news updates today: March 2013

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Ohio prosecutor indicts 'Punxsutawney Phil' for meteorological fraud

An Ohio prosecutor indicted 'Punxsutawney Phil' today for felony misrepresentation of spring. The groundhog deliberately misled the public to think winter was on its way out, and now the Ohio prosecutor is calling for the rodent's death.?

By Staff,?Associated Press / March 22, 2013

An Ohio prosecutor indicted Punxsutawney Phil today and called for his death. The rodent was last seen here, Feb. 2., after predicting ? fraudulently, the Ohio prosecutor says ? an early spring.

Keith Srakocic / Associated Press

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Famed groundhog Punxsutawney Phil might want to go back into hibernation.

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Authorities in still-frigid Ohio have issued an "indictment" of the furry rodent, who predicted an early spring when he didn't see his shadow after emerging from his western Pennsylvania lair on Feb. 2.

"Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early," Mike Gmoser, the prosecutor in southwestern Ohio's Butler County, wrote in an official-looking indictment.

Gmoser wrote that Punxsutawney Phil is charged with misrepresentation of spring, which constitutes a felony "against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio."

The penalty Phil faces? Gmoser says ? tongue firmly in cheek ? is death.

Punxsutawney Phil does not have a listed phone number.

Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney club that organizes Groundhog Day, said Phil has a lawyer and would fight any extradition attempt by Ohio authorities.

Deeley defended his fur-bearing associate and said the death penalty was "very harsh" given the nature of the allegations.

"We'll have to plead our case one way or the other, but I think we can beat the rap," Deeley said.

The vitriolic backlash on social media to Phil's dead-wrong prognostication has not gone unnoticed in and around Gobbler's Knob, Deeley said, and special security precautions were in place.

"Right next to where Phil stays is the police station," he said. "They've been notified and they said they will keep watching their monitors."

Winter has been dragging on in the Buckeye State and surrounding areas, with daily high temperatures this week hovering in the mid-30s and no end in sight for about 10 days, said Don Hughes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio.

A storm moving into the region Sunday could bring between 4 and 8 inches of snow, he said.

"It's taking too long," Hughes said, adding that he's hearing plenty of complaints from colleagues and neighbors about the late spring. "Most people I've talked to say they've had enough. They want spring. They're looking for colors and sunshine and Easter lilies."

The frigid temperatures and snow might be particularly hard to swallow after last spring, when the US saw the warmest March in recorded history. Highs in the Cincinnati area, for instance, were well into the 80s.

Hughes said this spring isn't nearly the coldest on record but that the area is about 5 degrees below normal.

Gmoser's indictment made no mention of a possible co-conspirator in the false prediction of early spring, Ohio's own forecasting groundhog, Buckeye Chuck.

Chuck also failed to see his shadow when he emerged from his burrow on Feb. 2 in Marion in north-central Ohio.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/l3cAlnn157w/Ohio-prosecutor-indicts-Punxsutawney-Phil-for-meteorological-fraud

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Facebook explains how the fresh News Feed came to be: a deck of cards

Facebook made a sharp break from tradition when it unveiled the simplified News Feed, but how did it get there? As the social network's Jane Justice Leibrock has just explained, it was as simple as shuffling cards. Well, almost. Leibrock gave focus group subjects a stack of cards reflecting their recent social updates and asked them to pick the cream of the crop as well as sort the rest into groups. The results led to the filtered approach that's rolling out now: users tend to gravitate toward specific categories such as close friends, photos and direct interests, rather than piling everything together. As often as people accuse Facebook of launching surprise changes, it's clear that the News Feed revamp involved at least some deliberation.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/facebook-explains-how-the-fresh-news-feed-came-to-be/

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McConnell intends to force vote on defunding Obamacare (Washington Post)

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Signaling molecule may help stem cells focus on making bone despite age, disease

Monday, March 11, 2013

A signaling molecule that helps stem cells survive in the naturally low-oxygen environment inside the bone marrow may hold clues to helping the cells survive when the going gets worse with age and disease, researchers report.

They hope the findings, reported in PLOS ONE, will result in better therapies to prevent bone loss in aging and enhance success of stem cell transplants for a wide variety of conditions from heart disease to cerebral palsy and cancer.

They've found that inside the usual, oxygen-poor niche of mesenchymal stem cells, stromal cell-derived factor-1, or SDF-1, turns on a survival pathway called autophagy that helps the cells stay in place and focused on making bone, said Dr. William D. Hill, stem cell researcher at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and the study's corresponding author.

Unfortunately with age or disease, SDF-1 appears to change its tune, instead reducing stem cells' ability to survive and stay in the bone marrow, said Samuel Herberg, GRU graduate student and the study's first author. Additionally cells that do stay put may be less likely to make bone and more likely to turn into fat cells in the marrow.

The researchers believe it's the changes in the normal environment that come with age or illness, including diminished nutrition, that prompt SDF-1's shifting role.

"You put new cells in there and, all of the sudden, you put them in a neighborhood where they are being attacked," Hill said. "If we can somehow precondition the transplanted cells or modify the environment they are going into so they have higher levels of autophagy, they will survive that stress."

Autophagy is the consummate green, survival pathway, where the cell perpetuates itself by essentially eating itself over and over again, in the face of low food sources, other stress or needing to eliminate damaged or toxic product buildup. The researchers believe autophagy slows with age, so deadly trash starts piling up in and around cells, Hill said.

"Your cells normally have a reminder to take out the trash," said Dr. Carlos Isales, MCG endocrinologist and Clinical Director of the GRU Institute of Regenerative and Reparative Medicine. "That reminder, SDF-1, becomes inconsistent as you get older, so rather than being an activator of the trash signal, it becomes an inhibitor."

Herberg led efforts to genetically modify stem cells from mice to overexpress SDF-1 ? in fact the researchers were in the enviable position of being able to adjust expression up or down ? and control autophagy in their novel cells. They found that while SDF-1 didn't increase stem cell numbers, it protected stem cells hazards related to low oxygen and more by increasing autophagy while decreasing its antithesis, programmed cell death, or apoptosis.

"They get away with lower oxygen needs and lower nutrient needs and stem cells are able to survive in a hostile environment as they are attacked by damaging molecules like free radicals," Hill said. In fact, the cells can thrive.

"The success of stem cell transplants is mixed and we think part of the problem is the environment the cells are put into," said Isales. "Ultimately we want to find out what is the triggering event for aging, what is the chicken, what is the egg and what initiates this cascade. This new finding gives us a piece of the puzzle that helps us see the big picture."

They've already begun looking at what happens to SDF-1 in human bone marrow stem cells and have identified a couple of drugs used to treat other conditions that increase SDF-1 production and protection. They envision a collagen matrix, almost like a raft, that delivers SDF-1 and stem cells or SDF-1 alone where needed, enabling targeted bone regrowth in the case of a bad fracture, for example.

It was already known that stem cells secrete SDF-1 and that the cell survival pathway, autophagy, was up-regulated in stem cells. "We started thinking, if SDF-1 is secreted here in response to low oxygen, it must be important in cell survival," said Hill and the researchers became the first to put the pieces together.

Cell survival and its antithesis, apoptosis, are both tightly regulated and necessary, Herberg notes. And, in excess, both can be deadly. In fact, cancer therapies are under study that block autophagy with the idea of making cancer more vulnerable to chemotherapy. One of SDF-1's major roles is helping the body properly assemble during development. It's produced by stem cells and found in high levels in the lungs and bones. MCG researchers are looking for other sources of SDF-1 production in the body and how those might change with age.

Bone formation tends to decrease at about age 60, notes Isales, principal investigator on the $6.3 million Program Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health that funded the study.

###

Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University: http://www.mcghealth.org

Thanks to Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127225/Signaling_molecule_may_help_stem_cells_focus_on_making_bone_despite_age__disease

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock, research shows

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Early in the Moon's history an ocean of molten rock covered its entire surface. As that lunar magma ocean cooled over millions of years, it differentiated to form the Moon's crust and mantle. But according to a new analysis by planetary scientists from Brown University, this wasn't the last time the Moon's surface was melted on a massive scale.

The research, led by graduate student William Vaughan, shows that the impact event that formed the Orientale basin on the Moon's western edge and far side produced a sea of melted rock 220 miles across and at least six miles deep. Similar seas of impact melt were probably present at various times in at least 30 other large impact basins on the Moon.

The research is published in the April issue of the journal Icarus.

Vaughan and his colleagues show that as these melt seas cooled, they differentiated in a way that was similar to the lunar magma ocean. As a result, rocks formed in melt seas could be mistaken for "pristine" rocks formed very early in the Moon's history, the researchers say.

"This work adds the concept of impact melt magma seas to the lexicon of lunar rock-forming processes," said planetary geologist James W. Head III, the Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences and the senior researcher involved in the study. "It emphasizes that one must consider the detailed point of origin of the rocks in order to interpret them correctly."

That includes rocks brought back during the Apollo program and Russia's Luna missions. It's quite possible, the researchers say, that impact melt material is present in lunar samples thought to be representative of the early formation of the lunar crust. The amount of rock formed in melt seas is far from trivial. Vaughan and his colleagues estimate that impacts forming the Moon's 30 large basins produced 100 million cubic kilometers of melt, enough to make up 5 percent of the Moon's crust.

If lunar samples do include melt material, it would help to explain some puzzling findings from lunar samples. For example, in 2011 an analysis of a sample assumed to have originated in the early lunar crust suggested that the sample was 200 million years younger than the estimated time when the lunar magma ocean solidified. That led some researchers to conclude either that the Moon is younger than previously estimated or that the lunar magma ocean theory was flawed. But if that sample actually originated from a melt sea, its young age could be explained without rewriting the history of the Moon.

The melt sea at Orientale

The Orientale basin is only partly visible from Earth on the western edge of the Moon's near side. Because it's one of the few basins on the Moon that hasn't filled in with volcanic basalt, it provides a great place to investigate the geology of melt seas and to test whether they differentiate as they cool.

For the Orientale melt sea to have differentiated, it must have been liquid for a long time ? thousands of years. To be liquid that long, it must have been quite thick. That left the researchers with a question that wasn't easy to answer: How thick was the Orientale melt?

"In pictures, you're just seeing the top of an impact melt body, so we have to find a way to infer how thick it was," Vaughan said.

To do that, Vaughan and his colleagues took advantage of the fact that a liquid shrinks when it cools and solidifies. Data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) showed that the sheet had subsided by about two kilometers from the surrounding rock, giving the researchers an idea of how much the sea shrank. With that data, they could calculate its volume and infer its depth.

According to the calculations, the Orientale melt sea must have been at least 10 kilometers thick. Far shallower melt sheets from impacts on Earth are known to have differentiated, so it's a safe bet that Orientale was thick enough to differentiate.

The next question was what that differentiation might look like. Based on the compositions of the lunar crust and mantle material melted, Vaughan could determine the composition of the impact melt sea. From there, he could make a model of what rocks would have formed as the melt sea cooled. According to the model, thick layers of rocks like dunite and pyroxenite form at the base of the melt sea from dense, early crystallizing minerals that sink through the melt. Other minerals float up through the melt to form layers of rocks such as norite at the top of the melt sea ? very similar to differentiation processes in the lunar magma ocean.

Vaughan's model is supported by remote sensing data from the Maunder crater, the remnant of an impact that excavated material from the melt sheet after it cooled. The data confirm a noritic composition at least four kilometers deep in the melt sheet.

Taken together, the findings suggest that impact melt seas produce rock in a way that's very similar to the lunar magma ocean. And that could help to clear up some lingering questions about the magma ocean paradigm.

"This is a mechanism by which the Moon was later modified to add petrologic complexity," Vaughan said. "It helps make sense of mineralogical data that doesn't always fit in this lunar magma ocean idea."

###

Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

This press release has been viewed 35 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127249/Lunar_impacts_created_seas_of_molten_rock__research_shows

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

Why North Korea is turning up the heat again

North Korea's military is vowing to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that effectively ended the Korean War, straining frayed ties in the region as the UN moves to impose new sanctions.

By Jenna Fisher,?Staff writer / March 6, 2013

In this undated file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a consultative meeting with officials in the fields of state security and foreign affairs at undisclosed location in North Korea.

Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service/AP

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It?s been a dramatic?week on the Korean Peninsula, culminating with a threat from North Korea to break the 60-year truce with the South and the subsequent terse warning from South Korea's military Wednesday that it would respond to any attack from North Korea with ?strong and stern measures.?

Skip to next paragraph Jenna Fisher

Asia editor

Jenna Fisher is the Monitor's Asia editor, overseeing regional coverage for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine.

Afghanistan's Karzai alleges U.S., Taliban are colluding

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave ? an allegation the top American commander in Afghanistan rejected as "categorically false."

Karzai said two suicide bombings that killed 19 people on Saturday ? one outside the Afghan Defense Ministry and the other near a police checkpoint in eastern Khost province ? show the insurgent group is conducting attacks to help show that international forces will still be needed to keep the peace after their current combat mission ends in 2014.

"The explosions in Kabul and Khost yesterday showed that they are at the service of America and at the service of this phrase: 2014. They are trying to frighten us into thinking that if the foreigners are not in Afghanistan, we would be facing these sorts of incidents," he said during a nationally televised speech about the state of Afghan women.

U.S. and NATO forces commander Gen. Joseph Dunford said Karzai had never expressed such views to him, but said it was understandable that tensions would arise as the coalition balances the need to complete its mission and the Afghans' move to exercise more sovereignty.

"We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the last 12 years, to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage," Dunford said.

Karzai is known for making incendiary comments in his public speeches, a move that is often attributed to him trying to appeal to those who sympathize with the Taliban or as a way to gain leverage when he feels his international allies are ignoring his country's sovereignty. In previous speeches, he has threatened to join the Taliban and called his NATO allies occupiers who want to plunder Afghanistan's resources.

Karzai also denounced the arrest of a university student Saturday by Afghan forces his aide said were working for the CIA. It was unclear why the student was detained.

Presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said the CIA freed the student after Karzai's staff intervened, but that Karzai wants the Afghan raiders arrested. The president issued a decree on Sunday banning all foreign forces from universities and schools unless they obtain prior permission from the Afghan government.

The Karzai government's latest comments and actions come as it negotiates a pact with the U.S. for the long-term presence of American forces in Afghanistan and just days after an agreement to transfer the U.S. prison outside of Kabul to Afghan authority fell through. They also came during U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's first visit to Afghanistan since becoming the Pentagon chief.

Karzai said in his speech that any foreign powers that want to keep troops in Afghanistan need to do so under conditions set forward by Afghanistan.

"We will tell them where we need them, and under which conditions. They must respect our laws. They must respect the national sovereignty of our country and must respect all our customs," Karzai said.

Karzai offered no proof of coordination, but said the Taliban and the United States were in "daily negotiations" in various foreign countries and noted that the United States has said that it no longer considers the insurgent group its enemy. The U.S. continues to fight against the Taliban and other militant groups, but has expressed its backing for formal peace talks with the Taliban to find a political resolution to the war.

Karzai said he did not believe the Taliban's claim that they launched Saturday's attacks to show they are still a potent force fighting the United States. "Yesterday's explosions, which the Taliban claimed, show that in reality they are saying they want the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan," Karzai said.

In the arrest of the college student, Faizi said the raiders fired shots as they grabbed the student Saturday from a Kandahar university, and blindfolded him before taking him for interrogation at a CIA post that Taliban leader Mullah Omar once used as a home.

The CIA could not be reached for comment.

The CIA has trained an Afghan counterterrorist force several thousand strong, known as the Counterterrorism Pursuit Team that works mostly in insurgent strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan. U.S. officials say they work with the Afghan intelligence service, but Karzai frequently complains he lacks oversight over their operations.

____

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report from Kabul.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-leader-alleges-us-taliban-colluding-075031783.html

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Quantum refrigerator offers extreme cooling and convenience

Mar. 8, 2013 ? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a solid-state refrigerator that uses quantum physics in micro- and nanostructures to cool a much larger object to extremely low temperatures.

NIST's prototype solid-state refrigerator uses quantum physics in the square chip mounted on the green circuit board to cool the much larger copper platform (in the middle of the photo) below standard cryogenic temperatures. Other objects can also be attached to the platform for cooling. Credit: Schmidt/NIST View hi-resolution image

What's more, the prototype NIST refrigerator, which measures a few inches in outer dimensions, enables researchers to place any suitable object in the cooling zone and later remove and replace it, similar to an all-purpose kitchen refrigerator. The cooling power is the equivalent of a window-mounted air conditioner cooling a building the size of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

"It's one of the most flabbergasting results I've seen," project leader Joel Ullom says. "We used quantum mechanics in a nanostructure to cool a block of copper. The copper is about a million times heavier than the refrigerating elements. This is a rare example of a nano- or microelectromechanical machine that can manipulate the macroscopic world."

The technology may offer a compact, convenient means of chilling advanced sensors below standard cryogenic temperatures -- 300 milliKelvin (mK), typically achieved by use of liquid helium -- to enhance their performance in quantum information systems, telescope cameras, and searches for mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

As described in Applied Physics Letters, the NIST refrigerator's cooling elements, consisting of 48 tiny sandwiches of specific materials, chilled a plate of copper, 2.5 centimeters on a side and 3 millimeters thick, from 290 mK to 256 mK. The cooling process took about 18 hours. NIST researchers expect that minor improvements will enable faster and further cooling to about 100 mK.

The cooling elements are sandwiches of a normal metal, a 1-nanometer-thick insulating layer, and a superconducting metal. When a voltage is applied, the hottest electrons "tunnel" from the normal metal through the insulator to the superconductor. The temperature in the normal metal drops dramatically and drains electronic and vibrational energy from the object being cooled.

NIST researchers previously demonstrated this basic cooling method but are now able to cool larger objects that can be easily attached and removed. Researchers developed a micromachining process to attach the cooling elements to the copper plate, which is designed to be a stage on which other objects can be attached and cooled. Additional advances include better thermal isolation of the stage, which is suspended by strong, cold-tolerant cords.

Cooling to temperatures below 300 mK currently requires complex, large and costly apparatus. NIST researchers want to build simple, compact alternatives to make it easier to cool NIST's advanced sensors. Researchers plan to boost the cooling power of the prototype refrigerator by adding more and higher-efficiency superconducting junctions and building a more rigid support structure.

This work is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

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

Journal Reference:

Peter J. Lowell, Galen C. O'Neil, Jason M. Underwood, Joel N. Ullom. Macroscale refrigeration by nanoscale electron transport. Applied Physics Letters, 2013; 102 (8): 082601 DOI: 10.1063/1.4793515

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/matter_energy/technology/~3/IoOUTSTWBJM/130308183821.htm

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Hungarian cardinal's parents defied communism

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) ? He's the son of a deeply religious couple who defied communist repression to practice their faith. And if elected pope, Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo would be the second pontiff to come from eastern Europe ? following in the footsteps of the late John Paul II, a Pole who left a great legacy helping to topple communism.

A cardinal since 2003, Erdo is known as an erudite scholar with a common touch. An expert on canon law and distinguished university theologian, he has also striven to forge close ties to the parish faithful.

Erdo regularly visits all his parishes, and established a city mission in Budapest to organize debates, concerts and performances designed to attract people back to the church. Hungary is a country where over half the 10 million citizens say they are Catholic, but only a fraction attends Mass.

"He is the kind of bishop who does not spend his time in his ... palace but instead takes his role as a teacher very seriously," said Balazs Schanda, dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences at Budapest's Pazmany Pater Catholic University.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: As the Roman Catholic Church prepares to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, The Associated Press is profiling key cardinals seen as "papabili" ? contenders to the throne. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. But these are the names that have come up time and again in speculation. Today: Peter Erdo

___

Erdo's homilies are posted on the website of the archdiocese, often on the same day he gives them at Mass. And as president of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, the 60-year-old cardinal has also paid special attention to relations with the Jewish community and the Roma ? or Gypsies ? who are among Hungary's poorest and least educated people.

Erdo is the oldest of six siblings and has a twin brother, Pal. His parent tried to raise him in the Catholic faith at a time when people who practiced their religion faced persecution.

Many Catholics were discriminated against in the workplace; Erdo's father, a lawyer, was even barred from practicing his profession.

The cardinal has said that his parents were prepared to pay the price for their choice.

"They had made a grave and important decision: what is more important, religion or advancement in society?" Erdo said in a lengthy interview published in 2008. "They chose their faith."

Erdo's religious vocation came to him gradually.

He became an altar boy at the age of six and enjoyed the parochial activities at his local church but it wasn't until he was close to finishing high school that he seriously considered becoming a priest.

Before entering the seminary he was drafted into the army, serving for several months in the southern city of Nagyatad.

He was ordained on June 18, 1975, in Budapest, a week before his 23rd birthday, which at the time was the minimum age for becoming a priest.

His first assignment was as chaplain in the northern town of Dorog, an industrial area best known for its coal mines, which have since been closed down.

After doctoring in theology in Hungary, he studied canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, where he obtained another doctorate in 1980, the same year he began his teaching career in Hungary.

Erdo, the only Hungarian to enter the conclave to elect the next pope, was named Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest in 2002.

He has taught and done research at several universities, including the Gregorian University in Rome, the University of California, Berkeley and the Catholic University in Buenos Aires, among others. He was rector of the Pazmany Peter Catholic University from 1998 to 2003.

Erdo speaks several languages, including Latin, German, Italian, Spanish and French and has taken lessons to improve his English.

Shortly before departing for the conclave in Rome, Erdo talked about the most important task facing the next pope.

"People have to be guided to Jesus Christ," Erdo told Hungarian state news agency MTI. "This is the big problem, the great challenge and the central task."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hungarian-cardinals-parents-defied-communism-084220790.html

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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Spindle discovery app for iPhone adds keyword-based search alerts, spreads to more US cities

The Spindle for iPhone application is known for making it a breeze to discover nearby restaurants, bars and other local spots by racking up social network updates instead of, you know, check-ins. In its second major installment, Spindle's now brought keyword-based search and notifications to the app, allowing iPhone users to quickly find and get informed about places they are more likely to be attracted to based on their specific interests. What's more, Spindle is now making its social, location-based discovery services available in Austin, Chicago and Seattle, which join New York City, Boston and San Francisco as cities where Spindle is available. Folks in any of the aforementioned areas can grab Spindle 2.0 from the App Store now, and be sure to let us know if it's one that'll be seen permanently on that "social" folder of yours.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Spindle (App Store)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/rrQgoMyjAs0/

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Friday, March 8, 2013

Fans camp in snow for another Justin on 'SNL'

By Kurt Schlosser, TODAY

For the second time in a month, a?Justin is causing?people to lie down for hours at a time on the snowy sidewalks of New York City.

Fans of Justin Timberlake -- just like those of Justin Bieber in February -- were camping out Friday during wet winter weather in the hopes of catching the singer/actor on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend.

TODAY's Willie Geist headed outside of the 30 Rock studios to assess the line length and find out why Timberlake's fifth appearance as host was worth the wait.

One couple drove 13 and a half hours from New Brunswick, Canada, and set up camp Tuesday morning at 5 a.m.

"Do you love Timberlake that much?" Geist asked a man named Mike. "Uh, he's all right," Mike said.

"He's all right?! You're sleeping in the snow and you drove 13 hours, he's all right? You gotta show a little more enthusiasm," Geist insisted.

Mike's partner in patience, Kayla, told Geist the couple is soaked all the way trough. "We're just kind of shivering ourselves to sleep."

Bieber fans weathered similar elements the weekend of Feb. 8 when winter storm Nemo was bearing down on the city. Geist stepped out on that pre-'SNL' Friday as well to find out what fans were thinking. Check out the video.

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Overeem, GSP, Fitch and Weidman: Where did they land on Cagewriter?s Hot or Not list?

Though it's a slow week for MMA fights, it's not for MMA news. Check out who made Cagewriter's Hot and Not list;

Hot ? Georges St-Pierre: After listening to Nick Diaz, his opponent at UFC 158, talk about how pampered GSP is, the welterweight champion went off. His heat comes from the steam he let off when ripping Diaz on a press conference call.

Not ? Alistair Overeem: He was set for a grudge match bout with former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos, but injury knocked him out of their late May bout. Now he will have to wait until later this summer to fight.

Hot ? Jon Fitch: Two weeks ago, he was given the pink slip by the UFC and was pre-emptively turned down by Bellator. This week, he was signed by the World Series of Fighting and is likely to have a bout in June on NBC Sports Network.

Hot ? Chris Weidman: After patiently waiting for months through an injury and Hurricane Sandy, the undefeated New Jersey native is finally getting his shot at Anderson Silva and the middleweight belt. He will fight Silva at UFC 162 this summer.

Not ? Mark Hunt: After Overeem was injured, Hunt said on Twitter that he wanted the fight with dos Santos. After UFC president Dana White said Hunt turned down the bout, Hunt took to Twitter to say that he doesn't turn fights down. No matter who is telling the truth, Hunt won't be riding his winning streak into a top-level fight.

Still taking temperature ? Fallon Fox: The first openly transgender fighter's license is under review as the commission in Florida reviews her medical records. Fox is post-operative and has lived as a woman since 2006.

Who is hot or not in MMA to you? Speak up in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/overeem-gsp-fitch-weidman-where-did-land-cagewriter-184720912--mma.html

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Tiger Tracker: Round 1 At WGC-Cadillac Championship

Golfweek:

For the second time in 2013, the Rory & Tiger Show will be in full effect - this time with different storylines for each player.

We'll be tracking their Round 1, which is scheduled to start at 11:53 a.m. EST.

Read the whole story at Golfweek

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/tiger-tracker-round-1-at-_n_2829168.html

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Obama to meet with GOP senators on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama will meet with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill next week.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office says the president requested the meeting through his chief of staff. The meeting will take place next Thursday.

McConnell says Republicans look forward to having the opportunity to discuss with the president solutions "to shrink Washington spending and grow the economy."

The Republican leaders' office says the president last attended the Senate GOP's policy lunch in May 2010.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-06-Obama-Congress/id-1f8cdfcad2d14a9e8dbb85f222d59c69

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Kentucky senator's filibuster of President Obama's nominee over drones divides GOP

WASHINGTON - The Senate is moving toward a vote on President Barack Obama's nominee for CIA director after a White House concession.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set a test vote for later Thursday. His announcement came shortly after Attorney General Eric Holder said there are limits on a president's ability to order drone strikes on American soil against suspected terrorists who are U.S. citizens.

The developments came just hours after Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul waged a nearly 13-hour filibuster over the nomination of John Brennan.

Paul said early Thursday he was abandoning his filibuster.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

The Obama administration bowed to demands from Republicans blocking a vote on the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA on Thursday, stating there are limits to a president's ability to order drone strikes on U.S. soil against suspected terrorists who are American citizens.

The reassurances were contained in a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who staged a filibuster across 13 hours on Wednesday demanding an answer to the question.

It was unclear whether Holder's letter would persuade Paul and others supporting him to permit a vote on Brennan. If not, a test vote is set for Saturday.

The letter itself is brief:

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: `Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Holder wrote Paul.

"The answer to that question is no."

Brennan has long appeared to hold enough votes to win confirmation.

But the letter marked the administration's third concession in recent days in its attempt to bring the matter to a vote.

Earlier this week, responding to demands from lawmakers in both parties, the White House gave members of the Senate intelligence committee access to legal opinions justifying the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects. It also gave Republicans documents relating to last year's deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Paul's filibuster roiled the Republican party at the same time it got the attention of the White House.

Just hours after Sen. Rand Paul ended his nearly 13-hour talkathon ? and got an endorsement from Minority Leader and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell ? two senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee dismissed Paul's claims as unfounded and ridiculous and expressed support for Obama's controversial drone program as the nation wages war against terrorism.

Both Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also challenged members of their own party.

"To my Republican colleagues, I don't remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone," Graham said in remarks on the Senate floor.

McCain scoffed at Paul's contention that the U.S. would have targeted actress Jane Fonda during her trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

"I must say that the use of Jane Fonda's name does evoke certain memories with me, and I must say that she is not my favorite American, but I also believe that, as odious as it was, Ms. Fonda acted within her constitutional rights," said McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years. "And to somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false. It is simply false."

During the height of the long war, Fonda traveled to North Vietnam, visited with the enemy and was widely vilified.

After his remarks, Graham told reporters that he had planned to vote against Brennan's nomination but now intends to support the nominee because the confirmation fight has become a referendum on the drone program.

Paul is pressing the administration for greater clarity on whether the Obama administration has the authority to use lethal force, such as a drone, against a suspected terrorist who is a U.S. citizen.

"Do you have the authority to kill Americans on American soil?" Paul summed up the question for reporters on Thursday. He said he had not received a response from the White House.

Hours after the filibuster, Republican leader McConnell said Paul deserves an answer.

"It simply doesn't have that right, and the administration should just answer the question," McConnell said. "There is no reason we cannot get this question answered today, and we should get this question answered today. Frankly, it should have been answered a long time ago."

White House press secretary Jay Carney said White House officials have also been in touch with Paul's office.

The Obama administration has said it has not conducted such operations inside U.S. borders nor does it intend to. Paul and backers said that wasn't good enough. They wanted the White House to rule out the possibility of them happening altogether.

Paul's performance, which centered on questions about the possible use of drones against targets in the United States, clearly energized a number of his GOP colleagues, who came to the floor in a show of support and to share in the speaking duties. And even as the night progressed, Paul appeared invigorated despite being on his feet for so long. Actual talking filibusters have become rare in the Senate, where the rules are typically used in procedural ways to block the other party's agenda.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee used Paul's stand to raise money for GOP candidates and said Thursday that they received donations "in the high five figures as of last tally."

About a dozen of Paul's colleagues who share his conservative views, many of them elected with strong support from tea party voters, came to the floor to take turns speaking for him and trading questions. McConnell congratulated Paul for his "tenacity and for his conviction," and he called Brennan a "controversial nominee."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, read Twitter messages from people eager to "Stand With Rand." The Twitterverse, said Cruz, is "blowing up." And as the night went on, Cruz spoke for longer periods as Paul leaned against a desk across the floor. Cruz, an insurgent Republican with strong tea party backing, read passages from Shakespeare's "Henry V" and lines from the 1970 movie "Patton," starring George C. Scott.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., made references to rappers Jay-Z and Wiz Khalifa. Rubio, a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016, chided the White House for failing to respond to Paul. "It's not a Republican question. It's not a conservative question," Rubio said. "It's a constitutional question."

___

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/195856531.html

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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Elephant Poaching Pushes Species To Brink Of Extinction

In this Sept. 1, 2008, photo released by Wildlife Conservation Society, a male forest elephant strides across Langoue Bai, Gabon.

Elizabeth M. Rogers/Wildlife Conservation Society via AP

Seized ivory from Conakry, Republic of Guinea, where there are few remaining elephants.

Naftali Honig/Project for the Application of Law for Fauna via AP

Seized ivory from Conakry, Republic of Guinea, where there are few remaining elephants.

Naftali Honig/Project for the Application of Law for Fauna via AP

? [Elephants] are not only social creatures, they have social systems that are so sophisticated ... they understand the concept of mortality. They show signs of mourning dead. ... Behind the numbers is a real tragedy of a very sentient creature who really knows that there's a genocide going on.

- Richard Ruggiero, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of International Conservation

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Listen To Richard Ruggiero

In this April 17, 2011, photo, seized tusks including some from baby elephants are displayed in Pokola, Congo. Conservationists said Tuesday that there's a new threat to the survival of Africa's elephants that may be just as deadly as poachers' bullets: the black-market trade of ivory in cyberspace.

Naftali Honig/Project for the Application of Law for Fauna via AP

A new study of Central African forest elephants has found their numbers down by 62 percent between 2002 and 2011. The study comes as governments and conservationists meet in Thailand to amend the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

African forest elephants have been in trouble for a while, but only now have scientists figured out that more than half of them have died over the past decade. It took hundreds of researchers nine years, walking literally thousands of miles, counting piles of elephant dung as well as elephant carcasses stripped of their ivory tusks, to realize that the majority of the dead had been shot.

"We can see from seizures of ivory, and we can see from the number of carcasses that are starting to lie around in the forest, that elephants are in deeper and deeper trouble," said Fiona Maisels, who was part of the team that published these findings in the latest issue of the journal PLOS.

There's always been ivory poaching in Africa, but after a ban in 1989, the trade diminished. Now, however, the numbers have exploded. Some 25,000 African elephants are being killed every year, many of them being forest elephants living in the heart of Africa.

Organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the research project found that the closer people, roads and villages are to elephants, the more animals die. The researchers used geographic information systems to correlate these factors to the numbers of killed elephants. They also discovered the "corruption to dung" ration.

"The more corrupt the country," Maisels says, "the less dung there is." That's government corruption, meaning officials who overlook or even participate in the illegal trade.

But the biggest contributor to the uptick in elephant killing is a huge spike in demand for ivory in China, where new wealth means more people can buy ivory. "And this [is] mainly to do with the fact that there is a very big middle to wealthy class in China now," Maisels says.

Chinese collectors covet ivory for figurines, chopsticks and trinkets. China is by no means the only market, but wildlife experts say China consumes half the supply. A growing population of Chinese workers in Africa makes the trade that much easier. As a result, the price of ivory has shot up tenfold over the past five to seven years.

The Chinese government has promised to discuss measures to curb the trade at the CITES meeting this week. But Maisels, who teaches wildlife biology at the University of Stirling in Scotland, says education is most important.

"Chinese students come up to me and say, 'Wow, you know, what can we do? We had no idea,' " she says. "That's the story that's put out, [that] they're anesthetized, the tusks are taken out, and they're patted on the bottom and sent out to grow a new set."

Biologist Richard Ruggiero at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has spent 30 years working with elephants in central Africa. He says the numerical death count is bad enough, but he believes this is an animal that is somehow aware that something terrible is happening to it.

"Behind the numbers is a real tragedy of a very sentient creature, who really knows that there's a genocide going on," Ruggiero says. "They understand the concept of mortality. They show signs of mourning dead. They understand what tusks mean. They'll pick them up from a carcass."

Ruggiero says it's not just an African or Chinese problem. It requires everyone to take notice to halt the lucrative trade.

"Hopefully people will see the big picture," he says, "will see the aesthetics that elephants cannot and should not be reduced to numbers in a balance book of a business that trades in their teeth."

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/06/173508369/elephant-poaching-pushes-species-to-brink-of-extinction?ft=1&f=1007

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With the 2013 season almost underway, Harvard head coach Kevin Rhoads sat down w...

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Source: http://www.facebook.com/HarvardCrimsonFan/posts/10152594332035411

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Web Site Development Services In East Rand ? Door to Door

Author: Michael | Date: March 6, 2013 | Please Comment!

Website designing makes it possible to propose how your information is presented and what is the impression you make on your visitors. And as we follow, first impression is the last. Things such as colors working well together, general layout & use of space, easy navigation, the page being sized appropriately for different screen resolutions and good integration make your site effective or ineffective. Accordingly, it attracts and keeps visitors on your web site, or it doesn?t.

Keeping the systematic importance of web design, STRANG IT CONSULTING put its greatest effort and creativity to build you the site that will stand out of the rest and contribute to the success of your business.

Our aim is to keep designing professional, clear and crisp, easy to navigate and quick to download. It is the design that captures the browser?s attention and it is the content and functionality that keeps the attention. A good web designing reinforces your message and delivers it with more impact.

Our website developers will work with you to establish a specification of your website?s look and feel, functionality and navigational framework. Every company is unique and therefore each website design we create will reflect the client?s requirements and characteristics.

Website Design Services

As one of the established small business website designing company, STRANG IT CONSULTING offer the following web designing services to companies globally, small businesses or individual:

Web site design for companies & individuals
Ecommerce website designing
Small business website developing
Website redesign and updates
Custom PHP programming & designing
Custom ASP programming & designing
Custom .Net programming & designing
Custom web page designing & designing
Personal web page designing
Database driven websites designing
Flash animations & designing
Custom Company Logo designing

We provide a range of website designing solutions, web designing services, eCommerce services and internet solutions from standard designing solutions to more complex internet solutions and services, such as ecommerce or online shop designs and database driven websites.

Source: http://www.doortodoorlocks.com.au/blog/web-site-development-services-in-east-rand/

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Best Buy, Facebook focus on next generation of mobile experiences ? Mobile Marketer

Receive the latest articles for free. Click here to get the Luxury Daily newsletters. By Staff reports

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Best Buy, Facebook focus on next generation of mobile experiences
Best Buy and Facebook are readying the next generation of mobile experiences and crafting more contextual and useful experiences designed to drive loyalty.
Please click here to read the entire story on Mobile Marketer
?
7-Eleven, Home Depot and JCPenney take mobile, social efforts to the next level
7-Eleven, Home Depot, JCPenney and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are building up their mobile and social efforts and incorporating location into the mix to drive consumer engagement.
Please click here to read the entire story on Mobile Marketer
?
L?Oreal?s Redken boosted salon finder search traffic by 519pc year-over-year via mobile
Since L?Oreal?s Redken launched its mobile site and incorporated Google mobile ads into its strategy, the percentage of total salon searches coming from smartphone devices leapt to 23 percent ? a 519 percent increase year-over-year.
Please click here to read the entire story on Mobile Marketer

Smartphone shipments outnumber feature phones worldwide as adoption skyrockets: IDC
In a sign of the growing role that smartphones are playing on a global basis, research firm IDC forecasts that more smartphones will be shipped worldwide than feature phones for the first time in 2013.
Please click here to read the entire story on Mobile Marketer

Library of Congress responds to White House statement on unlocking mobile phones
The Library of Congress responded to The White House?s position on making unlocking of mobile phones legal. No ice ? rules are rules.
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Related content: Facebook?s mobile strategy comes together with new monetization opportunities ? Mobile Marketer, Investment levels in mobile marketing decline as monetization concerns grow ? Mobile Marketer, McDonald?s solidifies mobile reign with new app, rich media advertising campaign ? Mobile Marketer, Are brands delivering on promise of contextually relevant mobile experiences? ? Mobile Marketer, User concern over mobile privacy is growing: report ? Mobile Marketer,

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Tags: mobile, mobile commerce, mobile marketing

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Source: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/best-buy-facebook-others-focus-on-next-generation-of-mobile-experiences-mobile-marketer

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Sunday, March 3, 2013

Infamous author dies from mesothelioma - JusticeNewsFlash.com

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Home / / Infamous author dies from mesothelioma 2013-03-02 20:27:47 (GMT) (JusticeNewsFlash.com - Featured, Mesothelioma Asbestos)

02/27/2013 // Chicago, IL, US // Cooney & Conway // Jessica McNeil // (press release)

Mesothelioma News ? At the age of 12, James Fogle stole a car and set sail on what would be an endless string of crimes throughout his life. He spent the majority of his life in prison, and passed away behind bars from probable malignant mesothelioma at the age of 75 in August of 2012.

Fogle was born in a small town in Wisconsin, and said that he was a restless child who had an abusive father. Stealing cars became a form of escapism for him. He spent much of his youth in juvenile correctional facilities where, he said, he learned tips from fellow detainees on how to pull off crimes. He continued his life of crime upon his release and, after serving time in jail as an adult and learning from fellow inmates, he began robbing drugstores. For the rest of his life, he was in and out of prison, and was rarely free for more than a year at a time.

At one point during his prison stint, Fogle was trained to be a steam pipe fitter. It is believed that this is where he was exposed to asbestos, which later led to his development of mesothelioma. If exposed, asbestos fibers can become trapped in the lungs when inhaled, and can cause deadly diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure. There is often a latency period of 20 to 50 years from the time of exposure to the development of symptoms. Due to his mesothelioma, Fogle was forced to use an oxygen tank to breathe toward the end of his life.

Fogle had only a sixth-grade education, but?inspired by books he read while locked up?wrote 11 autobiographical novels while behind bars. ?Drugstore Cowboy,? which told the story of drug addicts who joined forces to support their addictions by robbing pharmacies, was the only one that was published. The novel was made into a highly-regarded, successful film by Gus Van Sant in 1989 in which Matt Dillon played the lead role. William Burroughs, one of the major faces of the Beat Generation, had a minor role in the movie, and lauded Fogle?s novel.

Fogle was serving a 16-year sentence for his crimes at the Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington when he passed away.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/us/james-fogle-author-of-drugstore-cowboy-dies-at-75.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/26/local/la-me-james-fogle-20120826

http://seattletimes.com/html/obituaries/2018979541_cowboy24m.html

Media Information:

Address: Chicago, IL
Phone: 312-436-2441
Url: http://cooneyconway.com/infamous-author-dies-from-mesothelioma_8621.html

Online Mesothelioma Asbestos Legal News Distribution - JusticeNewsFlash.com

Source: http://www.justicenewsflash.com/2013/03/02/infamous-author-dies-from-mesothelioma_20130302110138.html

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Police: Conn. firefighters accused of sex slavery

By Jennifer Pineiro, NBCConnecticut.com

A current and a former firefighter from the West Haven (Conn.) Fire Department were arrested, accused of forcing a 12-year-old boy into sex slavery in Vermont until he was 25, according to a spokesman for the West Haven Police Department.

Vermont State Police arrested Frank Meyer, 39, and Brett Bartolotta, 42, in Ludlow, Vermont, on Wednesday after a sting operation in which the victim wore a wire.

Police said the firefighters bribed the boy with money and gifts, including a dirt bike and a hunting bow, since 2001 to get him to perform hundreds of sexual favors over the 12-year span.

The boy first met Bartolotta when he went to a friend's house to ride dirt bikes and Bartolotta approached the teen to join his racing team, according to documents filed with Superior Court in Vermont.

Soon after, Bartolotta offered to sell the teen a dirt bike, which he could pay off in weekly installments, according to documents.

The interaction turned sexual when the teen was unable to make a payment, according to officials.?

Bartolotta offered himself as someone for the boy to speak with about problems and also to teach him about sex, court reports states.

Bartolotta paid the teen for sex acts until he paid off the bike, according to court records.

About two weeks after the bike was paid off, it was stolen.

The victim told police that he thought, in hindsight, that Bartolotta might have stolen the bike to continue meeting at his house.

When Bartolotta eventually got married and sold his condo, Bartolotta would take the teen to houses of construction clients in the Ludlow area, according to court documents.

A year after the first meeting, Bartolotta introduced the victim to Meyer, and the sex acts would occur on Friday nights, prior to Saturday races, according to court documents.?

Meyer is currently a volunteer firefighter for the West Haven Fire Department at Engine 23 and a 911 dispatcher for the city of West Haven, Fire Chief James O'Brien said.

He is also the captain of the explorer program, a department program for youths, and photos online show him standing in front of Explorer Post 3.

As time passed, Meyer brought teens from Connecticut to Vermont and once asked the victim to perform a sex act on another 17-year-old boy, according to court documents, but the teen refused.

Police said Meyer also asked the teen to alter his appearance to look young and boyish and offered to pay for a new hunting bow in exchange for sex.? ?

Bartolotta was a former volunteer firefighter for the department several years ago and now lives in Cavendish, Vermont, according to O'Brien. He also served as a past president of the Explorers, according to the department's Web site.

Police made the arrests on Wednesday after the victim recorded a conversation with Meyer at a Vermont restaurant. On the recording, Meyer acknowledged knowing the victim since he was 12, and alluded to sexual acts, police said. After Meyer was taken into custody, police searched Bartolotta's home and took computers and a gray box into evidence.

When police interviewed Bartolotta, he admitted to a "minor sexual relationship" with the victim over a five-year period, according to police, then later admitted to a more in-depth relationship that involved bondage and sex toys.

He also told police that the sexual encounters happened when his wife was at work and out of the house so they would not be discovered, according to court records.

Meyer and Bartolotta are charged with aggravated sexual assault and slave trafficking. Their bail is set at $50,000 and both are being held.

They each pleaded not guilty in court Thursday.

Two weeks ago, two volunteer firefighters from Coventry were arrested, accused of having sexual relations with members of the junior firefighter program, a program for teens between 14 and 17 years of age.

Joseph Michael Carilli, 55 of Coventry, the department?s training officer, was charged with sexual assault in the second degree and risk of injury to a minor. No court records are available on Carilli's next court date.

Joe Fragoso, 35 of Coventry, a second lieutenant, was charged with second-degree sexual assault.

Fragoso is due in court on March 21.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/01/17151366-police-connecticut-firefighters-accused-in-sex-slavery-case?lite

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Sunday, March 24, 2013

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