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Sunday, July 31, 2011
What’s in a name? (The Newsroom)
Harper Seven. Bear Blue. Pilot Inspektor. We're all familiar with the oddball baby names that Hollywood celebs hang around their children's necks here in America, but apparently, New Zealand has had enough.
The country's baby name registrar has officially banned the name "Lucifer" after not one but THREE sets of parents tried to name their babies after the spawn of the devil.
So take note, Odd Baby Name Haters: There's actually a baby name that's more tragic than, say, "Jermajesty" out there.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Share your story: Gay marriage now legal in 6 states (The Newsroom)
Last month, New York became the sixth state to allow gay marriage. This Sunday marks the first day gays can legally wed and New York City officials were flooded by more than 1,700 wedding applications for just that day.
To deal with the overwhelming response, the city established a lottery that will choose 764 couples to be married Sunday; winners will be announced on Friday. On Monday, wedding ceremonies will be "first come, first served" at city clerk offices around the five boroughs.
For couples who don't win a spot in NYC should head north: The suburb of Greenburgh is offering wedding services at Town Hall, as well as special festivities to celebrate the historic day.
Are you getting married on Sunday? Do you live in a state that allows gay marriage and have already wed? Are you waiting for your state to legalize gay marriage? Then Yahoo! News and the Yahoo! Contributor Network want to hear your story: Sign up to the Yahoo! Contributor Network and tell us what gay marriage means to you.
What’s next for America’s aspiring astronauts? (The Newsroom)
Click image to view photos of space travel's past, present and future. (AFP)
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis is seen with from the International Space Station. REUTERS/NASA TV/Handout(This report is the third and final in a Yahoo! News series on the shutdown of the space shuttle program.)
When Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, back from the very last mission to the International Space Station, 20-year-old Amanda Premer will be getting ready to move to Houston. The fourth-year aerospace engineering major is headed to Johnson Space Center's Cooperative Education program, where she will be alternating her last semesters at Wichita State University with three "work tours" at the NASA site. She hopes to secure a full-time job with NASA.
"I want to be an astronaut," said Premer, who has spent the last four summers working at the Cosmosphere space camp in Hutchinson, Kan. "Even though NASA doesn't have anything lined up to follow the shuttle program, the world's always going to need astronauts. And I'd like to be one of them."
As NASA's 30-year space shuttle program draws to a close, the next generation of aspiring astronauts and talented aerospace engineers must rely on international vehicles to fly up to the ISS, and depend on private industry to create the next best rocket. They are entering a new, nebulous era of American spaceflight, but are fervent in their desire to carry the torch lit by their predecessors during the Apollo era.
"The shuttle is old. Amazing, but old," said Sara Gurnett, who is three semesters away from earning a degree in professional aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., and also works summers as a counselor for the Cosmosphere. "So it's not disappointing to me that it's retiring."
She hopes to join the U.S. Navy's Officer Candidate School after graduation, and eventually become an astronaut pilot. "I want to one day be able to fly the most exotic thing out there," said Gurnett, who keeps her pilot license, along with her scuba certification, literally in her back pocket. "That used to be the space shuttle, but now, who knows what it'll be. … It'll probably be built by private industry."
President Obama thinks so too. Atlantis' crew deposited on the ISS an American flag that flew on the first shuttle mission, and when Obama spoke to the crew last week before it returned to Earth, he challenged the commercial space industry to "capture the flag."
Shortly afterward, California-based company SpaceX posted via Twitter: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"
Founded by engineer-entrepreneur Elon Musk (of PayPal and Tesla fame), SpaceX made history in November when it became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and guide it safely back to Earth. It plans to send that same spacecraft to the ISS by the end of this year. Fueling this effort will be the company's cadre of bright young engineers—the average age at SpaceX is early 30s.
"There's all this incredible energy happening in the private sector," said Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who rode on Atlantis' penultimate trip to the ISS last year, but recently hung up his spacesuit to join SpaceX as a senior engineer. "We have a great mix of these senior guys and these young guys who are the best and the brightest."
One of those young guys is 26-year-old Matt McKeown , who sat in mission control during SpaceX's historic launch last year. A lead propulsion engineer, he gave the iconic "go/no-go" cues from the propulsion standpoint.
"It's definitely a challenge for us young engineers because we've never done this before," said McKeown, who joined SpaceX after earning a master's degree—and a 3.9 GPA—in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008. "But we know we have to make progress or we're not going to have jobs! That's a great motivator."
McKeown started building model rockets in elementary school, and he continued to build them throughout junior high and high school. In college, he set his sights a little higher and co-founded the Michigan Aeronautical Science Association, an organization specifically designed to construct space vehicles. He received a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which was founded by the six surviving astronauts of Project Mercury, NASA's first major undertaking. The foundation rewards college students who excel in the sciences.
"Ever since I was 5, I knew I wanted to be an engineer," said McKeown, who was inspired by shuttle technology. "Now I'm working on vehicles that will take manned spaceflight to the next level. … I hope that will inspire people."
Sara Gurnett believes that renewing public interest in space exploration is the key to continued funding and support.
"We have to get parents interested in space, and then they'll inspire their kids," she said. "Some kids see these things as faraway dreams and they don't feel like they're good enough. … But they could really do this one day!"
Aerospace engineer Doug Hofmann, 30, was inspired to pursue a career in space by his father, a retired Army lieutenant colonel with a strong interest in the space program. (In 1985, the elder Hofmann, then a seventh-grade teacher, was a finalist for the ill-fated Challenger mission.)
"I grew up wanting to be an astronaut," said Hofmann, who knew his best chances were to become an engineer or a military fighter pilot. "My dad told me I was more apt for research than the military."
From then on, Hofmann relentlessly pursued the space field and took every opportunity to get advice from former astronauts. Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, and one of Hofmann's professors at the University of California, San Diego, convinced him to go to Caltech for graduate school rather than MIT. He went on to earn both a master's and PhD in materials science.
Hofmann is now working in what he calls his dream job, designing new materials for spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He hopes the job will bring him one step closer to becoming an astronaut (he currently has funding for research projects on the ISS).
In the meantime, he's trying to pass on the wonder and excitement for all things space to his 5-month-old son: "When I was in Washington, D.C., I got the autographs of three astronauts for my son. When he's older he'll appreciate them."
Though many view the end of the shuttle program as an end to American spaceflight, this new generation of aspiring astronauts, engineers and space enthusiasts are excited as ever for the future, and hope that they can leave their mark, much as their predecessors from Apollo and the shuttle missions did. Whether it's by hitching a ride on another country's vehicle or inaugurating a shiny new ride built by commercial industry, they will continue to explore the great unknown, and stake their flag to inspire the next generation.
More specifically, according to Gurnett: "Space travel to the moon, Mars and beyond: That's the legacy I want my generation to leave."
Holy receipt! (The Newsroom)
Jesus and the Virgin Mary have "appeared" on everything from grilled cheese to rocks.
But in his most recent appearance, Jesus is showing that even the son of the Big Man has economic issues on the brain: A South Carolina couple claims that the good lord Jesus appeared on a receipt from a recent trip to Wal-Mart.
Jacob Simmons and Gentry Lee Sutherland had just returned home from church (interesting connection, no?), and found what looked like the face of Christ BURNED into the receipt.
Maybe next time, he can make an appearance on the bazillion-dollar tab we've got running on Capitol Hill and save us from that.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
LIFE slideshow: John Glenn, unpublished photos (The Newsroom)
No person alive has been more closely associated, for so long, with America's triumphs in space during the late '50s and early '60s than Ohio native John Glenn. Here, on the occasion of his 90th birthday (July 18), LIFE.com presents unpublished photos of the first American to orbit the earth; the decorated Marine Corps veteran (WWII and Korea); and the earnest, novice politician, taken by LIFE photographers during one of the most thrilling, inspiring, nerve-wracking eras in the nation's history: the Space Race.
Hank Walker/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Second Act: Swimmer Diana Nyad (The Newsroom)
Open water swimmer Diana Nyad is back in Key West, Florida, continuing her quest to be the first person to make a 103-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. A Yahoo! News team recently accompanied Nyad on a grueling 9-hour training swim, shooting an episode of the award-winning show Second Act from aboard her escort vessel. Nyad, who is 61 and swims around 1.5 miles an hour, is waiting for favorable water temperatures and ocean wind speeds to attempt the 60-hour crossing. Hurricanes and delays with Cuban visas prevented her from trying the swim last summer. Click here to see the video.
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Share your story: Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network (The Newsroom)
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Yahoo! News has many content providers, but we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to tell your story as well. What newsworthy events are happening in your state? How is your family affected by the recession or the latest piece of legislation? What's your take on the biggest stories of the day? These are the kinds of insights we want you to share through the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
Here are stories we've featured from readers and contributors like you:
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Friday, July 8, 2011
Tats for grades (The Newsroom)
For parents and teachers, it can be an uphill battle to get kids to do well in school. First it was cash for grades, now its ... tats for grades?
That's what one San Francisco teacher promised his students if they improved their performance: a tattoo. Not for them, but for him. Stanley Richards, a science teacher at City Arts and Technology High School, vowed he would get a tattoo of their vice principal if students raised the school's academic performance score by 50 points.
And not just any tattoo: Mr. Vice Principal would be portrayed as a sumo wrestler, holding a medallion of test scores and slaying a dragon. (Hope Mr. Richards has the number of a good tattoo-removal doctor.)
The students hit the books, and true to his word, Mr. R showed up on the last day of class with the vice principal's mug on his calf.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Yolks on you (The Newsroom)
OK, maybe not on you, but the yolks were definitely on one Charlotte Matthews. The British cake decorator cracked a record 29 double yolks ... in row. The British Egg Information Service says the odds of cracking just one double yolk are one in 1,000.
The odds of getting 29 in a row, however, are one "in 1,000 to the power of 29 - or one followed by 87 zeros."
(Personally, I'd like to know what the odds are that there is actually an entity called the "British Egg Information Service.")
Princess Diana at 50: How her legacy lives on (The Newsroom)
If Princess Diana were still alive, Friday, July 1, would be her 50th birthday. Many are speculating what she would be like today — how she would look, where she would live, who she would have married. The magazine Newsweek even created a computer-generated image of her next to Kate Middleton for a controversial cover. But amid all the speculation, few people doubt one thing: She would be proud of her sons, who are carrying on a trait that arguably made her so famous — empathy.
Her older son, Prince William, and his new wife will be in Canada on the day Diana would have turned 50, and they head to Los Angeles on July 8. Bob Sullivan, managing editor of LIFE Books and author and editor of the new book "Diana at 50," notes that William's appeal and charity work are largely because of his mother.
"He clearly has inherited her preternatural gift for empathy," he says. "Wills is more his mother's son than his father's, and that would please her, of course."
More beloved than the family that put her on the global stage, Diana had a personality that paved the way for her sons to live very different lives than their father did. In many ways, her empathy and modernity transformed the British royal family.
"They really didn't know what hit them," Sullivan says. "It wasn't that she changed them and they wanted to be changed. It's that she shocked them."
Thursday, June 23, 2011
What Afghans think about President Obama’s troop drawdown (The Newsroom)
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / June 22, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan
President Obama is slated to announce plans to begin a withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan — the first of its kind since the US and NATO officially entered Afghanistan nearly a decade ago.
Though initial estimates look to be modest, many Afghans are greeting the news of US withdrawal with a mix of joy and concern.
"People are happy when they hear that the foreigners are preparing to leave. All the security problems are because of them. If they leave, who will Al Qaeda and the Taliban say they are fighting against?" says Shah Wali, a money exchanger in Kabul. "Personally, I think they should not leave too fast. They should do it step by step."
Mr. Obama is expected to make an official announcement tonight about the drawdown and exactly how many soldiers will leave.
Initial estimates indicate that the US will remove 5,000 soldiers this summer, followed by another 5,000 in the winter or spring of 2012. The US president is also looking at plans that could bring home the remaining 20,000 troops he ordered here as part of a 2009 surge by the end of 2012.
Presently, there are about 100,000 US forces stationed in Afghanistan. Since Obama took office, the number of US troops in Afghanistan has nearly tripled.
In addition to its efforts to bring security to the country, the US has invested more than $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan. However, many Afghans complain that those investments have not impacted their life positively, if at all.
"The Americans were here for the past 10 years and there was some development but not in our district. In the meantime, the security situation got worse and the Taliban and Al Qaeda got stronger day by day, so this means their presence was useless for providing security," says Golum Habib, a member of the local government in Takhar province's Rustak district. "They are not able to bring security, so they can go."
Mr. Habib adds that there may be more fighting or a revolution after US forces leave, but he says that Afghanistan may be better off if left alone to solve its own problems. Still he wants America to continue providing his nation with humanitarian assistance even after its troops leave.
Related: As troop drawdown nears, is NATO surge working in Afghanistan?
At the Gulbahar Center, a Western-style shopping mall in downtown Kabul, Zabiullah Shadman has been closely following the news about the pending US drawdown. He's been disappointed by the inability of foreign forces to bring security and worries that if they leave now civil war may break out again. Already, business has been slow at his dress shop because many people fear the mall is a likely target for an attack.
If it gets any worse, he adds, "people with money will just take their money and leave." He says he is even considering fleeing to a Western country if the situation gets any worse.
Although Fakhria Latifi, who works on a USAID-funded project, would like foreign forces to leave her country, she says they must not do so until they've created a situation that can provide lasting stability. Otherwise, she worries that the Taliban or other extremist groups could regain control of the country.
"My main concern is that if the foreigners go and the Taliban come back, how will it affect women? They will not have access to schooling and jobs," she says, adding that 2020 would be a better date for the final withdrawal rather than 2014. "My other concern is how long will we depend on the foreigners."
Still, a number of Afghans doubt that the US is in any hurry to leave, and this frustrates them. The debate about whether the US will keep permanent bases here has long been part of the heated discourse among Afghans.
In Kandahar, which has been at the center of fighting throughout much of the war but has seen recent improvements in security, tribal elder Haji Faisal Mohammed sees the initial drawdown as a positive step toward addressing Afghan fears that the US wants to be a permanent occupying force.
"If America starts to withdraw their forces it will be a big blow to enemies of Afghanistan because it will show that America does not want to occupy Afghanistan," he says. Still he adds, "I don't think that America will be in such a hurry to leave. I think America just wants to start implementing [its] promises."
Among some Afghans, there is also an awareness of America's mounting domestic pressures to end the war. Given the economic drain and steadily rising death toll, Mangal Sherzad, a law professor at Nangarhar University in Jalalabad says it's unlikely the US can stay in Afghanistan much longer.
"Even if they don't want to take their forces out of Afghanistan, they must do it," he says. "America has realized that they cannot win by just fighting and from the other side Obama has to fulfill the promises he made to his nation to bring the troops out of Afghanistan."
Not the brightest bulb (The Newsroom)
Everywhere you look, people are telling you how to go green: Walk. Recycle. Compost. Turn off the water. Turn off the lights.
But it looks like there's one place in America that didn't get the memo. The firehouse in Livermore, California has a light that's been on for 110 years. (Yes, YEARS. Not hours. Not minutes. YEARS).
Granted, it's only 4 watts, but that's what is believed to be the source of the bulb's longevity. The hand-blown globe was installed in 1901 and there's even a "bulb-cam" website where you can watch it ... being on.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
How the Dems toppled Weiner (The Newsroom)
Anthony Weiner's resignation did not happen quickly, easily, or without sustained and unprecedented pressure from a trio of Washington's most powerful Democrats telling the lawmaker that his career in the House was over.
In a phone call with Nancy Pelosi last Friday, in which the minority leader told Weiner that he had to quit, the embattled Brooklyn politician revealed the depths of his denial, telling Pelosi that a poll showed 56 percent of his constituents wanted him to stay. She continued to press her case, according to a top aide. "Consider those rose petals to let you go graciously," Pelosi pleaded.
For House Democrats, that call came at the end of an excruciating week that began with Weiner staging a tearful press conference to admit that he had sent lewd photos of himself to women online. Democratic leaders watched in disbelief as he confessed not only his bizarre online relationships, but also that he had lied to his House colleagues in a desperate attempt to cover his tracks.
At the time, the leaders were angry about being deceived, but they still believed that Weiner might weather the scandal that he had unleashed.
But by Wednesday, after a steady stream of porn-star stories, sordid photographs, and sickening details about Weiner's years of online exploits, Democrats wanted him gone.
"It was just the drip, drip, drip," said a top Democratic adviser. "The decision was made on Wednesday that he had to go and that he until Saturday to do it himself."
Over the next three painful days, top aides say Pelosi, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel, and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz repeatedly implored Weiner to step down. With an ethics committee investigation already under way and the cringe-inducing news that Weiner had repeatedly texted a 17-year-old girl, they told the famously stubborn Weiner that he had to go.
Gallery: Possible Jobs for Weiner
By Saturday, Weiner again refused to resign and told Pelosi that he would take a leave of absence from Congress instead. For the Democratic leader, it was the last straw. Wasserman Schultz, the first woman to lead the DNC, had made up her mind the night before that she would publicly call for Weiner to relinquish his seat.
"The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Representative Weiner's continued service in Congress is untenable," Wasserman Schultz said in a blistering statement that day.
Pelosi followed: "I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a member of Congress."
With Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi on the record, members of Congress returned to Washington the following Monday knowing that their Democratic leadership, including the president, would not support Weiner if he tried to remain. Anyone who defended him would be acting without the party's blessing.
No member of Congress came to Weiner's defense on Monday. Instead, several told The Daily Beast that while they would not help him, they did not feel comfortable pushing further for his resignation until Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, returned to the country after an overseas trip with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
By early Wednesday morning, Abedin had returned, but Weiner sent no signals to Washington that he was ready to relent. After a story appeared in Politico that Democrats were calling a meeting to strip him of his committee assignments and essentially excise him from his party, Weiner called Pelosi and Israel, who were both at a White House picnic for members of Congress, to say, finally, that he would leave the House.
"While some were prepared to forgive him for the X-rated photos that he emailed, none could forget the lies that he had told them. "
Weiner's Democratic colleagues in the House, clearly relieved to see the episode sputter to an end, described the scandal as a human tragedy that an unusually talented man had inflicted entirely upon himself.
And while some were prepared to forgive him for the X-rated photos that he emailed, none could forget the lies that he had told them.
"The lesson is, tell the truth. What would have happened if he didn't lie?" says Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey. "If he had told us, 'Hey guys, I did some real stupid things,' we would have said, 'What did you do? Yeah, that's pretty stupid.' But somehow he thought that this would all pass by and we would see the sun set and the sun rise the next morning. Ain't gonna happen."
Eliot Engel, a fellow New York Democrat and friend of Weiner who spoke with him throughout the scandal, says that by lying to his fellow House members, Weiner had sealed his own fate.
"If you look at history, it was always the coverup that was more damaging than whatever someone may have done," Engel says. "I think it certainly would have been easier for him to stay [had he not lied]. It would have been a possibility."
As badly wounded as Weiner appeared Thursday, neither Pascrell, Engel, nor a half dozen other Democrats interviewed by The Daily Beast said they believe that Weiner's mistakes are fatal to his career.
With nearly $5 million in his campaign account and no apparent legal action in the works, colleagues say Weiner could still mount a run for mayor of New York or try his hand at punditry.
"Eliot Spitzer is now on TV," says Engel, referring to the former New York governor and his CNN program. "I never put anything past Anthony… I think he'll land on his feet."
But Pascrell says Weiner has more pressing issues to take care of before plotting his next move in politics or television.
"He's got to be caught up in the idea of making amends," Pascrell said. "And if he's not, then he's more stupid than the things that he just did."
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Patricia Murphy is a writer in Washington, D.C., where she covers Congress and politics.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
LIFE slideshow: NASA envisions alien worlds (The Newsroom)
For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy -- photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.
NASA/ JPL-Caltech
Ryan’s shrewd budget payday (The Newsroom)
When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP blueprint for cutting government spending, he asked Americans to make sacrifices on everything from Medicare to education, while preserving lucrative tax subsidies for the booming oil, mining and energy industries.
It turns out a constituency within his own personal investments stood to benefit from those tax breaks, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have learned.
The financial disclosure report Ryan filed with Congress last month and made public this week shows he and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan's budget plan.
Ryan's father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
Some of these firms would be eligible for portions of the $45 billion in energy tax breaks and subsidies over 10 years protected in the Wisconsin lawmaker's proposed budget. "Those [energy developing companies] benefit a lot from these subsidies," explained Russ Harding, an energy policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, when presented with the situation, without reference to Ryan. "Without those, they're going to be less profitable."
To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest.
"To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. "
"Sure, senior citizens should have to pay more for health care, but landholders like [Ryan] who lease property to big oil companies, well, their government subsidies must be protected at all costs," says Melanie Sloan, the director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It smacks of hypocrisy."
Ryan's office says the congressman wasn't thinking about himself or the oil companies that lease his land when he drafted the budget blueprint that extended the energy tax breaks. "These are properties that Congressman Ryan married into," spokesman Kevin Seifert said. "It's not something he has a lot of control over."
Nonetheless, the properties have been a lucrative investment for Ryan and his wife, earning them as much as $117,000 last year, and $60,000 the year before, his personal financial disclosure reports show. Overall, Ryan, 41, listed assets worth between $590,000 and $2.5 million, putting him in the top third of the richest members of the House.
Ryan and his wife reported owning minority stakes ranging from nearly 1 percent to 10 percent in the following four family companies: Ava O Limited Company, which holds mining and mineral rights; Blondie and Brownie, which holds gravel rights; Red River Pine Company, which holds timber rights; and Little Land Company, an oil and gas corporation.
While Ryan's stake in the oil and gas firm was his smallest at 0.8 percent, it was listed as one of his most valuable assets, generating as much as $50,000 of his income last year, the report shows.
Aside from the land-lease income, Ryan could also personally benefit from the package of subsidies and incentives he has fought to protect. According to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Ryan himself would be eligible to recover money from the government for investments the four family companies might make in such things as machines and maintenance if they didn't pan out on the properties and failed to generate revenue.
Stephen Comstock, a tax analyst with the American Petroleum Institute, says the provision and several others like it would be protected under Ryan's budget.
Rep. Dan Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma who has announced his retirement next year, also owns stakes in three of the four same companies as Ryan. The two lawmakers are related through marriage. Boren is the first cousin of Ryan's wife.
Boren aligned with his party and voted no on Ryan's budget. But a month prior, Boren voted with Republicans (and only 12 other Democrats) to oppose an amendment that would have financially constrained major oil companies.
In a written statement, Boren told Newsweek and The Daily Beast, "It should come as no surprise the way I voted because the oil and gas industry is the largest private employer in Oklahoma."
In addition to the tax breaks, Ryan's family has benefited in recent years from another form or federal largesse—farm subsidies. Federal records show his father-in-law and great-aunt have collected more than $50,000 in agriculture subsidies on lands owned by the family.
Ryan's budget had proposed cutting $30 billion in farm subsidies over the next 10 years, although some conservatives criticized the number for being too low.
Long a star among young conservatives who admired his commitment to fiscal discipline, Ryan soared onto the national political scene earlier this year, when Republicans chose the youthful, handsome lawmaker to give the nationally televised response to President Obama's State of the Union address.
Ryan then opened the floodgates of criticism a few months later, when he submitted his "Path to Prosperity" plan to slash $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, going further than the president or other major politicians in the scope of his cuts.
Democrats pounced on the depth of cuts, including the virtual elimination of Medicare for retirees who are not yet 55.
Ryan's Medicare program also drove a wedge through his own party. When former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now a presidential candidate, referred to the idea as "right-wing social engineering," the blowback was so severe that Gingrich had to immediately apologize to Ryan.
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Daniel Stone is Newsweek's White House correspondent. He also covers national energy and environmental policy.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Strawberry, chocolate, vanilla … cicada? (The Newsroom)
If you're an adventurous diner, you might want to get yourself over to Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Mo., to see if they have any leftover cicada ice cream. Yes, cicada as in the BUG. As in BUG ice cream.
Sparky's employees are allowed to get a little crazy when it comes to new ice cream flavors, so they may have been inspired by all the 13-year cicada corpses lying about after they emerged last month.
Boiled, then coated in chocolate, the crunchy buggers taste like nuts, apparently. (You know what else tastes like nuts? NUTS.) The shop discontinued the "flavor" after the Health Department advised them to quit serving bugs-n-cream.
US guns fuel Mexico drug war? The politics behind the issue. (The Newsroom)
A new report shows that 70 percent of confiscated weapons submitted for tracing come from the US, but critics say the figure is politically motivated.
By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer / June 15, 2011
Mexico City
Who is supplying guns to Mexican drug traffickers?
The answer has become one of the most polemical in the gun rights debate, with Mexico blaming lax US gun laws and gun rights advocates saying that blame is misplaced.
Statistics are cited. Methodologies are dismissed.
A new report released this week by US senators has renewed the fight, with valid points coming from both sides of the divide.
The report, issued by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D) of Rhode Island, bases its conclusions on US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) statistics. The report states that of 29,284 arms handed over for tracing by Mexican authorities in 2009-10, some 70 percent came from the US.
The senators conclude that military-style guns have "contributed to Mexico's dangerous levels of violence," and that legislation to tighten gun laws, like reinstating the expired Assault Weapons Ban, is in order.
The ATF's statistic has been controversial since it was first cited two years ago. (At that time the number was even higher, at around 90 percent. It may have dropped now because more guns are getting traced today).
Nonetheless, it only accounts for guns seized in Mexico, and of those, the ones that the Mexican government submits for tracing. Many see that as an incomplete set of data, leading them to dismiss the statistic as inaccurate.
"It is completely misleading. There is a huge population of guns that Mexicans confiscated that they don't submit to trace to the ATF," says Robert Farago, the managing editor of the website The Truth about Guns.
Still, it is estimated that about 30 percent of weapons seized in Mexico are submitted for tracing. And whether it is 90 percent or 70 percent that come from the US within that pool, that is still a large number of American guns circulating in Mexico.
"What is clear beyond a doubt is that there are an enormous amount of guns coming from US," says Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center in Washington.
The Militarization of the US Civilian Firearms Market that those guns are increasingly modeled after the military. He says that semiautomatic assault rifles, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and armor-piercing handguns are the "weapons of choice" for drug organizations in Mexico.
Mr. Farago does not doubt that military-style weapons are in the hands of drug traffickers in Mexico. But he says that is because weapons from the Mexican military are seeping into drug traffickers' hands.
Traffickers also acquire military weapons from other countries.
"Grenades and fully automatic machine guns are not sold at Bob's gun store in Arizona," Diaz says. "This is a distraction technique. There is not an iron river of guns from [US] gun stores."
The newest report comes as the ATF is under fire for a sting operation that purposefully allows some automatic weapons to be smuggled south of the border so it can track them. Mexican authorities have long faulted robust American demand for drugs and lax gun laws for their woes.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon reiterated that stance bluntly this week. "I accuse the US weapons industry of [responsibility for] the deaths of thousands of people that are occurring in Mexico," Mr. Calderon said over the weekend, while on a visit to California. "It is for profit, for the profits that it makes for the weapons industry."
Diaz says the Mexican government needs to get even tougher on the US arms industry, even finding a channel to sue it. But gun rights activists have long said this is misplaced blame — that gun laws in the US are much laxer than in Mexico and yet the same levels of violence and impunity are nowhere near what Mexico is encountering: to date more than 35,000 drug-related deaths in the past four and a half years.
In fact, Farago says Mexico should loosen its restrictions on rights to bear arms, even allowing the US to supply citizens with weapons. "We should be supplying guns to Mexican citizens who cannot defend themselves," he says. "They are completely at the mercy of these drug [traffickers]."
Friday, June 17, 2011
Breaking news: The latest from the newsroom (The Newsroom)
While saying he has made 'terrible mistakes,' U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York said he will not resign over a growing scandal related to posts he made on Twitter and other social sites.
The announcement comes after a conservative websiteposted new photos purportedly from a woman who said she received shots of a shirtless Weiner. BigGovernment.com, a website run by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, started a furor last week over a lewd photo sent from Weiner's Twitter account to a woman in Seattle.
Another website, RadarOnline.com, said a woman claimed to have 200 sexually explicit messages from the New York Democrat through a Facebook account that Weiner no longer uses. It was not clear whether the woman who claimed to have the new photo was the person who claimed to have received the text messages.
Readers respond: Can a gay judge rule on gay marriage? (The Newsroom)
Today in what some call an unprecedented hearing in federal court, lawyers on both sides of the gay-rights spectrum presented their arguments on whether a gay marriage ruling by a gay judge in a long-term relationship needs to be thrown out because of a conflict of interest. As this case was before the court, Yahoo! News readers weighed in with opposing views that reflect the central arguments of the latest issue to arise in gay-rights court battles.
Lawyers who support California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, say that because Judge Vaughn Walker is gay and has been in a relationship for about 10 years (facts that were not confirmed until after he retired earlier this year), he could potentially benefit from his own ruling if he intended to get married. But opponents of the ban argue that saying the judge shouldn't have ruled is akin to saying a black judge couldn't rule on a civil rights case or a female judge couldn't rule on a gender discrimination case.
You can read more about today's hearing here.
On Facebook and Twitter, some readers responded with a simple "yes" or "no" when asked if they thought Walker should have been able to rule on the constitutionality of Prop. 8. Others delved more deeply into the issue.
"Tough one b/c of current controversy, but I say yes b/c hetero judges have been able to rule on hetero cases," Cammy Duong (aka @ccduong) wrote on Twitter.
Her reasoning was repeated by many other readers, who responded with things like, "Straight judges judge on straight couples all the time, why not?" (That particular quote comes from Jessimi Gomez on the Facebook discussion that garnered more than 800 comments.) Still others likened it to the civil rights argument, with Justin P tweeting as @xxdesmus: "should women be able to rule on abortion issues then? Hispanic judges on immigration issues? Yes to all them."
Many Yahoo! News readers, however, agreed with the supporters of Prop. 8, calling Walker's status as a gay man in a relationship a conflict of interest. On Twitter, Neil Salt (@salty1980) called it "unfair and unjust."
Ken Tschappat wrote on Facebook: "He should recuse himself. Only honest thing to do and he should know this. Why is there a question?"
In the midst of the Facebook discussion, Norma Jo Bomar Ashburn left a thought that perhaps pierces to the heart of this debate: "All judges are biased to some degree."
The Fast Fix: Is Obama now unbeatable? (The Newsroom)
Will Osama bin Laden's death impact the 2012 presidential election?
The death of Osama bin Laden is a momentous episode in American history that will undoubtedly re-shape the political dialogue for weeks and months to come.
While making hard and fast predictions about what it all means for our politics is tough, there are a few ways in which the impact will be almost immediately felt.
First, there will be a period of putting aside partisanship, similar to what happened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist attack that introduced the world to bin Laden.
From statements of support by Republican presidential candidates to an impromptu rally outside of the White House last night, it's clear that at least for now, politics is on hold. The question, of course, is how long it will last.
Second, President Obama will likely experience a significant popularity boost in the aftermath of the news.
While the killing of Osama took a decade and involved three presidents and thousands of people, it was Obama who gave the order that ultimately led to the terrorist's death. It was Obama who announced the news last night. And it will be Obama who benefits most from a sense that he did what he said he would do.
This is a significant moment in the Obama presidency -- perhaps the biggest moment. Amidst the celebrations and renewed patriotism, it's easy to assume that bin Laden's death will be a significant issue in 2012. But, history has shown that a struggling economy trumps all else in electoral politics.
At the end of the day, the 2012 election will STILL be about the economy and how people feel about their financial futures.
But, this is a major win for president Obama that will buy him time and goodwill from the American people.
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The Fast Fix: No Palin, Gingrich or Romney at first GOP 2012 debate (The Newsroom)
Why are there so few high-profile candidates in the first GOP presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, which will take place in South Carolina on Thursday?
What if we held a presidential debate and no one showed up?
On Thursday night, the first presidential debate of the 2012 Republican presidential race is scheduled in South Carolina but none of the best known candidates will be there.
No Mitt Romney, no Sarah Palin, no Mike Huckabee. Even Newt Gingrich is taking a pass!
Who will be there? Mostly a collection of long shot and no shot candidates like former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, pizza magnate Herman Cain and, yes, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
The lone top tier candidate who will be on stage Thursday night is former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.
Pawlenty is not nearly as well known as the Romneys and Huckabees of the race and is hoping that the fact that the debate is being run live on Fox News Channel will expose him to lots and lots of potential Republican primary voters.
The danger of course is that Pawlenty could be dragged down into the weeds of the pet policy debates of fringe candidates with nothing to lose.
In many ways, Thursday's debate is indicative of the broader race for the Republican nomination. Most of the big names are content to stay on the sidelines for now, leaving the stage, literally, to people who might draw headlines but won't seriously compete for the nomination.
What would it take for me to become a pizza magnate?
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Breaking news: The latest from the newsroom (The Newsroom)
While saying he has made 'terrible mistakes,' U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York said he will not resign over a growing scandal related to posts he made on Twitter and other social sites.
The announcement comes after a conservative websiteposted new photos purportedly from a woman who said she received shots of a shirtless Weiner. BigGovernment.com, a website run by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, started a furor last week over a lewd photo sent from Weiner's Twitter account to a woman in Seattle.
Another website, RadarOnline.com, said a woman claimed to have 200 sexually explicit messages from the New York Democrat through a Facebook account that Weiner no longer uses. It was not clear whether the woman who claimed to have the new photo was the person who claimed to have received the text messages.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Michelle Obama: White House rebel (The Newsroom)
By Lois Romano
Secret mall trips. Dining out incognito. Michelle Obama has constructed a life inside the bubble—and has her own sense of her 2012 role, Lois Romano reports in this week's Newsweek.
The most recognizable woman in the world routinely ducks reporters to have what she calls a "normal" life. Hiding beneath a baseball cap, the first lady of the United States has picked through sale racks in the frenetic Tysons Corner, Va., mall with girlfriends, bought supplies for her dog at Petco using her own credit card, and dined at some of D.C.'s hippest eateries largely unrecognized. So secretive are her outings that when Washington Capitals hockey superstar Alex Ovechkin tweeted a photo in April with his arm around her at a busy Washington restaurant, media organizations were convinced it was a fake.
Michelle Obama laid down her markers quickly and in a way that has set Washington back on its heels. The White House was not going to imprison her, the media were not going to own her, and she would not be driven by external expectations.
She was supposed to be a different kind of first lady—an Ivy League-educated, fashion-trendsetting professional who blew up the conventions of the job. No one could have imagined back in the heady days following the election that she'd declare that she would work only two or three days a week, choose a couple of politically comfortable issues, and stay out of the glare of the political spotlight. The result has been a low-key tenure that some have found to be disappointingly conventional.
But is it? What the chattering class has missed is that Michelle Obama, in an understated way, has in fact been transforming the joba€”but on her own terms. She may have disappointed the Georgetown salon set with a casual disregard for social convention and annoyed the old political-wives club by not indulging them. But she has also spent untold hours with the other Washington--consciously extending the reach of the White House into D.C.'s black community, mentoring students, and choking up when she reflects on her own success to offer hope and dreams. Later this month she will make an official trip to South Africa and Botswana to further expand her commitment to students and young leaders, education, and wellness.
In short, Michelle Obama has figured out ways to navigate the bubble while channeling her own passions and holding on to her life.
But her carefully crafted world at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is about to be challenged anew. Her husband is entering his reelection bid battling rough economic headwinds, against a GOP energized by the successes of the 2010 mid-terms. Barack Obama will need every ounce of his wife's considerable star power—she's polling 20 points ahead of her husband—to win reelection. Although the full-throttle campaign is still months away, Michelle is already traveling the country fundraising.
In This Week's Newsweek:
• Walter Kirn: Mormons Rock!
• Jacob Bernstein & Jesse Ellison: Hotel Confidential
• Howard Kurtz: Roger Ailes Plays Nice
She must once again find her footing in the part of the job she hates the most—campaigning--but one she happens to excel at. "She has always been remarkably effective because no matter where you live or where you come from, you can relate to her," says White House official Stephanie Cutter, who worked closely with Michelle in 2008. "She conveys the same set of values and experiences families all over the country live by."
So reluctant has Michelle been to raise her profile that it's been easy to forget what a ferocious asset she was in the 2008 campaign. Toward the end, thousands of people were pushing into her rallies, shoving babies at her for photos, and mimicking her J.Crew clothes.
Coming off that huge success, Michelle startled the political establishment when she announced that she would limit her public appearances so she could tend to her family. (Her staff concedes that her initial declaration of working three days a week has been impossible to maintain.) The president's strategists say privately they would have liked her to do some heavier political lifting over the past two years, but that she's not someone who can be pushed. "She was always a reluctant campaigner," says a West Wing staffer who has witnessed some of the machinations to coax the first lady into making more political appearances. "She demands a level of thinking-through that can be taxing on the staff."
Ultimately, members of her staff say, she had no interest in lurching from crisis to crisis as presidential advisers see fit. "She wasn't going to be always doing some one-off trip because a congressman needed to be stroked," says someone close to her, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. -Michelle's hesitation to leverage her popularity for political gain apparently drove former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel crazy during last year's hectic legislative maneuvering and midterm elections.
"I think she's willing to do things, but she's not someone you send out with talking points as an adjunct spokesman for the government," says David Axelrod, the Obama strategist who recently left the White House to work on the campaign and who has known her for nine years.
Meanwhile, outside allies and advisers have encouraged Michelle's staff to push the envelope beyond her two signature issues—childhood obesity and helping military families—and raise her profile.
She is heeding some of that advice with her June 21 trip to Africa. Mindful of the negative publicity she generated last year with her luxury vacation to Spain, the staff has jampacked this excursion with cultural and historical significance, such as a keynote address to the Young African Leaders Forum and a visit to Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was kept in isolation for nearly three decades for opposing his country's harsh segregation policies. (A meeting with Mandela, 92, is uncertain given his fragile health.)
It is a move in the direction toward more substantive exposure, but still shy of embracing the traditional public role that some would like to see.
First ladies essentially step into these unpaid jobs with no official duties and work to carve out an agenda that at best dovetails with the president's—or at least doesn't get in his way. History shows that finding the right issues and tone can be a tricky effort. Nancy Reagan was viewed as a vapid California socialite until she latched onto her signature "Just Say No" campaign to discourage teenage drug use. By contrast, Hillary Clinton drew harsh criticism for leading her husband's failed drive to reform health care. Michelle has come across as neither the doe-eyed adoring wife nor the intense political adviser. But she has been fully engaged in shaping her own image and goals.
Michelle's staff of 22 knows not to cram her schedule with events that don't serve some larger strategic agenda. "What's the purpose?" she frequently demands of aides when presented with a proposal. "Am I value-added?" Once she settles on a schedule, her staff says she will spend hours and even days preparing for one appearance. For a major speech, like her address to West Point families at last month's commencement weekend, she will hand-edit multiple drafts. Staff will then drag a lectern into her office, where she will rehearse the speech with a teleprompter for days. "She demands a lot of herself," says Axelrod.
Despite her commitment to controlling her agenda, there still are plenty of traditional obligations that can't be avoided, and at times the first lady may have unwittingly conveyed ambivalence. Congressional wives were disappointed in how a series of luncheons was handled for the 500-plus spouses: the women were invited alphabetically, which, several said, showed no effort to create an interesting mix of guests. "I went with the Ks," said one wife of a Democratic congressman. "I barely said hello to her." This woman contrasted the lunch with a similar event hosted by Laura Bush, who obligingly took a group of the wives upstairs to see the Lincoln Bedroom--and then posed for pictures with each of them in the room. "I admire what Michelle is doing with all her public-service efforts," said the spouse, "but Laura was warm and made you feel like you were visiting her home."
Michelle's social life has largely revolved around her tight-knit group of girlfriends, such as Jocelyn Frye, who met her at Harvard Law School and now works in the White House; Angela Acree, a Princeton classmate; and Sharon Malone, a physician and the wife of Attorney General Eric Holder.
Malone, who has become a social friend of the first lady in the past two years, sees Michelle as simply trying to "create a little bit of space to keep herself sane."
"You know there's a playbook in Washington about what you're supposed to do—well, she's not following the playbook," says Malone. "She's doing it the way she wants to do it by being very involved in the community."
The first lady has made regular visits to schools in Anacostia, one of Washington's poorest, most difficult neighborhoods. She has initiated a high-octane mentoring program, linking White House aides with urban minority high-school students—and, NEWSWEEK has learned, she presses famous entertainers eager to perform for the president at tony events for a quid pro quo: an agreement to conduct a music workshop for selected students at the White House while they are in town. In late March, Motown greats Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson worked with a couple of hundred musically gifted students from across the country. At an earlier workshop, music students found themselves jamming one afternoon with five members of the Marsalis family—New Orleans jazz royalty—under the sparkling chandeliers of the East Room.
Washington's A-listers may not have swarmed across the Obamas' threshold, but the first lady assured the middle-schoolers invited to the White House one day, "While we live here, we're your neighbors. And we want you to feel welcome at the White House."
During a recent visit to Anacostia's Ballou High School, she took questions for 30 minutes. Asked what she would tell a teen mom who hoped to go to college, Michelle said she would say, "Good for you." She advised the students to think about what kind of careers they would want. "College is no joke because it is so expensive," she said.
The visit was part of an ambitious mentoring program she has held for students in Washington, Detroit, and Denver since 2009. In D.C., she has brought together a diverse group of female high-voltage celebrities who fan out to public schools. Students are later invited back to the White House to mingle with stars such as Geena Davis, Hilary Swank, Alicia Keyes, and Michelle Kwan.
"Nothing in my life's path ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American first lady," Michelle has often told inner-city students, her voice breaking with emotion. "I wasn't raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of."
From the beginning, Michelle seemed intent to play down her career credentials. A Princeton and Harvard--educated lawyer who held a high-powered job at the University of Chicago Medical Center, she promptly referred to herself as the mom in chief after Barack was elected.
In staffing her office, she surrounded herself with friends and some politically inexperienced loyalists from the campaign or Chicago, which led to a rocky start and some drama.
She has been through three chiefs of staff, three social secretaries, and two communications directors. Her first chief of staff had little management experience and was gone after a few months, after she and social secretary Desiree Rogers locked horns. Rogers, a glamorous Chicago acquaintance, was eventually canned when her profile became higher than the first lady's--never a good idea.
Susan Sher, a friend and former boss in Chicago, stepped in as chief of staff to help at a critical time and was well respected but wanted to return to her husband in Chicago. In February another friend from Chicago, Democratic activist and attorney Tina Tchen, moved over from the West Wing, an appointment applauded by senior presidential aides.
On a personal level as well, Michelle has kept her Chicago ties close. She moved her mother to Washington to help care for daughters Sasha and Malia; Miriam Robinson rides to school with the girls daily in an unmarked SUV. Michelle also brought to Washington from Chicago her long-term personal trainer, Cornell McClellan (who now has a robust White House clientele), and the family's personal chef, Sam Kass.
Michelle's reluctance to expand her circle may stem from the awkward early days of the 2008 campaign when opponents portrayed her as unpatriotic, snobby, and a caricature of an angry black woman. The president's advisers now candidly admit that she was poorly served by the campaign. Conservative commentators, who carefully steered clear of racial references when it came to Barack, had no such reservations about stirring up racial stereotypes about his wife. Eventually, Axelrod hired Stephanie Cutter to bolster Michelle's image and help her shape her passions into an agenda. She parlayed her interest in childhood nutrition into Let's Move, a national campaign to deal with an obesity epidemic among young people.
Michelle's other signature issue--helping military families--first attracted her attention while she campaigned in Iowa. She found herself in small towns comforting wives whose husbands had been deployed to Iraq and mothers who had lost sons. Once in the White House, she spent months consulting with families and veterans about their needs.
"We believe that this is what you deserve from us," she told the 200 military wives and mothers at the White House for a Mother's Day tea, her voice quavering. "Thank you for your strength." For now, Michelle has made clear that along with her mentoring efforts, these two issues will keep her busy and fulfilled professionally for the foreseeable future.
But on a personal note, her closest aides confide that there is one place in D.C. that she has been desperate to visit for another taste of life outside the White House--but so far it has not been possible. "She really wants to go to Target," says one confidante. "We have to make that happen."
Lois Romano is a senior writer for Newsweek/Daily Beast based in Washington. She was a longtime political writer and columnist for The Washington Post, covering presidential campaigns and Washington powerbrokers.
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LIFE slideshow: Never-seen photos of MLK & the Freedom Rides (The Newsroom)
It is the spring of 1961, and in the kitchen of a safe house in Montgomery, Alabama, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. looks tense, perhaps worried. As a volunteer bends his ear, the 32-year-old civil rights leader glances toward one of the 17 students hunkered down with him -- fresh-faced college kids who, moved by King's message of racial equality, have risked their very lives. The past two weeks have been harrowing for these young people -- the "Freedom Riders," they are called -- as they inch across the state on integrated buses, their numbers diminished at every stop in the face of arrests, bloody mob beatings, fire-bombings. There to capture the mood in the room as the group plans its next brave move -- a ride into Jackson, Mississippi -- is LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer, who covered the "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom" four years earlier and had seen firsthand the kind of courage and determination King could inspire in his followers. Now, nearly 50 years after these Freedom Rides and in celebration of King's birthday, LIFE.com presents never-seen photos taken by Schutzer, tracking King and the nation-changing movement he led, from the monuments of Washington to the streets of the Deep South.
Paul Schutzer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Angelman Syndrome: Close to a cure? (The Newsroom)
Rebecca Burdine knew something was wrong the day her baby girl was born. Sophie was born without a natural sucking reflex, making it nearly impossible to eat. Later, it became clear that she had hardly any muscle strength at all. As the months passed, Burdine, a developmental biologist from Princeton University, grew more worried about her daughter's poor sleep patterns: short blocks of sleep interspersed with intense screaming fits. When she turned four months old, Sophie began having seizures, sometimes as many as three an hour.
The first time Sophie suffered an Absence seizure, also known as a "petit mal" seizure, Burdine had no idea what was happening: "It was like watching TV when suddenly the screen turns to static, and then the channel comes back like nothing ever happened," she says.
Several months later, Sophie was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome, a genetic disorder marked by severe developmental delays, sleep disturbances, and oftentimes seizures. Actor Colin Farrell recently sparked interest in this relatively rare condition when he spoke publicly about his 7-year-old son James' diagnosis on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. The Irish actor discussed how his son's seemingly always happy demeanor and intense fascination with water caused James' pediatrician to test him for Angelman. As of last week, searches for Angelman Syndrome has spiked on Yahoo! , at one point becoming its third most trending topic.
According to Burdine, the newly renewed interest in the disease could not come at a better time, as researchers are on the brink of finding a cure.
"The dogma used to be that if you were born with a developmental disorder … that was it," said Dr. Paul Lombroso, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology at Yale University. "This has all changed."
Adds Burdine: "We now know the 'cards' can be re-dealt!"
As opposed to other neurological disorders like autism and Alzheimer's, which affect many different genes, Angelman Syndrome only affects one: the UBE3a gene. Because researchers can pinpoint what causes the disorder—the absence of UBE3a—they were not only able to genetically alter a mouse to mimic Angelman symptoms, but they were able to successfully cure it.
Tailoring that cure for humans is the logical next step, but funding is still needed to move forward.
"Everyone talks about finding a cure: 'We're going to cure cancer, we're going to cure autism, diabetes, etc.' But we're actually talking about a cure here," Burdine said. "What's frustrating is that the only thing in the way is money."
Burdine says that while Angelman is a relatively rare disease—affecting 1 in 15,000-20,000 births—curing it would be a gateway to finding a cure for other neurological disorders—like Alzheimer's and autism—as well as anything that affects learning and memory.
"This is a chance where someone's investment can really pay off and they can see the results," she said.
Now five years old, Burdine's daughter Sophie still can't walk or even sit up on her own. Without a chewing reflex, she is only able to eat pureed baby food. She is carried everywhere she goes, and still wears diapers. She also can't speak.
"As much as I love my daughter's smiles and her giggles, I want to get rid of the seizures; I want her to be able to eat real food; I want to be able to talk to her: simplistic things that would be profoundly important for making her life better."
To learn more about AS, and how you can help, visit CureAngelman.org.
Check out the world’s most advanced … toilet? (The Newsroom)
Kitchen and bath company Kohler has come out with a new toilet that it touts will set "a new standard of excellence in the bathroom." (Because that's what we're all striving for in the bathroom, right?)
The "Numi" has a luxury car-worthy list of amenities, among them: a motion-activated lid and seat, deodorizer, feet warming, music and "advanced bidet functionality." (Don't ask.) Oh, and if you forget to flush before you leave the bathroom, there's a REMOTE CONTROL.
Not included: The engineering team required to fix it when it breaks.
Photos of endangered places around the world (The Newsroom)
We all know that climate change melts glaciers and shifts sea levels. But have you ever thought about how rising temperatures can threaten beautiful places in every corner of the world? Some of these spots may be closer to home than you think.
For Earth Day, Yahoo! News interviewed Gaute Hogh, publisher of the book 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear (distributed by Abrams in the U.S.). Hogh was inspired to produce the book after witnessing the effects of global warming in his native Denmark. He wanted to show how natural beauty around the globe could be forever altered by climate change.
"The whole purpose of this book was to show my children the effects of climate change," Hogh says. "People usually show someone suffering and I wanted to show the positive side of it: If we don't do anything, we'll lose some of these beautiful places."
The first place that came to Hogh's mind was the Wadden Sea, a low-lying coastal zone in Denmark where visitors can "walk on water" to see varied landscapes and migratory birds. Hogh fears that rising sea levels will make the crossing too dangerous and destroy its dynamic ecosystem.
"One of my missions with the book is to show teenagers, if you don't turn off the water or turn down the heat, these places will disappear," Hogh says. "They may say, 'Why should I do this?' But if I show them these pictures, they start to see it another way."
Looking beyond his homeland, Hogh and his team used 2009 data from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cover a diversity of locations, both well-known and obscure. One famous locale is London by the river Thames, which could overflow by as early as 2025. Flooding would damage the city's underground rail network and could cost upwards of $48 billion.
Several areas in South America are vulnerable, including Brazil's white sand beaches by the coastal city of Recife. Increased flooding from Amazonian rivers also threatens the world's largest estuary Rio de la Plata, where coastal capitals Buenos Aires and Montevideo sit. It's also the natural habitat of threatened species like sea turtles, the rare La Plata dolphin, and the croaker, a drum-fish that croaks like a frog.
While many may be familiar with the precarious future of the Maldives, they may not know that even smaller islands like Tonga's Vava'u are also in danger. Said to be the best place to see whales in the wild, the small island chain is also prized for its vibrant coral reefs. Increased levels of CO2 are being absorbed by the ocean, bleaching reefs and endangering coral around the planet.
"For me, I don't care whether the place is big or small," Hogh says. "It's the same thing with people. No matter if you're black or white or Chinese or whatever. It's about treating each other with respect and it's the same thing with these small islands."
--By Allie Louie-Garcia and Thomas Kelley
For more information on Hogh's project, go to www.100places.com. The book also includes essays by Nobel Peace Prize recipients Desmond Tutu and Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Gulf oil spill one year later: ‘More questions than answers’ (The Newsroom)
When an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers, it wasn't clear at first that it would spark the worst offshore oil spill in American history. Some of the images produced show how the oil spewing from the bottom of the sea immediately affected a region still fragile after Hurricane Katrina. But a year and 206 million gallons of spilled oil later, scientists say we're still in the dark about exactly how much damage was caused.
"Now we're in the phase where we have more questions than answers," says Alex Kolker, a coastal geologist who teaches at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Tulane University. "I think we're very much in a wait-and-see mode."
From fishermen's total losses to animal deaths to land erosion, the final tallies simply aren't in. And, as we see tar balls still washing up on the beaches, along with animals they're killing, one big question remains: Where, exactly, did all the oil go?
The answer: We don't know.
"It's like 'Where's Waldo?' It's an incredibly frustrating question to try to address," notes Michael Blum, who teaches wetland ecology at Tulane.
He attributes the lack of answers to delays in funding and conveys the peril of scientists and fishermen alike: "Everybody's waiting."
(Photos compiled by Torrey AndersonSchoepe)
The Palin emails: Media outlets want your help (The Newsroom)
Alaska released more than 24,000 pages of email messages today from Sarah Palin's first 21 months as governor of the state. That's a lot of paper work to go through — six boxes and 100 pounds, to be exact.
So media organizations are requesting your help, including our partner at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza. He and his fellow reporters want you to pick out interesting or noteworthy tidbits to contribute to their coverage. Click here to find out how you can help.
You can get updates on Cillizza and team's work by following @PalinEmails on Twitter.
Happy hunting!
LIFE slideshow: Before and after D-Day, in color (The Newsroom)
It's no mystery why images of shocking, unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, "D-Day." We've all seen -- in black-and-white photos, movies, old news reels -- what happened on the beaches of Normandy as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944. But in rare, color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English towns; the French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads; the reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital; the liberation of Paris. As presented here, in masterfully restored color on the anniversary of D-Day, Scherschel's pictures feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new.
Frank Scherschel/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Bigfoot found in Solomon Islands! (The Newsroom)
OK, maybe not THAT Bigfoot, but a guy with really, really big feet.
Peter Iroga of the Solomon Islands tromps around on size 26 feet -- that's 14 inches, to the measurement-challenged -- which require custom-made kicks from the local cobbler.
Note to the NBA: Iroga has the height to match his massive feet - he's currently at 7 feet, 3 inches tall. And growing. Iroga has a tumor near his pituitary gland, which is responsible for his unique physique. For his part, Iroga is ready to stop his "growth spurt": He plans to undergo surgery to remove the tumor.
LIFE slideshow: A Eulogy for Activationism (The Newsroom)
Do you want a 'real' experience to talk about when you get home from your vacation? Come and get yourself Activationized. This intriguing invitation, LIFE magazine informed readers in August 1948, was distributed that summer around Cape Cod's Provincetown to signal the beginning of a brand-new "cult" -- something known as Activationism. Here, LIFE.com offers a eulogy for and celebration of the short-lived, playful, and (evidently) quite exhilarating phenomenon.
LIFE slideshow: Chris Hondros – In Memoriam (The Newsroom)
Chris Hondros, a New York-based, award-winning staff photographer for Getty Images, was killed in Misrata, Libya on April 20, 2011 -- along with fellow photographer Tim Hetherington -- during a battle between rebel fighters and backers of Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Hondros, who died of devastating brain injuries, covered most of the world's major conflicts since the late 1990s, including wars in Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Iraq. Here, in a gallery that will have to serve as both tribute and eulogy to a colleague who will be deeply missed, LIFE.com offers some of Chris' last photos -- a graphic record of a man doing a job he loved, and doing it exceptionally well, in circumstances that, too often, were absolutely hellish.
Endangered places around the world (The Newsroom)
We all know that climate change melts glaciers and shifts sea levels. But have you ever thought about how rising temperatures can threaten beautiful places in every corner of the world? Some of these spots may be closer to home than you think.
In celebration of Earth Day, Yahoo! News interviewed Gaute Hogh, publisher of the book 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear (distributed by Abrams in the U.S.). Hogh was inspired to produce the book after witnessing the effects of global warming in his native Denmark. He wanted to show how natural beauty around the globe could be forever altered by climate change.
"The whole purpose of this book was to show my children the effects of climate change," Hogh says. "People usually show someone suffering and I wanted to show the positive side of it: If we don't do anything, we'll lose some of these beautiful places."
The first place that came to Hogh's mind was the Wadden Sea, a low-lying coastal zone in Denmark where visitors can "walk on water" to see varied landscapes and migratory birds. Hogh fears that rising sea levels will make the crossing too dangerous and destroy its dynamic ecosystem.
"One of my missions with the book is to show teenagers, if you don't turn off the water or turn down the heat, these places will disappear," Hogh says. "They may say, 'Why should I do this?' But if I show them these pictures, they start to see it another way."
Looking beyond his homeland, Hogh and his team used 2009 data from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cover a diversity of locations, both well-known and obscure. One famous locale is London by the river Thames, which could overflow by as early as 2025. Flooding would damage the city's underground rail network and could cost upwards of $48 billion.
Several areas in South America are vulnerable, including Brazil's white sand beaches by the coastal city of Recife. Increased flooding from the Amazonian rivers also threatens the world's largest estuary Rio de la Plata, where coastal capitals Buenos Aires and Montevideo sit. It's also the natural habitat of threatened species like sea turtles, the rare La Plata dolphin, and the croaker, a drum-fish that croaks like a frog.
While many may be familiar with the precarious future of the Maldives, they may not know that even smaller islands like Tonga's Vava'u are also in danger. Said to be the best place to see whales in the wild, the small island chain is also prized for its vibrant coral reefs. Increased levels of CO2 are being absorbed by the ocean, bleaching reefs and endangering coral around the planet.
"For me, I don't care whether the place is big or small," Hogh says. "It's the same thing with people. No matter if you're black or white or Chinese or whatever. It's about treating each other with respect and it's the same thing with these small islands."
--By Allie Louie-Garcia and Thomas Kelley
For more information on Hogh's project, go to www.100places.com/en. The book also includes essays by Nobel Peace Prize recipients Desmond Tutu and Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Missouri tornado: How to Help (The Newsroom)
A massive tornado struck the small Missouri town of Joplin on May 22, killing more than 100 people. Hundreds more were injured and rescue teams are still searching the rubble for survivors.
The massive twister destroyed an estimated 30 percent of the city; entire neighborhoods were reduced to vast piles of rubble. "It's like taking a mower through tall grass. That's what it looks like. The devastation is complete. It is down to the ground," said State Senator Ron Richard.
Below are organizations that are working on relief and recovery in the region.
AMERICAN RED CROSS: Opening emergency shelters for families affected by the severe storms. To designate your gift to Red Cross Disaster Relief, select "National Disaster Relief" in the designation field. Donate here.
AMERICARES: AmeriCares is working with the National Conference of Community Health Centers to assess needs and mobilize a response for communities affected by the deadliest series of twisters in more than 40 years. To designate your gift to US Disaster Relief, write "US Disaster Relief Fund" in the designation field. Donate here.
DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: Assisting local clinics and healthcare providers whose facilities have been destroyed or evacuated. To designate your gift to Disaster Relief, write "Emergency Preparedness & Response" in the designation field. Donate here.
Excuse me, but aren’t we brothers? (The Newsroom)
Luck, fate, kismet -- whatever you want to call it, two guys named Joe and Rick got hit by all three on a beach in Hawaii.
It started innocently enough: Joe Parker was walking on the beach one day. He saw a family taking pictures and offered to take a group photo of Rick Hill and his family. Rick and Joe get to talking, one thing leads to another -- and voila: Turns out they're related! And not as 13th cousins twice-removed -- the pair discovered they were from the same part of Massachusetts, which led them to find out that they had something else in common: Dad.
Who knew?! Clearly not these two, which means Dad has a LOT of explaining to do when they get home.
Al-Qaida head Osama bin Laden is killed (The Newsroom)
Almost a decade after the U.S. was rocked by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, President Barack Obama announced Sunday night that the mastermind behind the massacre had been killed. Osama bin Laden's death after years on the run marks the end of an era in the global fight against terrorism.
After news of the death spread, revelers crowded near the White House and at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, where thousands died on 9/11. News reports relayed accounts of celebrating patriots who shared a feeling Obama conveyed in his late-night speech: "Justice has been done."
Something borrowed, something Super Mario (The Newsroom)
We've all been invited to (or thrown) theme parties before: the Disco party, Prom Night, '80s Dance parties. But have you ever been invited to a Super Mario Brothers' themed WEDDING?
(Yes, you read that correctly: A WEDDING. Not a birthday party. Not a kid's party. A WEDDING.)
An Iowa couple is so enamored of the classic video game that the bride will be dressed as Princess Peach and her groom will be awaiting her at the altar dressed as (wait for it....) Mario. There's no escape for the wedding party: The couple's mothers will be wearing costumes as well. (That puffy teal bridesmaid dress is starting to look pretty hot, right?)
Once in a blue lobster (The Newsroom)
For one lucky lobster in the waters off Canada's Prince Edward Island, getting caught means a cushy aquarium tank, not a pot of boiling water.
The clawed crustacean is getting the royal treatment because he's blue -- not sad blue, but blue blue. A rare genetic mutation causes a blue lobster to occur in only 1 out of several MILLION lobsters.
Note to chefs: They may look different on the outside, but once you get them in a pot, blue lobsters turn red just like everybody else. Melted butter, anyone?
Friday, June 3, 2011
Remembering 9/11: For 10-year anniversary, we want to hear from you (The Newsroom)
This Sept. 11 will mark 10 years since the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., killed nearly 3,000 people. To honor the anniversary, Yahoo! would like to hear your ideas and voices. We want to know what you want to read about — and we want to hear your story.
Everyone remembers where they were when the found out about the attacks. Where were you? Do you know anyone who was profoundly changed by that day? Are there firefighters,survivors or heroes you'll always remember? Is there someone you think is a part of this story who you want to know more about?
Share your story or tell us who you think we should find out more about by posting in the comments below or emailing us at sept11suggestions@yahoo.com.
You can also post your thoughts on our Facebook page. We want to hear from you, and potentially give you an outlet to share your ideas and experiences with the Yahoo! audience.
(Photo: A fireman carries an American flag to the highest point he could find during a press tour of the site of the World Trade Center, the area known as ground zero, New York, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001. AP/Bridget Besaw Gorman, Pool)
Friday, May 27, 2011
Deadly tornadoes devastate the South: How to help (The Newsroom)
A slew of powerful tornadoes ripped through the South recently, leveling entire towns and killing hundreds of people in six states. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center was able to give 24 minutes' notice of the approaching tornadoes, but for many people throughout the region, that wasn't enough time to escape the deadly twisters.
The majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama; Walter Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, Ala., told CNN, "I don't know how anyone survived."
Below are organizations that are working on relief and recovery in the region.
AMERICAN RED CROSS: Opening emergency shelters for families affected by the severe storms. To designate your gift to Red Cross Disaster Relief, select "National Disaster Relief" in the designation field. Donate here.
SAMARITAN'S PURSE: Sending Disaster Relief Units to help victims of the violent storms in Alabama and North Carolina. To designate your gift to U.S. Disaster Relief, write "US Disaster Relief" in the designation field. Donate here.
SALVATION ARMY: Responding to the deadly tornado activity throughout the South, mobilizing feeding units, and providing support to the victims. To designate your gift to support relief after these tornadoes, write "April 2011 Tornado Outbreak" in the designation field. Donate here.
AMERICARES: AmeriCares is working with the National Conference of Community Health Centers to assess needs and mobilize a response for communities affected by the deadliest series of twisters in more than 40 years. To designate your gift to US Disaster Relief, write "US Disaster Relief Fund" in the designation field. Donate here.
DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: Assisting local clinics and health-care providers whose facilities have been destroyed or evacuated. Direct Relief USA has been in contact with National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC), the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), and State Primary Care Associations across several southern states to offer medical material aid to partner clinics from the organization's standing inventory. To designate your gift to Disaster Relief, write "Emergency Preparedness & Response" in the designation field. Donate here.
An iconic journey: From village priest to Pope John Paul II (The Newsroom)
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Space aliens from Russia (The Newsroom)
All the Mulders and Scullys out there want to believe, but if you're gonna hoax the believers, you have to try harder than chicken skin and stale bread.
That's what two Russian students used to create a faux space alien, complete with its own Siberian "crash site." The pair's YouTube video of the supposed alien landing snagged more than 7 million breathless believers. Not quite so gullible? The Russian police. Investigators dug a little deeper and eventually found E.T. stashed under a bed in one of the student's homes. (I'm guessing they just followed their noses.)
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Michele Bachmann
Current Position: U.S. Representative (since January 2007)
Career History: Minnesota Senator (2000-2007); Treasury Department tax attorney(1995 to 2000);
Birthday: April 6, 1956
Hometown: Stillwater, Minn.
Alma Mater: Winona State University, B.A., 1978; Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University, J.D., 1986; Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, L.L.M., 1988
Spouse: Marcus Bachmann
Religion: Lutheran
DC Office: 107 Cannon House Office Building, 202-225-2331
District Office: Woodbury, Minn., 651-731-5400; St. Cloud/Waite Park, Minn., 320-253-5931
Website
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