WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dozen Republican senators talked about how to reach a "big agreement" on the nation's debt and deficit over dinner with President Barack Obama on Wednesday night, the start of what one of the senators hoped was a new round of intense fiscal discussions.
"It was a really good conversation. It was candid. We really talked about how do we get to a big agreement in terms of the debt and deficit?" Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota said after the private dinner with Obama at the Jefferson Hotel near the White House.
Obama also enjoyed the dinner, a senior administration official said in a statement, noting "a good exchange of ideas with the senators."
Hoeven said he felt "genuine desire" among the people in the room to tackle tax and entitlement reform in the next four to five months, as the White House and Congress face a series of deadlines to fund the government and deal with the debt ceiling.
"That really creates pressure to come to an agreement, a big-picture agreement," Hoeven told Reuters.
The meeting came on the heels of the failure of the White House and Congress to agree on how to avert $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts called the "sequester," which has touched off a fight about who was to blame.
Hoeven said he was optimistic that Republicans and Democrats both wanted to work through the issues and avert more congressional gridlock.
"I hope things are changing," he said.
But Hoeven emphasized it would take a lot more talks, led by Obama, to make progress.
"This kind of intense dialogue needs to be continuous," he said.
Obama is slated to meet with the full Republican Senate caucus next week, and will also pay a visit to Republicans in the House of Representatives.
"I think we'll make some progress," Hoeven said. "We have to get there."
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina drew up the guest list for the dinner, the White House said. Other senators there were Bob Corker of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John McCain of Arizona, Dan Coats of Indiana, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Peter Cooney)
FILE - A Thursday Sept. 16, 2010 photo from files showing Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien speaking to the media in Edinburgh, Scotland. Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to marry and have children, Britain's most senior Catholic cleric said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who heads the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said the requirement for priestly celibacy is "not of divine origin" and could be reconsidered. He told BBC Scotland that "the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry _ Jesus didn't say that." (AP Photo/Scott Campbell, File)
FILE - A Thursday Sept. 16, 2010 photo from files showing Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien speaking to the media in Edinburgh, Scotland. Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to marry and have children, Britain's most senior Catholic cleric said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who heads the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said the requirement for priestly celibacy is "not of divine origin" and could be reconsidered. He told BBC Scotland that "the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry _ Jesus didn't say that." (AP Photo/Scott Campbell, File)
LONDON (AP) ? A Scottish cardinal who stepped down from church leadership after admitting sexual misconduct should apologize to gay people for his years of "vicious and cruel language" about them, Britain's leading gay-rights group said Monday.
Officials in the Vatican refused to say whether they would formally investigate allegations against Cardinal Keith O'Brien. He resigned last week as Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric after being accused of inappropriate behavior by three priests and a former priest.
Until his abrupt resignation as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, O'Brien had been due to join cardinals from around the world in Rome for a conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
The cardinals met Monday, without O'Brien, for the first of their pre-conclave meetings.
The Scottish Catholic Media Office said the complaints against O'Brien had been reported to the Vatican, and it expected there would be an investigation.
The Vatican refused to confirm or deny Monday whether it was investigating O'Brien, and declined to say when it learned of the allegations against him. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, repeated his statement from last week, which was that the original four accusers had sent their complaint via the papal ambassador to Britain, and the pope had been informed.
Pressed to respond to reports of a purported fifth accuser, who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, another spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement and said the Vatican would say no more.
O'Brien has not directly addressed the allegations against him, which include "an inappropriate approach" to a seminarian after night prayers and "inappropriate contact" with another priest.
But he said Sunday that "my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."
"To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness," he said.
Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights organization Stonewall, said Monday that the group noted "with sadness that the cardinal didn't find it in him to apologize to gay people, their families and friends for the harm his vicious and cruel language caused."
That view was echoed by veteran human rights activist Peter Tatchell, who urged the cardinal "to show true remorse for his homophobia and hypocrisy by saying sorry to the gay community for the hatred and harm he has caused ? and by publicly repenting his homophobia."
O'Brien, 74, had been a staunch advocate of church teaching against homosexuality, calling same-sex marriage "a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" and saying that British government plans to legalize same-sex marriage would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world."
Last year, Stonewall named O'Brien "Bigot of the Year" for his hard line on homosexuality.
Despite his views on same-sex relationships, O'Brien was long known for his relatively liberal stance on some social issues.
Shortly after he was named cardinal in 2003, O'Brien made an unusual public pledge to defend Roman Catholic Church teaching, having previously suggested there should be more open discussion on issues such as the requirement of celibacy for priests and the church's ban on contraception.
The cardinal largely kept those views to himself over the next decade, although he reiterated them in an interview with the BBC just before the allegations against him emerged. O'Brien told the broadcaster that he was open to priests marrying and having children.
"The celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry ? Jesus didn't say that," he said in the interview last month. "When I was a young boy, the priest didn't get married and that was it. I would be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should get married."
Another British cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said Monday that the claims against O'Brien weren't necessarily evidence that the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church ? which has been wracked by scandals over sexual abuse by priests ? was in need of deep reform.
"There's always been sinners in the church but there's always been saints," he told BBC radio from Rome.
Murphy-O'Connor ? who, at 80, is too old to vote in the conclave ? said that while sometimes wrongdoing was the responsibility of the church, "sometimes it is just the weakness of individuals and the wrong that they do."
?"To say that this is all in the church, I just don't think it is true," he said.
___
Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
Reading the human genomePublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab researchers produce first step-by-step look at transcription initiation
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have achieved a major advance in understanding how genetic information is transcribed from DNA to RNA by providing the first step-by-step look at the biomolecular machinery that reads the human genome.
"We've provided a series of snapshots that shows how the genome is read one gene at a time," says biophysicist Eva Nogales who led this research. "For the genetic code to be transcribed into messenger RNA, the DNA double helix has to be opened and the strand of gene sequences has to be properly positioned so that RNA polymerase, the enzyme that catalyzes transcription, knows where the gene starts. The electron microscopy images we produced show how this is done."
Says Paula Flicker of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partly funded the research, "The process of transcription is essential to all living things so understanding how it initiates is enormously important. This work is a beautiful example of integrating multiple approaches to reveal the structure of a large molecular complex and provide insight into the molecular basis of a fundamental cellular process."
Nogales, who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab, the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this study in the journal Nature. The paper is titled "Structural visualization of key steps in human transcription initiation." Co-authors are Yuan He, Jie Fang and Dylan Taatjes.
The fundamental process of life by which information in the genome of a living cell is used to generate biomolecules that carry out cellular activities is the so-called "central dogma of molecular biology." It states that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. This straightforward flow of information is initiated by an elaborate system of proteins that operate in a highly choreographed fashion with machine-like precision. Understanding how this protein machinery works in the context of passing genetic information from DNA to RNA (transcription) is a must for identifying malfunctions that can turn cells cancerous or lead to a host of other problems.
Nogales and members of her research group used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), where protein samples are flash-frozen at liquid nitrogen temperatures to preserve their structure, to carry out in vitro studies of reconstituted and purified versions of the "transcription pre-initiation complex." This complex is a large assemblage of proteins comprised of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) plus a class of proteins known as general transcription factors that includes the TATA-binding protein (TBP), TFIIA, TFIIB, TFIIF, TFIIE and TFIIH. All of the components in this complex work together to ensure the accurate loading of DNA into Pol II at the start of a gene sequence.
"There's been a lack of structural information on how the transcription pre-initiation complex complex is assembled, but with cryo-EM and our in vitro reconstituted system we've been able to provide pseudo-atomic models at various stages of transcription initiation that illuminate critical molecular interactions during this step-by-step process," Nogales says.
The in vitro reconstituted transcription pre-initiation complex was developed by Yuan He, lead author on the Nature paper and a post-doctoral student in Nogales's research group.
"This reconstituted system provided a model for the sequential assembly pathway of transcription initiation and was essential for us to get the most biochemically homogenous samples," Nogales says. "Also essential was our ability to use automated data collection and processing so that we could generate all our structures in a robust manner."
Among the new details revealed in the step-by-step cryo-EM images was how the transcription factor protein TFIIF engages Pol II and promoter DNA to stabilize both a closed DNA pre-initiation complex and an open DNA-promoter complex, and also how it regulates the selection of a transcription start-site.
"Comparing the closed versus open DNA states led us to propose a model that describes how DNA is moved during the process of promoter opening," says He. "Our studies provide insight into how THIIH uses ATP hydrolysis as a source of energy to actually open and push the DNA to the active site of Pol II."
Nogales and her colleagues plan to further investigate the process of DNA loading into Pol II, as well as to include additional transcription factors into the assembly that are required for regulation of gene expression.
"Our goal is to actually build a structural model of the entire - more than two million daltons - protein machinery that recognizes and regulates all human DNA promoters," Nogales says. "For now we have the structural framework that's been needed to integrate biochemical and structural data into a unified mechanistic understanding of transcription initiation."
###
This research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Cancer Institute under NIH grant numbers GM063072 and CA127364.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Reading the human genomePublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lynn Yarris lcyarris@lbl.gov 510-486-5375 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley Lab researchers produce first step-by-step look at transcription initiation
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have achieved a major advance in understanding how genetic information is transcribed from DNA to RNA by providing the first step-by-step look at the biomolecular machinery that reads the human genome.
"We've provided a series of snapshots that shows how the genome is read one gene at a time," says biophysicist Eva Nogales who led this research. "For the genetic code to be transcribed into messenger RNA, the DNA double helix has to be opened and the strand of gene sequences has to be properly positioned so that RNA polymerase, the enzyme that catalyzes transcription, knows where the gene starts. The electron microscopy images we produced show how this is done."
Says Paula Flicker of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partly funded the research, "The process of transcription is essential to all living things so understanding how it initiates is enormously important. This work is a beautiful example of integrating multiple approaches to reveal the structure of a large molecular complex and provide insight into the molecular basis of a fundamental cellular process."
Nogales, who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab, the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this study in the journal Nature. The paper is titled "Structural visualization of key steps in human transcription initiation." Co-authors are Yuan He, Jie Fang and Dylan Taatjes.
The fundamental process of life by which information in the genome of a living cell is used to generate biomolecules that carry out cellular activities is the so-called "central dogma of molecular biology." It states that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. This straightforward flow of information is initiated by an elaborate system of proteins that operate in a highly choreographed fashion with machine-like precision. Understanding how this protein machinery works in the context of passing genetic information from DNA to RNA (transcription) is a must for identifying malfunctions that can turn cells cancerous or lead to a host of other problems.
Nogales and members of her research group used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), where protein samples are flash-frozen at liquid nitrogen temperatures to preserve their structure, to carry out in vitro studies of reconstituted and purified versions of the "transcription pre-initiation complex." This complex is a large assemblage of proteins comprised of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) plus a class of proteins known as general transcription factors that includes the TATA-binding protein (TBP), TFIIA, TFIIB, TFIIF, TFIIE and TFIIH. All of the components in this complex work together to ensure the accurate loading of DNA into Pol II at the start of a gene sequence.
"There's been a lack of structural information on how the transcription pre-initiation complex complex is assembled, but with cryo-EM and our in vitro reconstituted system we've been able to provide pseudo-atomic models at various stages of transcription initiation that illuminate critical molecular interactions during this step-by-step process," Nogales says.
The in vitro reconstituted transcription pre-initiation complex was developed by Yuan He, lead author on the Nature paper and a post-doctoral student in Nogales's research group.
"This reconstituted system provided a model for the sequential assembly pathway of transcription initiation and was essential for us to get the most biochemically homogenous samples," Nogales says. "Also essential was our ability to use automated data collection and processing so that we could generate all our structures in a robust manner."
Among the new details revealed in the step-by-step cryo-EM images was how the transcription factor protein TFIIF engages Pol II and promoter DNA to stabilize both a closed DNA pre-initiation complex and an open DNA-promoter complex, and also how it regulates the selection of a transcription start-site.
"Comparing the closed versus open DNA states led us to propose a model that describes how DNA is moved during the process of promoter opening," says He. "Our studies provide insight into how THIIH uses ATP hydrolysis as a source of energy to actually open and push the DNA to the active site of Pol II."
Nogales and her colleagues plan to further investigate the process of DNA loading into Pol II, as well as to include additional transcription factors into the assembly that are required for regulation of gene expression.
"Our goal is to actually build a structural model of the entire - more than two million daltons - protein machinery that recognizes and regulates all human DNA promoters," Nogales says. "For now we have the structural framework that's been needed to integrate biochemical and structural data into a unified mechanistic understanding of transcription initiation."
###
This research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Cancer Institute under NIH grant numbers GM063072 and CA127364.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
California-based?ListedBy?has?announced that it has eliminated all user registration requirements previously needed to research listings on ListedBy.com.
The company said that the change has been designed to further enhance user experience on ListedBy.com and it affects all residential and commercial listing data categories including public real estate auctions, government real estate auctions, REO auctions, pre-foreclosure and foreclosure listings, and MLS Listings.
Residential real estate auction, luxury real estate auctions, government real estate auctions, public real estate auction, real estate auction sites, commercial real estate auctions, reo auctions, government real estate auctions, real estate auction companies
The shift reinforces ListedBy?s focus on improving efficiencies and productivity in real estate, by optimizing transparency and connectivity between buyers and sellers, and by eliminating all fees associated with access to listing data and real estate auctions, including subscriptions, participation fees and auction buyers? premiums.
?Our vision for real estate is an open, fully transparent and free environment for everyone,? said Stephan Piscano, CEO and Founder, ListedBy. ?By giving residential and commercial property buyers easy access to data, including distressed assets, and by giving sellers a platform to reach and be reached directly by buyers, we?re cultivating a more vibrant, more productive industry.?
Free registration remains a requirement for users who wish to post listings, bid on properties and post in the Forum on LB Social?.
Traffic on ListedBy.com is expected to surpass 30,000 unique visitors for February 2013, with the average stay on the site recorded to date at over five minutes.
Tagged as: California, ListedBy.com, Napa, real estate listing data, realtors, unlocks access, USA
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Variety, the venerable trade paper that has covered Hollywood for more than a century, is dropping its daily print edition and replacing it with a weekly publication starting next month.
The publication also will have a new management structure featuring three editors-in-chief and will remove the paywall that was put up on its website three years ago.
"It was an interesting experiment that didn't work. We look forward to welcoming back longtime Variety readers when the paywall drops March 1," said Jay Penske, the chairman and CEO of Variety's parent company.
Variety's last daily print edition will be published March 18. A Tuesday-only publication will debut March 26 and will be augmented throughout the year by several special editions reporting on the industry's many awards shows and other topics of interest to Hollywood movers and shakers.
"We remain committed to a print edition of Variety and are excited that it will expand in size and scope of coverage," the paper's publisher, Michelle Sobrino, said in a story Tuesday on the paper's website (http://bit.ly/YVaMUr ).
Variety also announced that three veteran Hollywood journalists, Claudia Eller, Cynthia Littleton and Andrew Wallenstein, are assuming the titles editor-in-chief.
Eller joins the paper after 20 years with the Los Angeles Times, where she was most recently entertainment news editor. Littleton was most recently deputy editor of Variety and Wallenstein was the trade paper's television editor.
Executive editor Steven Gaydos will continue to oversee Variety's editorial department. Tim Gray, the current editor-in-chief, will remain in a leadership role, overseeing special projects and expansion of international coverage.
Variety has been a fixture in Hollywood since its founding in 1905, but like other traditional print publications has struggled in recent years as news has moved to other formats.
It was purchased last year for $25 million by Penske Media Corp., which also owns the popular Hollywood website Deadline.
___
Information from: Daily Variety, http://www.variety.com
A White House report stresses the huge impact the sequester spending cuts would have on states. For some states, that might be true. But for others, the cuts might just be a blip.
By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / February 25, 2013
Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia (l.) and Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland speak on CBS's 'Face the Nation' in Washington Sunday. McDonnell joined with O'Malley to call for Congress to prevent impending defense cuts that would hit their states hard.
Chris Usher/CBS News/AP
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A White House report released Sunday is designed to send a clear message: If automatic spending cuts take effect, your state will be affected.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Correspondent Liz Marlantes with insights into the politics behind the impending spending cuts.
The report on the "sequester" includes 50 state documents ? plus one more for the District of Columbia ? to show ?the devastating impact the sequester will have on jobs and middle class families across the country if Congressional Republicans fail to compromise to avert the sequester by March 1st.?
But, rather than making the case that the cuts will be devastating, the 51 reports suggest the sequester?s impact would vary widely by state, depending largely on the degree of activity related to the US military. And in many states, defense plays a small role in the economy.
Consider one large Midwestern state, Ohio. The White House report for this state finds that 26,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department would be furloughed, with a new work schedule that reduces their gross pay by $161.4 million during the fiscal year that ends in September.
That sounds large. But, when coupled with $5 million in expected cuts to Army and Air Force operations in Ohio, that amounts to about $14 for each of Ohio?s 11.5 million residents, spread over half a year. Ohio would take an additional hit from a decline in defense contractor work, but that industry (not analyzed in the White House estimates) makes up only about 2 percent of the state?s economy.
By contrast, some states would see much larger defense-related impact from the sequester, either because they have lots of civilian defense workers (Virginia, Maryland) or lots of military operations (Hawaii, Alaska) or lots of defense contractors (Washington, Connecticut) relative to their overall population.
The sequester would also affect a host of non-defense federal activities across the 50 states. Those, also, would be somewhat unevenly dispersed among states. But only in Maryland, Virginia, and New Mexico does non-defense federal spending account for more than 5 percent of economic output, according to research by forecasters at the banking firm Wells Fargo.
WWE Divas Alicia Fox and Natalya will visit refugee camps in Rwanda this week as part of their alliance with the United Nations Foundation?s Nothing But Nets campaign to help raise awareness and funds to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. WWE?s Divas will help distribute life-saving bed nets to help protect refugee families, who are fleeing conflict in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, from malaria. They will also meet with officials from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) to learn about the humanitarian situation there.
?Refugees already face unimaginable hardships,? said Chris Helfrich, Director of Nothing But Nets. ?A simple bed net can stop mothers and children from worrying about a deadly mosquito bite. We?re proud to show the WWE Divas?and WWE fans everywhere?how malaria prevention tools like bed nets keep families safe. With more than 140 million social media fans, WWE and its Divas have an incredible opportunity to spread the buzz about stopping malaria.?
Nothing But Nets has partnered with UNHCR since 2008, working together to provide vulnerable refugee families fleeing conflict or natural disasters with insecticide-treated mosquito nets that can keep them safe from malaria. The partners have provided more than 1 million bed nets to refugees living in camps across Africa; as a result, malaria dropped from the leading killer of refugees to the number five cause of death.
?WWE is proud to partner with Nothing But Nets to raise awareness and funds to protect families from deadly malaria,? said Stephanie McMahon, WWE Executive Vice President, Creative. ?Through our partnership, WWE will continue to reach out to our passionate fan base to spread the message about preventing this disease. It is our hope that when WWE fans learn that a child dies from malaria every 60 seconds, they will be inspired to send a net and save a life.? WWE aims to send 20,000 bed nets to refugees.
The trip is part of Nothing But Nets? alliance with WWE, announced at the 2012 Social Good Summit. There, UN Foundation Resident Entrepreneur Elizabeth Gore appeared with McMahon and WWE Divas Layla and Alicia Fox, who urged their fans to support Nothing But Nets online and offline.
Since 2006, Nothing But Nets has raised more than $45 million from hundreds of thousands of grassroots supporters, and sent more than 7 million bed nets to families across Africa. Anyone?from students to CEOs?can help protect families in Africa from malaria. To learn more and to donate, visit NothingButNets.net.
You may have heard a new PadFone was on the way -- it's not like ASUS has been dropping obvious hints or anything. In any case, surprise! ASUS just unveiled a new model, the PadFone Infinity. Like other PadFones, this is a handset that slips into a tablet-like dock, allowing you to make use of a bigger screen. This time, though, it ships with Android 4.2, and the display has grown from 4.7 inches to 5. The resolution is now 1080p (up from 720p), which comes out to 441 pixels per inch. Additionally, the tablet's 10.1-inch screen has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, up from 1,280 x 800 in the last-gen model. It's plenty bright, too, at 400 nits, but that's a slight step down from the last-gen model, which lit up to 500 nits.
What's more, the phone's gotten an upgrade on the inside: it now packs a quad-core, 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 chip with an Adreno 320 GPU, some of the freshest components Qualcomm has to offer at the moment. Also on-board, you get 2GB of RAM to help boost performance, with your choice of either 32GB or 64GB of built-in storage. As far as connectivity, you're looking at EDGE, GPRS, GSM, WCDMA, LTE and DC-HSPA+, along with all the usual radios: WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, A-GPS and even GLONASS. According to an ASUS rep, the device uses a nano-SIM rather than micro-SIM. Around back, ASUS has added a 13-megapixel autofocusing camera with an LED flash, five-element, f/2.0 lens and burst shooting at eight fps. There's a front camera too, capped at 2MP, in case you want to do the occasional video chat. Meanwhile, a slightly bigger 2,400mAh battery promises up to 19 hours of 3G talk time, and up to 40 with the dock attached.
Like every other PadFone that's been released, this won't be available in the US, but the phone-and-dock combo will cost £799 / €999 when it goes on sale in Europe this April. The phone is also headed to Asia, though we don't have any more details. You'll also have your choice of colors, we hear: gray, gold and hot pink, if that's what you're into. Check out our hands-on gallery for a closer look.
Update: Hands-on photos and videos now added. You're welcome.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Relatives of the young Afghan star of "Buzkashi Boys" expressed more pride than disappointment upon learning on Monday that the Oscar-nominated movie didn't win.
Fawad Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz, both 14, donned tuxedos for the ceremony after traveling from Kabul to Los Angeles for a trip down the red carpet.
The 28-minute movie is about two penniless young boys ? a street urchin and a blacksmith's son ? who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.
Fawad's brothers got up early to watch the show, which began at 6 a.m. Monday in Kabul, on an Internet feed provided by The Associated Press. They didn't flinch as actor Jamie Foxx announced that "Curfew" was the winner in the live action short film category.
"Although the movie didn't win, I'm very happy that Fawad made it to such a place. I'm very happy for him. At the same time he is my brother and I miss him," said Fawad's 19-year-old brother, Ahmad Jawad Mohammadi.
"Buzkashi Boys" was directed by Sam French, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Afghanistan for about five years, and funded in large part with a grant of more than $200,000 from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as part of an effort to encourage Afghans to see the parts of their country that aren't mired in conflict.
Jawanmard, who has been acting since he was five, played the street peddler while Fawad was the blacksmith's son.
The movie ? the first installment in a project aimed at training local film industry workers ? gained international attention when it received an Academy Awards nomination.
Fawad's story got special attention because he was discovered by French while peddling maps to foreigners in the Afghan capital, one of an untold number of Afghan youths hustling in the streets to help earn money for their families.
He started selling chewing gum when he was about seven years old and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries, learning to speak English during his interactions with foreigners on Chicken Street, an area in Kabul with shops selling multicolor rugs, crafts and souvenirs. He was even able to enroll in a private school, thanks to the generosity of some other foreigners unrelated to the film project.
His brother-in-law said it was an important first step for Fawad to act in such a high-profile film and appear among the rich and famous at the Oscars.
"Fawad is not only my relative ... he is a source of pride for Afghanistan. This time he made it to the Oscars. Maybe next time he will win," Mohammad Fahim Nadri said.
French raised nearly $12,000 in an effort to get the boys to Hollywood, but Turkish Airlines and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul stepped in to cover travel costs so he is putting the money instead into a college fund for Fawad.
President Barack Obama on Monday implored the nation's governors to put pressure on Congress to avoid the sequester as he addressed members of the National Governors Association gathered at the White House.
"While you are in town, I hope that you speak with your Congressional delegation and remind them in no uncertain terms exactly what is at stake, exactly who is it at risk. Because here is the thing, these cuts do not have to happen. Congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise," Obama said at a luncheon in the White House State dining room.
Members of the Obama administration, heads of federal agencies and others have been issuing severe warnings to Congress regarding the sequester?$85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that will go into effect March 1 absent a budget. Warnings have been released threatening fewer responders to handle wildfires, reduced food safety inspection, less help for vulnerable Americans and, on Friday, widespread flight delays and cancellations.
"Travelers should expect delays. Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and others could experience delays up to 90 minutes during peak hours because we have fewer controllers on staff. Delays in these major airports will ripple across the country," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at Friday's White House press briefing after announcing that the Federal Aviation Administration plans massive furloughs and closing air traffic control towers if the sequester goes into effect.
The White House on Sunday night released state-by-state reports detailing what it says would be "devastating" impacts on each state as a result of the sequester, but the topic of the sequester was notably absent from Obama's speech Sunday night to the governors, who are in town for the National Governors Association's (NGA) annual winter meeting.
Instead, the president struck an appreciative tone at the White House dinner, commending the governors for steering their states through tough times.
Democratic Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, chair of the NGA, followed Obama's address Sunday night by emphasizing the absence of politics from the night's celebration. "On this one night it?s a relief?politics doesn?t drive the conversation. We don?t speak of partisan issues or presidential aspirations," Markell said.
But Markell did note the sequester.
"One thing for sure is certain?you don?t let issues fester. You get to deal with education and health care, and even the sequester," Markell said to laughter and applause from the audience.
Republicans such as Speaker John Boehner have publicly stated their opposition to the sequester, though others have threatened they are willing to let it go into effect.
Some Republicans over the weekend continued to accuse the administration of exaggerating the sequester's impact.
"They have plenty of flexibility in terms of discretion on how they spend money. There are easy ways to cut this money that the American people will never feel," Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said on Fox News Sunday.
You wake up in an unfamiliar room, missing a button or two, with a few stains on your shirt that you're hoping are food-related. The last thing you remember from the night before was downing that fourth shot of Cuervo. Okay, so you blacked out. But what exactly does that mean? More »
Remember those halcyon days last November when Sina Weibo passed more than 400 million users? Well, a mere three months later, and the microblogging site can now boast that it's got 503 million compulsive over-sharers. To put that figure into perspective, were "Chinese Twitter" to be its own country, it would be the third most populous nation on Earth. While it should be celebrating such figures, there's a few signs of trouble on the horizon, as local rival Tencent's WeChat hit 300 million users last month -- not to mention some disgruntled former users inviting people to switch to Twitter.
Shia LaBeouf has cast himself as the lead in a nail-biter of an off-Broadway drama. Somewhat mocking the "creative differences" explanation that was given as the reason for him leaving the upcoming Broadway revival of "Orphans"?less than a month before previews are set to begin, the actor took to Twitter today to post emails between him; the play's director, Daniel Sullivan; and erstwhile costars Alec Baldwin and Tom Sturridge that indicate something more dramatic occurred behind the scenes.?
"Alec, I'm sorry for my part of a dis-agreeable situation," LaBeouf wrote in an email to El Dorado Pictures with a subject line reading, "Apology." In the philosophical missive, the actor also called his dad "a s--t human" and wrote things like "a man owns up," "a man does not know everything" and "a man can tell you he was wrong."
Is Anne Hathaway reprising her Les Miserables role on Broadway?
"I'm too old for disagreeable situations," responded Sullivan. "you're one hell of a great actor. Alec is who he is. you are who you are. you two are incompatible. I should have known it."
"this one will haunt me," the Tony-winning director continued. "you tried to warn me. you said you were a different breed. I didn't get it." Signed, "dan."
Those two emails were attached to a tweet reading, "creative differences."
Shia LaBeouf, Kristen Stewart, Natalie Portman topped Forbes' 2012 list of most bankable stars
Baldwin's camp declined to comment to E! News, while reps for Sturridge and LaBeouf -- who would have been making his Broadway debut in "Orphans" -- have yet to respond to requests for comment.
LaBeouf followed up an hour later with an exchange between him and Baldwin, in which the 30 Rock star assured him, "I've been through this before. It's been awhile. And perhaps some of the particulars are different. But it comes down to the fact that what we all do now is critical. Perhaps especially for you."
"I don't have an unkind word to say about you. You have my word," Baldwin added, signing off as "AB."
Find out why Matthew Broderick stopped in the middle of his performance of Nice Work If You Can Get It last night
LaBeouf replied with, "same. be well. good luck on the play. you'll be great," attaching the exchange to a tweet quoting David Mamet (who is not affiliated with the revival of Orphans): "Acting has become a profession of the genteel class."
Several hours later, the Transformers star tweeted, "Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance. Tom = good dude - good actor."
Attached was an email from Sturridge, also from today, reading, "I don't really know what to write. I went in this afternoon and they were all there...producers, etc. I said my piece but they didn't really listen. I don't understand what has happened here. Maybe you have had a more enlightening conversation with someone by now.
See more big stars who've done Broadway (but rarely this dramatically)
"All I can say is that it truly was an honour to work with you even if it was only for a few days," the Brit continued. "I was stunned by the work you were doing, the performance you were giving. I think you lifted the play to a place higher than maybe it even deserved to be...Hope you're ok brother."
Talk about your dramatic twists. We cannot wait to see what happens after intermission!
PARIS/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Seven French hostages abducted by suspected Nigerian Islamist militants have probably been separated into two groups and efforts are continuing to locate them, French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday.
French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials earlier denied French media reports that the seven family members, who were seized in Cameroon on Tuesday and taken over the border, had been freed.
"It's best to work discreetly for now to identify the exact place where our citizens are being held - most likely in two groups - and work out how we can free them under the best conditions," Hollande told reporters.
Paris was "fully cooperating" with Nigeria and Cameroon, he added, noting that French troops were nearby as their base was in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, 150 km (93 miles) away.
The Nigerian military located the hostages and kidnappers between Dikwa and Ngala in the far northeast, a Nigerian military source in Borno said earlier on Thursday, asking not to be identified.
Dikwa is less than 80 km (50 miles) from the border with Cameroon where the three adults and four children were taken hostage on Tuesday.
A senior Cameroonian military official declined to comment, saying the matter was too sensitive.
French gendarmes backed by special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to help locate the family, a local governor and French defense ministry official said.
Citing a Cameroon army officer, French media reported earlier on Thursday that the hostages had been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria. That was denied by the France, Nigeria and Cameroon.
DIFFICULT SITUATION
The abduction was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony, and highlighted the threat to French interests in West Africa since Paris deployed thousands of troops to Mali to oust al Qaeda-linked Islamists who controlled the country's north.
But the region - like others in West and North Africa with porous borders - is considered within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.
On Sunday, seven foreigners were snatched from the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state, and Ansaru took responsibility.
Northern Nigeria increasingly is afflicted by attacks and kidnappings by Islamist militants. Ansaru, which rose to prominence only in recent months, has claimed the abduction in December of a French national who is still missing.
Three foreigners were killed in two failed rescue attempts last year after being kidnapped in northern Nigeria and Ansaru, blamed for those kidnaps, warned this could happen again.
"Staging a successful rescue is always difficult, but even more so if the kidnappers are waiting for it," said Peter Sharwood-Smith, Nigeria country manager of security firm Drum Cussac.
"After the death of three European hostages in rescue-intervention attempts last year, Nigeria and France will be hoping for a peaceful resolution. The problem could be the kidnappers lack of enthusiasm for negotiation or deals. The fact that four of the hostages are children adds further difficulty to the decision for France and Nigeria."
The kidnapping in Cameroon brought to 15 the number of French citizens being held in West Africa.
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Tansa Musa in Yaounde, Joe Brock in Abuja and Bate Felix and John Irish in Dakar; Writing by Bate Felix and John Irish; Editing by Michael Roddy)
TORONTO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Canada's Rebecca Marino, a rising star in women's tennis, stepped away from the sport in search of a normal life on Wednesday, weary of battling depression and cyber-bullies. Ranked number 38 in the world two years ago, the 22-year-old admitted she had long suffered from depression and was no longer willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the top. "After thinking long and hard, I do not have the passion or enjoyment to drive myself to the level I would like to be at in professional tennis," Marino explained in a conference call. ...
ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Unions have launched another general strike against austerity measures in Greece, amid predictions unemployment in the crisis-hit country will reach 30 percent this year.
The 24-hour protest Wednesday by unions representing private and public sector workers has disrupted flights, halted ferries and crippled public services, in a renewed confrontation between labor groups and the conservative-led government over policies aimed at curbing Greece's overspending.
State-run schools, most public transport services, and even neighborhood farmers markets also stopped running during the strike.
In Athens, up to 3,000 police officers were on duty for union-organized street rallies due to start in mid-morning.
Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has won praise from bailout lenders for pushing through major cost-cutting measures after forming a three party coalition last June.
French President Francois Hollande was in Athens on Tuesday to express the "support of France and trust in the actions of (Greece's) government in recent months."
But a new round of tax increases this year and a surge in unemployment to 27 percent have angered unions, as Greeks battle a rapid increase in poverty and face a sixth year of recession.
In recent weeks, the Samaras government has twice used rare emergency powers to force an end to strikes by workers on ferry services and the Athens subway.
"The Greek people have no tolerance left," Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the civil servants union ADEDY, told the AP in an interview ahead of the strike. "For us, the time has come for a major confrontation with the government ... and policies that are taking our country from bad to worse and leading people to poverty and desperation."
Unions are also angry at a government decision to scrap collective wage agreements across the public sector as part of an overhaul of state pay scales that will usher in further salary cuts.
Unemployment is expected to reach an alarming 30 percent this year, while national output will contract a further 4.1 percent, according to a study by a government funded research agency published last week.
Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius's father Henke Pistorius is comforted by a unidentified family member during the bail application at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius's father Henke Pistorius is comforted by a unidentified family member during the bail application at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Fire and smoke rise at an upscale shopping district in Kansas City, Mo., where a city official said a gas explosion sparked a block-engulfing blaze, Tuesday evening, Feb. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Kansas City Star, Keith Myers) KANSAS CITY OUT
A gate is locked by a chain near to where men made a whole in a fence next to the tarmac at Brussels international airport, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Police on Tuesday are looking for eight men who made a hole in a security fence of Brussels' international airport, drove onto the tarmac and robbed tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds from the hold of a Swiss-bound plane. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)
This image released by DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation shows Sally Field and Daniel Day-Lewis appear in a scene from "Lincoln." (AP Photo/DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, David James)
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:
1. US AIMS AT HACKING LINKED TO CHINA
Obama's get-tough tactics could include fines, penalties and other trade restrictions.
2. HOW PISTORIUS SAYS HIS GIRLFRIEND WAS KILLED
The double-amputee Olympian testifies that he mistook the fashion model for an intruder on Valentine's Day.
3. MARINE BOWS OUT OF RUNNING FOR TOP MILITARY JOB
Gen. John Allen had appeared a shoo-in to be the next commander of allied forces in Europe.
4. GAS EXPLOSION TAKES OUT KANSAS CITY BLOCK
Fourteen are injured in an accident believed to be caused by a utility contractor.
5. POLICE ID GUNMAN IN CALIF. SPREE THAT LEFT 4 DEAD
The shooter was an unemployed, 20-year-old part-time student who lived with his parents.
6. BUCKING THE TREND OF CYBERCRIME
Burglars in Belgium went low-tech to steal $50 million worth of diamonds from an airport.
7. TARGETS OF EX-LAPD OFFICER SPEAK
Police Sgt. Emada Tingirides and her family were under police protection for six days. She says, "For the first two or three hours, I was in disbelief."
8. ROBOTS MIGHT NOT DO SURGERY BETTER
The technique is being used for hysterectomies, adding to the cost but not offering much health benefit.
9. WHEN TO EXPECT UNIVERSAL PRE-SCHOOL
A federal commission recommends offering early education to every poor student within 10 years.
10. DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING IN THOSE OSCAR-NOMINATED MOVIES
A prominent screenwriting professor says, "A movie is a movie. People going for a history lesson are going to the wrong place."
Ramallah Ballet Center owner Shyrine Ziadeh decided not to leave the West Bank to study dance, but instead opened a space to cultivate talent and hope among local youth.
By Chelsea Sheasley,?Contributor / February 4, 2013
Shyrine Ziadeh leads one of her three classes at the Ramallah Ballet Center, which she opened in December 2011 with the help of her family.
Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Enlarge Photos
The Ramallah Ballet Center, where girls in white tights and pink tutus twirl in front of a long mirror, seems a world away from the street below, where butchered lambs hang for sale, resentment lingers from the last intifada, and horns blare as cars snake dangerously close to each other in the narrow streets.?
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?Doesn?t the music make you feel so peaceful?? asks studio owner Shyrine Ziadeh, as she surveys her students. ?That?s one of my favorite things about dancing.??
Ms. Ziadeh?s dance studio is the first to open in Ramallah and the only one she knows of in the West Bank, following years of foreign instructors teaching lessons out of their homes or in local schools. (Read more about female entrepreneurs in the West Bank here.)
Ziadeh, who grew up in Ramallah, planned to leave the West Bank to study dance abroad after graduating from Birzeit University four years ago. But she changed her mind after she opened the studio last year and saw how popular her classes are. If she leaves, she fears no one will be there for the students.
?The kids here, they have many talents but no one to support them,? she says. ?So when I find a talented girl, I support her with all my heart.? Ziadeh says part of her motivation was the fact that when people around the world think of the Palestinian territories, they don?t see hope or talent, but violence.
Ziadeh sees her studio as place where local kids ? she teaches between 30 and 40 students a month ? can come to have fun in a safe place.
?I want to show the world that as Palestinians, we have talent and can defend our land not only in violence, but in the arts.?
Ziadeh sees the studio as a success, though it?s not yet profitable. She charges 200 shekels (about $55) a month for two classes a week, but some parents can?t afford to pay. The Orthodox Church that owns the studio space has so far allowed her to pay rent late when needed and she?s still repaying a loan her parents gave her.?
Some Israelis who heard about her business offered to give funding, something she?s so far declined in the hopes that Palestinians will be the ones to provide support.
In a region where the political conflict is reflected in so much of society Ziadeh says Israeli-Palestinian politics have complicated her business. She can?t get the costumes she needs because West Bank stores don?t sell them and she doesn?t have a permit to travel 15 miles to Jerusalem to buy them. Instead, she goes to Amman, Jordan to buy the outfits necessary for performances, or has them made by hand.
Hoping for more boys
Another challenge Ziadeh hopes to overcome is gender. Her classes have been predominately female, but she thinks it?s important to involve boys as well because of the impact dance can have on them. She hopes that boys will start to enroll if she offers hip-hop classes.
?The problem is not with the Arab culture,? she says, citing a friend who teaches more boys than girls in the Egyptian royal ballet. ?I think it?s here, the boys want to be more tough.?
Being ready for an intifada is a prominent part of how boys are raised, she says. ?[They say] ?how can I dance when I have to defend my country?? But they can defend the country by dancing,? Ziadeh says.
Fadia Othman, the mother of one of Ziadeh?s students, says the classes help her 6-year-old daughter to be calmer in school.
Hadeel Kamil, a German-Palestinian gum surgeon who also has a daughter in the class, praises the decision of people like Ziadeh who stay in the Palestinian territories, sharing their talents locally instead of moving to a potentially easier and more lucrative life abroad.
"Palestine deserves people who know how to think," Ms. Kamil says.
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Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
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