On Monday, former NFL receiver Chad Johnson was released from jail after serving seven days of a 30-day term.
On Tuesday, Johnson appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the incident, and his football future.? Because appearing on a network morning show is always the best way to get the attention of a General Manager.
First, Johnson explained to Robin Roberts the butt-slap of lawyer Adam Swickle, a gesture that came after Judge Kathleen McHugh praised Swickle?s work on Johnson?s behalf.
?That?s the way I?ve always interacted throughout life, just in general,? Johnson said.? ?I know there?s a certain thing called courtroom etiquette, which I?ve never really been part of the court system.? It was a light tap.? It wasn?t in any way to disrespect the courtroom.? And really I didn?t think anyone would see it, because it was actually my third time doing so.?
Johnson, who remains on probation through October, wisely praised the judge supervising the process for her decisions, including the one that put him behind bars.
?I supported her in her decision to give me the sentence that she did, basically after me not meeting the criteria and the guidelines that I was supposed to meet in a certain amount of time,? Johnson said.? ?With them not being done within that time, I felt that it was right of her to sentence me to 30 days.? She had given me a gift before and there was no reason to treat me any different than anyone else.? Because if anyone else was in that situation, they would have had to do 30 days as well. . . .
?Judge McHugh was able to do something many people have tried to get me to do for a long time.? Slow down.? Just at life in general.? Slow down, think about what you?re gonna do.? She was able to do that, maybe not in the best circumstances to those on the outside but I see being able to sit down and think about life and where I?m going from this point on being one of the best things that could happen to me right now.?
An even better thing that could happen, in Johnson?s view, would be to get back to the NFL.
?I think everyone deserves a second chance,? Johnson said.? ?Many would say I might not deserve it.? I would like to finish my career off the right way.? I don?t want the last thing to be remembered, you know, well Chad was cut from the Dolphins for an incident he had with his wife.? I would love to grace the football field one more time and to help some team.? I?m not injured, there?s nothing wrong with me.? I?ve learned my lesson, especially after those past seven days.? And that?s about it.? If it doesn?t happen, life goes on.? There are many opportunities and doors that will continue to open.?
He needs those doors to open.? Or he needs to close his wallet.? With a reported monthly deficit of $45,000, Johnson must generate more income or reduce dramatically his expenses before his football money evaporates for good.
It remains unlikely that he?ll be earning more football money.? Even before he was cut by the Dolphins last year, his performance on the field (as captured by NFL Films and HBO) seemed to be more like the guy who was forgotten during the 2011 season in New England and less like the player who once had the audacity to don a homemade Hall of Fame blazer after scoring a touchdown in a Monday night game.
Regardless, he shouldn?t have been put in jail.? Now that he?s out, here?s hoping he finds a way to be productive (and solvent) in his post-football life.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. consumer prices rose slightly in May as higher energy costs were partly offset by cheaper food. The small increase underscores that inflation is mild.
The consumer price index ticked up a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month, only the second increase in seven months, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Consumer prices fell 0.4 percent in April, the largest decline in four years. In the past 12 months, prices have increased 1.4 percent.
Higher natural gas and electricity costs pushed up energy prices 0.4 percent. Gas prices were flat. Food costs fell 0.1 percent, as grocery prices dropped by the most in almost four years.
Outside the volatile food and gas categories, core prices rose 0.2 percent in May and 1.7 percent in the past 12 months, in line with the Federal Reserve's inflation target of 2 percent.
Tame inflation makes it easier for the Fed to continue its extraordinary efforts to boost economic growth. It has also allowed consumers to increase spending this year, despite weak wage gains and higher Social Security taxes.
Retail sales rose at a healthy clip in May from April, the Commerce Department said last week. Americans spent more on cars and trucks, home improvements and sporting goods.
Wholesale prices rose 0.5 percent in May, as gas and food costs increased, the Labor Department said last week. But in the past year they have risen just 1.7 percent.
Fed policymakers are meeting Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the economy's health and consider their next moves.
Steady job gains and resilient consumer spending have fueled intense speculation that the Fed may soon start reducing the pace of its monthly bond purchases. That's caused heavy volatility in stock and bond prices.
The Fed is purchasing $85 billion a month in bonds to keep longer-term interest rates down. That's intended to encourage more borrowing, investing and spending. The Fed says it will continue to buy bonds until the job market improves substantially.
The Fed also says it plans to keep the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low near zero until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 percent, provided inflation remains under control. The unemployment rate ticked up in May to 7.6 percent, though it is down 0.6 percentage points in the past year.
Irvine, Calif.-based Oculus VR has closed a $16 million series A funding round co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners, the company confirmed today. Leaked news of the round was first reported by PandoDaily. Oculus VR is the maker of the Oculus Rift, a forthcoming consumer-priced virtual gaming headset. Prototype ?dev kit? versions of the headset are currently being sold to software developers for $300 apiece. A price and release date for the first consumer version has not yet been announced.
Google?s company policy requires that each office reflect some of the local color of the city around it: Google Zurich has ski gondolas, Google Pittsburgh has steel mill photos, and so on. That policy results in designs that sometimes border on twee (see: Google London's gratuitous Union Jacks), but sometimes, it ends up being brilliant in a campy sort of way. In the case of the company's new Tokyo offices, it?s the latter.
Contact: Traci Klein newsbureau@mayo.edu 507-284-5005 Mayo Clinic
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- People who have obstructive sleep apnea -- when a person stops breathing for periods during sleep -- have a greater risk of sudden cardiac death, according to a study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. An estimated 12 million American adults have obstructive sleep apnea, and many of them are undiagnosed, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
In the study, funded by the NHLBI, 10,701 people who participated in sleep studies were followed for an average of 5.3 years for incidence of sudden cardiac death. In that time, 142 patients died of sudden cardiac death. The most common predictors were an age of 60 or older, 20 or more apnea episodes per hour of sleep, and an oxygen saturation below 78 percent during sleep.
"What we found that is new with this study is that if you have sleep apnea, your risk of sudden death increases almost twofold, particularly if you stopped breathing more than 20 times per hour of sleep and if you had severe falls in oxygen saturation during sleep," says senior author Virend Somers, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist.
When a person is breathing properly, the oxygen saturation level -- when air flows through the lungs -- during sleep is 100 percent, Dr. Somers says. This study showed that if a person is not breathing properly and the oxygen saturation level falls to as low as 78 percent, the risk of sudden cardiac death significantly increases, he says.
Lead author Apoor Gami, M.D., says Mayo Clinic's previous research showed that people with sleep apnea have a much higher risk of sudden cardiac death between midnight and 6 a.m., when people are typically asleep, while people without sleep apnea die more often from sudden cardiac death between 6 a.m. and noon.
"So we knew that sleep apnea changed the time of sudden cardiac death, but we didn't know if it changed the overall risk," Dr. Gami says. "This new study shows that sleep apnea does indeed increase the overall risk of sudden cardiac death independently of other important risk factors.
"The prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in Western populations is high, and because of the relationship between weight and sleep apnea, the current obesity epidemic is going to further increase the scope of this problem," noted Dr. Gami, formerly at Mayo Clinic and now a cardiologist at Midwest Heart Specialists-Advocate Medical Group in Elmhurst, Ill.
Research has shown that sleep apnea is potentially an important cause of cardiovascular conditions, such as high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, heart attacks and strokes, Dr. Somers says. Sleep apnea is treatable. In addition to weight loss, physicians also can recommend sleep posture changes and devices, such as a machine that delivers air pressure through a mask placed over the nose while a person sleeps, he says.
###
The study was supported by grants HL65176 and NIH 1 UL1 RR024150 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and http://www.mayoclinic.org/news.
Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.
VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources of Dr. Virend Somers are available on the Mayo Clinic News Network
Traci Klein
507-284-5005 (days)
507-284-2511 (evenings)
Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Traci Klein newsbureau@mayo.edu 507-284-5005 Mayo Clinic
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- People who have obstructive sleep apnea -- when a person stops breathing for periods during sleep -- have a greater risk of sudden cardiac death, according to a study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. An estimated 12 million American adults have obstructive sleep apnea, and many of them are undiagnosed, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
In the study, funded by the NHLBI, 10,701 people who participated in sleep studies were followed for an average of 5.3 years for incidence of sudden cardiac death. In that time, 142 patients died of sudden cardiac death. The most common predictors were an age of 60 or older, 20 or more apnea episodes per hour of sleep, and an oxygen saturation below 78 percent during sleep.
"What we found that is new with this study is that if you have sleep apnea, your risk of sudden death increases almost twofold, particularly if you stopped breathing more than 20 times per hour of sleep and if you had severe falls in oxygen saturation during sleep," says senior author Virend Somers, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist.
When a person is breathing properly, the oxygen saturation level -- when air flows through the lungs -- during sleep is 100 percent, Dr. Somers says. This study showed that if a person is not breathing properly and the oxygen saturation level falls to as low as 78 percent, the risk of sudden cardiac death significantly increases, he says.
Lead author Apoor Gami, M.D., says Mayo Clinic's previous research showed that people with sleep apnea have a much higher risk of sudden cardiac death between midnight and 6 a.m., when people are typically asleep, while people without sleep apnea die more often from sudden cardiac death between 6 a.m. and noon.
"So we knew that sleep apnea changed the time of sudden cardiac death, but we didn't know if it changed the overall risk," Dr. Gami says. "This new study shows that sleep apnea does indeed increase the overall risk of sudden cardiac death independently of other important risk factors.
"The prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in Western populations is high, and because of the relationship between weight and sleep apnea, the current obesity epidemic is going to further increase the scope of this problem," noted Dr. Gami, formerly at Mayo Clinic and now a cardiologist at Midwest Heart Specialists-Advocate Medical Group in Elmhurst, Ill.
Research has shown that sleep apnea is potentially an important cause of cardiovascular conditions, such as high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, heart attacks and strokes, Dr. Somers says. Sleep apnea is treatable. In addition to weight loss, physicians also can recommend sleep posture changes and devices, such as a machine that delivers air pressure through a mask placed over the nose while a person sleeps, he says.
###
The study was supported by grants HL65176 and NIH 1 UL1 RR024150 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and http://www.mayoclinic.org/news.
Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.
VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources of Dr. Virend Somers are available on the Mayo Clinic News Network
Traci Klein
507-284-5005 (days)
507-284-2511 (evenings)
Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
By Tim Gaynor PHOENIX (Reuters) - Tourist cars and buses resumed their bumpy run to a Grand Canyon tourist attraction run Tuesday, bypassing a roadblock set up last week by a dude rancher in a bitter access dispute. The Hualapai tribe, which operates the canyon Skywalk viewing platform, built the bypass on federal land in Arizona and reopened the Diamond Bar Road to traffic. Diamond Bar runs briefly through the Grand Canyon Ranch Resort, belonging to Nigel Turner. ...
June 11, 2013 ? For a long time, heat insulation was en vogue ? and nearly no one was concerned about poor indoor air quality. And yet excess CO2 hampers concentration. Now, researchers have come up with an intelligent door seal system.
Heated debates and no agreement in sight: the eight employees sitting in a small conference room have come together to get an important project moving. But after an hour, some of them have trouble focusing on the discussion, and some are even beginning to become drowsy. No wonder: the air in the conference room is stuffy and stale, and increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) are making them tired and robbing meeting participants of their concentration.
There?s only one solution: air the room out. Or else rely on the intelligent door seal system that has now been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS in cooperation with the Athmer Company. Users of the system not only spare themselves the effort of regular airing: the door seal is also cold air?s worst enemy, insulating to provide a perfect indoor climate.
Indoor concentrations of CO2 are still a problem, particularly in newer buildings. ?Modern buildings are becoming increasingly airtight,? according to Hans-J?rgen Schliepkorte, group manager at Fraunhofer IMS in Duisburg. On the one hand, better windows and construction materials provide effective insulation - an issue that was long a major concern. But air quality was overlooked in the process. ?In many cases, the supply of fresh air still comes through an open window,? Schliepkorte points out. ?This has consequences for the energy efficiency.?
Sensor measures CO2 concentration in the air
The electronically controlled door seal developed by IMS engineers opens or closes based on the CO2 concentration in a room. A CO2 sensor records concentrations in the air. If this value exceeds a certain threshold, a tiny motor moves a spring to open the door seal at the bottom of the door leaf. The seal raises to permit an exchange of air inside the room. At the same time, the system uses building based measurement and control technology to activate the ventilation system to extract stale air from the room.
?Our standard is based on the Pettenkofer value of 1000 ppm (parts per million),? Schliepkorte explains. It was Max von Pettenkofer who investigated indoor air quality in the middle of the previous century and identified the CO2 value that, if met or exceeded, makes people begin to feel unwell indoors. Today?s rules and guidelines based on DIN for the workplace set 1500 ppm as the upper limit and recommend a CO2 concentration of 1000 ppm. ?We can achieve this with the aid of the intelligent door seal ? without having to open doors or windows,? Schliepkorte observes.
The door seal system is electronically coupled with building measurement and control systems. If a ventilation system or for that matter a heat recovery system has been installed, they can additionally be activated based on indoor CO2 concentrations and temperatures. ?The system always calculates the best compromise between good indoor air and optimal utilization of energy efficiency,? Schliepkorte says. Beginning in June of this year, it will be in use in the Fraunhofer inHaus-Center in Duisburg, an innovation workshop for application oriented and market based research for systems in rooms and buildings.
Indeed, Fraunhofer researchers have already set their sights on further applications: in the future, the door seal may well also help regulate humidity in residential and commercial buildings. This may soon make mold in the home and dry eyes in the office a thing of the past.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) ? U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone said Sunday that he's officially in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Frank Lautenberg and can win the Democratic primary against better-known Newark Mayor Cory Booker by running on his progressive congressional record.
Pallone planned to hold a news conference Monday announcing his intentions. He spoke exclusively to The Associated Press on Sunday night.
"At the end of the day, we're all going to run on our records," said Pallone, who has been in Congress since 1989. "I believe my record of 25 years in Congress and the legislation that I've sponsored and the initiatives I've worked on show I'm the best person to get the job done."
Meanwhile, South Jersey political leader George Norcross III put his considerable influence behind Booker Sunday night.
"I think he's a winner," Norcross told The AP. "He represents a new type of Democrat ? fiscally conservative, socially progressive." Norcross and Booker both support the end of lifetime teacher tenure, expansion of charter schools and other urban school reforms.
Pallone, 61, who had banked $3.7 million for a future campaign as of the end of March, said his progressive record on issues such as the Affordable Care Act, mass transportation funding and Superfund cleanups more closely mirrors Lautenberg's positions than his opponents. He and Lautenberg frequently worked together on legislation, with Lautenberg sponsoring a bill in the Senate and Pallone sponsoring it in the House.
He is the third well-funded Democrat seeking to carry on Lautenberg's liberal legacy in a state that has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate in more than 40 years. Booker, 44, a rising star in the Democratic Party with Hollywood friends like Oprah Winfrey and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, formally declared his candidacy on Saturday. The understated Rep. Rush Holt, 64, a former research physicist, also announced his intention to compete for the seat.
Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver told fellow Democrats at a meeting Sunday night she was planning to run. Her boss, Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, was in Booker's cheering section at his campaign kickoff in Newark.
Lautenberg, 89, died June 3, setting off a scramble for the seat. A reliably liberal vote, Lautenberg had not planned to seek another six-year term because of failing health and was due to retire in January 2015.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie appointed state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa to the Senate temporarily and called special primary for Aug. 13 and general election for mid-October for the remainder of the term. Another election will be held in November 2014 for a full six-year term.
The quick election schedule gave candidates only until Monday to enter the race. The only Republican who has announced so far is Steve Lonegan, the 57-year-old conservative former mayor of Bogota who has twice run in his party's gubernatorial primaries.
Pallone begins the race with support from teachers and public-sector and trade unions. He also likely has early organizational support from three of the state's 21 counties, which could be a considerable asset in an accelerated race.
"My hallmark has always been grassroots ? getting out, meeting the people, explaining to the people what my record is and how I'm going to solve problems," Pallone said. "A lot of this will be grassroots."
Holt also has a record of support for environmental initiatives and rail and transit security funding.
The congressman was courted as a late-season addition to the U.S. Senate ballot in 2002 after Sen. Robert Torricelli abruptly dropped out of the race five weeks before the election. Ultimately, Lautenberg came out of retirement to take that spot.
There was scuttlebutt that Pallone was interested in running for governor in 2005, but he was one of the first to publicly endorse U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine for the seat when Corzine announced he was running.
When Corzine became governor, he sought to be appointed to his vacant Senate seat. But Corzine chose Rep. Robert Menendez, and Pallone decided against challenging him in a primary.
Holt had also expressed interest in Corzine's seat.
Pallone served on the City Council in Long Branch, his hometown, and on the state Senate before he ran for Congress in 1988.
He is associated with liberal causes. He has trumpeted his role in helping pass President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul bill, has pushed for beach restoration and has advocated coastal environmental protections. Pallone has also had strong labor support dating to the 1990s when he bucked lobbying from then-President Bill Clinton and voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The labor support helped him defeat tea party candidate Anna Little, who challenged him in 2010 and again last year.
___
Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this report from Haddonfield.
Scientists find that hard-to-track fires in forest ?understory? have done even greater damage to rainforest than traditional deforestation
By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / June 8, 2013
The Brazilian Amazon harbours 40% of all remaining tropical rainforest, playing a vital role in global biodiversity conservation and climate regulation.
Alexander Lees/REUTERS
Enlarge
The size of the Amazon rainforest has been shrinking ? and not just because of traditional deforestation.
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Fires that creep slowly and low in the forest understory burned nearly 3 percent of the world?s largest tropical rainforest in a little more than a decade, scientists at NASA say.
Because they are hard to measure from space, ?we've never known the regional extent or frequency of these understory fires," said Doug Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the lead author of a study publicized by the space agency Friday.
The study estimated that between 1999 and 2010, understory forest fires burned more than 33,000 square miles (85,500 square kilometers), or 2.8 percent of the forest.
The fires are typically caused by human activities such as cooking, cigarettes, or agricultural waste burning.
But they?re not directly related to deforestation activity, which can include fires that Mr. Morton describes as ?massive, towering infernos.? Rather, an important indicator of risk for understory fires is dryness.
Frequent understory fire activity coincides with low nighttime humidity, the NASA research found.
By contrast, in some of the peak years for forest-clearing activity (2003 and 2004), adjacent forests had low rates of understory fires.
In understory fires, flames generally reach only a few feet high. They often burn for weeks at a time, spreading a few feet per minute.
To gauge the scale of understory fire activity, Morton and colleagues used observations from early in the dry season, from June to August, collected by MODIS ? the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on NASA's Terra satellite.
The researchers tracked the timing of damage and recovery in various disturbed areas. Areas of deforestation lack signs of recovery for at least two years. But degradation from understory fires is visible in the year after the burn, then dissipates quickly as the forest regrows.
Separately, NASA and academic researchers on Friday released predictions that the 2013 fire season will be ?considerably higher? than in 2011 and 2012 in many parts of the Amazon.
The scope of the understory fires doesn?t make deforestation less important, but it suggests that such fires ?are important source of [carbon] emissions that we need to consider," Morton said.
Rather than dwell on preamble, here are some choice quotes from the session, wherein we learned that the President of the United States is totally cool with your privacy being shot to smithereens without your knowing for the last, say, six years. And a one and a two and a:
"Every member of Congress has been briefed on this program."
"What you've got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress and repeatedly authorized by Congress."
"These are programs that have been authorized by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006."
"You can't have 100-percent security and then have 100-percent privacy."
"I don't welcome leaks, there's a reason these programs are classified."
"There are some tradeoffs involved."
"Modest encroachments on privacy."
"Your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing."
So just to be clear: It's okay because we've known about it all along. In other words:
"It's cool that I'm strangling you with my bare hands, I'm totally aware that I'm doing it and my mom said it was okay."
It's true that there are trade-offs involved between security and privacy. No one's arguing that. But the presumption that what Americans are concerned about is that PRISM wasn't overseen enough is lunacy. If anything, the fact that everyone has known exactly what's going on this whole time makes it even worse than we had possibly imagined.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) ? A New Mexico man stabbed, severely beat and kidnapped his mother and another person, then threw his mother off a bridge into the Rio Grande in broad daylight after he said he heard voices coming through the television telling him to go to his mother's house and "get the clones out," according to a criminal complaint.
June 3, 2013 ? NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars. Astronomers plotted Proxima Centauri's precise path in the heavens and predicted the two close encounters using data from Hubble.
"Proxima Centauri's trajectory offers a most interesting opportunity because of its extremely close passage to the two stars," said Kailash Sahu, an astronomer with the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Md. Sahu leads a team of scientists whose work he presented Monday at the 222nd meeting of American Astronomical Society in Indianapolis.
Red dwarfs are the most common class of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Any such star ever born is still shining today. There are about 10 red dwarfs for every star like our sun. Red dwarfs are less massive than other stars. Because lower-mass stars tend to have smaller planets, red dwarfs are ideal places to go hunting for Earth-sized planets.
Previous attempts to detect planets around Proxima Centauri have not been successful. But astronomers believe they may be able to detect smaller terrestrial planets, if they exist, by looking for microlensing effects during the two rare stellar alignments.
Microlensing occurs when a foreground star passes close to our line of sight to a more distant background star. These images of the background star may be distorted, brightened and multiplied depending on the alignment between the foreground lens and the background source.
These microlensing events, ranging from a few hours to a few days in duration, will enable astronomers to measure precisely the mass of this isolated red dwarf. Getting a precise determination of mass is critical to understanding a star's temperature, diameter, intrinsic brightness, and longevity.
Astronomers will measure the mass by examining images of each of the background stars to see how far the stars are offset from their real positions in the sky. The offsets are the result of Proxima Centauri's gravitational field warping space. The degree of offset can be used to measure Proxima Centauri's mass. The greater the offset, the greater the mass of Proxima Centauri. If the red dwarf has any planets, their gravitational fields will produce a second small position shift.
Because Proxima Centauri is so close to Earth, the area of sky warped by its gravitation field is larger than for more distant stars. This makes it easier to look for shifts in apparent stellar position caused by this effect. However, the position shifts will be too small to be perceived by any but the most sensitive telescopes in space and on the ground. The European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope on Mt. Cerro Paranal in Chile may be able to make measurements comparable to Hubble's.
To identify possible alignment events, Sahu's team searched a catalog of 5,000 stars with a high rate of angular motion across the sky and singled out Proxima Centauri. It crosses a section of sky with the apparent width of the full moon as observed from Earth every 600 years.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares hit 2013 lows on Wednesday as uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve would begin trimming its massive stimulus program fanned worries about funds exiting the region, raising caution before key U.S. jobs data later this week.
"Wariness over an exit from the Fed stimulus is driving Asian shares lower on worries that the ample money invested here could flee, although an improving U.S. economy should be seen as positive for many export-reliant Asian economies," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
European stock markets will likely ease, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open down as much as 0.5 percent. A 0.2 percent drop in U.S. stock futures also pointed to a lower Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>
Comments on Tuesday from two Fed officials added to concerns the world's largest economy will be left with reduced Fed support at some point this year.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said there must be a practical limit to the Fed's balance sheet and the central bank cannot deliver quantitative easing "to infinity," while Kansas City Fed President Esther George said slowing the pace of bond buying would not mean tightening U.S. monetary policy and would help wean financial markets off dependence on ultra-easy money.
Markets have been buffeted by U.S. stimulus jitters since Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last month suggested the potential roll back of the massive bond-purchase program this year if the economy improves further. The Fed's quantitative easing has been a major source of support for global markets.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> slid as much as 1 percent to a six-month low, after snapping a four-day losing streak on Tuesday.
Australian shares <.axjo> shed 1.1 percent to a five-month low as slower-than-expected first quarter growth and weakening demand for metals in China weighed. Hong Kong <.hsi> shares slipped 1.2 percent to a six-week low and Shanghai shares <.ssec> edged down 0.4 percent.
"It's a little tricky at the moment. Nobody quite knows the timetable for the Fed's tapering, so high dividend names are not exactly popular right now, but neither are beta names," said Linus Yip, a strategist with First Shanghai Securities.
Markets showed subdued reaction to HSBC/Markit's purchasing managers' index for China's services industry, which expanded modestly in May from April.
Daiwa Securities' Yuihama said stability in Japanese equities would help calm Asian bourses, which had lately been taking their cue from Japan's highly volatile stock market.
Trading remained extremely choppy for Japanese stocks, with the benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> adding as much as 1.3 percent before beginning a tumble that left it off 3.9 percent for the day to a fresh seven-week lows. The Nikkei was now up 26 percent for the year, while two weeks ago, when it scaled a A 5-1/2-year peak, its gain for 2013 was 53 percent. <.t/>
Japanese stocks have been pulled down in recent sessions by anticipation of Fed tapering and as investors began to wind down their excessive expectations for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
What appeared to be speculative buying pushed the Nikkei to session highs and lifted the dollar up along to its day's peak, before a sharp retreat in the Nikkei sparked yen buying as Abe's speech on growth strategy offered no surprises, traders said.
Abe pledged to boost incomes by 3 percent annually and set up special economic zones to attract foreign businesses in the latest tranche of measures aimed at boosting growth in the world's third-biggest economy.
"Dollar/yen was completely swung around by the Nikkei, and the way the Nikkei gyrated seems to suggest that there are still those who have been hurt by recent volatility and incentives to sell into rises remain intact," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo.
The dollar was down 0.4 percent against the yen at 99.65, after rising to the day's high of 100.47 and the session low of 99.55, approaching Monday's three-week low of 98.86. The dollar index <.dxy>, measured against a basket of six key currencies, was down 0.10 percent at 82.686, near Monday's three-week low of 82.428.
Amid deepening uncertainty over the course of U.S. monetary policy, investors have become even more cautious than usual before monthly nonfarm payrolls data due on Friday as the U.S. central bank has made an improving jobs situation a precondition for softening its strong stimulus measures.
"One of the biggest catalysts of uncertainty at the moment comes from traders trying to solve the conundrum of whether good news is good or bad and vice versa," Jonathan Sudaria, a trader at Capital Spreads, said in a note to clients. "Even after the data is released on Friday, it could be a while before the markets comes to a conclusion on how to discount it."
U.S. crude futures were up 0.3 percent at $93.57 a barrel while Brent was steady at $103.22.
(Additional reporting by Clement Tan in Hong Kong; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrive for the World Premiere of World War Z at a central London cinema, Sunday, June 2, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrive for the World Premiere of World War Z at a central London cinema, Sunday, June 2, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie pose with fans as they arrive for the World Premiere of World War Z at a central London cinema, Sunday, June 2, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)
LONDON (AP) ? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stepped out together Sunday at the premiere of zombie thriller "World War Z" ? Jolie's first public appearance since announcing last month that she had undergone a double mastectomy.
The couple said they had been moved by the outpouring of public support that followed Jolie's disclosure.
Jolie told reporters she felt great, and had "been very happy to see the discussion about women's health expanded" by her announcement.
"And after losing my mom to these issues, I'm very grateful for it, and I've been very moved by the kind of support from people," she said.
Jolie revealed last month in an op-ed piece for The New York Times that she had had her breasts removed after discovering she has an inherited genetic mutation that puts her at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
Jolie's mother Marcheline Bertrand died from ovarian cancer at 56, and the actress' aunt died of breast cancer last month.
The 37-year-old actress revealed that, beginning in February, she underwent three surgeries ? which she succeeded in keeping secret from the public ? in which her breasts were removed, and later replaced by implants. She said the procedure had reduced her chance of developing breast cancer from 87 percent to under 5 percent.
On Sunday the couple walked a black, rather than red, carpet at the world premiere of "World War Z," which stars Pitt as a United Nations employee battling to save the world from a zombie apocalypse.
The pair wore complementary black outfits as they signed autographs for fans in Leicester Square.
Pitt said Jolie's mastectomy and subsequent revelation had been "a very moving experience" for the couple, who have six children.
"I have such respect for her," Pitt said.
"The fact that she would not be frightened of this, what she would have to go through to do this, to take this specter away from our family and ensure that she would be there longer for our family, and the kids ... I get very emotional about it.
"I did not expect what a tipping point, how much it would mean for others to hear her stories, others that might be wrestling with the same things," he added.
Rock band Muse performed an outdoor concert Sunday for the premiere of the shot-in-Britain film, which producers hope will be a summer blockbuster.
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Associated Press Writer Holly Cassidy contributed to this report.
As long as there are storms, there will be storm chasers, and the footage they get is always equal parts soul-chilling and awe-inspiring. Yesterday, chaser Brandon Sullivan and his team got a little too close for comfort with one of the many twisters that have ravaging Oklahoma.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of the biggest minority shareholders in Clearwire Corp, on Thursday urged the wireless company to recommend against Sprint Nextel Corp's buyout offer after Dish Network Corp made a counter bid.
Crest Financial, which holds about 8 percent of Clearwire shares, said Clearwire should open itself to competitive bidding, and said that even though Dish's bid late Wednesday appeared superior it may still prove inadequate to shareholders.
In a statement late Thursday, Clearwire said it would adjourn its Friday meeting in which shareholders were expected to vote on Sprint's $3.40 per share offer, after Dish's latest counter bid of $4.40 per share. It said the meeting will reconvene on Thursday, June 13, giving the special committee nearly two weeks to decide on Dish's latest proposal.
Clearwire also said its special committee found Dish's latest proposal to be more "actionable" than Dish's previous one.
The new offer further complicates a consolidation scenario in which Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen is also competing against Japan's SoftBank Corp to buy Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service provider.
Sprint is the majority owner of Clearwire.
Some analysts speculated as to whether the Clearwire bid indicates that Dish would be happy with an investment in the smaller company or a spectrum purchase from Clearwire.
But Dish said it was not backing down from its bid for Sprint. "Our Clearwire offer in no way diminishes our interest or vision for a combined Dish/Sprint," a Dish spokesman said.
Clearwire, which in April warned it could default on debt interest payments due June 1 if the Sprint deal did not go through, said on Thursday it plans to make those payments, totaling about $255 million, on its first-priority, second-priority and exchangeable notes.
Under Sprint's December proposal to buy out Clearwire, the smaller company had the option to draw on $800 million in convertible debt in 10 monthly installments. But Clearwire said it has decided to forego the June $80 million draw under that arrangement, upon the recommendation of its special committee.
On the same day that Dish made the bid for Clearwire, Ergen and other Dish executives involved in the Sprint bid were holding meetings at Sprint's Overland Park, Kansas, campus as part of the due diligence process for that offer, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Whatever Dish's motivation for the Clearwire bid, analysts said it spells trouble for SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and his efforts to gain approval for Softbank's $20.1 billion bid for Sprint at a shareholder vote on June 12.
Softbank had approved Sprint's bid to buy Clearwire.
BTIG telecom analyst Walter Piecyk said SoftBank should come up with a higher bid for Sprint soon, as Dish's Clearwire bid effectively reduces the value of Softbank's bid for Sprint.
"If Masa doesn't figure out how to regain control of the Clearwire process he may have a much harder time convincing Sprint shareholders that his Sprint offer is superior to Ergen's," Piecyk said.
SoftBank gained clearance to go ahead with its Sprint offer earlier this week from a key U.S. government committee but needs more regulatory approvals.
Dish, which had tried to buy Clearwire in January, appeared to strengthen its case with Clearwire by excluding conditions from the new bid that had made it very difficult for Clearwire to accept the previous offer.
Clearwire had said it could not act on the January offer from Dish for $3.30 per share because some of the bid conditions went against previous agreements that Clearwire had with Sprint.
Since Dish removed some of the conditions in its new bid, another source said that Ergen appeared to have "made a serious offer that is actionable" and that the board and its special committee will have to review the proposal carefully.
"This is a much improved offer from Dish, not just the dollar amount," said the source who asked not to be named. "He's got himself in the game now."
A money manager at one big Clearwire shareholder sounded happy with the latest offer from Dish on Thursday even as the person declined to comment specifically on the price.
Five months ago, when Dish made its first bid for Clearwire, "I don't think anybody on the special committee would have thought that we would be where we are today," the money manager said. "That's largely because of the resolve of Clearwire independent shareholders."
Clearwire shares closed up 29 percent at $4.50 on Thursday, above Dish's latest offer of $4.40, after Ergen started advertising his tender offer to Clearwire shareholders.
Any purchase of Clearwire would need approval from more than 50 percent of Clearwire's majority shareholders.
Before the latest Dish offer, many shareholders had said they were unhappy with Sprint's bid for Clearwire - even after it recently raised the price per share to $3.40 from $2.97. Crest Financial has been leading a proxy battle against the deal.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Additional reporting by Zeba Siddiqui; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Leslie Adler and Richard Chang)
AP
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Public release date: 12-Jun-2013
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