CA-NEWS Summary

Four arrested as Bangladesh building toll rises to 352

DHAKA (Reuters) - Two factory bosses and two engineers were detained in Bangladesh on Saturday, three days after the collapse of a building where low-cost garments were made for Western brands killed at least 352 people. More were being pulled alive from the rubble at the building, where police said as many as 900 people were still missing in Bangladesh's worst ever industrial accident.

Iranian scientist freed by U.S. returns home: local media

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating U.S. sanctions arrived in Iran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, after being freed in what the Omani foreign ministry said was a humanitarian gesture. Mojtaba Atarodi, 55, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Iran's Sharif University of Technology, had been detained on suspicion of buying high-tech U.S. laboratory equipment, previous Iranian media reports said.

Palestinians' Abbas says to start talks on unity government

RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday he would begin talks with rival factions including Islamist Hamas to form a unity government, a crucial step towards healing years of damaging internal divisions. But, underscoring the chasm between Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Abbas had not consulted his group about his move and the Islamists had only heard about it in media reports.

Militants kill five Iraqi soldiers, Sunni protesters form "army"

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Militants shot dead five Iraqi soldiers in the Sunni Muslim stronghold province of Anbar on Saturday and protesters said they were forming an "army" after four days of unrest that raised fears of a return to widespread sectarian civil conflict. More than 170 people have been killed since Tuesday when security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija, triggering clashes that spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern areas.

Ten dead, dozens hurt during Mexican prison riot

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Ten people were killed and dozens wounded in a prison riot early Saturday in the central state of San Luis Potosi, local officials said. State police said they had re-established control in an cell block of La Pila prison in the state capital of San Luis Potosi after a fight broke out between prisoners, according to a posting on the security ministry's official social media page.

German SPD leader woos Greens for anti-Merkel alliance

BERLIN (Reuters) - The leader of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) took the stage at a Greens party congress on Saturday with an unashamed pitch for them to throw in their lot with the SPD to defeat Chancellor Angela Merkel in September. It was the first time an SPD leader had addressed a Greens congress. Sigmar Gabriel, whose party would need a coalition with the rising pro-environment party to have any chance of leading the next government, delivered a passionate plea to the Greens to stop flirting with Merkel's conservatives.

North Korea says detained American tourist to face trial

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Saturday that a Korean-American tourist, jailed by the reclusive state since late last year, will face trial for "committing crimes" against the North. The move comes amid a diplomatic standoff between North Korea and the United States, and as Pyongyang has threatened to attack U.S. military bases in the Pacific and the South.

Nigerian senator says 228 killed in gunfight with Islamists

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - A gunbattle between security forces and Islamist insurgents in Nigeria a week ago killed 228 people, a local senator said on Saturday, putting the death toll six times higher than the government's estimate. A large number of civilian deaths will fuel accusations that the military acted heavy-handedly and failed to protect bystanders and might also increase pressure on the government to seek a negotiated settlement with the radical group Boko Haram.

Iceland's center-right set to return, five years after crash

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Icelanders fed up with years of belt-tightening looked set on Saturday to oust the ruling Social Democrats, wooed with pledges of tax cuts and debt relief from the center-right, which presided over a spectacular financial collapse five years ago. Leaden skies and driving sleet were a fair reflection of the mood of voters who have seen promises of a quick recovery fade, while mortgage debts rise, prices soar and crippling capital controls keep investment at a record low.

Yemen military intelligence official assassinated

ADEN (Reuters) - Two suspected Islamist militants shot dead a provincial military intelligence chief in Yemen on Saturday, a security official said, the latest in a series of assassinations in the impoverished state's lawless south and east. The gunmen opened fire from a motorbike, killing Colonel Ahmed Abdulrazzaq, intelligence head in Yemen's Hadramawt Province, outside his home in Mukalla on the Arabian Sea.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-010829028.html

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Changing cellulose-forming process may tap plants' biofuel potential

Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Matthew Swayne
mls29@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Changing the way a plant forms cellulose may lead to more efficient, less expensive biofuel production, according to Penn State engineers.

"What every biofuel manufacturer wants to do is to get to the sugars," said Jeffrey Catchmark, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. "But the structure of cellulose itself can be an obstacle."

Catchmark said that most of a plant's sugar-based energy is locked up in the crystalline structure of cellulose. To make cellulose, plants create long chains of sugar -- glucose -- that are then crystallized and densely packed into tight, ordered bundles resistant to water and other solvents. This bundling may help build strong plant cell walls, but biofuel makers must use extra effort to break down and separate the bundles and the crystalline cellulose to extract the sugars used to ferment fuels.

Using bacteria that produce cellulose as a model to test the process, the researchers discovered an approach for modifying cellulose synthesis in living plants for improved biofuel-making efficiency. During the synthesis process the researchers added glucomannan, a complex carbohydrate found in plants that sticks to cellulose, and found that it altered the structure and assembly of the cellulose, allowing it to be broken down more efficiently.

Another method to ensure the glucomannan is added during cellulose formation requires genetically engineering the plant to express or over-express the enzymes that form the glucomannan, according to the researchers, who applied for a provisional patent on the process.

"In our work, what we are interested in is whether we can improve digestibility by altering the crystal structure or by altering the bundle formation," said Catchmark, who worked with Lin Fang, graduate student in agricultural and biological engineering.

By growing plants with cellulose that is less crystalized and that has fewer structured bundles, biofuel manufacturers will not need to spend as much time and effort breaking down these pre-treated plants, according to the researchers. Currently, biofuel manufacturers must use several industrial processes that are time- and energy-intensive and relatively expensive, including chemical, mechanical and fermentation, to break down the cellulose and separate other materials.

Catchmark said that biofuel manufacturers may be able to further optimize production processes to suit the modified plants for even greater efficiency.

"This will give biofuel makers more options," Catchmark said. "Hopefully, you will need less effort and lower costs with the pre-treatment, but with improved conversion efficiency."

Catchmark said that while the technique was used on bacteria, it could be adapted to various plant species because both plants and certain bacteria share similarities in how they create cellulose. He said that researchers could use the process in both grass and wood plant species, giving biofuel makers additional options. The researchers now plan to test the methods on plants.

###

The U.S. Department of Energy supported this work through the Penn State Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation.

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Matthew Swayne
mls29@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Changing the way a plant forms cellulose may lead to more efficient, less expensive biofuel production, according to Penn State engineers.

"What every biofuel manufacturer wants to do is to get to the sugars," said Jeffrey Catchmark, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. "But the structure of cellulose itself can be an obstacle."

Catchmark said that most of a plant's sugar-based energy is locked up in the crystalline structure of cellulose. To make cellulose, plants create long chains of sugar -- glucose -- that are then crystallized and densely packed into tight, ordered bundles resistant to water and other solvents. This bundling may help build strong plant cell walls, but biofuel makers must use extra effort to break down and separate the bundles and the crystalline cellulose to extract the sugars used to ferment fuels.

Using bacteria that produce cellulose as a model to test the process, the researchers discovered an approach for modifying cellulose synthesis in living plants for improved biofuel-making efficiency. During the synthesis process the researchers added glucomannan, a complex carbohydrate found in plants that sticks to cellulose, and found that it altered the structure and assembly of the cellulose, allowing it to be broken down more efficiently.

Another method to ensure the glucomannan is added during cellulose formation requires genetically engineering the plant to express or over-express the enzymes that form the glucomannan, according to the researchers, who applied for a provisional patent on the process.

"In our work, what we are interested in is whether we can improve digestibility by altering the crystal structure or by altering the bundle formation," said Catchmark, who worked with Lin Fang, graduate student in agricultural and biological engineering.

By growing plants with cellulose that is less crystalized and that has fewer structured bundles, biofuel manufacturers will not need to spend as much time and effort breaking down these pre-treated plants, according to the researchers. Currently, biofuel manufacturers must use several industrial processes that are time- and energy-intensive and relatively expensive, including chemical, mechanical and fermentation, to break down the cellulose and separate other materials.

Catchmark said that biofuel manufacturers may be able to further optimize production processes to suit the modified plants for even greater efficiency.

"This will give biofuel makers more options," Catchmark said. "Hopefully, you will need less effort and lower costs with the pre-treatment, but with improved conversion efficiency."

Catchmark said that while the technique was used on bacteria, it could be adapted to various plant species because both plants and certain bacteria share similarities in how they create cellulose. He said that researchers could use the process in both grass and wood plant species, giving biofuel makers additional options. The researchers now plan to test the methods on plants.

###

The U.S. Department of Energy supported this work through the Penn State Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/ps-ccp042613.php

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Gadget Lab Show: The Flagship Phones of BlackBerry and Samsung

This week reviews editor Michael Calore and staff writer Roberto Baldwin check out the tentpole phones from Samsung and BlackBerry.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/gadget-lab-show-2/

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Yeah, well, the not-nice-words store called, and they?re running out of you (Unqualified Offerings)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301912940?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Hospital roof collapses in India, injuring 8

NEW DELHI (AP) ? Part of a hospital building collapsed in central India on Friday after its roof came crashing down, injuring at least eight people, an official said.

More than a dozen people were rescued after being trapped in the rubble of the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, state minister Babu Lal Gaur said. None of the injuries were serious.

Police officer Upendra Jain said about two dozen people were believed to be on the first floor of the women's medical ward when its roof crashed down. The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.

The hospital is operated by state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., Gaur said. Bhopal is about 750 kilometers (465 miles) south of New Delhi.

Building collapses are common in India as builders try to cut corners by using substandard materials, and as multistory structures are built with inadequate supervision. The massive demand for housing around cities and pervasive corruption often result in builders adding unauthorized floors or constructing illegal buildings.

Early this month, at least 72 people were killed when an eight-story residential building being constructed illegally near Mumbai, India's financial capital, came crashing down in the worst building collapse in the country in decades.

Another 70 people were injured when the building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in on April 4.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hospital-roof-collapses-india-injuring-8-163156926.html

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Israel's booming economy puts billions in US aid ... - World News

Ariel Schalit / AP

Israeli shop owners play backgammon in the Betzalel market in central Tel Aviv on Friday. A Bloomberg survey this week said the Israeli shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked over the last six months.

By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Boosted by newly discovered natural resources, Israel is surging ahead economically ? a success that is pushing the issue of the country's $3 billion in annual aid from the United States onto the agenda.

The country made its first intervention in the foreign currency market in almost two years Tuesday, buying $100 million to peg back the growing strength of its shekel.

A Bloomberg survey this week said the?shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked?over the last six months.

Last week, Israel passed another milestone, a potential gamechanger for its economy. Gas began to?flow from gas fields off the coast. By 2015 Israel is expected to be fully energy independent, and may be a net exporter.

And there?s more good news: In this water-challenged region, Israel is well on the way to water independence. Its water desalination industry supplies up to 40 percent of the country?s demand for water, and another 40 percent comes from recycled water from domestic and commercial consumption. Israel reuses its water two to three times.

The boom may give a louder voice to calls for a reduction?to the $3 billion worth of financial assistance Israel receives from the U.S. each year?? especially in the Washington, where budget battles continue.

U.S. campaign groups such as?Stop The Blank Check?and the?Council for the National Interest?have long campaigned for the aid program to end, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul recently joined the debate by saying the U.S. could no longer afford to keep borrowing money and then handing it out to others.

"It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process," Paul told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an Israeli think tank, in January.

'A political football'
That view is echoed by some in Israel, such as Naftali Bennett, a software tycoon and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home political party, who during the recent election campaign said the country needed to free itself from U.S. assistance.

?Our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago. Israel is much stronger, much wealthier, and we need to be independent,??he said.

Michael Koplow, program director of the Israel Institute, a?Washington think tank, said: ?Foreign aid is always a political football ? even more so when it comes to Israel. There is no doubt American attention is focused on its own finances.?

However, he noted that 74 percent of the U.S. aid, which is meant for military and defense equipment, has to be spent with U.S. companies.

?Given that Israel is a reliable military spender, you would have to think the defense lobby is going to make sure this aid continues,? Koplow said.

Even those hostile to the aid think it unlikely that Israel?s prosperity will prompt a change.

?The money doesn?t help alleviate poverty in Israel now, so there is no reason why lack of poverty there would cause it to end,? said?Robert Naiman, director of Just Foreign Policy.

Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the U.K.?s Chatham House think tank, said: ?It would be a matter of national pride to be economically successful and independent, but providing financial support also gives some leverage with Israel.?

And Israel still has economic problems. Unemployment is relatively low at 6.3 per cent, but the gap between rich and poor is one of the highest of all developed countries, according to the OECD.

?I don?t think a natural gas boom is going to do much to change that,? observed Koplow.

That disparity swept Yair Lapid, an inexperienced but popular new politician, into the finance ministry earlier this year as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. Most of his support came from the disillusioned middle class whose summer of protests in 2011 changed the country?s priorities from political to social issues.

Now Lapid, 49, has to make good on his election challenge, ?Where?s the Money??

Newspapers on Wednesday reported that Lapid had clashed with officials in his department who proposed increases to tuition fees for university students. Lapid responded on his Facebook page that ?if students have to pay more I?ll go home and demonstrate against myself.?

And as the government searches for budgets to cut and taxes to raise, newspapers are full of reports that Israel?s richest man, Idan Ofer, has decided to relocate to London in order to avoid paying more taxes ? a motive his associates deny.

He has become a juicy target for critics who have long claimed that the country?s handful of tycoons have been milking the country dry, leaving the poor to foot the bill.

The gap between rich and poor, and how strange this is for Israelis brought up on the kibbutz ethos of ?we?re all equal,? was well illustrated by the proverbial taxi driver who told a reporter, ?Israel has changed. We all used to wear sandals. If you were rich, you wore better sandals.??

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

Related:

Analysis: Has Obama's Mideast trip changed the game on the ground?

How much are taxpayers spending on Egypt and Libya?

Full Israel coverage from NBC News

?

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/14/17690032-israels-booming-economy-puts-billions-in-us-aid-under-spotlight?lite

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Does Nicotine Aid Weight Loss?

I get a lot of health-related questions about chemicals. An interesting one is whether nicotine aids in weight loss. Now, we're not talking about smoking, which involved a complex set of chemicals and physiological processes, but pure nicotine, which is available over the counter, primarily in products intended to help people quit smoking. If you search for information about the effects of nicotine, you'll find all sorts of research on smoking, but relatively little on the health effects of this one specific chemical.

An MSDS (such as the Sigma Aldich MSDS for nicotine) indicates nicotine is a naturally-occurring isomer that is an acetylcholine receptor agonist. It is a stimulant that causes the release of epinephrine (adrenaline). This increases heart rate, blood pressure and respiration and also produces higher blood glucose levels. Also, one of the side effects of nicotine, especially at higher doses, is appetite suppression and nausea. So basically, you have a drug that raises your metabolic rate while suppressing your appetite. It activates the brain's pleasure and reward center, so some users may use nicotine to feel good instead of, for example, eating donuts. These are well-documented biological effects of nicotine, but they don't give a firm answer regarding whether or not it helps with weight loss. There are some studies indicate smokers may lose weight. Limited studies have been conducted relating weight and nicotine use, in part because of the perception that nicotine is addictive. It's interesting to note that while tobacco use is addictive, pure nicotine actually is not. It is the MAOI in tobacco that leads to the addiction, so persons taking nicotine who are not exposed to monoamine oxidase inhibitors do not necessarily suffer addiction and withdrawal from the substance. However, users do develop a physiological tolerance to nicotine, so it might be expected that, as with other stimulants, weight loss from nicotine use would be most successful over a short term, losing effectiveness with chronic use. Here are some references that explore whether or not nicotine aids weight loss:

Arcavi L., Jacob P 3rd., Hellerstein M., & Benowitz NL. (1994) Divergent tolerance to metabolic and cardiovascular effects of nicotine in smokers with low and high levels of cigarette consumption. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 56, 55-64.

Audrain JE., Kiesges RC., & Kiesges LM. (1995) The Relationship between obesity and the metabolic effects of smoking in women. Health Psychology, 14, 116-23.

Barribeau, Tim, Why Does Nicotine Help You Lose Weight?. io9.com (link retrieved 05/24/2012)

lowcarbconfidential. The Nicotine Experiment - Can It Help You Lose Weight? (link retrieved 05/24/2012)

Cabanac M, Frankham P. Evidence that transient nicotine lowers the body weight set point. Physiol Behav. 2002 Aug;76(4-5):539-42.

Leishow SJ., Sachs DP., Bostrom AG., & Hansen MD. (1992) Effects of differing nicotine-replacement doses on weight gain after smoking cessation. Archives of Family Medicine, 1, 233-7.

Minneur, Yann S. et al. Nicotine Decreases Food Intake Through Activation of POMC Neurons. Science 10 June 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6035 pp. 1330-1332.

Neese RA., Benowitz NL., Hoh R., Faix D., LaBua A., Pun K., & Hellerstein MK. (1994) Metabolic interactions beween stopus dietary energy intake and cigarette smoking or its cessation. American Journal of Psychology, 267, E1023-34.

Nides M., Rand C., Dolce J., Murray R., O'Hara P., Voelker H., & Connett J. (1994) Weight gain as a function of smoking cessation and 2-mg nicotine gum use among middle-aged smokers with mild lung impairment in the first 2 years of the Lung Health Study. Health Psychology, 13, 354-61.

Orsini, Jean-Claude (Juin 2001) "Dependence on tobacco smoking and brain systems controlling glycemia and appetite". Alcoologie et Addictologie 23 (2S): 28S-36S.

Perkins KA. (1992) Metabolic effects of cigarette smoking. Journal of Applied Physiology, 72, 401-9.

Paulus, Carrie. Nicotine as a Means for Weight Control: Advantage or Disadvantage?, Vanderbilt University, Department of Psychology. (link retrieved 05/23/2012)

Fielding, Johnathan E. "Smoking: Helath Effects and Control." Maxcy-Rosenau-Last: Public Health and Preventative Medicine. John M. Last & Robert B. Wallace. Appleton & Lange, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1992, 715-740.

Pirie PL., McBride CM., Hellerstedt W., Jeffrey RW., Hatsukami D., Allen S., & Lando H. (1992) Smoking cessation in women concerned about weight. American Journal of Public Health, 82, 1238-43.

Pomerleau CS., Ehrlich E., Tate JC., Markes JL., Flessiand KA., & Pomerleau OF. (1993Y The female weight-control smoker: a profile. Journal of Substance Abuse, 5, 391-400.

Richmond RL. Kehoe L., & Webster IW. Weight change after smoking cessation in general practice. Medical Journal of Australia, 158, 821-2.

Schwid SR., Hirvonen MD., & Keesey 13E. (1992) Nicotine effects on body weight a regulatory perspective. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 55, 878-84.

Seah Mi., Raygada M., & Grunberg NE. (1994) Effects of nicotine on body weight and plasma insulin in female and male rats. Life Sciences. 55, 925-31.

Winders SE., Dykstra T., Coday MC., Amos JC., Wilson MR & Wilkins DR. Use of phenylpropanolamine to reduce nicotine cessation induced weight gain in rats. Psychopharmacology, 108, 501-6.

Winders SE., Wilkins DR. 2d, Rushing PA., & Dean JE. (1993) Effects of nicotine cycling on weight loss and regain in male rats. Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Behavior, 46, 209-13.

Do have any further references you would add to this list or anecdotal evidence, one way or the other, on whether pure nicotine aids weight loss? If so, please post a reply.

Source: http://chemistry.about.com/b/2013/04/14/does-nicotine-aid-weight-loss.htm

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Obama congratulates Alabama coach on championship

Apr 15 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $4,139,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,137,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,442,389 4. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,100,469 5. Steve Stricker $1,935,340 6. Phil Mickelson $1,764,680 7. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 8. Jason Day $1,659,565 9. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 10. Keegan Bradley $1,430,347 11. Charles Howell III $1,393,806 12. John Merrick $1,375,757 13. Russell Henley $1,331,434 14. Michael Thompson $1,310,709 15. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 16. Bill Haas $1,271,553 17. Billy Horschel $1,254,224 18. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-congratulates-alabama-coach-championship-202222541--politics.html

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Long-time London Symphony conductor Colin Davis dies aged 85

LONDON (Reuters) - Colin Davis, the long-serving principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra renowned for his interpretations of Mozart, Sibelius and Berlioz, has died aged 85.

Davis conducted many of the LSO's annual series at the Royal Festival Hall in the 1960s and 1970s and led it on its first world tour in 1964, going to the United States, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.

He was the LSO's principal conductor from 1995 to 2006, and took it to New York in 1997 to conduct its first residency at the Lincoln Center. Davis himself served as principal guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003.

Joanna Gueritz, a member of the London Symphony Chorus, wrote: "He drew wonderful performances from us with his impish humour and obvious deep love of the music. He charmed us into the performances he wanted. He is much loved and will be very badly missed."

Davis's awards for his recordings and live performances included Grammys, two Classical Brit Male Artist of the Year awards and honours from Italy, France, Germany and Finland.

Davis was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 1993, and also worked with London's Royal Opera House, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra, while mentoring students at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School, also in London.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/long-time-london-symphony-conductor-colin-davis-dies-091116895.html

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At A Kind Of Crucial Moment TurboTax Went Down And Didn't Handle It Well On Twitter

So taxes are due...any minute now. And TurboTax is a popular service for doing taxes. Yes? Sure. Well, that's a lot of pressure! Cue meltdown. More »

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Marco Rubio: Immigration Bill Doesn't 'Give' Anything Away (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Will The Avengers Assemble For MTV Movie Of The Year?

Superheroes clash with cowboys and teddy bears at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.
By Kevin P. Sullivan

Mark Ruffalo as the Incredible Hulk in "The Avengers"
Photo: Marvel

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705594/movie-awards-movie-of-the-year.jhtml

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At #Thatcher, no halfhearted tweets on Iron Lady's legacy

The global reaction to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's death displayed the depth of her impact ? like it or not.

By Ryan Lenora Brown,?Correspondent / April 8, 2013

This is a 1969 file photo showing Margaret Thatcher. The former British Prime Minister known as 'the Iron Lady' passed away Monday morning.

AP/File

Enlarge

Irreverent, brisk, and decisive.?

Skip to next paragraph Ryan Lenora Brown

Correspondent

Ryan Brown edits the Africa Monitor blog and contributes to the national and international news desks of the Monitor. She is a former Fulbright fellow to South Africa and holds a degree in history from Duke University.?

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As Margaret Thatcher was in life, so are the tweets that have followed her death.

In the minutes following the announcement of the former British prime minister's death Monday, #Thatcher shot to the top of global Twitter trends as the world weighed in on her legacy ? or at least as much of it as they could cram into 140 characters or less.?

Here are some highlights of the global Twitter reaction.?

Official response

World leaders were among the first to weigh in on Thatcher's legacy with carefully curated messages of condolence.

"Lady Thatcher didn?t just lead our country, she saved our country," wrote @David_Cameron, the official Twitter account of the British Prime Minister. (And the snarky backlash quickly followed. "From equality and happiness?" one tweeter replied, one of some 2,000 who responded to the prime minister's initial tweet. "Just how out of touch can one man be?" asked another.)??

"She stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can?t be shattered," weighed in @BarackObama, while?India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh (@PMOIndia) wrote blandly,?"She was a transformative figure under whom the United Kingdom registered important progress on the national and international arena."

And the BBC sent along a message from Mikhail Gorbachev, tweeting: '#Thatcher "a great politician & bright personality" who will "remain in our memory & history"'

But in at least one corner of the world where Thatcher's legacy is particularly fraught, there was silence on official Twitter accounts.

"Waiting for an official comment from Buenos Aires re?#Thatcher's?death," tweeted the BBC's Argentina correspondent. "Under her govt Britain went to war with?Argentina?over the Falklands."

'Like a tank barrel'

Elsewhere in the Twitter-verse, reactions were more raucous, mixing critiques and memories of the Iron Lady's towering personality.?

"Condolences to my British friends for the 1980s," wrote Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole (@tejucole).

"Asking Thatcher a q at a press conf was intimidating," remembered Australian journalist Mark Colvin (@Colvinius). "Her gaze swivelled on you like a tank-barrel."?

He continued: "A friend of mine, interviewing Thatcher, asked her qs she didn't like. Just out of camera view, her press sec kicked him in the shins."

And one Canadian journalist weighed in to make sure a crucial aspect of the prime minister's legacy wasn't forgotten in the chatter. "Most of what Thatcher is claimed to have done is exaggerated," he wrote. "Except inventing soft ice cream - as a chemist in the '50s, she did that."

The empire tweets back

Meanwhile, across the British commonwealth, tweeters pondered the Thatcher legacy in their own backyard.

"Before there was Thatcher, there was [Indian Prime Minister] Indira Gandhi. Just saying. Apparently the two got along well," wrote Indian journalist?Ammu Kannampilly.

South Africans were less generous. "Apartheid supporter Margaret Thatcher dead at last," wrote a popular opinion writer. "Apartheid would've ended a little earlier had it not been for her," said another.?

And Irish comedy writer Colm Tobin put a finger on?his country's national pulse?when it came to Thatcher's legacy: "Not a lot of love for Margaret Thatcher in Ireland. As an enemy of the state she sits somewhere between Oliver Cromwell & Thierry Henry."

Too fast??

Amid the global haste to weigh on on Thatcher's death, however, Twitter also provided reminders about the dangers of the digital age scramble to be the first to a story.?

Thatcher detractors, for instance, gleefully circulated a BBC-based headline typo announcing that Thatcher had "died of a strike."

Meanwhile, the opening paragraph of the Financial Times' obituary for Thatcher briefly revealed what one tweeter called "the perils of the pre-packaged obit."?

The text was quickly corrected, but not before it was immortalized on Twitter, a moment of clumsy reaction captured in Internet amber for all the world to see.

None of the Twitter reaction, however, came as a shock to British journalist Martin Belam. In December he tweeted a pie chart he'd created called, "What Twitter will look like on the day Thatcher dies."?

At last, a Thatcher tweet no one can dispute.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/Fy8VvhUkeO0/At-Thatcher-no-halfhearted-tweets-on-Iron-Lady-s-legacy

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Lose Weight as a Team New Study Reinforces Health Enhancement ...

(PRWEB) April 13, 2013

The study revealed that when rewards are based on the groups performance rather than just the individuals outcome, participants lose substantially more weight.

Were not surprised, remarks Dean Witherspoon, President and founder of Health Enhancement Systems, which develops popular online wellness challenges like NutriSum, Colorful Choices, and Le Tour de Fitness. We have more than 20 years of experience with team-based wellness challenges, and a recent review of our 2009-2012 programs without the influence of financial rewards highlights the strong advantage of team challenges over individual efforts.

Health Enhancement Systems findings include:

24% increase in participation when team participation is offered

53% increase in evaluation completion for individuals on teams vs. those participating on their own

57% increase in achievement of health goal for those on teams vs. those participating on their own.

When done well, team-based wellness challenges and buddy features are naturally fun and social, infusing the hard work of behavior change with a sense of enjoyment and play. The shared experience of working together toward a challenging goal strengthens relationships, bolsters accountability, and gives each member a tremendous amount of support.

A Health Enhancement Systems white paper Team Wellness Challenges: Energizing Engagement, Inspiring Change highlights related business, social, and health research. It underscores the great potential of a team-based approach for enhancing wellness program effectiveness:

The power of a positive influence. Simply observing others working toward a goal can motivate people to pursue the same goal, whether or not they realize it. This effect is most potent when people share a group.

All together now. By aiming for similar wellness goals such as being more active or eating more produce wellness team members reinforce the behaviors in each other. Because team success requires individual success, members become mutually accountable for staying on track.

Contributing to something larger. Theres a reason community volunteering and sports teams are so widespread. People enjoy working alongside others with similar interests to reach a target and feel theyre contributing to something bigger than themselves. It happens in the workplace, too. Studies show that employees are more likely to make a positive contribution to the organization if theyre part of a team and feel their work plays a role in group performance.

A sense of belonging. In addition to autonomy and competence, a strong kindred feeling is a key element of intrinsic motivation, whether for work performance or wellness behaviors. Team membership cultivates group identification and cohesiveness and keeps the goals in focus.

Better wellness engagement and outcomes. A statewide team-based program resulted in weight loss (.8-1.2 BMI units), with obesity falling from 39% to 31% by the end of the study. In reviewing the literature on weight loss competitions, researchers concluded that team competition was more effective than individual competition in improving both participation and weight loss outcomes.

Built-in social support. A 10-month weight loss study found recruiting people along with 3 friends in a strong social support intervention decreased the number of dropouts and pushed up the percentage of those maintaining weight loss over 6 months compared to those recruited alone. Team members also had a 33% greater weight loss at 10 months than those recruited alone.

NutriSum taps the power of teams to promote sustainable weight loss. Participants earn daily points by practicing healthy eating and activity patterns. Its a simple approach with wide appeal no calorie counting, no fat gram tabulating, no weighing or measuring. Just easy-to-remember, everyday habits, based on 5000 successful participants in the National Weight Control Registry. A fun-to-use tracker, delicious recipes, daily tips, and other resources help keep motivation high. And the friendly team competition makes the challenge of behavior change both exciting and rewarding.

While adding cash to the equation of team-based wellness interventions can appear to be a success driver, says Witherspoon, you run the risk of changing the internal dynamic from this is something I want to do for my team and myself to Im doing this for the money. And while that may work in the short term, the evidence is clear that financial rewards dont improve long-term health behaviors.

For more information, download Team Wellness Challenges: Energizing Engagement, Inspiring Change and How Financial Incentives/Disincentives Undermine Wellness at http://www.hesonline.com/whitepapers.

******

Health Enhancement Systems creates employee wellness programs for organizations in North America and throughout the world. More than 20 effective, engaging HES wellness campaigns have been adopted by over a thousand organizations serving hundreds of thousands of participants successfully.

For more information about Health Enhancement Systems, visit http://www.HealthEnhancementSystems.com or call 800.326.2317.

Find More How To Make money Press Releases

Source: http://global-one-international.com/lose-weight-as-a-team-new-study-reinforces-health-enhancement-systems-program-design/

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Think positive ? Business Management Daily: Free Reports on ...

You know how important a positive air is to success and happiness?to the point where, if you don?t feel it, manufacture it.

Try these tactics:

• If you don?t feel well and are asked about it, say, ?I could use a little more energy.?
• Avoid saying ?can?t.?
• Eliminate destructive words and phrases from your vocabulary, words like ?I hate it when ?.?
• Begin and end your emails, your elevator chats and your day with positive thoughts.
• Avoid complainers. They may be right, but they?ll wear you out before you can solve the problem.
• Imagine you?re wearing an invisible, shield that deflects all negative energy.
• Control your reaction to bad situations, and never waver from the belief that you will succeed.

? Adapted from Three Simple Steps, Trevor Blake, BenBella Books.

Like what you've read? ...Republish it and share great business tips!

Attention: Readers, Publishers, Editors, Bloggers, Media, Webmasters and more...

We believe great content should be read and passed around. After all, knowledge IS power. And good business can become great with the right information at their fingertips. If you'd like to share any of the insightful articles on BusinessManagementDaily.com, you may republish or syndicate it without charge.

The only thing we ask is that you keep the article exactly as it was written and formatted. You also need to include an attribution statement and link to the article.

" This information is proudly provided by Business Management Daily.com: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/34983/think-positive "

Source: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/34983/think-positive

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Mom on bus caught on cell phone video: 'I didn't toss my baby'

By Debra Bogstie, NBCConnecticut.com

A mother caught on cell phone video apparently throwing her baby across the aisle of a bus, prompting a police investigation, says she didn't do it.

"I didn't toss my baby. I set her down," said the woman when NBC Connecticut confronted her at her Hartford home.

The startling scene was caught on tape by a concerned passenger during a bus ride on Albany Avenue Wednesday morning. It's since gone viral with internet postings on YouTube, Facebook, and elsewhere.

The two minute video shows a woman screaming obscenities at another passenger, as her baby sits on her lap at times holding her little ears.

The woman repeatedly asks other passengers to take her child so she can fight the woman. "I will thrash you. Somebody grab my baby. I'm going to beat the... of you on this bus," she's heard saying in the video. Then, it gets worse.

The woman is seen throwing the baby across the aisle into the arms of another passenger. Then, she heads up front and gets into a fist fight.

Read more stories on NBCConnecticut.com

The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and opened the doors, according to CT Transit. As he called for help, the woman retrieved her baby and left the bus. So did the other passenger involved in the fight.

When NBC Connecticut arrived at her home Friday night, police and child welfare workers were inside talking to her. After they left, we knocked on the door and the woman answered.

When asked if she had any comment on the situation, the woman said, "No. Connecticut Transit, get the full video. I didn't toss my baby. Get the full video."

She then closed the door, only to open it once again.

"I never tossed my baby," she said. "Get the full video from Connecticut Transit. I didn't toss my baby. I set her down."

The video was so shocking that an NBC Connecticut viewer brought it to our attention. We asked Hartford police if they knew about it, and they launched an investigation.

Hartford police have not filed any charges in the case.

As part of their ongoing investigation, they're reviewing a second cell phone video from a different angle. The camera on board the bus was not working at the time of the incident, so there is no surveillance video available from CT Transit.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2ab36f2e/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C140C177464370Emom0Eon0Ebus0Ecaught0Eon0Ecell0Ephone0Evideo0Ei0Edidnt0Etoss0Emy0Ebaby0Dlite/story01.htm

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Coachella 2013: R. Kelly Ignites Phoenix Set, 2 Chainz And Pusha T Rep Rap

Amid Daft Punk rumors, R. Kelly joins French band for a mash-up of '1901' and 'Ignition (Remix).'
By Mary J. DiMeglio

Phoenix's Laurent Brancowitz and R. Kelly at Coachella on Saturday
Photo: Denis O'regan

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705611/coachella-saturday-2-chainz-pusha-t-phoenix-r-kelly.jhtml

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Gillmor Gang: Speculation, Music, Death | TechCrunch

The Gillmor Gang ? Kevin Marks, John Taschek, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor ? spared no expense to bring you the finest in up-to-date tech commentary. In other words, we tore into Twitter Music, ignored Facebook Home, dissected the internals of AirPlay, and cashed our Bitcoin checks.

Our attention is a zero sum game, and whether it?s West Wing or Twitter pointers into the musicsphere, how we make our streaming choices will determine who the big winners are. What we?re really waiting for is the tipping point when the streamer artists crossover and recapture the idea that the creators are the real coin of the realm.

@stevegillmor, @kteare, @kevinmarks, @jtaschek

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

Steve Gillmor is a technology commentator, editor, and producer in the enterprise technology space. He is Head of Technical Media Strategy at salesforce.com and a TechCrunch contributing editor. Gillmor previously worked with leading musical artists including Paul Butterfield, David Sanborn, and members of The Band after an early career as a record producer and filmmaker with Columbia Records? Firesign Theatre. As personal computers emerged in video and music production tools, Gillmor started contributing to various publications, most notably Byte Magazine,...

? Learn more

Keith Teare is the CEO and founder of just.me Inc and a Founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors. History (a) The EasyNet Group: Founded in 1994 as one of the first ISP?s in Europe, Teare was CTO and co-founder. It went public on the AIM exchange in London in 1996 and was trading at a valuation of more than $1...

? Learn more

Kevin Marks is a software engineer. Kevin served as an evangelist for OpenSocial and as a software engineer at Google. In June 2009 he announced his resignation. From September 2003 to January 2007 he was Principal Engineer at Technorati responsible for the spiders that make sense of the web and track millions of blogs daily. He has been inventing and innovating for over 17 years in emerging technologies where people, media and computers meet. Before joining Technorati,...

? Learn more

John Taschek is vice president of strategy at salesforce.com. He is responsible for corporate product strategy, corporate intelligence and market influence. Taschek came to company in 2003, bringing over 20 years of technology evaluation experience. Taschek currently is also the editorial director for CloudBlog - an independent blog run as an adjunct to salesforce.com?s web properties. He occasionally is on Steve Gillmor?s The Gillmor Gang enterprise web video-cast. Previously, Taschek ran the testing labs at eWEEK (formerly PC Week) magazine....

? Learn more

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/13/gillmor-gang-speculation-music-death/

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Entrepreneurial Excellence: Can 10,000 Hours Of Practice Make Perfect?

Editor?s note: Jon Auerbach is a partner at Charles River Ventures, a 42-year-old early stage venture firm based in Menlo Park and Cambridge, Ma, where he focuses on mobile technologies. Research over the past two decades has identified a strong link between hours of practice and expertise in sports, chess and the performing arts. In the early 1990s, Anders Ericsson, a psychologist at Florida State University, spent months tracking violinists at the Music Academy in Berlin. He found that the top violinists had practiced on average 10,000 hours during the course of their lives. The weakest violinists had averaged only 4,000 hours.

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

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FAA sees lessons from Boeing 787 battery woes

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

NEW YORK/COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are discussing whether the batteries that burned on Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner hold any lessons for other aircraft or vehicles.

George Nield, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, said a dialogue is taking place about whether the overheating of two lithium-ion batteries on the 787 could have broader implications.

"Everyone's looking to see if there are any lessons to be learned from this," Nield told Reuters during a conference hosted by the Space Foundation this week.

The discussion marks a shift for the agency. Two months after the Dreamliner was approved for service in 2011, a lithium-ion battery caught fire on a Cessna business jet, prompting the FAA to order that lithium-ion batteries be replaced with less hazardous cells on all of those jets within a week. But the agency concluded there were no broader lessons to be learned for the 787 or other aircraft.

Nield, who noted that the International Space Station is among the platforms that use the batteries, said the discussion is different now.

"There might not have been a lot (of dialogue) in the past, but I can assure you there will be going forward," Nield said.

POPULAR BUT TRICKY

Lightweight and power-packed, lithium-ion batteries are used to power electric cars, laptops, tablets, cell phones, satellites. They are even used on the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet. The number of cells manufactured globally has leapt to 4.4 billion in 2012 from 800 million in 2002.

But safety remains an issue. The battery industry still does not have a foolproof way to predict or prevent internal short circuits in the cells, according to experts who spoke about the issue this week at the National Transportation Safety Board forum.

The NTSB is investigating what caused one of the 787 batteries to overheat and catch fire in January. A second battery smoldered and emitted smoke during a flight in Japan, prompting the pilots to make an emergency landing and evacuate the plane.

When the FAA initially approved Boeing's lithium-ion battery system in 2007, it lacked rules to govern their use on planes, and set "special conditions" for Boeing to follow to ensure they would be safe.

When the two batteries failed in January, the FAA's process came under scrutiny and critics said the agency could have applied lessons from past battery incidents.

The NTSB has set April 23-24 for an investigative hearing on the Boeing battery that caught fire.

The FAA also has launched an extensive review of Boeing's manufacturing, production and design process for the 787, aimed at addressing the batteries and other problems that have cropped up during the first year of service by the new high-tech plane.

Asked about the Cessna fire, the FAA told Reuters its investigation at the time "determined the fire was caused by mishandling and misuse of the battery while the aircraft was in a maintenance hangar. The battery size, composition and design were different than those of the 787 battery."

Cessna declined to comment.

Since the 787 was grounded last January 16, Boeing has tapped engineers from its airplane and space divisions as well as outside experts as part of a 200-member team that developed a package of measures aimed at preventing further battery problems aboard the 787. The FAA is now evaluating the revamped battery system to determine whether it is safe for the 787 to resume flights.

Ray Conner, who heads Boeing's commercial aircraft division, told an investor conference last month that Boeing tapped the expertise of engineers from other divisions who were familiar with lithium-ion batteries to develop the new battery system.

In the Cessna case, the FAA required that lithium-ion batteries in the Cessna Citation Model 525C, be replaced with nickel-cadmium or lead-acid batteries, older technologies that are not as volatile. Airbus officials have said they think lithium-ion batteries can eventually be made safe, but that the company was shifting to nickel-cadmium for its forthcoming A350 jet, because it doesn't want to risk a delay in bringing the plane to market.

Boeing has said it isn't considering shifting away from lithium-ion batteries.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa. Additional reporting by Peter Henderson and Alwyn Scott.)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-sees-lessons-boeing-787-battery-woes-165629474--finance.html

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U.S. again declines to name China currency manipulator

When 79-year-old Evie Branan suffered a massive stroke six years ago, it left her in a semicomatose state. Branan was unable to eat, speak, or move on her own, and she became a resident of Willowbrook Manor, a long-term care facility in Flint, Michigan. With the help of her family and the caregivers at Willowbrook, [...]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-again-declines-name-china-currency-manipulator-203220451--business.html

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Verizon may follow T-Mobile?s lead with creative smartphone payment plans [update]

BERLIN, April 12 (Reuters) - Bayern Munich coach Jupp Heynckes said he will not ask former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola for advice ahead of their Champions League semi-final with the Spanish giants. Guardiola will take over from Heynckes at the German champions next season, having led Barcelona to 14 trophies in four seasons before taking time out and signing for Bayern earlier this year. "Respect me and my work," Heynckes curtly told reporters on Friday. "I have never consulted anyone or asked for advice. "I do not need anyone to study an opponent. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/verizon-may-t-mobile-lead-creative-smartphone-payment-212542425.html

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Comedian Jonathan Winters: elastic talent

Turning back the clock to a 1975 interview with The Christian Science Monitor

By Phil Elderkin / April 13, 2013

This is reprinted from the Nov. 17, 1975 issue of the Monitor with the newspaper's Los Angeles correspondent.

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The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

By Phil Elderkin
LOS ANGELES

Jonathan Winters is a comedian for all seasons!

Winters talent is elastic, stretching across a wide variety of situations and characters. Often he supplies his own sound effects, ranging from gurgling fountains to bouncing Ping-Pong balls.

And he?ll tell you frankly that no one knows exactly what makes people laugh.

?There is no stock or easy answer to that question,? says Winters, who is currently resident humorist on ABC?s ?Good Morning, America. ?Humor is real all right, only at the same time it?s intangible. It has no definition of its own because so much of it just happens.

?What works for me might not work for other comedians and vice versa,? said the man who so admires the precise timing of Laurel and Hardy. ?I do satire because it?s something I like, something I feel comfortable with, and something that turns me on. But if I tried to be a stand-up comic and just deliver clever lines from a stage, I don?t think I could make it.?

On Jan. 21, 1976, as part of America?s bicentennial celebration, the NBC television network will present a one-hour comedy special tracing the 200-year-old roots of American humor and starring Jonathan Winters.

Starting out at Plymouth Rock and working south and west on the same paths traveled by our America's pioneers, Winters will portray famous people, both real and legendary, as they tell about the things they found humorous.

Viewers can catch this ex-marine as an Indian chief, colonist, blacksmith, Virginiia
farmer, Betsy Ross, and Ben Franklin.

Winters seems to have an honest appreciation for the multiple problems and barriers facing most of today?s young comedians.

?All of these new kids are in trouble because there are so few places ? so few small clubs left on either the East or West Coasts ? where they can go to polish their craft.

?Years ago radio was a tremendous help. It was a training ground for all kinds of actors and actresses just getting started. But when television came in it changed the role of radio. Now the opportunity to learn the business from behind a studio microphone simply isn't there.

?Nobody gets a show in Las Vegas today without having first made it big somewhere else,? he continued. ?You've got to have a name. The competition is terrific, and the critics are tough. They can bury you. Barriers like this stop a lot of kids before their talent has a chance to mature. And the few who make it often can?t stand the pace.

?As a performer, I look at a man?s head as his own private movie camera,? Jonathan said. ?His eyes are the lenses and his ears are the most fantastic piece of sound equipment in the world. That also makes him the editor of anything he watches or hears. And that?s why timing and clarity are so important to an actor. If he misses on either one, he?s lost his audience to the refrigerator.

?In fact, staying on top usually is tougher than getting there. For example, TV rarely forgives a bad show and it almost never gives a second chance to young comedians who don?t make it their first time out. It?s entirely possible for a kid to blow his entire career within the space of an hour.?

Winters says the big thing in television production today is to keep costs down and force the director to get his show on film as fast as he can.

?The unions, with their high labor costs and special rules, have made shooting time more important than quality,? Jonathan remarked. ?Basically, directors are just as fussy about their work as they ever were. They still know how to do a job well. But the cost factor often makes them settle for less.?

Winters also claims that part of a comedian?s survival today is to stay abreast of what is going on, whether it?s straight news, sports, politics, the economy, or whatever it is. He feels a comic?s material has to be as fresh as today?s newspaper or the public doesn?t think he?s with it.

Eventually, Winters probably will go back to work on his autobiography, tentatively entitled: ?I Couldn?t Wait for Success, So I Went on Without It! ?

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/KjHFJlQB-tc/Comedian-Jonathan-Winters-elastic-talent

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Home is Where the Heart Is; Male Roles Availiable

Twelve people, some strangers, some friends, some former lovers, somehow ended up in a late night flight to London. In the middle of the night, the plane shuddered and groaned. Before they knew it, the were on the ground knocked out. When they came to, the entire crew and the other passengers were gone. No bodies- nothing.

They had no idea what continent they were in. There was a huge forest around them, and no matter how far they walked it never seemed to end. After following a stream that ran through the forest, they decided it was useless; they weren't going to find civilization anytime soon. They set up camp on the edge of a large, open meadow with a stream about a mile off. They've been here for a month and a half now, and are forced to work together now. Some have grown to hate others, some have become friends, even love has ---.

---

Boy B | 21 | Confident, arrogant, jock | Charlie Mcdonnell | Open

GIRL A was the one who wanted to go off on her own. Somehow BOY B persuaded her to stay though. Since then she is constantly butting heads with BOY B, who is just as irrational and stubborn as she is. BOY B is a varsity football player, coming from an incredibly wealthy family. He's been doing nothing except for party for the past year, and finally decided he was going to head to London to blow some more of his parents money. Plus, he was dead-set on the European women and he needed a change of scenery. They constantly argue about everything they can, from who is going to gather water or who should take the first shift to keep the fire going. As the days wear on, their remarks become more and more rash until one day, GIRL A gets badly injured on a hunt for food and BOY B is the only one around. He helps her and shows her a more gentle side of him that she never thought existed. And BOY B notices a more vulnerable side he had been waiting to see. From then on, feelings grow..

---

Boy D | 25 | Sneaky, big headed, opinionated | Ryan Gosling | Open
Boy F | 26 | Reserved, honest, kind | Nico Tortorella

With all 4 of them being the best of friends, they have bonded since their freshman year of high school. The four have decided to take a trip to London to celebrate their long-term friendship. But what about what's really going on inside? It's worse than a love triangle, it's a damn square. GIRL C has always been the leader of the bunch, making the decisions and taking charge and occasionally butting heads with BOY D. What she doesn't know is that BOY D has always had a crush on her, loving that she challenges him. But all these years, GIRL C's affections lay with BOY F, whose modest and quiet nature won her over back in high school. BOY F loves GIRL C, but not in the way she wants him too, as he sees her as a sister and he believes that GIRL E is more on his level. She's incredibly similar to him in all aspects, including her naturally gentle nature. GIRL E, however, pegs for BOY D, and is infatuated with his confident ways. So when the four of them get stranded on this island, true feelings begin to show and conflict arises because of this.

---

Boy H | 20 | Loyal, romantic, confident | Harry Styles | Open

GIRL G could probably the most scared out of all the people on their the crash, but she shows it by being light-hearted and making friends with the others. After all, she's got an amazing sense of humor and her friends back home in London love her so much for that. But that's all she has ever known; laughing things off to keep people from knowing how hurt she is and keeping people from worrying about her. Back in London, about a year and a half ago, her boyfriend BOY H enlisted for the British Armed Forces and was sent away. They had been dating for years, and had been best friend since they were children. He had to enlist, because BOY H's parents had gone through a messy divorce, and all the financial fees left their family broke. This had marred his dreams of attending a prestigious university, but if he joined the Armed Forces, he would be offered free education to any institution. The two tried to make it work so hard, and even reconciled a few times when he came home on leave, but BOY H just couldn't keep leaving her, breaking her heart, and ended up ending it permanently. After his tours, he was finally able to pick what university he wanted to attend so he flew to America to find any potential schools. He couldn't go home, since he knew that everyone would shun him for what he did to his lifelong friend and lover. GIRL G ended up on the plane after a need for a change of scenery, and she knew that BOY H was in America, and part of her was hoping to run into him by chance. Now that the two are lost together, so GIRL G and BOY H don't really know what to do with each other. A part of her still loves him, but she isn't sure can't deal with what he did. BOY H, on the other hand, is trying his very hardest to win her heart back- now they can finally be together, and he never really stopped loving her. Will she take him back?

---

Guy J: 20 | Awkward, good natured, funny | Francisco Lachowski | Open

GIRL I has always been a little too trusting of people, and it's no wonder people constantly take advantage of her. She had just gone through a horrible break up with her verbally abusive boyfriend, so she's having an extra hard time on this island. She was on her way back to London to spend time with her family. She's been spending her days and nights weeping and moping, so when BOY J feels compassionate towards her, she takes his shoulder to cry on. Due to his over-overwhelmingly awkward nature around her, GIRL I assumes he's gay, and he does absolutely nothing to defer her from thinking this. After all, she's incredibly pretty and this provided an opportunity to get closer to her. So what if he pretended to be gay for a bit? But it feels wrong when GIRL I begins to do things like undress in front of him and cuddle with him under the stars. Will BOY J act on these feelings? Will he lead her on even further? How will GIRL I react when she finds out that he's not really gay? Will she forgive him?

---

Boy L: 24 | Spiteful, vengeful, materialistic | Grant Gustin | Open

GIRL K is most definitely the most easily satisfied on the island. She is very simply, not materialistic and easily pleased. She just wants to make sure everyone survives and gets what they need, and won't go out of her way to do anything over the top. Immediately, her good looks caught the eye of BOY L, a rich heir to a brewing company with factories all over the world. He is used to getting everything he wants simply because he has money. When his money is useless on this island, he's just used to flaunting it with his words now. He does everything he can to impress GIRL K but she is unfazed. BOY L is pretty useless when it comes to gathering resources and building things, always injuring himself when it's almost always avoidable. GIRL K constantly finds herself annoyed with having to come to his aid, and is beginning to think he's doing this all on purpose. BOY L isn't, though, and he is really trying his hardest. Now, the others have ordered GIRL K to show him how to do things properly around the island, much to her dismay, and they begin to grow closer.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/yNuZH47r-AU/viewtopic.php

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