The St. Louis Cardinals won a remarkable World Series they weren't even supposed to reach, beating the Texas Rangers 6-2 in Game 7 on Friday night with another key hit by hometown star David Freese and six gutty innings from Chris Carpenter.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45082843#45082843
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NEW YORK ? An Emory University law student who was arrested months ago at a demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square, accused of being a spy and locked in an Egyptian jail for the summer returned home to New York City on Saturday as part of a prisoner swap that also freed 25 Egyptians held in Israel.
Ilan Grapel, 27, arrived at Kennedy Airport looking tired and thin, but wearing a huge smile.
He said that after spending more than four months behind bars in Egypt, he had a new appreciation for the American legal system.
"All of a sudden, the Bill of Rights is not something for the history books," he told reporters gathered in the terminal.
Grapel, who holds joint U.S. and Israeli citizenship, was volunteering for a group aiding Sudanese refugees in Egypt and staying at a youth hostel when he was detained by police who saw him carrying a protest sign at a rally on June 12.
He was accused of spying for Israel, then held for months without formal charges or a trial while U.S. and Israeli officials worked to gain his release.
Grapel said he was no spy, although he does have the type of resume that makes intelligence services drool. The high achiever graduated early from Johns Hopkins University, speaks fluent Arabic and Hebrew, served in Israel's armed forces and had internships with Israel's high court and in the Queens district office of U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman.
After Grapel's joyful reunion with family members at the airport, Ackerman said the student was more like "the kind of kid who might have been at Zuccotti Park," referring to the plaza that is home to New York City's Occupy Wall Street encampment.
Israel has also denied that Grapel was a spy.
Grapel said he was kept in solitary confinement during his imprisonment, but was treated and fed well, and allowed a visit from his mother, Irene.
"I can only say that for four and a half months, we were heartbroken," she said after accompanying her son home Saturday.
Grapel was released was from jail Thursday. He traveled to Israel, where he said he was given a hamburger and red wine by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then departed for the U.S. early Saturday morning.
The Delta flight was delayed for several hours due to a mechanical problem, and was nearly canceled until the flight crew voted to work extended hours just so Grapel could get home, he said.
Grapel thanked Ackerman for lobbying Egypt's ruling military council for his release. He said it wasn't the first time the congressman had written him a recommendation, but he never thought he'd have to recommend that he wasn't a spy.
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INDIANAPOLIS ? The scandal-plagued NCAA is moving swiftly to clean up its image.
On Thursday, the Division I Board of Directors approved a package of sweeping reforms that gives conferences the option of adding more money to scholarship offers, schools the opportunity to award scholarships for multiple years, imposes tougher academic standards on recruits and changes the summer basketball recruiting model.
"It was one of the most aggressive and fullest agendas the board has ever faced," NCAA President Mark Emmert said. "They moved with dispatch on it, and I think they're taking positive steps for schools and student-athletes."
For decades, outsiders have debated whether college scholarships should include more than just the cost of tuition, room and board, books and fees. Now they can.
The board approved a measure allowing conferences to vote on providing up to $2,000 in spending money, or what the NCAA calls the full cost-of-attendance. Emmert insists it is not pay-for-play, merely the reintroduction of a stipend that existed for college athletes until 1972. He also compared it to the stipends received by other students who receive non-athletic scholarships.
Some thought the total amount should have been higher. At the Big Ten's basketball media day in Chicago, commissioner Jim Delany said studies have shown the average athlete pays roughly $3,000 to $4,000 out of his or her own pocket in college costs.
But many believe the measure is long overdue.
"I think it needs to happen or else I think what's left of the system itself is going to implode," said Ohio University professor David Ridpath, past president of The Drake Group, an NCAA watchdog. "We've always lost the moral high ground by saying the educational model is what makes this thing go. I think we're delivering a model that can exploit kids while they're here."
Extra money won't solve all of the NCAA's problems.
Schools must infer the cost of additional funding and it will have to be doled out equally to men's and women's athletes because of Title IX rules. While BCS schools have the money and are expected to swiftly approve additional funding, it may prove too costly for non-BCS schools.
There are fears it will increase the disparity between the haves and the have-nots and could prompt another round of conference realignment.
The board also approved a measure that will give individual schools the authority to award scholarships on a multiple-year basis.
Under the current model, those scholarships are renewed annually and can be revoked for any reason. If adopted, schools could guarantee scholarships for the player's entire career and would be unable to revoke it based solely on athletic performance. Scholarships could still be pulled for reasons such as poor grades, academic misconduct or other forms of improper behavior.
Ridpath said he's personally been involved with 50 or 60 appeals cases after a coach pulled a player's scholarship.
"The reason usually is they find a prettier girl to bring to the dance," he said. "If you're Frank Beamer or Nick Saban, they make a lot of money, and they should be able to coach that kid up."
University presidents are moving quickly to repair the damage caused by a year full of scandals.
Schools from Miami to Boise State, including the reigning the champions in football (Auburn) and men's basketball (Connecticut), have all come under NCAA scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Justice started asking questions about scholarships, Congress has held hearings about a variety of NCAA-related issues and conference realignment has continued to spin wildly.
So, the NCAA's board went back to basics and placed a renewed emphasis on academics.
In August, the board approved raising the four-year Academic Progress Rate cutline from 900 to 930 and linking that cutline to eligibility for postseason play. On Thursday, it passed a four-year plan to phase in the new requirements.
During the first two years, 2012-13 and 2013-14, teams scoring below 900 on the four-year average would be ineligible for postseason play unless the averaged 930 on the two most recent years of data. In 2014-15, teams that do not hit the 930 mark would be ineligible unless they averaged 940 in the two most recent years. After that, everyone must hit 930, no exceptions.
Schools that do not make the grade could also face additional penalties such as reductions in practice time and game limits, coaches suspensions, scholarship reductions and restricted NCAA membership.
The board also approved a measure to include the provision in its bowl licensing agreements, which means it will apply to football teams, too.
UConn's men's basketball team could be the first team to feel the impact.
After posting an 826 last year, a UConn official has said this year's mark will be approximately 975. It would give Connecticut a two-year score of 900.5 and a four-year average of 888.5 -- both too low to make the basketball tourney.
"That's unfortunate," Knight Commission member Len Elmore said. "It's a cautionary tale, but the need for, again, focusing on the true mission of the university is to graduate players and you can't fail at the most important task whether you're national champions or not."
Emmert said if the new rule had been used last year, seven men's basketball teams and eight football teams would have been ineligible for the postseason. And there's almost no way out for teams who don't make the grade.
"You can appeal, but we are going to be very, very strict about appeals," said Walt Harrison, chairman of the committee on academic performance. "So we really don't expect waivers to be a major factor."
As part of the plan, the board agreed to raise eligibility standards for incoming freshmen and junior college transfers. Previously, high school seniors needed a 2.0 GPA in 16 core courses. Now they'll need a 2.3 and will have to complete 10 of those classes before their senior year.
Junior college transfers will need a 2.5 GPA and can only count two physical education credits toward their eligibility.
The other big issue was summer basketball recruiting.
The board has agreed to drop the text messaging ban and allow unlimited contacts to prep players after June 15 of their sophomore year. But coaches. But instead of having 20 evaluation days in July, coaches will have four in April, previous a dead period, and 12 in July. And they'll have more on-campus contact with recruits and current players during the summer. Some of those details will be worked out in January.
Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, said the changes could help limit the influence of agents or unscrupulous coaches, which has become yet another problem for the NCAA.
"In the summer, there are third-parties looking to access our student-athletes as well, work them out," Haney said. "So by allowing access in the summer, we allow coaches to empower our players to become better players."
The NCAA still has plenty of issues to tackle.
In January, the board is expected to get recommendations on how to shrink the massive rulebook. On Thursday, it backed a plan to focus on integrity issues rather than specifics, and it could include a new definition of who qualifies as an agent. A vote isn't expected until April.
The NCAA did not talk about its long-discussed agent registry or forming panel to help college players make decisions about turning pro.
And it still plans to scrap the current two-tiered penalty structure in favor of four categories with specific penalty guidelines. A vote on that will not likely come until next October.
"I think there's a recognition that the (old) process invited people to step over the line because it was very convoluted," Elmore said. "Now we're getting swift, severe sanctions, and that's what we need."
___
Associated Press writer Pat Eaton-Robb in Hartford, Conn., also contributed to this report.
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A new fourth-generation oncolytic virus designed to both kill cancer cells and inhibit blood-vessel growth has shown greater effectiveness than earlier versions when tested in animal models of human brain cancer.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center ? Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC ? James) are developing the oncolytic virus as a treatment for glioblastoma, the most common and deadly form of brain cancer (average survival: 15 months after diagnosis).
The new oncolytic virus, called 34.5ENVE, improved survival of mice with transplanted human glioblastoma tumors by 50 percent in a majority of cases compared with the previous-generation oncolytic virus.
The study was published online in the journal Molecular Therapy.
"These findings show the amazing therapeutic efficacy of this new oncolytic virus against four different glioblastoma models in animals," says cancer researcher Dr. Balveen Kaur, associate professor of neurological surgery, and a member of the OSUCCC ? James viral oncology research program.
The new oncolytic virus is engineered to replicate in cells that express the protein nestin. First identified as a marker for neuronal stem cells, nestin is also expressed in glioblastoma and other malignancies including gastrointestinal, pancreatic, prostate and breast cancer.
"We believe that nestin-driven oncolytic viruses will prove valuable for the treatment of many types of cancer," Kaur says.
The new oncolytic virus also carries a gene to inhibit tumor blood-vessel growth. That gene, called Vstat120, was added to increase its anti-tumor effectiveness and prolong the virus's presence within tumors.
In this study of eight animals with intracranial tumors, six lived longer than 80 days, and these were later found to be tumor free. By comparison, control mice survived a median of 20 days, and mice treated with a first-, a second-, and a third-generation oncolytic virus survived 33, 34 and 53 days, respectively.
"Magnetic resonance imaging and histological analyses revealed extensive tumor destruction in animals treated with 34.5 ENVE," says Kaur, who is also chief of Ohio State's Dardinger Laboratory of Neurosciences. "We hope that we can soon evaluate the safety of this virus in patients with cancer."
###
Ohio State University Medical Center: http://www.osumedcenter.edu
Thanks to Ohio State University Medical Center for this article.
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(Reuters) ? DirecTV Group sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) alleging that Fox Broadcasting Co was running misleading ads warning customers that the satellite TV network would pull their access to local Fox stations.
In its letter, DirecTV said the dispute over carriage fees with News Corp owned Fox would only result in customers no longer being able to access Fox's cable channels like FX and National Geographic, if the two companies were unable to agree to a new carriage deal by November 1.
"Fox, however, is running advertisements asserting that DirecTV viewers 'soon could even lose' the Fox broadcast stations in their local markets," DirecTV said in a letter to the FCC.
The current carriage agreement for the cable channels expired on September 30. However, Fox's broadcast stations are covered under a separate agreement, which does not expire until Dec 31.
Fox was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Anand Basu in Bangalore; Editing by Anthony Kurian)
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LOS ANGELES ? The defense of the doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death will shift Thursday away from personality to the science that his attorneys hope will prevent the physician from being convicted.
The final witnesses testifying for Dr. Conrad Murray will be fellow doctors, one an expert in addiction and the other in the powerful anesthetic that the Houston-based cardiologist was giving Jackson as a sleep aid.
Their testimony could make the difference in whether Murray is convicted or acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson's June 2009 death. Authorities contend Murray gave Jackson a fatal dose of propofol and botched resuscitation efforts.
Murray's attorneys contend Jackson gave himself the fatal dose of propofol when his doctor left the room, but have not yet shown evidence about how that theory is even possible. Several prosecution experts have said the self-administration defense was improbable and a key expert said he ruled it out completely, arguing the more likely scenario is that Murray gave Jackson a much higher dose than he has admitted.
The scientific testimony of Dr. Robert Waldman and Dr. Paul White comes a day after jurors heard from five of Murray's one-time patients, who described the cardiologist as a caring physician who performed procedures for free and spent hours getting to know them. When Ruby Mosley described Murray's work at a clinic he founded in a poor neighborhood in Houston in memory of his father, tears welled up in the eyes of the normally stoic doctor-turned-defendant.
Waldman is an addiction expert who may try to bolster the defense theory that Jackson had become dependent on propofol to sleep and was driven to self-administer it when Murray left his bedside.
It will be up to White to explain whether that was possible. He sat in court throughout the testimony of prosecution propofol expert Dr. Steven Shafer, at times shaking his head and furiously passing notes to defense attorneys. In the courthouse, he has been seen conferring with Murray in the hallway outside the courtroom where the case is being heard.
White and Waldman do not necessarily have to convince jurors that Jackson gave himself the fatal dose, but merely provide them with enough reasonable doubt about the prosecution case against Murray.
While prosecutors have portrayed Murray, 58, as a reckless physician who repeatedly broke the rules by giving Jackson propofol as a sleep aid, jurors heard a different portrait of the doctor on Wednesday.
Several of the character witnesses called described Murray as the best doctor they had ever seen and highlighted his skills at repairing their hearts with stents and other procedures.
"I'm alive today because of that man," said Andrew Guest of Las Vegas, who looked Murray. "That man sitting there is the best doctor I've ever seen."
Another former patient, Gerry Causey, stopped to shake Murray's hand in the courtroom and said the physician was his best friend.
A prosecutor noted that none of them were being treated for sleep issues, although Causey and others said they didn't believe the allegations against Murray.
Defense attorneys have told Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor they expect their case to conclude on Thursday. Pastor has said if that happens, closing arguments would occur next week.
___
AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.
___
McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Social discovery service Banjo, which launched its cross-platform mobile application for iPhone and Android earlier this summer, has just introduced a new way to keep track of where your friends are and what they're doing: automatic friend alerts. Unlike the alerts you see on Foursquare, which ping you every time a friend checks in somewhere, this friend alerting feature works across social networks. And more importantly, it only bothers you when your friends are actually nearby.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/SrH4MWBpHcw/
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British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter gestures addressing at the opening of Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter gestures addressing at the opening of Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces' academy, listens at the opening of Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces' academy, right, and British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter, left, shakes hands as they open Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter gestures addressing at the opening of Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter, left, gestures addressing at the opening of Russia-NATO seminar in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. A NATO delegation is visiting Moscow in a bid to warm up ties with Russia that has been wary of the alliance's intentions. Senior military officers from NATO's command on Tuesday opened a four-day seminar to brief their Russian counterparts about NATO's missions and plans. Hungary?s Col. Sandor Fucsku is at center and Russian Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces' academy, is at right. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
MOSCOW (AP) ? NATO still hopes to engage Russia in its prospective missile defense system, but won't yield to Moscow's push for the shield to be run jointly, an alliance envoy said Tuesday.
James Appathurai, deputy assistant NATO Secretary General, said the alliance would like to reach a missile defense deal with Moscow by NATO's summit in Chicago next May, but added that he wouldn't "gamble on expectations."
"We are always, of course, optimistic at NATO," Appathurai said at a news conference. "But we are also determined to keep the hand outstretched. I can't predict, of course, when we would arrive at agreement."
Russia says the U.S.-led missile defense plan could threaten its nuclear forces, undermining their deterrence potential. It has agreed to consider NATO's proposal last fall to cooperate on the missile shield, but the talks have been deadlocked over how the system should be operated. Russia has insisted that the system should be run jointly, which NATO has rejected.
Appathurai insisted that the alliance's 28 members share a treaty obligation to provide security for each other and can't outsource that.
"We can't do that with any other partner no matter how trusted," he said, adding that NATO is offering Russia an "unprecedented level of transparency and cooperation."
Appathurai argued that the alliance has proposed to engage Russia by sharing data and coordinating a response. He also mentioned a U.S. proposal for Moscow to have a close look at the shield's technical capabilities and see that it won't threaten its security.
The NATO proposals have failed to impress the Kremlin, which has continued to push for legal guarantees that the future system wouldn't threaten Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned that the failure to reach agreement on missile defense may prompt Russia to deploy new offensive weapons, triggering an arms race.
Relations between NATO and Russia have been a roller coaster over the past decade, reaching a high point after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and then plummeting to post-Cold War low after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war when the alliance froze relations with Moscow.
Despite the missile defense dispute, Appathurai argued that current relations between NATO and Russia are "broader and deeper than they have ever been," pointing to Russia providing a vital overland supply link for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"We have a clear shared interest in ensuring that Afghanistan finds its feet, maintains stability and doesn't export drugs, terrorism or extremism," he said.
The two sides have cooperated successfully on counter-terrorism, anti-drug and counter-piracy missions, and "have potential for more in all of these areas," Appathurai said.
"We shouldn't let missile defense become the single prism through which we see our relationship," he added. "It's not the only part and shouldn't define the rest of it."
Appathurai and other NATO officials and military officers opened a four-day seminar Tuesday to brief their Russian counterparts on the alliance's missions and plans.
"It's best to understand each other's perspective, to exchange ideas and to identify best practice," said British Maj. Gen. Simon Porter. "The future is about working together and understanding each other."
Russian Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces' academy, said meetings like this week's seminar will help narrow differences.
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Not-so-instant replay.
Game 5 started the same way Game 4 did, with a lineout by Rafael Furcal to Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre. Tough start for Furcal on his 34th birthday.
Albert Pujols swings at a 3-0 pitch and flies out to center field to end the first inning. C.J. Wilson retired the Cardinals in order.
Besides his record-setting performance in Game 3, Pujols is 0 for 11 in the Series.
Chris Carpenter issues a two-out walk to Josh Hamilton in the first, but that's it. Scoreless after one.
___
This is shaping up as the most competitive World Series in nearly a decade.
With the Cardinals and Rangers tied at two games apiece, Carpenter is facing Wilson in a rematch of the opener.
It's the first time the Series has been tied 2-all since 2003, when the Florida Marlins upset the New York Yankees in six games. The last seven-game Series was the year before that, when the Angels beat the Giants.
Carpenter has excelled in October, but Wilson has been a dud. A 16-game winner during the regular season with a 2.94 ERA, the Texas ace is 0-3 with a 7.17 ERA in four postseason starts this year.
Those numbers could cost him some serious cash, too, because Wilson can become a free agent next month. This is his last chance to prove to potential suitors that he can thrive under pressure in a big postseason game.
No pitcher has ever lost four times in one postseason, according to STATS LLC.
Wilson walked six and lost to Carpenter 3-2 in Game 1, though the lefty threw the ball better than he had in his previous playoff outings.
The fiery Carpenter is 3-0 with a 3.52 ERA in four starts this postseason. The only time he didn't win, he was pitching on three days' rest for the first time in his career.
Carpenter owns eight career postseason wins, tied with Yankees closer Mariano Rivera for the most among active pitchers.
Cardinals manager Tony La Russa made a change to his lineup for Game 5, inserting Skip Schumaker in center field. Schumaker, who is batting eighth, replaced slumping Jon Jay, who is 0 for 14 in the Series.
The scrappy Schumaker, who mostly played second base this season, missed the NL championship series because of a strained muscle on his right side. He has one at-bat in the World Series.
Game 6 is Wednesday night in St. Louis, where some raw weather is expected.
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ? Prosecutors described a frightening standoff at a Tennessee courthouse between law enforcement and an armed man who vowed to take it over in his quest to oust President Barack Obama. The man's attorney said he was just a "loudmouth" expressing his political opinions.
The defense didn't work for Darren Wesley Huff, who was convicted Tuesday on a federal firearms charge that could send him to prison for up to five years.
Huff, 41, was armed with a Colt .45 and an assault rifle on April 20, 2010, when he and about 15 others, some also armed, arrived in Madisonville, a small town about halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga.
About 100 law enforcement officers also were there because Huff had told an FBI agent who visited his home in Dallas, Ga., and police who stopped him for a traffic violation in Tennessee that he was prepared to help take over the Monroe County Courthouse if necessary.
"Huff said he was ready to die for his rights and what he believed in," Special Agent Mark Van Balen wrote in a pre-trial affidavit. Huff was convicted of carrying a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to use it in a civil disorder and acquitted of another charge of using a firearm in relation to another felony.
The prosecution presented the courthouse plot as a serious and frightening.
"It was the tensest day we ever had," District Attorney Steve Bebb testified. Bebb coordinated the law officers that day as they prepared against the plot Huff had described.
"Every one of you all may think he (Huff) and his ilk are kooky as all get out," defense attorney Scott Green told jurors at the beginning of the trial last week. He said his client was a "loudmouth" but "not the scary guy they have been trying to paint."
Huff himself testified, fighting back tears as he told jurors how hurt he was that "my government has called me a potential domestic terrorist."
Jurors also heard at length from Huff thanks to a dashboard camera video taken after he was stopped and given a warning for driving too closely. In the tape, Huff chatted for an hour about religion and guns with officers, volunteering many details about what he was planning to do in Tennessee.
"I like y'all," Huff told the officers in the recording.
He said he was motivated to go to Madisonville by Walter Fitzpatrick, a Navy retiree who has had a beef against the federal government since he faced a court martial decades ago.
Fitzpatrick was facing charges in the eastern Tennessee town about halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga because he tried to use a citizen's arrest warrant to take into custody local officials who wouldn't pursue a legal case to oust Obama. Fitzpatrick's warrant called the local officials "domestic enemies" and Obama an "illegal alien, infiltrator and impostor."
Huff said in the video that he and others were ready to help carry out the citizen's arrests Fitzpatrick wanted.
"I've got my .45 because ain't no government official gonna go peacefully," Huff told the police.
Green argued that Huff had a permit to carry the guns and right to express his opinion and didn't cause a disturbance.
"I have never made a statement about taking over the courthouse, the city, the state, nothing," Huff testified. "I never said anything about taking anything over."
That was disputed by two employees of his local bank who testified that he had threatened to take over the courthouse. They alerted the FBI, which then visited Huff at his home northwest of Atlanta the day before he left for Tennessee.
The 12-member jury in the case heard a week of testimony and arguments. It reported late Monday that members were hung, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan told them to try again Tuesday and the verdict came back with a conviction on one charge and acquittal on the other.
"The verdict on count one reflects exactly what the law is supposed to do, which is prevent harm before shots get fired, people hurt, or property damaged," Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Mackie told reporters after the verdict.
Defense attorney Green didn't comment after the verdict but when he spoke The Associated Press on Monday he quoted former New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay: "Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order."
Huff was taken immediately into custody and couldn't be reached for comment. His sentencing is scheduled for February.
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This three-part documentary series looks at how Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon shaped the destiny of Israel, and indeed the entire Middle East. Israel's Generals is a comparison between the three leaders and explores why Israel, proud to be a democracy, continue to choose generals as its political leaders? The program also asks whether there will ever be peace as long as fighters lead the way.
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CARACAS, Venezuela ? Doctors on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's medical team say he's in excellent health after undergoing cancer treatment.
The doctors have spoken out to deny a surgeon's remarks about Chavez's condition.
A Mexican magazine quoted Dr. Salvador Navarrete as saying that he believed Chavez's prognosis "is not good" and that the life expectancy in such cases can be as little as two years.
Dr. Fidel Ramirez is one of Chavez's doctors, and he read a statement Saturday saying Chavez had never been a patient of Navarrete.
The doctors on Chavez's medical team also questioned the surgeon's ethics, saying he's wrong about the president's condition and doesn't have access to his medical information.
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HOUSTON (Reuters) ? More than four decades after she was charged with murder for dousing her husband with a pot of hot grease, 76-year-old Mary Ann Rivera was brought to court in Houston on Friday to face the charges.
"She was a fugitive from a murder case and now she's a fugitive no longer," said Chuck Lowery, an investigator with the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
On Wednesday, Rivera was extradited back to Texas from Lake Park, Georgia, where she had fled with her children after the death of her husband, Cruz Rivera, in the fall of 1970. In the small town near the Florida border, she had evaded the law for 41 years. Rivera had no criminal history in Georgia, Lowery said.
The ailing, 5 feet, 1 inch tall septuagenarian is being held without bond after appearing in court in a wheelchair for her arraignment Friday, according to her attorney, Jules Johnson. She relies on an oxygen tank to breathe and cannot travel by plane, so Harris County Sheriff's Department officers drove her more than 700 miles back to Houston, Lowery said, where she faced charges of murder by omission.
The sheer number of felony arrest warrants facing investigators may have been a factor in Rivera's ability to stay under the radar so many years, Lowery said. Technology and the ease of accessing information from a variety of law enforcement databases have made it much easier to close cases that have been cold for decades, he said.
Rivera's was the oldest of 530 cold case files closed this week by Lowery's unit, the Fugitive Apprehension Section of the district attorney's office.
Another fugitive, Epifanio Jaime Arroyo, was arrested Wednesday at his home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, as a result of investigations by Lowery's unit and others. He has been brought back to Houston to be tried for the 1989 stabbing death of Miguel Frias, the Houston Police Department said Friday.
"If you are a fugitive from Harris County, you might as well surrender now." District Attorney Pat Lykos said in a statement.
(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Greg McCune)
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Swipe the screen with your finger to bring up a menu. Rap it with your knuckle to select an object. Flick with your fingertip to close.
That's the idea behind TapSense, the latest smart interface idea from Carnegie Mellon University's Chris Harrison which uses the sounds that different parts of your hand make when tapped on a touchscreen to differentiate between them.
Attaching a microphone to a touchscreen lets the user assign different actions depending upon which part of the hand is used to strike the screen. It can tell the difference between a fingernail, knuckle, fingertip and pad of a finger. The researchers say the system is able to distinguish between the four types of finger inputs with 95 percent accuracy, and could distinguish between a pen and a finger with 99 percent accuracy.
Harrison will present TapSense today at the User Interface Software and Technology conference in Santa Barbara, California. He says that tablets like Apple's iPad and smartphones could be upgraded to take advantage of this extended capability for around 25 cents per device - just enough to attach a simple microphone to the screen.
The system can also tell the difference between the sound made by different materials, such as wood, plastic or metal. This would allow users with a stylus made from the different materials to work together with each contribution appearing in a different colour on the screen, for example.
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WASHINGTON ? More than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protests, and even more ? 58 percent ? say they are furious about America's politics.
The number of angry people is growing as deep reservoirs of resentment grip the country, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll.
Some 37 percent of people back the protests that have spread from New York to cities across the country and abroad, one of the first snapshots of how the public views the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. A majority of those protest supporters are Democrats, but the anger about politics in general is much more widespread, the poll indicates.
"They've got reasons to be upset, they've got reasons to protest, but they're protesting against the wrong people," Jan Jarrell, 54, a retired school custodian from Leesville, S.C., says of the New York demonstrators. "They need to go to Washington, to Congress and the White House. They're the ones coming up with all the rules."
"Occupy Wall Street" has been called the liberal counterpoint to conservative-libertarian tea party, which injected a huge dose of enthusiasm into the Republican Party and helped it win the House and make gains in the Senate last fall.
While the troubled economy is at the root of anger at both government and business leaders, there's a key difference. Tea party activists generally argue that government is the problem, and they advocate for free markets. The Wall Street protesters generally say that government can provide some solutions and the free market has run amok.
Of the Americans who support the Wall Street protests, 64 percent in the poll are Democrats, while 22 percent are independents and just 14 percent are Republicans. The protest backers are more likely to approve of President Barack Obama and more likely to disapprove of Congress than are people who don't support the demonstrations.
More generally, many more Americans ? 58 percent ? say they are furious about the country's politics than did in January, when 49 percent said they felt that way. What's more, nearly nine in 10 say they are frustrated with politics and nearly the same say they are disappointed, findings that suggest people are deeply resentful of the political bickering over such basic government responsibilities as passing a federal budget and raising the nation's debt limit.
This wrath spreads across political lines, with about six in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents saying politics makes them angry.
Fewer are hopeful about politics than when the year began, 47 percent down from 60 percent. Only 17 percent of respondents say they feel proud or inspired.
Since January, Congress and the White House have engaged in repeated standoffs over federal spending and the size of government as the economy has struggled to recover from recession.
In the past month, fury over all that has spilled into New York's financial district, and groups of mostly young people have camped out in a park.
The protesters cite the economic crisis as a key reason for their unhappiness. The unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent nationally. Many homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. Foreclosures are rampant. And many young people ? the key demographic of the protesters ? can't find jobs or live on their own.
"They all have college educations, and some have advanced degrees, and they're unemployed?" says Alice Dunlap, 63, a retired speech language pathologist from Alexandria, Va. She supports the protests because, she says, anger lingers at those who profited while the nation's economy tanked.
"We all got ripped off by Wall Street, and we continue to be ripped off by Wall Street," she says. "You can look at my portfolio, if you like."
The poll found that most protest supporters do not blame Obama for the economic crisis. Sixty-eight percent say former President George W. Bush deserves "almost all" or "a lot but not all" of the blame. Just 15 percent say Obama deserves that much blame. Nearly six in 10 protest supporters blame Republicans in Congress for the nation's economic problems, and 21 percent blame congressional Democrats.
Six in 10 protest supporters trust Democrats more than Republicans to create jobs.
Most people who support the protests ? like most people who don't ? actually report good financial situations in their own households.
Still, protest supporters express more intense concern than non-supporters about unemployment at the moment and rising consumer prices in the coming year.
Norton Shores, Mich., retiree Patsy Ellerbroek, 65, is among those who have little empathy for the Wall Street protesters.
"Everybody ought to own their own business before they start complaining," Ellerbroek says.
Eight years ago, she and her husband sold "The Fun Spot," a roller rink they owned for three decades. Now she's a member of neither political party, and she gets frustrated when she sees politicians like the Republican candidates for president being disrespectful. Or Obama "flying around the county on our taxpayer dollars, politicking."
"With all the politicians, it's like, the heck with the people who put them there. We need another Mr. Smith goes to Washington," she said.
The poll was conducted Oct. 13-17, 2011, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The poll included 384 respondents who said they were supporters of the Wall Street protests. Among that group, the error margin was 6.5 points.
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Online:
Poll results: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com
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The subject line on the e-mail read "Killer Yoga?" It turned out that someone sent me an essay by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. The title was "How Garbo Learned to Stand on Her Head," and some headline writer probably added that "killer" phrase to attract eyeballs. I usually like Dowd's work. Her edgy wit and reliable insight give her columns an appealing mix of entertainment and information. Now she was taking on something about which I know more than she does, so I couldn't wait to dig in.
Well, entertaining it was. Informative? Kind of, but not in a reliable way. Dowd, who practices yoga for stress-reduction, was reporting on a forthcoming book by New York Times science writer William Broad called, "The Science of Yoga: The Myths and the Rewards." I haven't seen the book, which won't be out until February, so I can only hope that Dowd did not do it justice. I'm afraid she perpetuates the superficial coverage of yoga so common in the mainstream press.
First, that "killer" business. It seems that one of the "dirty little secrets" Broad exposes is that "yoga has produced waves of injuries." What injuries? Pulled muscles? Joint pain? Sure, it happens. Students get careless and some teachers are lax in their oversight. But what percentage of yoga students actually gets injured? Dowd doesn't say, and I don't know if Broad does. I'm guessing the number is very very low.
On a more serious note, Dowd quotes Broad as saying, "Doctors have found that certain poses can result in brain damage that turns practitioners into cripples with drooping eyelids and flailing limbs." Question: How many people have suffered brain injury from yoga? My guess is it's infinitesimal in light of the tens of millions who take yoga classes. I'm also guessing that any such injuries are associated with headstands. Not everyone should do them. In fact, many yoga teachers recommend that no one do them, or at least not beginners, and not without very careful supervision.
Dowd then cites a passage in Broad's book that really upset her: "Darker still, some authorities warn of madness. As Carl Jung put it, advanced yoga can 'let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed.'" I'm a huge fan of Carl Jung, but he died in 1961, long before the postural yoga boom, and he probably knew fewer practitioners than live on my street in Los Angeles. Jung was actually an admirer of yoga -- the philosophical and spiritual tradition, not the stretches and bends now associated with the term -- but he mistakenly concluded that it wasn't compatible with life in the West. I don't know what other evidence Broad cites for this chilling assertion, or which "authorities" he has in mind, but by singling out that passage Dowd does a disservice to both yoga and Jung.
Dowd also discusses Broad's assertion that yoga might not aid in weight loss, as some proponents claim, but can have the opposite effect since the practices lower metabolism. Again, we don't know whether this is a theoretical statement of if Broad cites data showing that yogis are prone to weight gain. My response is a resounding au contraire, as a glance at random yoga students would affirm. I suggest there is at least one mitigating factor: people who do yoga regularly are likely to be more in tune with their bodies and therefore eat healthier diets.
Dowd does a rapid U-turn midway through her column, relieved that Broad's book goes on to present scientific evidence of yoga's benefits. I too, was relieved, but I ended up more annoyed than I was before. By emphasizing yoga's sexual rewards, and by dropping in celebrity names like Sting and Garbo (okay, she also gets classy with Leopold Stokowski and Yehudi Menuhin), Dowd reinforces the trivialization that threatens to turn a profound spiritual tradition into just another form of physical fitness.
Nowhere in her column is there any indication that there is more to yoga than the asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing) that dominate most classes. Meditation, the centerpiece of classical yoga, is not mentioned, and one can only hope that Broad's book does not ignore the hundreds of studies on meditation in peer-reviewed publications. Given her own interests and the limitations of column length, Dowd can be excused for not explaining that yoga, as a philosophical and spiritual tradition, far outdates the development of hatha yoga (the physically oriented system), or for not mentioning that yoga means union -- and not the union of head to knee, or even of mind and body, but union with the divine, or, in secular terms, of the individual and the universal. One cannot expect Dowd to note that the Bhagavad Gita describes three yogic pathways, jnana (knowledge), bhakti (devotion) and karma (action), or that the Yoga Sutras -- the text most modern yogis consider authoritative -- is almost entirely about consciousness, with barely a mention of asana (and that in the context of sitting posture). But one certainly hopes that Broad's book does not commit such egregious oversights.
For that, we will have to wait. In the meantime, I hope that Maureen Dowd and her legion of fans discover that there is more to yoga than flexible limbs and "relief from the ravages of stress." Anyone who thinks that yoga is merely "a kinder version of alcohol" might want to do a reverse pose and get some more blood flowing to her brain. With proper supervision, of course.
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Follow Philip Goldberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/phil_amveda
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-goldberg/maureen-dowd-yoga-_b_1012650.html
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HAMPTON, Va. ? Heralding a splash of good news on jobs, President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised a series of companies that have promised to hire 25,000 veterans or military spouses within two years, calling it a sign of patriotism and business savvy. He pushed his economic agenda anew to a military audience, this time with first lady Michelle Obama at his side.
"We ask you to fight, to sacrifice, to risk your lives for your country," Obama told an audience of thousands of people at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. "The last thing you should have to do is fight for a job when you come home. Not here. Not in the United States of America."
In this military setting, Obama's pitch for his jobs bill was far less partisan than it has been across his bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia. He didn't target at length the Republican lawmakers who have voted against his plan, promising more broadly to keep pushing Congress to pass a bill that's now been broken into pieces.
The president's day-long swing through Virginia does, however, have deep political undertones. Obama won the traditionally Republican-leaning state in 2008, but his poll numbers here are down, and some of the state's high-profile Democrats are staying away from the president's events.
The final day of Obama's bus tour had a different feel primarily because the Obamas were together as the president campaigned for his ideas and, in turn, for his re-election. The president and Mrs. Obama made a surprise stop at a roadside pumpkin patch, scooping up some orange and white pumpkins, apples and peanuts.
Then they stopped for lunch at Anna's Pizza and Italian Kitchen, having a meal with four veterans from different parts of the nation who had attended the earlier event at the base.
In their comments, Obama and the first lady both sought to assure veterans and their families that the country was behind them and that employers are, too. The American Logistics Association, which includes major companies like Tyson Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., is pledging to hire 25,000 people by the end of 2013.
Michelle Obama called it the largest coordinated effort by the private sector to hire veterans that the nation has seen in years.
Mrs. Obama is leading a national campaign to rally the country around its veterans.
The president said that every company should want to hire veterans because of their leadership experience, mastery of cutting-edge technology and other skills. Obama is asking Congress to approve separate tax credits worth thousands of dollars for businesses that hire veterans who've been out of work for at least six months, including those with disabilities.
As Obama has been traveling, lawmakers back in Washington were taking the first steps to break his nearly $450 billion jobs bill into pieces for possible votes. It's the only way elements of the measure stand a chance of passing, given that Senate Republicans blocked action on the full package last week.
The bus trip has given the president the opportunity to promote elements of his jobs plan in places the White House says would benefit most should the measures pass.
Obama has spoken at high schools and community colleges where the administration says new spending would prevent teacher layoffs, as well as a small, regional area airport near Asheville, N.C., where Obama pressed for government funds to renovate an outdated runway.
Wednesday's stops were following a similar pattern.
Obama has proposed a Returning Heroes tax credit of up to $5,600 for businesses that hire unemployed veterans who have been out of work for six months or more, as well as a Wounded Warriors tax credit of nearly $10,000 for unemployed veterans with service-related disabilities who also have been looking for work for at least six months.
"When I first proposed this idea in a joint session of Congress, people stood up and applauded on both sides of the aisle," Obama said about tax credits to encourage hiring of veterans. "So when it comes for a vote in the Senate, I expect to get votes from both sides of the aisle. Don't just applaud about it. Vote for it."
Obama was on his way to North Chesterfield, Va., where he was to speak at a local fire station. He was returning to Washington later Wednesday.
Republicans have criticized Obama's bus trip as being more focused on selling the president's re-election than solving the country's economic woes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday: ""Let's park the campaign bus, put away the talking points, and do something to address this jobs crisis."
Top Virginia Democrats, including Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, are not expected to appear with the president Wednesday, nor is Tim Kaine, the former governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is running to replace the retiring Webb.
However, Virginia's popular Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell did meet with the president Wednesday morning at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.
She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees.
"I regret to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe. "If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."
At Ahmed Kasadha's prosperous farm in eastern Uganda, it's a different story.
"My father had 25 children ? I have only 14 so far, and expect to produce more in the future," says Kasadha, who has two wives. He considers a large family a sign of success and a guarantee of support in his old age.
By the time Ndageramiwe's ninth child arrives, and any further members of the Kasadha clan, the world's population will have passed a momentous milestone. As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.
In Western Europe, Japan and Russia, it will be an ironic milestone amid worries about low birthrates and aging populations. In China and India, the two most populous nations, it's an occasion to reassess policies that have already slowed once-rapid growth.
But in Burundi, Uganda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic news is mostly sobering as the region staggers under the double burden of the world's highest birthrates and deepest poverty. The regional population of nearly 900 million could reach 2 billion in 40 years at current rates, accounting for about half of the projected global population growth over that span.
"Most of that growth will be in Africa's cities, and in those cities it will almost all be in slums where living conditions are horrible," said John Bongaarts of the Population Council, a New York-based research organization.
Is catastrophe inevitable? Not necessarily. But experts say most of Africa ? and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan ? will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives.
PhotoBlog: World population set to exceed seven billion"Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other," says Lester Brown, the environmental analyst who heads the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families."
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Without such intervention, Brown says, food and water shortages could fuel political destabilization in developing regions.
"There's quite a bit of land that could produce food if we had the water to go with it," he said. "It's water that's becoming the real constraint."
The International Water Management Institute shares these concerns, predicting that by 2025 about 1.8 billion people will live in places suffering from severe water scarcity.
According to demographers, the world's population didn't reach 1 billion until 1804, and it took 123 years to hit the 2 billion mark in 1927. Then the pace accelerated ? 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998.
Looking ahead, the U.N. projects that the world population will reach 8 billion by 2025, 10 billion by 2083. But the numbers could be much higher or lower, depending on such factors as access to birth control, infant mortality rates and average life expectancy ? which has risen from 48 years in 1950 to 69 years today.
"Overall, this is not a cause for alarm ? the world has absorbed big gains since 1950," said Bongaarts, a vice president of the Population Council. But he cautioned that strains are intensifying: rising energy and food prices, environmental stresses, more than 900 million people undernourished.
"For the rich, it's totally manageable," Bongaarts said. "It's the poor, everywhere, who will be hurt the most."
The executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, former Nigerian health minister Babatunde Osotimehin, describes the 7 billion milestone as a call to action ? especially in the realm of enabling adolescent girls to stay in school and empowering women to control the number of children they have.
"It's an opportunity to bring the issues of population, women's rights and family planning back to center stage," he said in an interview. "There are 215 million women worldwide who need family planning and don't get it. If we can change that, and these women can take charge of their lives, we'll have a better world."
But as Osotimehin noted, population-related challenges vary dramatically around the world. Associated Press reporters on four continents examined some of most distinctive examples:
The Asian giants
It's 6 p.m. in Mumbai, India's financial hub, and millions of workers swarm out of their offices, headed to railway stations for a ride home. Every few minutes, as a train enters the station, the crowd surges forward.
For nearly 7 million commuters who ride the overtaxed suburban rail network each work day, every ride is a scramble. Each car is jam-packed; sometimes, riders die when they lose their foothold while clinging to the doors.
Across India, the teeming slums, congested streets, and crowded trains and trams are testimony to the country's burgeoning population. Already the second most populous country, with 1.2 billion people, India is expected to overtake China around 2030 when its population soars to an estimated 1.6 billion.
But even as the numbers increase, the pace of the growth has slowed. Demographers say India's fertility rate ? now 2.6 children per woman ? should fall to 2.1 by 2025 and to 1.8 by 2035.
More than half of India's population is under 25, and some policy planners say this so-called "youth dividend" could fuel a productive surge over the next few decades. But population experts caution that the dividend could prove to be a liability without vast social investments.
"If the young population remains uneducated, unskilled and unemployable, then that dividend would be wasted," says Shereen Jejeebhoy, a Population Council demographer in New Delhi.
Population experts also worry about a growing gender gap, stemming largely from Indian families' preference for sons. A surge in sex-selection tests, resulting in abortion of female fetuses, has skewed the ratio, with the latest census showing 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys.
Family planning is a sensitive issue. In the 35 years since one government was toppled for pursuing an aggressive population control program, subsequent leaders have been reluctant to follow suit.
For now, China remains the most populous nation, with 1.34 billion people. In the past decade it added 73.9 million, more than the population of France or Thailand.
Nonetheless, its growth has slowed dramatically and the population is projected to start shrinking in 2027. By 2050, according to some demographers, it will be smaller than it is today.
"It's like a train on the track that's still moving but the engine is already off," says Gu Baochang, a professor of demography at Beijing's Renmin University.
In the 1970s, Chinese women had five to six children each on average. Today China has a fertility rate ? the number of children the average woman is expected to have in her lifetime ? of around 1.5, well below the 2.1 replacement rate that demographers say is needed to keep populations stable in developed countries.
Three decades of strict family planning rules that limit urban families to one child and rural families to two helped China achieve a rapid decline in fertility but the policy has brought problems as well.
Before long, there will be too few young Chinese people to easily support a massive elderly population.
Also, as with India, there's a gender gap. The United Nations says there are 43 million "missing girls" in China because parents restricted to small families often favored sons and aborted girls after learning their unborn babies' gender through sonograms.
"China is always so proud of how quickly we brought down fertility from high to low, and how many births were avoided but I think we did it too quickly and reduced it to too low a level," says Gu. "I wish that India can learn this: 'Don't make it too quick.'"
Western Europe and U.S.
Spain used to give parents 2,500 euros (more than $3,000) for every newborn child to encourage families to reverse the country's low birth rate. But the checks stopped coming with Spain's austerity measures, raising the question of who will pay the bills to support the elderly in the years ahead.
It's a question bedeviling many European countries which have grappled for years over how to cope with shrinking birth rates and aging populations ? and are now faced with a financial crisis that has forced some to cut back on family-friendly government incentives.
Spain and Italy, both forced to enact painful austerity measures in a bid to narrow budget deficits, are battling common problems: Women have chosen to have their first child at a later age, and the difficulties of finding jobs and affordable housing are discouraging some couples from having any children at all.
In 2010, for the fourth consecutive year, more Italians died than were born, according to the national statistics agency. Italy's population nonetheless grew slightly to 60.6 million due to immigration, which is a highly charged issue across Europe.
Italy's youth minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier this year that measures to reverse the birth rate require "millions in investment" but that the resources aren't available.
Unlike many countries in Europe, France's population is growing slightly but steadily every year. It has one of the highest birth rates in the European Union with around 2 children per woman.
One reason is immigration to France by Africans with large-family traditions, but it's also due to family-friendly legislation. The government offers public preschools, subsidies to all families that have more than one child, generous maternity leave, and tax exemptions for employers of nannies.
Like France, the United States has one of the highest population growth rates among industrialized nations. Its fertility rate is just below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, but its population has been increasing by almost 1 percent annually due to immigration. With 312 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country after China and India.
Africa
Lagos, Nigeria, is expected to overtake Cairo soon as Africa's largest city. Private water vendors there do a brisk business in the many neighborhoods that otherwise lack access to potable water.
The drone of generators is omnipresent, at offices and markets, in neighborhoods rich and poor, because the power grid doesn't produce enough power. Periodic blackouts extend for hours, days, sometimes weeks.
Such is daily life in Nigeria's commercial capital, where the population is estimated at 15 million and growing at 6 percent or more each year. Problems with traffic congestion, sanitation and water supplies are staggering; a recent article in UN-Habitat said two-thirds of the residents live in poverty.
The rest of Nigeria isn't growing as fast ? estimates of its growth rate range from 2 percent to 3.2 percent. But it's already Africa's most populous country with more than 160 million people.
Ndyanabangi Bannet, the U.N. Population Fund's deputy representative in Nigeria, notes that 60 percent of the population is under 30 and needs to be accommodated with education, training and health care.
"It is a plus if it is taken advantage of," he said of Nigeria's youth. "But if it is not harnessed, it can be a challenge, because imagine what hordes of unemployed young people can do."
In Uganda, another fast-growing country, President Yoweri Museveni used to be disdainful of population control and urged Ugandans, especially in rural areas, to continue having large families.
Recently, the government has conceded that its 3.2 population growth rate must be curbed because the economy can't keep pace. Earlier this year, anti-government protests by unemployed youths and other aggrieved Ugandans flared in several communities, and nine marchers were killed in confrontations with police.
"The government has been convinced that unless it invests in reproductive health, Uganda is destined to a crisis," says Hannington Burunde of the Uganda Population Secretariat.
Among those who are struggling is John Baliruno, 45, of Mpigi in central Uganda, a father of nine.
"I never intended to have such a big number," he said. "I with my wife had no knowledge of family planning and ended up producing one child after another. Now I cannot properly feed them."
Looking ahead, he's pessimistic.
"The environment is being destroyed by the growing population. Trees are being cut down in big numbers and even now we can't get enough firewood to cook food," he said. "In the near future, we will starve."
Another of the fastest-growing countries is Burundi. With roughly 8.6 million people, it's the second most densely populated African country after neighboring Rwanda.
Omer Ndayishimiye, head of Burundi's Population Department, said continued high growth coincides with dwindling natural resources. Land suitable for farming will decline, and poverty will be rampant, he said, noting that 90 percent of the population live in rural areas and rely on farming to survive.
The government has been trying to raise awareness about the demographic challenges among the clergy, civic leaders and the general public.
"We are suggesting couples to go to health clinics to get taught different birth control methods," Ndayishimiye said. "But we are facing some barriers ... Many Burundians still see children as source of wealth."
At her modest house in Gishubi, Godelive Ndageramiwe ponders the changes that have made her regret her large family.
"Children were a good labor force in the past when there was enough space to cultivate," she said. "Today I can't even feed my family properly. My kids just spend days doing nothing."
After her fourth child, she began to worry how her family could be cared for.
"But my husband was against birth control and wanted as many children as possible," she said. "It was delicate because he could marry another wife.
"My friends advised me to go to a nearby clinic, but I was told I must come with my husband. Now I have laid the issue in the hands of God."
___
David Crary reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alexa Oleson in Beijing, Nirmala George in New Delhi, Angela Charlton in Paris, Daniel Woolls in Madrid, Victor Simpson in Rome, Onesime Niyungeko in Bujumbura, Burundi; Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria, and Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda, also contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44928812/ns/world_news/
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