punter polisher: April 2013

Sunday, April 28, 2013

News Summary: Chevron earnings slide

OIL SLIDE: Chevron Corp. reported Friday that net income fell to $6.18 billion, or $3.18 per share, on revenue of $56.82 billion. Last year the company earned $6.47 billion, or $3.27 per share, on revenue of $60.71 billion. Production was up slightly, but oil prices slipped.

UNREFINED: Chevron's refining profit also fell, due to maintenance and upgrades at refineries in El Segundo, Calif. and Pascagoula, Miss. and continued repairs at its Richmond Calif. refinery in the wake of an August fire.

DRILLING DOWN: Chevron hopes to increase production by 25 percent to 3.3 million barrels per day by 2017.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news-summary-chevron-earnings-slide-181025677.html

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Gr8LakesCamper: Volunteers make Lake Hudson Recreation Area ...

Michigan?s Pheasant Restoration Initiative got a boost recently as about a dozen volunteers from the Lake
Hudson Pheasant Cooperative showed up to work with Department of Natural Resources Parks and Recreation Division employees to take out an overgrown fence row between two grassy fields at Lake Hudson Recreation Area. The goal is to create a large block of habitat that will be more hospitable to pheasants and other grasslands residents as well.

The Lake Hudson area is in one of three, three-county pilot areas the DNR Wildlife Division has identified as potential pheasant restoration hubs. It is somewhat unusual in that it is not a wildlife management or game area, but part of the Parks and Recreation Division.

The Lake Hudson Recreation Area consists of 2,800 acres of land as well as a 500-acre lake, which is a well-known muskellunge fishery. The area boasts 50 campsites and a day-use area with a beach and is also a dark-sky preserve. Area staff has identified about 500 acres to be managed as grasslands as well as perhaps as many as 200 more that could be converted to grasslands, explained area manager Jim O?Brien.

DNR staff recently mowed about 250 acres that had grown up into brush for conversion to quality grasslands, O?Brien said.

The work at Lake Hudson is ongoing, said Ray Fahlsing, who heads the stewardship program with the DNR Parks and Recreation Division. Fahlsing said the DNR has cobbled together a number of funding sources as well as enlisted volunteers to get the job done.

The Lenawee Chapter of Pheasants Forever donated $5,000 that the DNR is using for tractor fuel and
herbicide, Fahlsing said. In addition, volunteers from the Monroe County Chapter of Pheasants Forever recently cleared 20 acres of brush.

?They pulled brush out by the roots and then mowed the entire 20 acres,? Fahlsing said. ?It was quite the operation, better than any contractor I?ve ever worked with.?

Volunteers from the Washtenaw County Chapter of Pheasants Forever cleared an additional 10 acres, Fahlsing said.

?And we were able to obtain some grant money to pay for removal of another 6,000 feet of fence rows,? Fahlsing said. ?We?re fitting all kinds of pieces together to get this done.?

A number of fields are currently in agriculture under share-cropping operations, he added. As those leases expire they will be converted back into grasslands.

?We want to see bobolinks and short-eared owls and all kinds of species that use grasslands, not just pheasants,? Fahlsing said.

Ken Prats, a retired trucker who lives on a farm near the recreation area that he has enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), was one of the volunteers who spent the day removing and piling up brush ? which will be burned ? as well as removing old wire fencing and pulling out fence posts.

?We?ve got big aspirations that this program is going to pan out,? said Prats, 55. ?We?ve always had a good bird population around here, but where the land was in crops, there were just birds here and there. Once we got it into CRP, the first couple of years we had good rains and the grass came up real well and the birds just proliferated.?

Nelson Evers, a painting contractor from Tecumseh who described himself as one of the ?core members? of the Lake Hudson Pheasant Cooperative, said he was encouraged by the turnout.

?We want to clear these fences so we can take these three fields and eventually have one 90-acre parcel all in one piece,? Evers said. ?The members are pretty passionate about doing this.

?We started out with just a couple of guys and we had 12 or 13 people show up for this work day. There were some sons and daughters and mothers out here. It?s kind of a family thing. And they?re all workers ? that?s the important thing.?

Volunteers spent about three hours on the project on a cold, wet Saturday, reducing the fence row to piles of
brush and a few stumps.

?Lake Hudson is a great example of co-op partners rallying around the pheasant initiative,? said Al Stewart,
upland game bird program leader with the DNR. ?They?re actively working to get things going on the ground.?

Lake Hudson, in Lenawee County, is part of the Lenawee-Monroe-Hillsdale County pilot area. The others are in Clinton, Gratiot and Saginaw counties, and in Huron, Tuscola and Sanilac counties in the Thumb.

?There?s a co-op developed in Barry County actively engaged in the initiative, too,? Stewart said. ?We?re working to get local co-ops formed throughout southern Michigan, though we?re concentrating on the pilot areas to really get things moving.?

The DNR envisions eventually creating and preserving 200,000 acres of pheasant habitat, Stewart said.

?The focus is on working on a landscape scale, with public lands as the core of the activities, but expanding into private lands as well,? he explained. ?In the past, habitat improvements have centered on small areas. This is an attempt to do things on a big scale.?

To learn more about the Michigan Pheasant Restoration Initiative, visit www.michigan.gov/pheasant.

Source: http://gr8lakescamper.blogspot.com/2013/04/volunteers-make-lake-hudson-recreation.html

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Atlantis Exposed: Space Shuttle Fully Unwrapped for NASA Exhibit

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ??Space shuttle Atlantis is ready for its spotlight ? well, almost.

The retired NASA orbiter, which is set to go on public display June 29 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, was fully revealed Friday (April 26) after workers spent two days peeling off its protective shrink-wrap cover of the past five months.

"It looks fantastic," Tim Macy, director of project development and construction for Delaware North Parks and Resorts, which runs the visitor complex for NASA, said after seeing Atlantis unwrapped. "It looks better than I thought it was going to look." [Photos: Rare Last Look Inside Shuttle Atlantis]

"It looks completely different with the plastic on it than the plastic off," Macy told collectSPACE.com. "But this is the way it is supposed to look. It looks so much like the [exhibit's conceptual] drawings."

On Thursday, workers began carefully cutting back the 16,000 square feet (1,486 square meters) of shrink wrap that protected Atlantis as its $100 million exhibition building was completed around it. By the end of the first day, the shuttle's nose, tail, aft engines and left wing were exposed.

On Friday, the workers completed the process, revealing Atlantis' right wing and its 60-foot-long (18 meter) payload bay.

"I cannot wait to get the covers off the windows and get the doors open to see the final configuration," Macy said.

Opening the payload bay is the last major challenge to ready Atlantis for display, Macy said. That process, which is set to begin in May, will take about two weeks, as the doors are very slowly hoisted open, one by one.

NASA designed the cargo bay to open in the microgravity environment of space. Here on Earth, the hinges cannot support the doors' weight, so lines dropped from the five-story building's roof will be used to hold the doors in place.

Once open, visitors will be able to easily see into the payload bay, given the way that Atlantis has been mounted. Thirty feet (9 meters) in the air, the space shuttle has been tilted 43.21 degrees, such that its left wing extends toward the ground.

The end result is that Atlantis will appear to be back in space ? an effect that will be enhanced by lighting and a mural-size digital screen that will project the Earth's horizon behind the shuttle.

"It looks great even in the work lights," Macy commented. "Wait until we get the theatrical lights on it and light it the way we're supposed to, have that big screen going on behind it, it's going to be awesome."

Click through to collectSPACE.com to see photo galleries from the two-day process to unwrap space shuttle Atlantis.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/atlantis-exposed-space-shuttle-fully-unwrapped-nasa-exhibit-202446232.html

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Friday, April 26, 2013

Buffer Scheduling Service Now Making Over $100K In Monthly Revenue, With 600K Users Sending 5M Updates Per Month

Social network scheduling startup Buffer continues to grow, and is now on track to make over $1 million in annual revenue with over $100,000 coming in from clients per month. The company now has over 600,000 users, and over 10,000 paying users as of this month, signalling significant growth from December of 2012, when it had 400,000 total users, and a third of its current social shares per month.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eRXVkJaUZ90/

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Lessons From Boston: How to Be a Man (ABC News)

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'Idol' elimination show gets everything wrong

FOX

Candice Glover, Angie Miller, Kree Harrison and Amber Holcomb remained safe on "American Idol" this week.

By Craig Berman, TODAY contributor

In ?American Idol: The Complete Waste of Time? edition on Thursday night, nobody got sent home, Lee DeWyze and Stefano Langone sang live, and Drake came onstage for a homage bit with Candice Glover but not to perform himself. It was like someone challenged the ?Idol? brass to spend one show trying to do everything wrong.

We still got results, as Candice and Amber Holcomb were revealed as the two lowest vote-getters after Wednesday?s show, but in a twist obvious to anyone who owns a calendar and a copy of the TV schedule, it was an elimination-free evening. Otherwise, as Ryan Seacrest explained, the show would finish a week early because the judges never used their save. Somewhere out there, Curtis Finch Jr. is yelling that Nicki Minaj should have stuck to her guns on that March 14 show and stayed off the stage until the other three judges agreed to keep him. Also, take a bow ?Idol?voters, because for now the judges agree that you are perfect.

But not to worry, Ryan said, all of those votes still count. They?ll be added to next Wednesday?s votes and whoever finishes at the bottom is gone for reals. So it?s still good for Kree Harrison that she rebounded to finish in the top two despite some lukewarm feedback, and Angie Miller is still a lock to make the top three.

With all apologies to the live acts, both of whom had their moments, the entertaining portion of the night was limited to a five-minute stretch in the middle of the show that began with Jimmy Iovine discussing being attacked last night.

?So here I am, onstage for the first time in my life on a live TV show, the entire audience is booing me, and from the judges? panel here comes Nicki Minaj coming at me like a middle linebacker,? Jimmy said. ?Turns out that my incredible charm, charisma and style win the day. I gotta tell you something ? I think [Nicki] is sweet on me.?

?Is this a mutual crush?? Ryan asked.

?I didn?t want to tell the world. I was kind of waiting until ?Idol? was over to reveal that my new sugar daddy is Jimmy Iovine,? Nicki said.

Despite Jimmy?s plug, no NFL team selected Nicki in the first round of the NFL Draft, which was airing at the same time on another network. She?s really more of a cornerback or free safety anyway.

Seconds later, just as Candice was grimacing thinking that for the second night in a row everyone was talking about someone else on her designated critique time, Ryan said that Drake couldn?t be there, but had an audio message praising Candice for her performance of his song last night. Just when everyone started thinking ?wow, the sound quality is way better than any ?Idol? phone message replay ever,? he walked out onto the stage, and the reaction of Candice and the other three girls was priceless. He then walked around for awhile, realized that Ryan really was not going to beg him to perform, and went away.

If you missed it, don?t worry. All four ?Idol? finalists will be back next week anyway.

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Singer Currington charged with threats to Ga. man

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) ? Police suspect country singer Billy Currington may have videotaped himself chasing a 70-year-old tour boat captain along a coastal Georgia creek and threatening to "finish him off" in a tirade filled with profanities, according to court documents filed Thursday.

The boat captain, Charles Harvey Ferrelle, and his two passengers told police Currington was holding a camera when he became outraged and made the threats April 15 after they passed him on the dock of a $3.5 million waterfront home near Tybee Island. Ferrelle told police that Currington later got into his own boat and chased them.

"They were in fear of this man and a possible attack against Mr. Ferrelle, and possibly everyone there, as his behavior was 'out of control' as described by all three persons," Savannah-Chatham County Police Detective Alycia Rice wrote in an affidavit filed in Chatham County Superior Court.

Currington, 39, turned himself in Thursday afternoon at the county jail, where he was booked on charges of making terroristic threats and abuse of an elderly person. Currington was free Thursday night after posting $27,700 bond, Sheriff's Cpl. Rhonda Bryant Elleby said. Each of the charges is a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.

Police got a warrant to search Currington's home Tuesday and seized four digital video files, 27 digital photos and a memory card. The affidavit said police believed Currington might have recorded the confrontation.

Currington is a native of the Georgia coast. His hits include "Pretty Good At Drinkin' Beer," ''That's How Country Boys Roll" and "People Are Crazy."

The singer's attorney, Alex Zipperer, did not immediately return phone messages. In a court filing April 19, the attorney said Currington denied "each and every allegation" from Ferrelle.

Two days after the incident, the singer sent a message to more than 200,000 Twitter followers saying "Harrassing (sic) artists often at their home by boat should be illegal. thas all i know."

Currington thanked fans Wednesday on Twitter for their support but said he couldn't comment because of the ongoing investigation. Lori Christian, a spokeswoman for Universal Music Group in Nashville, declined to comment Thursday. Universal owns Currington's record label.

Ferrelle, who conducts boat tours from Tybee Island east of Savannah, told police he was cruising past Currington's home on Tybee Creek when his two passengers told Ferrelle someone on the property was yelling at them and "flipping a double bird," the affidavit said.

Ferrelle told police he was floating with the current, far from the docks, but he throttled up and moved away when he saw the angry man, whom he later identified from a photograph as Currington.

Ferrelle told officers that when he passed by again on the return trip, Currington got in his own boat with a camera and followed him to the dock where Ferrelle keeps his tour boat.

"If I hadn't gotten into my slip fast enough, I believe he would have run me over," Ferrelle told police.

Ferrelle and his passengers told police Currington pulled up to the dock, but didn't get out of his boat. They said he called Ferrelle foul names and said, "I am going to (expletive) you up you mother (expletive) old man," according to the police affidavit. It says Currington told Ferrelle that he and his brother would "catch him in the river" and "finish him off."

Ferrelle did not immediately return phone messages from The Associated Press. One of his passengers, Curt Reinelt, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday.

A second charter boat captain, Elizabeth Johnson, later told police Currington made similar threats to her and a passenger last October when they were fishing not far from the singer's home.

A separate police report filed soon after the incident indicates that those living at Currington's home had problems with boats passing by too closely or too fast. A woman who said she was the caretaker of an elderly man at the same address called police to complain that a passing boat nearly knocked the man off the home's dock and into the water. The police report said the woman was talking about the events that led to Currington chasing after the tour boat.

"Well, what is it we can do to keep people from coming up on our docks or swamping our docks?" the woman asked.

Currington told The Tennessean newspaper in 2007 that he sometimes struggled to control his anger as a result of suffering childhood abuse while growing up in Rincon, near Savannah. In the interview, conducted after he completed a 30-day trauma recovery program in Arizona, Currington said a small part of him remained "hurt, sad and furious."

"When he comes out, he comes out very quickly and it goes away very quickly," Currington told the newspaper. "And in those instances, that rage can destroy relationships, whether it's with a girlfriend or a business partner or a fan. It doesn't take long to screw it all up."

___

Associated Press Writer Phillip Lucas in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/singer-currington-charged-threats-ga-man-160309567.html

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Keeping beverages cool in summer: I''s not just the heat, it's the humidity

Apr. 25, 2013 ? In spring a person's thoughts turn to important matters, like how best to keep your drink cold on a hot day. Though this quest is probably as old as civilization, University of Washington climate scientists have provided new insight.

It turns out that in sultry weather condensation on the outside of a canned beverage doesn't just make it slippery: those drops can provide more heat than the surrounding air, meaning your drink would warm more than twice as much in humid weather compared to in dry heat. In typical summer weather in New Orleans, heat released by condensation warms the drink by 6 degrees Fahrenheit in five minutes.

"Probably the most important thing a beer koozie does is not simply insulate the can, but keep condensation from forming on the outside of it," said Dale Durran, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

He's co-author of results published in the April issue of Physics Today that give the exact warming for a range of plausible summer temperatures and humidity levels. For example, on the hottest, most humid day in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, condensation alone would warm a can from near-freezing temperature to 48 degrees Fahrenheit in just five minutes.

The investigation began a couple of years ago when Durran was teaching UW Atmospheric Sciences 101 and trying to come up with a good example for the heat generated by condensation. Plenty of examples exist for evaporative cooling, but few for the reverse phenomenon. Durran thought droplets that form on a cold canned beverage might be just the example he was looking for.

A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation showed the heat released by water just four thousandths of an inch thick covering the can would heat its contents by 9 degrees Fahrenheit.

"I was surprised to think that such a tiny film of water could cause that much warming," Durran said.

Though he's normally more of a theoretician, Durran decided this result required experimental validation. He recruited co-author Dargan Frierson, a UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences, and they ran an initial test in Frierson's little-used basement bathroom, using a space heater and hot shower to vary the temperature and humidity.

The findings corroborated the initial result, and they embarked on a larger-scale test.

"You can't write an article for Physics Today where the data has come from a setup on the top of the toilet tank in one of the author's bathrooms," Durran said.

First they recruited colleagues in Frierson's beachside hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, to duplicate the experiment and compare results with those taken on a hot, dry Seattle day. But they decided they needed to test a wider range of conditions.

Finally, last summer undergraduates Stella Choi and Steven Brey joined the project to run a proper experiment in the UW Atmospheric Sciences building. They unearthed an experimental machine with styling that looks to be from the 1950s, last used decades ago to simulate cloud formation.

With funding for educational outreach from the National Science Foundation, the students first cooled a can in a bucket of ice water then dried it and placed it in the experimental chamber dialed up to the appropriate conditions. After five minutes they removed the can, weighed it to measure the amount of condensation, and recorded the final temperature of the water inside.

The phenomenon at work -- latent heat of condensation -- is central to Frierson's research on water vapor, heat transfer and global climate change.

"We expect a much moister atmosphere with global warming because warmer air can hold a lot more water vapor," Frierson said. Because heat is transferred when water evaporates or condenses, this change affects wind circulation, weather patterns and storm formation.

Durran's research includes studies of thunderstorms, which are powered by heat released from condensation in rising moist air.

As for his demonstration of the heat released during this process, he and Frierson are now working with the National Center for Atmospheric Research to develop an educational tool that will let students around the world try the experiment and post their results online for comparison.

The example promises to become as classic as a cold drink on a hot summer day.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington. The original article was written by Hannah Hickey.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Dale R. Durran, Dargan M. W. Frierson. Condensation, atmospheric motion, and cold beer. Physics Today, 2013; 66 (4): 74 DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.1958

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/CpFLiidm8RQ/130425142441.htm

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S. Korea vows 'grave measure' if North rejects talks

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korea on Thursday warned of unspecified "grave measures" if North Korea rejects talks on a jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month ? setting up the possible end of the last remaining major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

The demand for talks, which is likely to draw an angry response from North Korea, follows a lull in what had been a period of rising hostility between the Koreas. Pyongyang has recently eased its threats of nuclear war and expressed some tentative signs of interest in dialogue, and Washington and Seoul have also pushed for an easing of animosity.

Despite North Korea's threats, there were few major actions; perhaps the biggest was Pyongyang's suspension of operations at the inter-Korean factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. Early this month, it barred South Koreans from crossing the border and entering the factory, which is a holdover from an era that saw the Koreas set up various cooperative projects meant to facilitate better ties. It also withdrew the 53,000 North Koreans who manned assembly lines there.

South Korea's Unification Ministry on Thursday proposed working-level talks on Kaesong and urged the North to respond by noon Friday, warning that Seoul will take "grave measures" if Pyongyang rebuffs the call for dialogue.

In a televised news conference, spokesman Kim Hyung-suk refused to describe what those measures might be, but some analysts said Seoul would likely pull out its remaining workers from the complex if the working-level talks don't happen.

The factory has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It has weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.

More than 120 South Korean companies, mostly small and medium-sized apparel and electronics firms, operated at Kaesong before North Korean workers stopped showing up on April 9. Raw material came from South Korea, with finished goods later sent back south. Last year, the factories produced goods worth $470 million. South Korean companies paid salaries to North Korean workers averaging $127 a month, according to South Korea's government. That is less than one-sixteenth of the average salary of South Korean manufacturer workers.

Impoverished North Korea objects to views in South Korea that the park is a source of badly-needed hard currency. It also has complained about alleged South Korean military plans in the event Pyongyang held the Kaesong managers hostage.

At the factory, food has dwindled, and with no apparent end to North Korea's suspension in sight, a daily trickle of South Korean workers have returned home. Still, Pyongyang hasn't forced South Koreans to leave, and about 175 are still there.

Kim, the Unification Ministry spokesman, said South Korea set a deadline because the remaining workers at Kaesong are seeing food and medicine shortages. He said the companies there are suffering economically because of the shutdown.

To resolve deadlocked operations at Kaesong, Kim said North Korea should first allow some South Koreans to cross the border to hand over food and medicine to the managers.

South Korea on Wednesday proposed talks, but the North rebuffed the offer, Kim said.

"It's very regrettable for North Korea to reject (taking) the minimum humanitarian measures for our workers at the Kaesong industrial complex," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skorea-demands-talks-nkorea-closed-factory-013622996--finance.html

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

More Money For Utah & Other Mountain-Area Startups: Kickstart Raises $26M Second Fund

Kickstart Seed Fund (not to be confused with crowdfunding giant Kickstarter), has raised $26 million for a second fund to invest in Utah-based startups, along with others in the "Mountain West" region of the U.S. Since its launch in 2008, with a $8 million fund raised by Managing Director Gavin Christensen, Kickstart has invested in 24 companies, including two exits with?Panoptic Security in November of 2012 and GroSocial in January of 2013.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/T4zAyHrBWng/

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Repairing articular cartilage defects with an injectable gel engineered with gene modified BMSCs

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Researchers at Micro Orthopaedics, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, led by Dr. Ai-xi Yu, have suggested that articular cartilage defects can be repaired by a novel thermo-sensitive injectable hydrogel engineered with gene modified bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs). The chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol composite hydrogel containing hTGF?-1 gene modified BMSCs was injected into rabbits with defective articular cartilage. Sixteen weeks later the defected cartilage regenerated and was proven to be hyaline cartilage.

This work can be found in the January 2013 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

"No reliable approach is currently available for complete restoration of damaged articular cartilage," said Dr. Bai-wen Qi, "in this study, CS/PVA gel was combined with rabbit bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) transfected with hTGF?-1 and used to repair rabbit articular cartilage defects and the repair effect was evaluated."

Tissue engineering combined with gene therapy technology has the potential to manage the repair of defective articular cartilage. In this study, through minimally invasive injection methods the authors were able to repair rabbit articular cartilage defects with CS/PVA gel and gene modified BMSCs. Dr. Qi said "CS/PVA gel can be applied to the repair of articular cartilage defects as an injectable material in tissue engineering, and the regenerated cartilage can secrete cartilage matrix and perform the functions of hyaline cartilage. Use of this gel for cartilage repair has advantages such as the minor surgical procedure required, tight bonding with the damaged tissue and lack of rejection."

Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine said "The study by Qi and colleagues is very exciting as it combines tissue engineering and gene therapy approaches to successfully repair defective articular cartilage. The approach should be adaptable in the future to human tissue repair."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

B.-w. Qi, A.-x. Yu, S.-b. Zhu, M. Zhou, G. Wu. Chitosan/poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel combined with Ad-hTGF-?1 transfected mesenchymal stem cells to repair rabbit articular cartilage defects. Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2013; 238 (1): 23 DOI: 10.1258/ebm.2012.012223

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/ECzWDwvlCpc/130423144307.htm

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Afghan quake, floods kills at least 33

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An earthquake in Afghanistan's east and flash floods in the north killed at least 33 people on Wednesday as hundreds of traditional mud-brick homes collapsed, officials said.

The 5.7 magnitude quake, which hit before 2 p.m. (0930 GMT) was felt as far away as the Indian capital New Delhi and was the latest in a spate of tremors to shake Asia this month.

The quake was 65 km (40 miles) deep with an epicenter 11 km (seven miles) from Mehtar Lam, capital of the eastern province of Laghman, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

At least 18 people were killed in adjacent Nangarhar and Kunar provinces and the death toll was expected to rise, a spokesman for the Afghan Red Crescent Society said. Some 70 people were injured in Nangarhar alone.

Hundreds of homes collapsed across Kunar and Nangarhar.

Wednesday saw steady rain across most of Afghanistan, which would have weakened the mud-brick dwellings many Afghans live in, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

The agency did not yet have its own casualty figures.

Rain also caused flash-flooding in the northern province of Balkh earlier on Wednesday, killing 15 people, provincial council member Fazel Hadidi said.

Buildings swayed in New Delhi and panicky people ran into the street in the disputed northern region of Kashmir, where an quake killed about 75,000 people in 2005, most on the Pakistan side. Wednesday's quake was also felt in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Last week, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 200 people in southwest China, a few days after another powerful tremor killed 35 people in Pakistan near the border with Iran.

(Reporting by Rafiq Sherad in Jalalabad, Mohammad Anwar in Asababad, Satarupa Bhattacharjya in New Delhi, Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar and Kathryn Houreld in Islamabad; writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Dylan Welch, editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/earthquake-felt-indias-delhi-kashmir-witnesses-094113969.html

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Security officials face questions over Boston Marathon bombings

By Scott Malone and Aaron Pressman

BOSTON (Reuters) - Top security officials face a grilling from lawmakers on Tuesday over whether authorities who have charged one man with the Boston Marathon bombings may have overlooked warning signs two years ago flagging the other suspect.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was formally charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death at a bedside hearing on Monday in his hospital room, where he was recovering from gunshot wounds suffered in shootouts with police.

Prosecutors say he and his elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, carried backpacks containing pressure cooker bombs that ripped through the crowd near the finish line of the world-renowned race on April 15, killing three people and wounding more than 200.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot in an exchange of gunfire with police and run over by his younger brother early on Friday, police said. He later died at a hospital. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fled on foot but was captured later that day following a massive manhunt.

Russian authorities flagged the elder Tsarnaev in 2011 as a possible Islamist radical, and some lawmakers have accused the FBI of failing to act thoroughly enough after Russia's security services raised their concerns. The FBI questioned him in 2011.

Top investigators were slated to brief the full House of Representatives on Tuesday about the failure to spot the danger.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators in his hospital room that he and his brother acted alone, without any help, according to reports by CNN and the New York Times. He said his older brother was the driving force behind the bombings, according to CNN.

The Times reported that he admitted to the bombings in questioning by investigators on Sunday. These reports could not be independently confirmed.

The younger Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, will be tried in a civilian rather than a military court. Some Republican lawmakers had called on the Obama administration to designate him as an enemy combatant, which would have restricted his rights.

Evidence against him is now likely to be presented to a grand jury by prosecutors who will seek a formal indictment.

Both charges against Tsarnaev carry the possibility of the death penalty. Given the apparent evidence against him, plea negotiations are likely, legal experts said.

EMIGRATED FROM DAGESTAN

He can be seen in video taken by security cameras placing a backpack near the finish line of the marathon, according to the criminal complaint that alleges he acted in concert with his older brother.

The complaint drew from video and still images captured by security cameras, the media and the public at the race before and after the bombing.

The complaint, which did not mention a motive for the bombings, said that 30 seconds before the first explosion, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev started fidgeting with his cellphone. After the blast, virtually everyone around him turned toward the blast "in apparent bewilderment and alarm," while he appeared calm, it said.

He then left his backpack on the ground and walked away, the complaint said. About 10 seconds later the second explosion ripped through the crowd.

The Tsarnaev brothers emigrated to the United States a decade ago from Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region in Russia's Caucasus.

The elder brother, a legal U.S. resident, visited relatives in the volatile region of Chechnya for two days during his six-month trip out of the United States last year, his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and aunt, Patimat Suleimanova, told Reuters in Dagestan on Monday.

U.S. authorities were investigating whether he became involved with Chechen separatists or Islamist extremists there.

In his hospital bed, the younger Tsarnaev, a local college student, was alert and nodded on Monday when questioned by federal Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler, according to a transcript of the bedside legal proceeding.

The bombings killed Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager, Chinese graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, and 8-year-old Martin Richard. A campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shot and killed by the two brothers on Friday, police said.

As of Monday, Boston-area hospitals were still treating at least 48 people, with at least two listed in critical condition.

Ten people lost limbs from the bombs packed with nails and ball bearings.

One of them, dance instructor Adrianne Haslet-Davis, interviewed from her hospital bed by CNN, lost her foot in the blast but vowed to dance again.

She said she never lost consciousness and following the blast crawled on her elbows to seek help. "I remember everything," she told CNN.

Prosecutors will be deciding whether to seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev, and that decision is expected within weeks.

His capture capped a tense 26 hours after the FBI released the first pictures of the two bombing suspects, who were still unidentified, on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Jessica Dye in New York; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-charged-hospital-boston-marathon-bombing-013608113.html

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Sen. Baucus Angers Dems by Retiring (ABC News)

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Feds delay policy to allow small knives on planes

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal officials say they're delaying a policy that would allow passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that the policy change has been delayed to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer and law enforcement officials.

John Pistole (PIH'-stohl), head of the Transportation Security Administration, proposed the policy change last month, saying it would free up the agency to concentrate on protecting against greater threats. TSA screeners confiscate about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.

The policy was to go into effect Thursday. The TSA's statement said the delay was temporary, but no new date for implementation was provided.

The policy has been fiercely opposed by flight attendants' unions.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-delay-policy-allow-small-knives-planes-000334255.html

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Monday, April 22, 2013

Taliban take 9 hostage after helicopter's emergency landing

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A Turkish civilian helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all nine people aboard the aircraft hostage, including eight Turks, officials said Monday.

The transport helicopter landed in strong winds and heavy rain on Sunday in a village in the Azra district of Logar province, southeast of Kabul and 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Pakistan border, said district governor Hamidullah Hamid.

Taliban fighters then captured all nine aboard the helicopter and took them from the area, Hamid told The Associated Press. He said most of the nine civilian hostages are Turks but that one is an Afghan translator.

In Ankara, a spokesman at Turkey's Foreign Ministry told the AP that there were eight Turks aboard the helicopter but did not know if it also was carrying other civilians or what their nationalities were. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with ministry regulations, had no information about the condition of the civilians.

Turkey's semi-official Anadolu news agency quoted Logar Deputy Police Chief Resishan Sadik Abdurrahminzey as saying that "a large number" of policemen were being sent to the region to rescue the hostages.

NATO said the helicopter went down on Sunday, but the International Security Assistance Force did not have any other details. ISAF spokeswoman Erin Stattel said the coalition was assisting in the recovery of the aircraft. She could not say whether the helicopter made a precautionary landing or the Taliban had forced it down.

Logar Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai said he didn't know what kind of cargo the helicopter was carrying, where it was headed, or whether it was working for NATO.

___

Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Thomas Wagner on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/tjpwagner.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-capture-9-helicopter-afghanistan-054142913.html

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U.S. arms deal with Middle East allies clear signal to Iran: Hagel

By David Alexander

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Sunday a $10 billion arms deal under discussion with Washington's Arab and Israeli allies sent a "very clear signal" to Tehran the military option remains on the table over its nuclear program.

"The bottom line is that Iran is a threat, a real threat," said Hagel, who arrived in Israel on Sunday on his first visit to Israel as defense secretary.

"The Iranians must be prevented from developing that capacity to build a nuclear weapon and deliver it," he told reporters on his plane.

The first stop on Hagel's week-long Middle East trip came two days after the Pentagon said it was finalizing a weapons deal to strengthen the militaries of Israel and two of Iran's key rivals - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The deal includes the sale of KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, anti-air defense missiles and tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey troop transport planes to Israel as well as the sale of 25 F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to the UAE.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia also would be allowed to purchase weapons with so-called "stand-off" capabilities that enable them to engage the enemy with precision at a distance. Defense officials said the "stand-off" arms would give the two countries more sophisticated systems than they currently have.

Asked if the arms deal sent a message that the military option was on the table if Tehran moved to build a nuclear weapon, Hagel said: "I don't think there's any question that that's another very clear signal to Iran."

But he added the military option had been "very clear to Iran for some time" and said the arms deal was a continuation of the U.S. policy to maintain Israel's so-called "qualitative military edge" in the region, a general reference to the supply of advanced U.S.-made weaponry and technology to the Jewish state.

Iran denies Western allegations that it is seeking to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons, saying its atomic activities are aimed at generating electricity.

Israel has repeatedly voiced its impatience with the pace of diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's enrichment of uranium, saying they should be coupled with a credible military threat. Both Israel and the United States have said all options remain on the table when it comes to dealing with any nuclear threat.

Such talk has raised international concern of a possible unilateral Israeli strike on Iran that could lead to wider Middle Eastern war.

U.S. COMMITMENT

Hagel, who faced resistance during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year from lawmakers who questioned his support for Israel, said part of the purpose of his visit was to underscore to Israelis that "the United States is committed to their security".

Asked about renewed debate in the Israeli media that Israel might have to strike Iran by itself, Hagel said "every sovereign nation has the right to defend itself and protect itself".

"Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make the decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself," he said.

But Hagel added the United States and other countries believe there is still time for diplomacy and tough international sanctions to have an impact.

"The military option is one option that remains on the table, must remain on the table," he said. "But military options, I think most of us feel, should be the last option."

After Israel, Hagel will visit Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. His trip comes amid mounting concerns about regional stability due to Iran's nuclear program, the rocky transition to civilian rule in Egypt and the civil war in Syria.

Hagel said the United States was still assessing claims that the Syrian government may have used chemical weapons against its military opponents in recent months, a red line President Barack Obama has cautioned would be a "game changer" in how the United States addresses the conflict.

So far the United States has provided non-lethal aid but has declined to arm the Syrian rebels.

"Our intelligence community is still assessing the facts and what we need to know before we can determine whether chemical weapons were used by the Syrian government," Hagel said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-arms-deal-middle-east-allies-clear-signal-102325106.html

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Martin Short could be back on TV in new sitcom

This Tuesday, April 16, 2013 photo released by The Hollywood Radio and Television Society shows actor/comedian Martin Short, left, with Lorne Michaels at the presentation of "Comedy on TV: A Conversation with Lorne Michaels," moderated by Short, during The Hollywood Radio and Television Society (HRTS) event at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. Short co-stars in a pilot for a new comedy under consideration for the upcoming TV season. (AP Photo/The Hollywood Radio and Television Society, Chyna Photography)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) ? Martin Short could be back in the weekly TV business with his former "Saturday Night Live" boss, Lorne Michaels.

Short says he's waiting to hear whether NBC will pick up a comedy pilot produced by Michaels as a series next season.

The untitled sitcom stars "SNL" writer John Mulaney and is loosely based on Mulaney's life.

Short plays a quiz show host who uses jokes written by Mulaney's character.

The former "SNL" cast member says Elliott Gould is also in the cast.

NBC and other networks will announce their lineups for 2013-14 season next month.

Short and Michaels were paired Tuesday to discuss Michaels' career at a Hollywood Radio & Television Society event in Beverly Hills.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-17-TV-Martin%20Short/id-338fc069f0004f7dac2599df81f5833e

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Pressure cooker bombs used in past by militants

This Homeland Security Department pamphlet, from July 2010, distributed to police, fore, EMS and security personnel shows a diagram for rudimentary improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using pressure cookers to contain the initiator, switch and explosive charge. A person briefed on the Boston Marathon investigation says the explosives were in 6-liter pressure cookers and placed in black duffel bags. (AP Photo/Homeland Security Department)

CAIRO (AP) ? Homemade bombs built from pressure cookers, a version of which was used in the Boston Marathon bombings, have been a frequent weapon of militants in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen once published an online manual on how to make one, urging "lone jihadis" to act on their own to carry out attacks.

President Barack Obama underlined Tuesday that investigators do not know if the twin bombing the day before that killed three people and wounded more than 170 was carried out by an international organization, a domestic group or a "malevolent individual." There has been no claim of responsibility.

A person briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that the explosives were fashioned out of pressure cookers and packed with shards of metal, nails and ball bearings to inflict maximum carnage.

The relative ease of constructing such bombs and the powerful punch they deliver has made them attractive to insurgents and Islamic extremists, particularly in South Asia. They have turned up in past bombing plots by Islamic extremists in the West, including a plan by a U.S. soldier to blow up a restaurant frequented by fellow soldiers outside Fort Hood, in Texas. One of the three devices used in the May 2010 Times Square attempted bombing was a pressure cooker, according to a joint FBI and Homeland Security intelligence report issued in July 2010.

Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen gave a detailed description on how to make a pressure cooker bomb in the 2010 first issue of "Inspire," its magazine that only appears online, in a chapter titled "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."

"The pressurized cooker is the most effective method" for making a simple bomb, the article said, describing how to fill the cooker with shrapnel and gunpowder and to create a detonator using the filament of a light bulb and a clock timer.

"Inspire" magazine has a running series of such training articles called "Open Source Jihad," which the group calls a resource manual for individual extremists to carry out attacks against the enemies of jihad, including the U.S. and its allies. The magazine is targeted heavily at encouraging "lone wolf" jihadis.

An issue last year reprinted an older article by a veteran Syrian jihadi Abu Musab al-Souri addressing would-be jihadis proposing a long list of possible targets for attacks, among them "crowded sports arenas" and "annual social events."

Notably, Army Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year for the Fort Hood restaurant bombing plot, was discovered to have a copy of the "How to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom" article, according to the FBI. Investigators found bombmaking materials in his hotel that included a pressure cooker and gunpowder, according to testimony at his trial.

The SITE Monitoring Service, a U.S. independent group tracking militant messaging online, noted that Islamic extremists are not the only ones paying attention to the al-Qaida magazine: White supremacists have also circulated copies on their web forums. They found "Inspire" and "other al-Qaida manuals beneficial for their strategies," it said.

Over the course of 10 issues the past three years, "Inspire" has given detailed instructions with diagrams and photos on how to use automatic weapons, produce remote control detonators, set fire to a building or create forest fires. In the most recent issue, put out in March, it described how to set fire to a parked vehicle and how to cause road accidents with oil slicks on a road or tire-bursting spikes.

The chapters, including the one on pressure cooker bombs, were compiled into a booklet titled "The Lone Mujahed Pocketbook," released on Islamic militant web sites in March, according to SITE.

Al-Qaida's Yemeni branch, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has repeatedly tried to carry out direct attacks on U.S. soil, once by dispatching the would-be 2009 Christmas bomber of a U.S. jet ? whose attack failed when the explosives hidden in his underwear failed to go off ? and then the following year by trying to mail explosives to the U.S. in packages that were intercepted.

The pressure cooker bomb's most frequent use seems to be in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India in attacks against police or the public. This year, local press reports in Pakistan have reported several such bombs found planted on streets, including in the city of Karachi, where multiple militant groups operate.

In 2010, suspected militants attacked the U.S.-based Christian aid group World Vision in northwestern Pakistan, killing six Pakistani employees with a remotely detonated pressure cooker bomb.

That same year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security put out a warning about such explosives, noting their frequent use in South Asia.

"The presence of a pressure cooker in an unusual location such as a building lobby or busy street corner should be treated as suspicious," it said.

AP correspondents Cassandra Vinograd and Paisley Dodds in London and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Senate Sets Up Big Votes Wednesday for Gun Control

ABC News' Sunlen Miller and Jeff Zeleny report:

The day of reckoning is Wednesday for the embattled Manchin-Toomey background check provision and a myriad of other gun amendments, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips.

The outcome of which will determine the fate of the biggest gun control legislation the Senate will vote on in two decades.

A 4 p.m. vote on the Manchin-Toomey amendment will kick off the votes.

The amendment, proposed this past week as a bipartisan compromise from Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, always faced an uphill climb to pass in the Senate.

But the first real signs of trouble came Monday when a vote on the amendment was delayed from being formally scheduled when it was clear that the votes were not yet there for it to pass. By Tuesday, momentum seemed to slip away bit-by-bit when a few senators key to the outcome of the vote, including Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., announced that they could not vote for the bill.

The amendment will need 60 votes to pass. And as of tonight, the votes are not there yet.

When Manchin was asked by ABC News if he had 60 votes locked down, he said: "We need more than we have."

Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, one of the Republican supporters for expanding background checks, said he was still working to win over some Republican senators. When asked if his side had enough votes to pass the amendment, he said: "We are not ready for a vote."

The vote will be razor thin - so thin that neither side was sounding confident.

There are three Republican senators and four Democratic senators believed still undecided - John McCain, R-Ariz., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Mark Begich D-Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., was seen as a wild card because, although he supports the amendment, he has been ill and home in New Jersey. Aides said Lautenberg "hopes" to get back for the vote Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sounded a bit resigned Tuesday when he defended the bill's momentum while, in the same breath, admitting that the votes may not be there. Regardless, he said, gun control supporters have the "wind at our back."

President Obama made calls to the few undecided senators Tuesday, ABC News' Jonathan Karl reported. A White House official said there still was a path to 60 votes but conceded it is "a narrow path."

Yet the situation remained fluid, Republican and Democratic aides told ABC News, and either outcome was possible when the voting was to begin at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Following the Manchin-Toomey amendment vote, the Senate will vote on at least eight other gun amendments, all of which matter to the debate. They included voting up or down on an assault weapons ban, the issue of concealed carry, a high-capacity clip ban and mental health provisions.

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Gun background check deal in jeopardy in Senate

FILE - In this April 10, 2013 file photo, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., right, accompanied by Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers,, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The number of Republican senators who might back expanded background checks is now dwindling, threatening a bipartisan effort to subject more gun buyers to the checks. A vote on the compromise, the heart of Congress' gun control effort, is expected this week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. right, meets with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., at City Hall in New York, Monday, April 15, 2013. In a bipartisan 68-31 vote Thursday, senators rejected an effort by conservatives to block debate on Democrats' gun control legislation, a measure backed by President Barack Obama. The National Rifle Association, a foe of the Democratic bill, was sponsoring a NASCAR race in Fort Worth, Texas, and using tweets to urge its supporters to watch it on television. Murphy has asked the Fox network not to broadcast the event, but it was still scheduled to be televised. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A bipartisan proposal to expand background checks to more gun buyers seemed in jeopardy Monday as a growing number of Republican senators expressed opposition to the proposal, perhaps enough to derail it. But there was plenty of time for lobbying and deal-making to affect the outcome, and the sponsors seemed willing to consider carving out at least one exemption in an effort to drum up votes.

The White House said President Barack Obama was calling lawmakers, as both sides hunted support for a nail-biting showdown.

As of Monday evening, some senators were saying the vote now appeared likely late this week, rather than midweek as top Democrats have hoped. Such a delay would give both sides more time to find support.

"The game hasn't even started yet, let alone over," said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who reached a background check compromise last week with Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., on which the Senate was preparing to vote.

In one sign of the bargaining underway, Manchin and Toomey seemed willing to consider a change to their deal that would exempt gun buyers from background checks who live hundreds of miles from licensed firearms dealers, said one Senate aide.

The change might help win support from senators from Alaska and perhaps North Dakota, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

At stake is what has become the heart of this year's gun control drive in response to December's killing of children and staff at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Supporters consider a broadening of the buyers subjected to background checks to be the most effective step lawmakers can take, and Obama urged near universal checks in the plan he unveiled in January.

Sixteen Republicans voted last week to reject an effort by conservatives that would have blocked the Senate from even considering a broad bill restricting firearms. With that debate underway, Democrats hope to win enough supporters from this group to gain passage of the first amendment to that bill ? the compromise between Manchin and Toomey, which expands background checks but less broadly than Obama has wanted.

By Monday evening, nine Republican senators from that group said they would oppose the Manchin-Toomey plan and one was leaning against it. Combined with the 31 senators who voted against debating the overall gun bill last week, that would bring potential opponents of expanding background checks to 41 ? just enough votes to block the Senate from considering the compromise.

"I'm not going to vote for it. It's not the right thing to do," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who was among the 16 who voted last week to allow the debate to begin.

But in the heated political climate and heavy lobbying certain in the run-up to the vote, minds on both sides could change.

Opponents say expanded checks would violate the Constitution's right to bear arms and would be ignored by criminals. They are forcing supporters of the background check plan to win 60 of the Senate's 100 votes, a high hurdle.

Fifty Democrats and two Democratic-leaning senators voted last week to begin debate. If all of them support the Manchin-Toomey plan ? which is not guaranteed ? they would still need eight additional votes.

So far, three Republicans who backed beginning debate have said they will vote for the Manchin-Toomey plan: Toomey and Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine. A fourth, John McCain of Arizona, said he is strongly inclined to do so.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., missed last week's vote after saying he was suffering from muscle weakness, but spokesman Caley Gray said he hopes to be in the Senate for votes this week.

Two Democrats, both facing re-election next year in GOP-leaning states, voted against beginning the gun control debate last week: Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas both said they are still deciding.

Background checks, designed to keep guns from criminals and the seriously mentally ill, are currently required only for sales handled by the nation's roughly 55,000 licensed gun dealers. The Manchin-Toomey measure would extend that to sales at commercial venues like gun shows and online, while exempting other transactions like those between relatives and friends.

"There's no debate that that's not an infringement of the Second Amendment" right to bear arms, said Toomey as he and Manchin touted their measure on the Senate floor.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the gun legislation was "an absolute priority" and said Obama has been contacting senators, though he declined to say which ones.

But Carney said the vote would be "a difficult challenge." He said that because the Senate had voted last week to begin debating the measure "does not mean we have gotten to where we need to be, which is passage of legislation that is commonsense and that will reduce gun violence in America."

The White House originally had hoped for much more, including a ban on military-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

The National Rifle Association said it was running an ad on cable television's Sportsman Channel and online criticizing Mayors Against Illegal Guns for running an ad showing a man holding a gun unsafely as he describes his support for expanded background checks.

"Is it possible he's an actor?" the ad asks, just before showing the NRA's "Stand and Fight" slogan.

Some relatives of the victims of the Connecticut families are planning a return trip to Capitol Hill this week to meet with senators they weren't able to visit on their lobbying trip last week. That trip was partly credited with helping move the Senate to debate the gun bill.

Also scheduled to be lobbying lawmakers this week are former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut. She was severely wounded in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz.

The Manchin-Toomey deal also would expand some firearms rights, easing some restrictions on transporting guns across state lines and protecting sellers from lawsuits if buyers pass a background check but later use a gun in a crime.

The compromise is an amendment to broader gun control legislation to strengthen laws against illegal gun trafficking and to slightly increase school security aid.

___

Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-15-Gun%20Control/id-f2ffb66bfe7348e4a7057644f4e555d9

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