resistive starfish: June 2012

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Lawyer: Jerry Sandusky insists he's not guilty

Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, right, is escorted by Centre County Sheriff Denny Nau, left, as he is taken into custody at the Centre County Courthouse after being found guilty of multiple charges of child sexual abuse in Bellefonte, Pa., Friday, June 22, 2012. Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years on Friday, accusations that had sent shock waves through the college campus known as Happy Valley and led to the firing of Penn State's beloved Hall of Fame coach, Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? As Jerry Sandusky insisted through a lawyer Monday that he is not guilty of sexually abusing children, a juror who voted to convict the retired Penn State assistant coach said she hoped the verdict would help his accusers heal.

The jury found the testimony of the eight victims who took the witness stand compelling, Ann Van Kuren said Monday. Jurors weighed the accounts and evidence diligently before finding Sandusky guilty last week of 45 counts for sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, she said.

She expressed empathy for the eight men who offered emotional and explicit testimony.

"I really feel for the victims and any other victims that are out there that haven't come forward," Van Kuren said. "That all of them need to heal. I'm hoping that this trial, with this verdict, will help them heal."

The sweeping case rocked the Penn State community following Sandusky's arrest in November. The ensuing scandal led to the ousters of Sandusky's former boss ? Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno ? and the university's president, while forcing a re-examination of the role that college administrators played in reporting abuse allegations.

Sandusky, 68, is under observation at the Centre County jail, where he is being kept away from other inmates pending a psychological review that will help determine the next step toward his sentencing in about three months.

"He's defiant and wants the truth to be told. He wants people to know that he's not guilty," said defense lawyer Karl Rominger, who visited his incarcerated client Monday.

Also Monday, Judge John Cleland ordered county probation officers to evaluate whether Sandusky is a sexual predator, a finding that could factor into his prison placement. Such orders are pro forma in sex abuse cases. Sex offenders are required to undergo treatment while in prison, so Sandusky, if deemed a predator, would likely be sent to a facility with such a program.

Sandusky, who has been placed under a suicide watch, said he doesn't want to kill himself and wants to get the separate psychological examination done so that he can receive visits from his friends and family, Rominger said.

"He's fine but he's just not been evaluated," the lawyer said.

"He is very disappointed to be in prison. He is anxious to get out of this suicide watch," Rominger said, adding that Sandusky told him: "If I have to keep sitting in this room for another three or four days without being able to talk to anybody, I might start to need help at that point."

The state investigation into Sandusky didn't begin until after the ex-coach was barred from a high school in 2009, when a mother complained about the former coach. At the time, Gov. Tom Corbett was the state attorney general. Charges were filed in November 2011.

Investigators took into account Sandusky's status as a celebrated assistant coach in building the case, Corbett said Monday when asked in Harrisburg why charges weren't filed after the first accuser came forward.

"If it's one-on-one and now put the celebrity status in, put (that) Jerry Sandusky is loved by everybody ... how can anybody say there must be something wrong," Corbett said. "You'd better corroborate it, and that's what they started doing. They started pulling strings and gathering and gathering and gathering, and that's my experience. You build those cases, as well as you can."

Corbett said that while he worried that Sandusky might find a new victim while the investigation continued, "I believed (Sandusky) had to know we were looking at him at some point in time. In a sense, if you know that they're looking at you, you kind of back away. But it was a calculated risk, not one that you really easily want to take."

Sandusky has repeatedly maintained his innocence. He will likely die in prison, given mandatory minimum sentencing requirements.

The conviction is just the start of possibly years of legal proceedings over the case. Besides appeals, there remains an active investigation into Sandusky by the state attorney general's office, as well as a federal investigation.

Corbett said Penn State trustees are still awaiting the results of an internal investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh into the school's handling of the Sandusky case.

The university could also face a wave of new lawsuits. An hour after the verdict Friday night, Penn State said in a statement it was inviting victims to "participate in a program to facilitate the resolution of claims against the university arising out of Mr. Sandusky's conduct." The school said it sought to address victims' concerns privately, expeditiously and fairly.

Asked to clarify Monday, school spokesman Dave LaTorre said the university won't discuss details about litigation or how much money might be set aside for potential settlements, and declined to comment further.

The verdict was another hurdle for a fractured Penn State community eager to continue what figures to be a long, arduous healing process. Artist Michael Pilato hoped to aid in that effort Monday when he painted a blue ribbon ? a symbol for awareness of child sexual abuse ? on the portion of his "Inspiration State College" mural downtown that once included Sandusky.

Over the weekend, he replaced the Sandusky image with Van Kuren's red handprint and a depiction of Dora McQuaid, a poet and advocate for domestic and sexual violence victims and issues. McQuaid is a Penn State graduate and former professor.

Van Kuren said she and Pilato were connected over the weekend through a mutual acquaintance.

"These young people that were the victims of the Sandusky case in my mind are the survivors," Pilato said. He painted the blue ribbon around McQuaid's image.

Van Kuren, who runs a nonprofit dance company, called the last few weeks difficult as she and other jurors were ordered to refrain from watching or reading the news and talking about the case with family and friends.

Jurors, she said, took a systematic approach in deliberations, weighing the counts in order as laid out in the state's presentment. Van Kuren said that in instances when jurors had additional questions for the judge ? such as when the jury requested a re-reading of key prosecution witness Mike McQueary's testimony of a 2001 allegation between Sandusky and a child in a shower ? they put counts related to that victim aside and moved to the next set of charges.

Asked about her perception now of Sandusky, Van Kuren said "I think we all felt that when we saw him, and even now what we hear about him, (that) he knows what he did."

The jury had a good rapport, but the difficult part about deliberations, she said, was the volume of testimony and evidence that had to be weighed. The jurors were respectful of the situations of "all parties" and took everything into consideration, she added.

___

Associated Press writer Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Sunday, June 24, 2012

Turkish, Syrian forces seek downed Turkish jet

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Turkish and Syrian navies conducted a joint search on Saturday for Turkish airmen shot down by Syria over the Mediterranean, only a short distance from a Turkish province hosting thousands of rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Signals from both sides suggested neither wanted a military confrontation over Friday's shooting down of the jet near their borders. However, the joint operation will clearly sit uneasily with both forces, given the bitter hostility between the two former allies over Assad's 16-month-old crackdown on opponents.

Iraq, which borders both countries, said the incident marked a serious escalation of the Syrian conflict and demonstrated its potential to infect other countries in the region.

"No country is immune from this spillover because of the composition of the societies, the extensions, the connections, the sectarian, ethnic dimensions," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said in Baghdad. "This is not an excuse to do nothing about Syria, no. But there will be an impact."

Turkey has declared it will respond decisively.

"It is not possible to cover over a thing like this. Whatever is necessary will no doubt be done," Turkish President Abdullah Gul told reporters, adding that Ankara had been in telephone contact with Syrian authorities.

The incident, whatever its causes, showcased Syria's Russian-supplied air defenses - one of the many reasons Western powers are loathe to intervene to halt bloodshed in the country.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Turkey and Syria to handle the matter with restraint, using diplomatic channels.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the downed jet was a reconnaissance aircraft. Turkish media had said it was an F-4 Phantom, a fighter also used for reconnaissance.

According to a Syrian military account, the Turkish plane was flying fast and low, just one kilometer off the Syrian coast when it was shot down. It had been tracked at first as an unidentified aircraft and its Turkish origin established subsequently.

"The navies of the two countries have established contact. Syrian naval vessels are participating along with the Turkish side in the search operation for the missing pilots," it said.

With the second biggest army in NATO, a force hardened by nearly 30 years of fighting Kurdish rebels, Turkey would be a formidable foe for a Syrian military already struggling to put down a popular uprising and an increasingly potent insurgency.

A civil war, or something closely resembling one, is already in full swing in Syria, where fighting or shelling engulfed parts of the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Deir al-Zor and Douma, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"PLAYING WITH FIRE"

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey's military commanders and intelligence chief to discuss the search for the pilots and Ankara's next steps.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was to hold a second security meeting with senior officials later in the day, less than 24 hours after he convened a crisis session on Friday evening.

"Turkey will present its final stance after the incident has been fully brought to light and decisively take the necessary steps," Erdogan's office said after the first meeting.

Turkish newspapers were less restrained.

"They (the Syrians) will pay the price," said Vatan, while Hurriyet daily said: "He (Assad) is playing with fire."

Turkish media at first reported Erdogan on Friday as saying Syria had apologized, but the Prime Minister later said he could not confirm receiving such an apology.

Neither side gave any details of the joint naval search or any communication between the two sides.

The operation was not without its ironies. Less than 50 km (30 miles) away in Turkey's southeastern Hatay province, authorities give refuge to Free Syrian Army rebels who cross daily to attack Syrian government forces. The territory also shelters over 30,000 refugees from the fighting.

Turkey denies suggestions it is supplying weapons to rebels or that it is allowing third party weapons to travel across Turkish territory into rebel hands.

However, an Arab diplomat in Jeddah said on Saturday Saudi Arabia and Qatar were paying salaries to Syrian rebels, with Turkish involvement.

"The payment has been going on for months and the agreement was made on April 2 by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with logistical organization from Turkey where some Free Syrian Army factions are based," he said, asking not to be named.

"The point of this is to encourage as many factions of the Syrian army to defect and to organize the FSA, control it and prevent any extremist organizations from joining it."

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said he was not aware of reports that the kingdom was funding Syrian rebels.

The souring of Syrian-Turkish relations has provoked concern among Turks that Syria may revive its former support for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgents in southeastern Turkey in retaliation for Turkish backing of Syrian rebels.

"It's possible the Turks were sending jets in the area in response to an apparent escalation of the PKK's activities," Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut, told Reuters.

However, Khashan said he did not expect a harsh military reaction from Turkey. "It is under a tight leash by the United States. They don't want to start a war tomorrow."

BUDDING CIVIL WAR

Syrian army shelling killed at least 28 people in Deir al-Zor, opposition activists said. A hospital source said three women and several children were among civilians killed when shells hit their homes in the Old Airport area.

The British-based Observatory said nearly 40 people had been killed in heavy fighting around Deir al-Zor, an oil-producing region that borders Iraq, since Friday. opposition sources said about 40 people were killed across Syria on Saturday alone.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was still negotiating access to hundreds of trapped civilians and wounded people in Homs after failing to reach them on Thursday.

Turkey fears the fighting, much of which pits majority Sunni Muslim dissidents and rebels against Assad's Alawite-dominated security forces, could unleash a flood of refugees over its own border and ignite a regional sectarian conflict.

Ankara has previously floated the possibility of setting up some kind of safe haven or humanitarian corridor inside Syria, which would entail military intervention, but has said it would undertake no such action without U.N. Security Council approval.

Turkey has said however that Assad must go.

It was unclear why the Syrians had shot down the aircraft, which, having left a base in Malatya, was flying close to a corridor linking Turkey with Turkish forces on Northern Cyprus.

"The Syrians are clearly quite nervous and are likely to interpret any action, however innocent, as hostile," said Henri Barkey, international relations professor at LeHigh University.

"Second, reports of Turkish arms support for the insurgents also feeds the paranoia of the regime, understandably."

It was also possible the air defenses could have mistaken the aircraft for a defecting pilot, following an incident earlier in the week when a Syrian aircraft landed in Jordan.

Russia and China, Assad's strongest backers abroad, firmly oppose any outside interference in the Syrian crisis, including foreign arming or funding of insurgents, saying envoy Kofi Annan's stalled peace plan is the only way forward.

Assad's prime minister, appointed after a parliamentary election conducted last month despite the violence convulsing the country, named a new cabinet on Saturday, retaining the same interior, defense and foreign ministers.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Erika Solomon in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Asma Alsharif in Jeddah, Anna Ringstrom in Baghdad and William Maclean in London; Writing by Alistair Lyon; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Genome-wide analysis shows previously undetected abnormalities in parents of affected children

Public release date: 24-Jun-2012
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Contact: Mary Rice
mary.rice@riceconseil.eu
European Society of Human Genetics

Nuremberg, Germany: The use of genome-wide array analysis[1] in parents whose children are suspected of having a genetic disease shows that the parents frequently also have previously undetected genetic abnormalities, a researcher from The Netherlands told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Sunday). Being aware of this is important to parents because it means that their risk of having another affected child is significantly increased.
Dr. Nicole de Leeuw, a clinical laboratory geneticist in the Department of Human Genetics of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Nijmegen, and colleagues performed genome-wide SNP[2] array analysis in 6,500 patients and 1,874 parents. The patients had intellectual disability and/or congenital abnormalities, and the parents of those in whom an aberration was detected were tested in a similar way to determine whether they had the same aberration as their child. Mosaic aberrations, where both genetically normal and abnormal cells are present in an individual, were not only found in one in every 300 patients, but in one in every 270 parents as well. "These abnormalities occurred more frequently than we had expected", said Dr. de Leeuw. "Armed with this knowledge, we can try to understand not only why, but also how genetic disease arises in individuals, and this can help us to provide better genetic counselling."
Analysis of patients' genomes showed 6.5% de novo (spontaneously arising) genomic imbalances, 9.1% of rare, inherited imbalances, and 0.8% of X-linked abnormalities. Moreover, with the additional data from their SNP array test results, the researchers were able to subsequently find pathogenic mutations in recessive disease genes, uniparental disomies (where a single chromosome is doubled leading to two genetically identical ones), and mosaic aneuploidies (an extra or missing chromosome in some of the cells of the body) in about 30 patients.
"In at least seven families, these findings meant that what we had thought of as a spontaneously arising, non-inherited genetic abnormality in a child was in fact already present in some form in the parent", said Dr. de Leeuw. "Furthermore, when we tested in different cell lines for example, DNA from blood and that from a mouth swab we often found that results varied. This is because mosaic aberrations can occur in cells in some organs and not in others, and underlines the importance of not just relying on one type of cell line for this kind of genetic diagnosis."
In two cases these tissue-dependent differences changed over time, and the researchers believe that this was due to an attempt by the body to correct and rescue the situation. "Such rescue attempts are best known in cases of trisomy, where there are three chromosomes instead of two in a cell, or monosomy, where there is only one. In both these cases, the body may try to correct the situation by respectively deleting or adding (doubling) a chromosome. Such rescue mechanisms may be more common than we expected, and by using genome-wide SNP array analysis it will help us to reveal them. For some patients, it would be particularly interesting if we could test multiple samples of these patients over time", said Dr. de Leeuw.
The majority of genetic diseases are not treatable, but in some cases a special diet may reduce the severity of the symptoms ,for example, in phenylketonuria (PKU) or in coeliac disease, in others the same can be obtained by periodic examination of certain organs (for example in Down syndrome or Marfan syndrome). Sometimes hormone treatment will be of benefit to the patient, for example growth hormone treatment in Turner syndrome. For most patients with a genetic disorder, there is no cure, but knowing the genetic cause of their disease may help and improve the care for these patients through knowledge about other patients with the same disease. And if the family is at risk of a genetic disease, couples considering having children can be better informed as to their options, the researchers say.
"By using genome-wide array analysis to look for imbalances in the human genome, we will uncover more and more accurate findings in patients. This will not only increase our knowledge of genetic disorders and the human genome in general, but if we can also collect the clinical features of these patients in a structured and uniform way, the information will become increasingly valuable. Fortunately, this is becoming easier due to advances in tools and software applications, and many professionals in the academic and commercial world have agreed to collaborate in order to substantially increase the genotype/phenotype collection and make these anonymised data publicly available to medical professionals in order to improve patient care worldwide", Dr. de Leeuw concluded.
###

Abstract no: C04.5, Session: Sunday, June 24, 1:15 pm
[1] A DNA microarray (or gene chip) is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface, used to measure the relative quantity of large numbers of genes simultaneously in multiple regions of a genome, thereby determining the DNA copy number.
[2] A SNP (pronounced 'snip'), or single nucleotide polymorphism, is a relatively common DNA sequence variation, a change in a single nucleotide A, T, C or G in the genome, without clinical consequences. Each person has about 3 million SNPs in his or her genome, a unique genetic signature. In a SNP microarray, the probes (small pieces of DNA) bind only to the complementary piece of DNA being analysed if it is an exact match, making it possible to determine the genotype (SNP composition) of a DNA sample in addition to the DNA copy number.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Genome-wide analysis shows previously undetected abnormalities in parents of affected children Public release date: 24-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Rice
mary.rice@riceconseil.eu
European Society of Human Genetics

Nuremberg, Germany: The use of genome-wide array analysis[1] in parents whose children are suspected of having a genetic disease shows that the parents frequently also have previously undetected genetic abnormalities, a researcher from The Netherlands told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Sunday). Being aware of this is important to parents because it means that their risk of having another affected child is significantly increased.
Dr. Nicole de Leeuw, a clinical laboratory geneticist in the Department of Human Genetics of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Nijmegen, and colleagues performed genome-wide SNP[2] array analysis in 6,500 patients and 1,874 parents. The patients had intellectual disability and/or congenital abnormalities, and the parents of those in whom an aberration was detected were tested in a similar way to determine whether they had the same aberration as their child. Mosaic aberrations, where both genetically normal and abnormal cells are present in an individual, were not only found in one in every 300 patients, but in one in every 270 parents as well. "These abnormalities occurred more frequently than we had expected", said Dr. de Leeuw. "Armed with this knowledge, we can try to understand not only why, but also how genetic disease arises in individuals, and this can help us to provide better genetic counselling."
Analysis of patients' genomes showed 6.5% de novo (spontaneously arising) genomic imbalances, 9.1% of rare, inherited imbalances, and 0.8% of X-linked abnormalities. Moreover, with the additional data from their SNP array test results, the researchers were able to subsequently find pathogenic mutations in recessive disease genes, uniparental disomies (where a single chromosome is doubled leading to two genetically identical ones), and mosaic aneuploidies (an extra or missing chromosome in some of the cells of the body) in about 30 patients.
"In at least seven families, these findings meant that what we had thought of as a spontaneously arising, non-inherited genetic abnormality in a child was in fact already present in some form in the parent", said Dr. de Leeuw. "Furthermore, when we tested in different cell lines for example, DNA from blood and that from a mouth swab we often found that results varied. This is because mosaic aberrations can occur in cells in some organs and not in others, and underlines the importance of not just relying on one type of cell line for this kind of genetic diagnosis."
In two cases these tissue-dependent differences changed over time, and the researchers believe that this was due to an attempt by the body to correct and rescue the situation. "Such rescue attempts are best known in cases of trisomy, where there are three chromosomes instead of two in a cell, or monosomy, where there is only one. In both these cases, the body may try to correct the situation by respectively deleting or adding (doubling) a chromosome. Such rescue mechanisms may be more common than we expected, and by using genome-wide SNP array analysis it will help us to reveal them. For some patients, it would be particularly interesting if we could test multiple samples of these patients over time", said Dr. de Leeuw.
The majority of genetic diseases are not treatable, but in some cases a special diet may reduce the severity of the symptoms ,for example, in phenylketonuria (PKU) or in coeliac disease, in others the same can be obtained by periodic examination of certain organs (for example in Down syndrome or Marfan syndrome). Sometimes hormone treatment will be of benefit to the patient, for example growth hormone treatment in Turner syndrome. For most patients with a genetic disorder, there is no cure, but knowing the genetic cause of their disease may help and improve the care for these patients through knowledge about other patients with the same disease. And if the family is at risk of a genetic disease, couples considering having children can be better informed as to their options, the researchers say.
"By using genome-wide array analysis to look for imbalances in the human genome, we will uncover more and more accurate findings in patients. This will not only increase our knowledge of genetic disorders and the human genome in general, but if we can also collect the clinical features of these patients in a structured and uniform way, the information will become increasingly valuable. Fortunately, this is becoming easier due to advances in tools and software applications, and many professionals in the academic and commercial world have agreed to collaborate in order to substantially increase the genotype/phenotype collection and make these anonymised data publicly available to medical professionals in order to improve patient care worldwide", Dr. de Leeuw concluded.
###

Abstract no: C04.5, Session: Sunday, June 24, 1:15 pm
[1] A DNA microarray (or gene chip) is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface, used to measure the relative quantity of large numbers of genes simultaneously in multiple regions of a genome, thereby determining the DNA copy number.
[2] A SNP (pronounced 'snip'), or single nucleotide polymorphism, is a relatively common DNA sequence variation, a change in a single nucleotide A, T, C or G in the genome, without clinical consequences. Each person has about 3 million SNPs in his or her genome, a unique genetic signature. In a SNP microarray, the probes (small pieces of DNA) bind only to the complementary piece of DNA being analysed if it is an exact match, making it possible to determine the genotype (SNP composition) of a DNA sample in addition to the DNA copy number.

[ | 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.

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Washington Retirees Pick Up A Chainsaw, Carefully, For A Love Of The Land

Joshua McNichols
06/25/2012

Next time you buy a box of tissues, you might notice the letters FSC stamped on the box. That means the wood for the tissue was harvested in a way that promotes wildlife habitat. Most FSC wood fiber in Washington comes from land owned by the state, but a respectable chunk comes from a very unusual group of loggers.

TRANSCRIPT

In a forest just East of Yelm, Ken Lallemont teaches his students how to inspect a chainsaw.

Ken Lallemont: "Chain brake, chain catch, throttle lock, looking for any loose nuts and bolts, exhaust system is intact ? "

You could call this class lumberjack safety. These students are learning how to cut down trees. And where to stand ?

Sound: Tree hitting ground.

? for this.

These aren't your typical loggers. Most of them are new to logging, and most of them are over 50 years old. A few of them, much older. Lallemont has some special advice for the class.

Ken Lallemont: "There are guardian angels out there whose job it is to keep young fools alive. There's not enough of them to go around, so they have no time for old fools. If you don't catch on as you get older, you're gonna get hurt or die. "

What would entice these men to spend their retirement doing this dangerous job? The land.

Class participant Elvin Borg fell in love with 75 acres just east of Centralia, Washington.

Elvin Borg: "We had looked at about, oh, 80 different places in the area. And I saw this place and my wife hadn't seen it. And I called her and I said 'You've got to see this one.' Because it was pretty streams, and beaver ponds, and trees of different ages, and it looked like a park. And I thought, how can one person own something like this? And yet it was feasible."

Most of the landowners in this class bought acreage formerly owned by Weyerhaeuser. The company is still the biggest private landowner in Washington. But over time, Weyerhaeuser has consolidated its holdings in the southwestern corner of the state. Those forests are closer to a big mill and an international port. That's left much of the state's private timberland for small landowners like Elvin.

Elvin wants to get his land certified with the FSC, the Forest Stewardship Council. That would indicate his timber was harvested according to strict environmental guidelines. A forest certified by the FSC is open to sunlight. It's home to a variety of trees and wildlife. It's different than your typical industrial forest. Weyerhaeuser says for them, it's too expensive.

KUOW: "Does it pencil out for you?"

Elvin Borg: "I don't even know. It probably won't. That is secondary actually, for me."

That's not an unusual response, according to Kirk Hanson. He's the director of Northwest Certified Forestry. He spends a lot of time reaching out to small landowners like Borg.

Kirk Hanson: "Often times they say they'd like to grow their forests out to look more like a natural forest and less like a plantation. Some of them are even interested in managing their forests to become old growth. Obviously that's beyond their life time."

And out of their control.

Kirk Hanson: "Of course also with the next generation acquiring that property they may have a completely different value system than their grandparents or their parents did."

Elvin Borg is talking to his heirs now. He's not sure what will happen to his land in the long run.

Elvin Borg: "We're just here to take care of it for a while and then it's somebody else's."

For now he's focused on the goal at hand: felling a tree without getting smooshed.

For KUOW, I'm Joshua McNichols.

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Saturday, June 23, 2012

Choosing a Web Host to your Internet-Based Business

Choosing a webhost for a business you want to put up online is usually a tricky job if you don?t know what to look for. If you are thinking of starting an internet-based company in Europe, you need to find a hosting company that wont only give you the lowest price in terms of pricing, but should also perfectly fit your needs as an internet business owner. You also need user-friendly solutions for easy use along with more efficient management. You basically have to consider a lot of factors as a way to choose the right host on your business. Having all of the needed information can help you measure a Western web hosting provider?s capability to offer you what you need.

The Essentials of an Good European Host company

Things like the number of mb the host gives its clients, the particular bandwidth, technologies important to running an e-commerce site like shopping cart and the like, number of email accounts offered, number of FTP balances, and technical support include the most essential considerations while looking for the right provider.

Software, Privacy and Security
It would aid if you ask hosting providers for the certain information you need to get ready to go. For e-commerce businesses, for instance, make sure that a shopping cart solution technology is offered. Moreover, your web hosting should have excellent security measures to prevent your data from being ?mined?. Having an European host which offers inadequate security is likely to undermine your functions and may cause you to drop valuable clients. Some hosting providers also provide been known to promote valuable personal information about companies and their customers, thereby compromising your and your own consumers? privacy. Make sure the service provider you choose guarantees absolute privacy.

Site Downtimes
Additionally, if your website suffers from downtime, this could have an effect on your business in a big way. Nothing is more exasperating for potential customers than not being able to view your site and make purchases. Remember a turned away customer will be unwilling to come back and is certain to spread the word close to; you can lose sizeable profit from this.

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Webhost Plan
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Man with kidney disease finds perfect match

Caitlin knew she was in love, but giving her heart to Jonathan was not an easy choice. Because Jonathan needed more than a heart; he needed a kidney, and his prospects of finding one were close to zero.

He faced a bleak future. But in the end, Caitlin turned out to be the perfect match not only for his heart but also for his health. And now they are heading into a future far brighter than the one they imagined on their wedding day last October.

Jonathan and Caitlin Woodlief met three years ago at seminary school in Dallas. Soon after they began dating, his health began to deteriorate.

"Dating was really difficult," Caitlin says. "You're trying to figure out how much to put your heart on the line, like any dating situation. But now I have to decide whether or not to go with him to chemo treatments. It's scary and intimidating dealing with a big disease."

The disease was lupus, and it was the second time around for Jonathan, which made the stakes much higher.

When he was 18, Jonathan had his first kidney transplant. The donor was his mother. It is very rare for lupus to return in the donated kidney, but just as Jonathan and Caitlin were falling in love, that's what happened.

It is far more difficult to find a matching donor for a patient who has already had one transplant because the body has built up new antibodies.

Fewer than one in 100 people could provide Jonathan a kidney his body would accept. Doctors told him he would probably spend the next 15 years or more on dialysis, waiting for a match, his health deteriorating all the time.

"It was a rough year for us," Jonathan says, "and a tough decision."

Jonathan went from "superhealthy" to increasingly being in the hospital, sometimes for long stretches. He was in the hospital when he first met Caitlin's parents.

"That was humbling," he says, "me wanting to be a man who could provide and love her, and being insecure about my health."

"There were days that really take your breath away," Caitlin says, "when you think about the weight of the situation ... just how sick he was."

"One thing helped," Caitlin says, as she wrestled with whether or not to tie her life to a very sick man. "He would have done the same for me."

A month after the wedding, Jonathan went on the transplant list, which meant the search for a donor could begin.

Caitlin went with some of their friends to be tested. One by one they called to report they were not a match.

Then, at the end of January, the news no one expected: Caitlin herself was a match.

"It's like hitting the lottery," said transplant surgeon Dr. David Cronin. "Practically speaking," he said, patients like Jonathan have almost no chance of finding a matching donor.

After more testing, and still more testing to be sure, the newlyweds went into surgery on Tuesday at the transplant center at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

In the prep room together, Jonathan, the old hand in hospitals, reassured his wife, who had never been under anesthetic.

"I was pretty nervous," she admits.

Caitlin went into the operating room first, and an hour later they called for Jonathan.

Caitlin is back at home already. Jonathan joins her there Friday and they can begin planning for the healthy future they didn't think they would get.

"Swimming and jumping and running and playing basketball," is first on the list, Caitlin says. Jonathan is a big basketball player.

"Further down the road, we'd love to start a family," Caitlin says. "That was on the back burner until all this came together."

But Jonathan and Caitlin, now graduates of that Christian seminary school, are not just thinking of themselves.

"A lot of our story has been shaped by suffering," Jonathan says, "so we want to work with other people who are suffering."

Jonathan is thinking of ministry, maybe overseas. He spent a year studying in China and his good health makes a return there possible. Caitlin trained as a music therapist and wants to incorporate that into her career.

"We've had a big detour here," Jonathan says. Now, thanks to his perfect match, they are back on track.

Suicide attackers hit Afghan hotel; hostages taken

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? The Taliban stormed a lakeside hotel just north of Kabul, killing three security guards, taking hostages and staging an hours-long gun battle with Afghan security forces, police said Friday.

It was the latest in a string of attacks this week that suggest the insurgent group is pushing hard with its summer offensive rather than waiting for international forces to draw down. And the strike so near to the capital was a reminder that the Taliban can still hit very close to the seat of government.

At least three suicide bombers - armed with machines guns, rocket-propelled grenades and vests laden with explosives - killed the guards, then burst into the Spozhmai hotel at Qargha Lake around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Kabul police said in a statement. At least one policeman was also killed in the attack, said Kabul police chief, Mohammad Ayub Salangi.

By mid-morning Friday, an unknown number of militants were still fighting Afghan forces, supported by international troops. Black smoke was rising from the two-story hotel, according to Associated Press video. NATO helicopters circled overhead.

There were civilian casualties, but Afghan authorities did not have details because they have not been able to get inside the hotel.

"It was around 11:20 p.m. last night when it all started," said Mohammad Ghani, who was at the scene. "It got quiet for a couple of hours and then the fighting stated again."

Eighteen people, including women and children, have been rescued from the hotel and two of the attackers were dead, said Gen. Kadam Shah Shayem, an Afghan army commander in Kabul.

Four guests jumped out of a window at the two-story hotel and crouched in the lake to hide from the attackers, Shayem said.

"Our forces have surrounded the area," Shayem said. "There is still shooting. We are being very careful because there still are people - civilians - inside the hotel."

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the Taliban attacked the hotel because foreigners there were drinking alcohol and participating in other activities banned by Islam.

The hotel, situated on a man-made lake a short drive from the capital, is a popular place for well-to-do Afghans to spend a Thursday night ? the beginning of the Afghan weekend ? or for picnic excursions on a Friday when paddle boats and horse rides are on offer. Though international workers do go to Qargha lake, Afghans make up the majority of the clientele at the hotels and kebab shops on its shore.

Compared with targets inside Kabul city, security at Qargha lake is light. While hotels do have armed guards, there are no massive blast walls and security cordons that surround government and military buildings in Kabul.

The hotel was a soft target compared with the attacks insurgents have launched inside the city in recent years, including taking over construction sites and firing down on embassies and storming the tightly secured Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul last summer.

It has been particularly violent week in Afghanistan as insurgents have stepped up attacks against international forces. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber attacked U.S. and Afghan forces at a checkpoint in a busy market in the east, killing 21 people, including three U.S. soldiers. The same day, seven Afghan civilians were killed by a roadside bomb.

Those bombings came the day after two attacks in the south in which militants stormed a NATO military base and attacked a police checkpoint. U.S. troops were wounded in the attack on the NATO base, officials said. On Monday, three gunmen dressed in Afghan police uniforms killed one American service member and wounded nine others in Kandahar's Zhari district.

The fighting suggests that the Taliban are not planning to just "wait out" the international forces in Afghanistan until after 2014, when the majority of combat forces are scheduled to leave. The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, has to withdraw 23,000 American troops by the end of September, leaving about 68,000 U.S. military personnel in the country.

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Key European leaders meet to ease debt crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands behind a window with a reflection of the European flag as she waits for the President of Peru Ollanta Humala at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 12, 2012. Merkel will hold a speech with the title "Germany in Europe - Input for European Cohesion" at an economic council of her ruling Christian Democratic Party Tuesday afternoon. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

ROME (AP) ? The leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain will gather in Rome to seek agreement on ways to ease the widening debt crisis in their currency union.

Any proposals agreed at Friday's summit will be brought to a wider gathering of EU leaders on June 28 and 29.

Among the items on the agenda are a proposal by Italian Premier Mario Monti to use a bailout fund to buy sovereign debt to bring down interest rates for countries like Spain and Italy and a possible tax on financial transactions.

The meeting caps an intense week, which included the downgrade by Moody's of 15 of the world's largest banks. Spain and Italy have seen their government borrowing costs rise amid market worries about their ability to handle their debt.

Associated Press

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Gaza militants fire two rockets into Israel: army

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University researchers develop AWARE-2 camera, hope it hits the mainstream in five years

Gigapixel cameras aren't exactly hot-off-the-presses, but a few wizards at Duke and the University of Arizona may be close to getting that sort of technology into your future point-and-shoot. Reportedly, electrical engineers with gobs of free time and an imagination the size of Coach K's ego have managed to synchronize 98 minuscule cameras -- each with a 14-megapixel sensor -- "grouped around a shared spherical lens". The real kicker here is the hope for the future: these same researchers feel that "within five years, as the electronic components of the cameras become miniaturized and more efficient, the next generation of gigapixel cameras should be available to the general public." The prototype itself measures a whopping 2.5-feet square and 20 inches deep, but only around 3 percent of it is made of optical elements; the vast majority is circuitry needed to calculate the stupefying amount of information captured with such a device.

University researchers develop AWARE-2 camera, hope it hits the mainstream in five years originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunday, June 17, 2012

China to send first woman into space

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Jim Furyk grabs lead from Tiger, Toms at US Open

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