limited and Rajya Sabha MP Anu Aga; Centre for Science and Education director-general Sunita Narain and HDFC Bank chairperson Deepak Parekh spent an afternoon debating and discussing, before selecting the winners. The jury also nominated a Global Contribution to India award winner and a Lifetime Achievement award winner.

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