Dems: GOP fails to show scandal in Benghazi deaths

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Politicians love few things better than a scandal to trip up their opponents, and Republicans hope last year's fatal attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya will do exactly that to Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democrats.

History suggests it might be a tough lift. The issue is complex, the next presidential election is more than three years away, and a number of reports and officials have disputed criticisms of Clinton's role when she was secretary of state.

Still, Republicans and conservative talk hosts are hammering away at Clinton's and the Obama administration's handling of the 8-month-old tragedy. A daylong House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday starred three State Department officials invited by Republicans. Security was poorly handled in Benghazi, Libya, they said, and administration officials later tried to obscure what happened.

But the three men offered little that has not been aired in previous congressional hearings. Afterward, Republicans all but acknowledged they're still seeking a knockout punch.

"This hearing is now over, but this investigation is not," said Darrell Issa of California, the hard-charging Republican chairman of the House committee. He urged "whistle-blowers" and "witnesses who have been afraid to come forward" to step up and "tell us your story, and we will make sure it gets public."

Aside from crippling Clinton in 2016, Republicans hope public anger over the Benghazi attacks and their aftermath will besmirch congressional Democrats in next year's midterm elections.

By late Wednesday, Democrats expressed confidence.

"The unsubstantiated Republican allegations about Benghazi disintegrated one by one," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the House committee's top Democrat. "There's no evidence of a conspiracy to withhold military assets for political reasons, no evidence of a cover-up."

Clinton, seen by many as the early Democratic favorite for president in 2016, generally drew strong reviews for her four-year stint as secretary of state. Her darkest moment was the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. Top administration officials initially said the attackers were spontaneous protesters, angry about an anti-Islamic video. They later acknowledged the attackers were well-equipped terrorists acting under plans.

A major independent inquiry largely absolved Clinton of wrongdoing.

The findings incensed many GOP leaders and conservative news outlets, who portray Benghazi as a simmering scandal about to erupt.

"The people back home are standing with you to get to the truth of this, and they will not sit down until they get the answers," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told relatives of the Benghazi victims.

Ethical lapses and even full-blown scandals have a mixed record of influencing U.S. elections. Watergate not only forced Richard Nixon from the White House in August 1974; it also triggered crushing losses for congressional Republicans in midterm elections three months later.

President Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon may have ended any hope he had of defeating Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Other scandals, however, did far less political damage. The Iran-Contra affair of Ronald Reagan's second term, and Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky did not prevent either man's vice president from winning the popular vote in the next presidential election.

More recently, Virginia Democrats were crowing about news that Gov. Bob McDonnell ? a potential presidential contender ? accepted large, unreported gifts from a businessman. A short time later, a Washington Post poll showed high approval ratings for McDonnell and scant public interest in the budding "scandal" that titillated the state's political elite.

Some Democratic campaign veterans say the Benghazi affair is too complex and too muddled to swing national elections next year and in 2016.

"The Republicans are pulling out the stops to manufacture a scandal, but it's not likely to stick on Hillary Clinton or Democrats in general," said veteran Clinton strategist Doug Hattaway.

Republican consultant Steve Lombardo said: "The impact on 2014 is likely to be minimal. However, there are a few 2016 Democrat White House aspirants who are feeling a little better about their chances today," especially Vice President Joe Biden.

GOP activists seem determined to push on. The Republican National Committee floods social media sites almost hourly with headlines such as "So many questions about Benghazi."

Soon after White House press secretary Jay Carney was forced again on Wednesday to defend the administration's record in the Benghazi attacks, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner issued a point-by-point rejoinder.

A Boehner aide said the speaker will call on the State Department to release internal emails from last September, regarding political fallout from the Benghazi attacks, that were described in part at Wednesday's hearing by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

Gowdy said he will find the truth, "and I don't give a damn whose career is impacted."

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin showed little concern. "I don't think there's a smoking gun today," he told the panel. "I don't think there's a lukewarm slingshot."

"It may not be a smoking gun or a warm slingshot," Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., said in the hearing's final hour. "But we have four dead Americans," and Georgians "are looking for the truth."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dems-gop-fails-show-scandal-benghazi-deaths-071505986.html

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Hipstamatic launches Oggl, an all new photo app with subscription model

The folks at Hipstamatic know better than to mess with success. Their flagship photo filter app will continue to evolve, albeit slowly. More dramatic experiments in business model and UI design will instead show up in Oggl, the company's newest app that doesn't stray too far from the mold. The basic functionality is the same: snap a pic, edit it then post it for others to see. There are some key differences, however, besides the obvious aesthetic ones. Perhaps the most striking is the new business model, where users are charged $0.99 a month or $9.99 a year for full access to the library of Hipstamatic photo effects. There's also a focus on building a photo-sharing community around Oggl, much in the way Instagram has. The app is invite only (and we're still waiting for ours), but when it launches later this week the crowded high-brow photo sharing space will have yet another competitor.

Filed under: Internet, Software

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Via: AllThingsD

Source: Oggl

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/l7BmKE72KIk/

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Bashful? Buy the little blue pill online

FILE - In this Friday, March 2, 2012, file photo, counterfeit Viagra pills, top and bottom left, are displayed alongside real ones, top and bottom right, in a lab at Pfizer in Groton, Conn. In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press on May 6, 2013, that it will sell erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - In this Friday, March 2, 2012, file photo, counterfeit Viagra pills, top and bottom left, are displayed alongside real ones, top and bottom right, in a lab at Pfizer in Groton, Conn. In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press on May 6, 2013, that it will sell erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

This undated photo provided by pfizer shows Viagra pills. In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press on May 6, 2013, that it will sell erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website. (AP Photo/pfizer, William Vazquez)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) ? Men who are bashful about needing help in the bedroom no longer have to go to the drugstore to buy that little blue pill.

In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press that the drugmaker will begin selling its popular erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website.

Men still will need a prescription to buy the blue, diamond-shaped pill on viagra.com, but they no longer have to face a pharmacist to get it filled. And for those who are bothered by Viagra's steep $25-a-pill price, Pfizer is offering three free pills with the first order and 30 percent off the second one.

Pfizer's bold move blows up the drug industry's distribution model. Drugmakers don't sell medicines directly to patients. Instead, they sell in bulk to wholesalers, who then distribute the drugs to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices.

But the world's second-largest drugmaker is trying a new strategy to tackle a problem that plagues the industry. Unscrupulous online pharmacies increasingly offer patients counterfeit versions of Viagra and other brand-name drugs for up to 95 percent off with no prescription needed. Patients don't realize the drugs are fake or that legitimate pharmacies require a prescription.

Other major drugmakers likely will watch Pfizer's move closely. If it works, drugmakers could begin selling other medicines that are rampantly counterfeited and sold online, particularly treatments for non-urgent conditions seen as embarrassing. Think: diet drugs, medicines for baldness and birth control pills.

"If it works, everybody will hop on the train," says Les Funtleyder, a health care strategist at private equity fund Poliwogg who believes Pfizer's site will attract "fence-sitters" who are nervous about buying online.

The online Viagra sales are Pfizer's latest effort to combat a problem that has grown with the popularity of the Internet.

In recent years, Americans have become more comfortable with online shopping, with many even buying prescription drugs online. That's particularly true for those who don't have insurance, are bargain hunters or want to keep their medicine purchases private.

Few realize that the vast majority of online pharmacies don't follow the rules.

The Internet is filled with illegitimate websites that lure customers with spam emails and professional-looking websites that run 24-hour call centers. A January study by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which accredits online pharmacies, found that only 257 of 10,275 online pharmacy sites it examined appeared legitimate.

Experts say the fake drugs such websites sell can be dangerous. That's because they don't include the right amount of the active ingredient, if any, or contain toxic substances such as heavy metals, lead paint and printer ink. They're generally made in filthy warehouses and garages in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Online buyers are "playing Russian roulette," says Matthew Bassiur, vice president of global security at New York-based Pfizer.

"The factories are deplorable. I've seen photographs of these places," he says. "You wouldn't even want to walk in them, let alone ingest anything made in them."

Pfizer, which invented the term "erectile dysfunction," has long been aggressive in fighting counterfeiters. It conducts undercover investigations and works with authorities around the globe, with good reason.

Counterfeit versions of Viagra and dozens of other Pfizer medicines rob the company of billions in annual sales.

Viagra is one of its top drugs, with $2 billion in worldwide revenue last year. And it's the most counterfeited drug in the U.S., according to the company.

A 2011 study, in which Pfizer bought "Viagra" from 22 popular Internet pharmacies and tested the pills, found 77 percent were counterfeit. Most had half or less of the promised level of the active ingredient.

Viagra is appealing to counterfeiters because it carries a double whammy: It's expensive and it treats a condition with an "embarrassment" factor.

Crooks running the illegal online pharmacies brazenly explain their ultra-low Viagra prices ? often $1 to $3 a pill ? by claiming they sell generic Viagra.

Generics are copycat versions of brand-name prescription drugs. They can legally be made after a drugmaker's patent, or exclusive right to sell a drug, ends. Generic drugmakers don't have to spend $1 billion or so on testing to get a new drug approved, so their copycat versions often cost up to 90 percent less than the original drug.

But there is no such thing as generic Viagra. Pfizer has patents giving it the exclusive right to sell Viagra until 2020 in the U.S. and for many years in other countries.

Many patients are unaware of that.

Dr. David Dershewitz, an assistant urology professor at New Jersey Medical School who treats patients at Newark's University Hospital, says erectile dysfunction is common in men with enlarged prostates, diabetes and other conditions, but most men are too embarrassed to discuss it.

He says well over half of his patients who do broach the issue complain about Viagra's price. Some tell Dershewitz that they go online looking for bargains because they can't afford Viagra.

"The few that do admit to it have said that the results have been fairly dismal," but none has suffered serious harm, he says.

For Pfizer, that's a big problem. People who buy fake drugs online that don't work, or worse, harm them, may blame the company's product. That's because it's virtually impossible to distinguish fakes from real Viagra.

"The vast majority of patients do believe that they're getting Viagra," said Vic Cavelli, head of marketing for primary care medicines at Pfizer, which plans to have drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. fill the orders placed on viagra.com.

The sales lost to counterfeits threaten Pfizer at a time when Viagra's share of the $5 billion-a-year global market for legitimate erectile dysfunction drugs has slipped, falling from 46 percent in 2007 to 39 percent last year, according to health data firm IMS Health.

The reason? Competition from rival products, mainly Eli Lilly and Co.'s Cialis ? the pill touted in those ubiquitous commercials featuring couples in his-and-hers bathtubs in bizarre places.

Judson Clark, an Edward Jones analyst, forecasts that Viagra sales will decline even further, about 5 percent each year for the next five years, unusual "for a drug in its prime."

Clark says he thinks Pfizer's strategy will prevent sales from declining, but he's unsure how well it will work.

"It's a very interesting and novel approach," he says. "Whether it returns Viagra to growth is hard to say."

___

On the Net:

Link to accredited pharmacies: http://www.nabp.net/programs/accreditation/vipps/find-a-vipps-online-pharmacy

___

Linda A. Johnson at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-06-US-Viagra-Online-Sales/id-3d7890bc3eb54d40b5f68fc6154d2976

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House Hunt ? RVC Open Houses - Real Estate - Rockville Centre ...

Check out these RVC homes that are hosting open houses this weekend.

Click through the image gallery?above to see a sampling of homes in Rockville Centre that are holding open houses this weekend. Times and prices are listed below each photograph.

These listings were collected from?AOL Real Estate. If you are a homeowner or real estate broker and want a home included in House Hunt, you can log into Patch and add it to the gallery yourself.

Become a blogger today!
Get started now

Source: http://rockvillecentre.patch.com/groups/real-estate/p/house-hunt--rvc-open-houses_3c4e7b69

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Bird fossil sheds light on how swift and hummingbird flight came to be

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A tiny bird fossil discovered in Wyoming offers clues to the precursors of swift and hummingbird wings. The fossil is unusual in having exceptionally well-preserved feathers, which allowed the researchers to reconstruct the size and shape of the bird's wings in ways not possible with bones alone.

Researchers spotted the specimen ? the nearly complete skeleton of a bird that would have fit in the palm of your hand and weighed less than an ounce ? while working at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

The newly discovered bird was named Eocypselus rowei, in honor of John W. Rowe, Chairman of the Field Museum's Board of Trustees.

First collected in southwestern Wyoming in a fossil site known as the Green River Formation, E. rowei lived roughly 50 million years ago, after the dinosaurs disappeared but before the earliest humans came to be.

E. rowei was a tiny bird ? only twelve centimeters from head to tail. Feathers account for more than half of the bird's total wing length.

To find out where the fossil fit in the bird family tree, the researchers compared the specimen to extinct and modern day species. Their analyses suggest that the bird was an evolutionary precursor to the group that includes today's swifts and hummingbirds.

Given the differences in wing shape between these two closely related groups of birds, scientists have puzzled over how swift and hummingbird flight came to be. Finding fossil relatives like this specimen is key to figuring that out, the researchers say.

"This fossil bird represents the closest we've gotten to the point where swifts and hummingbirds went their separate ways," said lead author Daniel Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Hummingbirds have short wings relative to their bodies, which makes them good at hovering in mid-air. Swifts have super-long wings for gliding and high-speed flight. But the wings of E. rowei were somewhere in between.

"[Based on its wing shape] it probably wasn't a hoverer, like a hummingbird, and it probably wasn't as efficient at fast flight as a swift," Ksepka said.

The shape of the bird's wings, coupled with its tiny size, suggest that the ancestors of today's swifts and hummingbirds got small before each group's unique flight behavior came to be. "Hummingbirds came from small-bodied ancestors, but the ability to hover didn't come to be until later," Ksepka explained.

Closer study of the feathers under a scanning electron microscope revealed that carbon residues in the fossils ? once thought to be traces of bacteria that fed on feathers ? are fossilized melanosomes, tiny cell structures containing melanin pigments that give birds and other animals their color. The findings suggest that the ancient bird was probably black and may have had a glossy or iridescent sheen, like swifts living today. Based on its beak shape it probably ate insects, the researchers say.

The other authors of this study were Julia Clarke, Sterling Nesbitt and Felicia Kulp of the University of Texas at Austin, and Lance Grande of the Field Museum of Natural History.

The results will appear in the May 1 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

###

Ksepka, D., et al. (2013). "Fossil evidence of wing shape in a stem relative of swifts and hummingbirds (Aves, Pan-Apodiformes)." Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent): http://www.nescent.org

Thanks to National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128061/Bird_fossil_sheds_light_on_how_swift_and_hummingbird_flight_came_to_be

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Pathogen fighting 'innate' cells could revolutionize immunizations

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Immune cells in newborns appear to be more ready to do battle than previously thought.

New Cornell University research shows that small populations of preprogrammed immune cells can fight specific pathogens that they have never encountered. The findings, published in the Journal of Immunology, have the potential to revolutionize how and when people are immunized, researchers say. The study demonstrates a way to grow these cells, potentially transforming our approach to preventing infectious disease.

When first exposed to a new pathogen, the immune system takes up to a week to effectively respond, and up to a month to make specialized memory cells that remember how to fight it. The next time a body is exposed, these memory cells take care of it within hours. Scientists had thought memory cells only developed after exposure, but Avery August, professor of microbiology and immunology, and his lab had discovered small pre-existing, or innate, cell populations in 2008. Their defensive potential was unknown until the latest study found they act exactly like memory cells that learn from exposure.

"These fully functioning innate memory cells open amazing opportunities for improving how we immunize," said August, chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, who oversaw the study. "We've found a way to make millions of working memory cells without ever having to expose the body to a pathogen. If we can mobilize these cells to our advantage we can immunize much more quickly and eliminate the rare side effects of traditional vaccines."

Vaccines work by stimulating immune cells to "remember" a pathogen. For example, by exposing the body to a particular strain, a vaccine helps the immune system learn to respond to it. Making memory cells directly could eliminate that learning curve, letting people bypass booster shots and some slower-acting vaccines, August said. People going abroad could get immunizations the day before they travel instead of weeks in advance.

Our bodies normally have about 100 memory cells at birth, according to August's past research, but need about 100,000 to defend against the average invader. Using bone marrow chimeras, a specialized transplantation technique, the researchers were able to make 10 million. The study focused on memory cells designed to attack Listeria monocytogenes, bacteria that cause food poisoning, but August believes the model could be expanded to boost defenses against other infectious diseases.

"Theoretically we could generate memory cells for any kind of pathogen," said August. "It looks like our immune systems are already trying to do this. The existence of these premade memory cells suggests that, over evolutionary history, our immune systems are trying to anticipate the pathogens we'll face. Now we've found a way that could quickly help them along to improve immunities."

The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cornell University, via Newswise.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. W. Huang, J. Hu, A. August. Cutting Edge: Innate Memory CD8 T Cells Are Distinct from Homeostatic Expanded CD8 T Cells and Rapidly Respond to Primary Antigenic Stimuli. The Journal of Immunology, 2013; 190 (6): 2490 DOI: 10.4049/jimmunol.1202988

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/-gtzaZUM9eY/130430105958.htm

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Depression-era movie star Deanna Durbin dies

Celebrities

Randee Dawn TODAY contributor

22 minutes ago

Getty Images file

Deanna Durbin in 1940's "It's a Date."

She was a child star with a striking singing voice who retired from the business in her twenties, but Deanna Durbin, whose death at 91 was announced Tuesday, remained a beloved screen actress long after her star had faded.

The Deanna Durbin Society's newsletter announced her death, quoting her son Peter H. David, said the New York Times. He indicated that she died "a few days ago," but provided no other details. He also thanked fans for respecting her privacy.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1921, Durbin was a familiar face to the Depression-era audiences who flocked to movie houses. Signed to MGM at 13, she made her first film alongside Judy Garland in the 1936 short "Every Sunday." The oft-repeated story is that MGM head Louis B. Mayer, away on a trip, instructed his employees to "drop the fat one" from the studio's contract -- and they let Durbin go, but Mayer had meant Garland.

She was picked up at Universal and the subsequent success of her next films, including "Three Smart Girls" (and its two sequels) were credited with keeping the studio aloft. A 1936 nationwide search for the actor who would give her her first screen kiss made news, and Robert Stack was the actor chosen for "First Love."

By 1946 she was the second-highest paid woman in America, just $5,000 behind Bette Davis. At the height of her success she was so internationally-recognized that Anne Frank had her picture on the bedroom in the attic where she and her family lived; the photo still hangs today.

Durbin was often cast in musicals, and had a clear soprano that permitted her to cover a range from pop tunes to opera. Still, when she auditioned for the lead role in Disney's "Snow White," Walt Disney reportedly considered the then 15-year-old as sounding mature for the part. She recorded dozens of songs, including recreations of her movie tunes that were released commercially, and standards including "Love's Old Sweet Song" and "God Bless America."

Unfortunately, she had a harder time adjusting to the light, fluffy roles that had brought her early success; critics weren't happy to see her as a prostitute in 1944's "Christmas Holiday," for example. It also affected her personal relationships, and she divorced her husband of two years, director Vaughn Paul, in 1943. She was married twice more, to producer Felix Jackson and Charles David (director of "Lady on a Train"). Her union with David lasted from 1950 until 1999, when he died.

Durbin made her last film in 1948 ("For the Love of Mary") and retired to a French farmhouse with David, never again dipping her toes into Hollywood waters. She gave almost no interviews, but was quoted in the Times as having said "I hated being in a goldfish bowl."

A letter she sent reporters in 1958 read in part: "I was a typical 13-year-old American girl. The character I was forced into had little or nothing in common with myself -- or with other youth of my generation, for that matter. I could never believe that my contemporaries were my fans. They may have been impressed with my 'success.' But my fans were the parents, many of whom could not cope with their own youngsters. They sort of adopted me as their ?perfect? daughter.?

She added, "I was never happy making pictures. I?ve gained weight. I do my own shopping, bring up my two children and sing an hour every day."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/deanna-durbin-depression-era-film-heroine-singer-dead-91-6C9692845

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