IGT Is Betting Online Big-Time (The Motley Fool)

Slot-machine maker International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT - News) looks poised to jump on the bandwagon of companies that are increasing their stake in online gaming. The company plans to acquire Double Down Interactive, one of the biggest virtual casino operators on Facebook.

What's it all about?
Under this deal, IGT will pay $250 million in cash and $85 million in retention payments over the next two years. Additionally, IGT will pay up to $165 million to Double Down, depending on the latter's performance in the next three years.

All in all, this looks like a large amount to pay for a company the size of Double Down, but it's not as if IGT can't afford it. IGT generated over $400 million in free cash flow over the last year.

So is the cash worth it?
This deal will certainly broaden IGT's scope of operations. Already a seller of gaming equipment to casinos, it will now be able to sell virtual products to virtual casinos as well. Being the third-largest social gaming application, Double Down may well provide IGT with a valuable foothold in casino-style social gaming.

Double Down has significantly increased its user count, to 4.7 million now from 3.3 million in October last year, as it capitalizes on the rapidly growing online gaming industry. The industry in itself is expected to grow to $30 billion in 2012 from $20 billion in 2010. What I do like about the deal, however, is the exposure to a new and complementary set of gamers, which is sure to drive IGT's fiscal 2012 earnings. But there's another, larger aspect to it.

What's the catch?
The Double Down deal would mean that IGT is investing around $100 for each one of the former's roughly 5 million users. Now that's a lot of money, something that can be justified only if we consider the potential big bucks IGT can earn if online gambling is legalized. In fact, legalization of online poker would be a dream come true for the casino and gaming industries, something that may be fast becoming a reality as the Justice Department considers doing away with the ban on online gambling.

However, IGT isn't alone. Facebook game maker Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA - News) has about 30 million players for its online poker game and could be a great partner for a big branded casino. Industry titan MGM (NYSE: MGM - News) has already partnered with Bwin.Party, and Boyd Gaming and is likely putting pressure on other operators to get a foothold in the space while they still can. IGT could be in for a lot of trouble if an operator inks a deal with Zynga.

Stakes in online gambling will be lower than those at real casinos. Nevertheless, the company's exposure to a widespread online audience should create abundant volumes to push up revenue. Looking at it from that aspect, $500 million doesn't seem particularly extravagant to me, after all.

The Foolish bottom line
This deal could very well be IGT's royal flush. The company seems to be banking on potential revenue based on the expectations that online poker will be legalized. Till then, let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.

Stay tuned for more on this company's fortune. Add International Game Technology to your Watchlist: Click here.

Navjot Kaur does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Game Technology. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/fool/20120130/bs_fool_fool/rx177544

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Madonna says charity plans 10 schools in Malawi (AP)

NEW YORK ? Nearly six years after it was created, Madonna's Raising Malawi charity is set to break ground on the construction of schools in the impoverished country, but they will be run by the local community, not the superstar's organization.

According to organizers, work on the first school will start on March 30 in the Kasungu area, about 80 miles from the capital of Lilongwe, and all of the schools should be built by June 2013. Raising Malawi is providing $300,000 to the non-governmental organization buildOn to develop the schools. They'll serve about 1,000 boys and girls in the southern African nation.

"This remains a very big priority in my life and I am excited that with the help of buildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to move forward efficiently," Madonna said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

Raising Malawi had originally intended to build all-girls schools that the organization would run. But it faced several obstacles in its goal, including complaints from some local farmers that they had been moved off land that Raising Malawi intended to use for its mission. Raising Malawi also had difficulty getting title to the land and there were concerns about the high costs of construction.

The new plan calls for "simple structures" that will be more practical and better serve Raising Malawi's original mission, said Trevor Neilson, who is helping to direct the project as partner of the Global Philanthropy Group. The approach will allow the program to serve twice as many children as before, Madonna said.

"I have learned a great deal over the last few years and feel so much more confident that we can reach out goals to educate children in Malawi, especially young girls, in a much more efficient and practical way," she said. Madonna has adopted two children from Malawi.

BuildOn has already built more than 50 schools in Malawi and 427 schools worldwide.

"For schools to be successful, they need to have community ownership and leadership," Neilson said in an interview Friday. "Raising Malawi shouldn't be running schools in Malawi. Local communities in Malawi should be running those schools, so that's a big part of the shift."

BuildOn has been working in Malawi for almost 20 years, said spokeswoman Carrie Pena. The organization works closely with the community, and locals even volunteer the labor to build the schools, according to Pena.

"It's absolutely a community-owned school," she said.

Neilson praised Madonna for sticking with her plan to build schools for Malawi's children despite several setbacks for the star, who is the director of the new movie "W.E.," out next week, and is this year's Super Bowl performer. Madonna brought in Global Philanthropy to work with Raising Malawi more than a year ago and removed the involvement of the Kabbalah Centre. She has practiced Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism.

"When the previous management team had those problems, I think a lot of people thought Madonna would give up," Neilson said "It would have been understandable, but instead she's going to reaching twice as many kids."

___

Online:

http://www.raisingmalawi.org

http://www.buildon.org/

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_en_mu/us_people_madonna_malawi

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Video: Thompson, McCain full segment

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46180969#46180969

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Canon's president steps down as earnings outlook falters (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) ? Canon Inc said on Monday its president Tsuneji Uchida would step down and his role would be taken on by chairman and chief executive Fujio Mitarai after the camera and printer maker forecast much weaker-than-expected earnings growth for this year.

Like other Japanese exporters, Canon, which makes 80 percent of its revenue overseas, has been buffeted by the strong yen, a weak economic outlook and the floods in Thailand, although it has been quite aggressive in countering these challenges by cutting costs and increasing automation.

"Owing to the historically high valuation of the yen combined with the effects of the earthquake and floods, all of Canon's businesses faced extremely demanding conditions throughout the year," the company said in a statement.

Canon said Uchida would resign effective March 29, to be replaced by Mitarai, who served as president from 1995 to 2006 but has since held the post of chairman.

Canon forecast a full-year operating profit of 390 billion yen ($5.1 billion) for the current year to December 2012, below expectations of a 470 billion yen profit based on the average of 20 estimates by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company also posted a slightly better-than-forecast 14 percent rise in fourth-quarter operating profit to 94.6 billion yen, in line with consensus expectations.

Operating profit for the full year to December was 378.1 billion yen, down from 387.5 billion yen in the previous year but beating the average of 20 analyst forecasts for a profit of 372 billion yen.

Canon, which competes with Xerox in printers and Nikon and Sony Corp in cameras, aims to sell 9.2 million interchangeable lens cameras and 22 million compact cameras in the year to December, compared with 7.2 million and 18.7 million, respectively, last year.

Its shares have fallen about 18 percent since the start of last year, slightly worse than the benchmark Nikkei average's 14 percent drop.

Xerox lowered its outlook for 2012 this month, on expectations that the debt crisis in Europe would hurt its business.

($1 = 76.67 yen)

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Edwina Gibbs)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/bs_nm/us_canon_results

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Economy more worrying than Mideast for Florida Jews (Reuters)

AVENTURA, Florida (Reuters) ? Newt Gingrich describes the Palestinians as an invented people and seeks covert action against Iran, while Mitt Romney accuses President Barack Obama of throwing Israel under a bus.

But the Republican presidential candidates' tough talk on the Middle East in Florida before Tuesday's primary is doing little to sway the state's large Jewish population from its longstanding support for the Democrats.

If anything, it's Republican arguments on the U.S. economy - not Israel - that might win more favor with Jewish voters here come the general election in November.

"There has been, particularly among younger voters, a small shift toward the Republican Party in general," said Terri Susan Fine, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

She said there was some concern about Israel, but the larger reason was because some Jews see the Republican Party as more friendly to business.

"Economic conservativism is what is shifting their focus toward the Republican Party," she said. "Younger Jewish voters are very secure in Israel's stability."

Rabbi David Kaye of Congregation Ohev Shalom, a conservative temple north of Orlando, said members of his congregation were more concerned with economic issues in a state hard-hit by the housing crisis and one of the nation's highest unemployment rates.

"We still see that there's a lot of folks hurting," he said.

Jewish voters are also generally more liberal on social issues than the Republican candidates.

President Barack Obama received almost eight out of every 10 votes cast by Jewish voters in 2008. That overwhelming support among Florida's 640,000-member Jewish community, half of whom are over 65, was a key component in his narrow 3 percentage point victory in the swing state.

Jewish voters historically have been concerned with social justice and older voters especially have deep ties to the Democratic Party and labor movement going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency during the 1930s and earlier.

"It's part of our being - we are our brother's keeper," said Sydelle Sher, 79, of Delray Beach, a retired schoolteacher.

IRAN TENSIONS

But Sher, who attended a Gingrich rally last week, described herself as a fiscal conservative worried about the direction the country is going in under Obama.

"I fear the European-style socialism trend," she said, although she added that Israel policy is very important in her decision.

With tensions in the Middle East rising over Iran's nuclear ambitions, some Jewish Republicans wonder if the United States will stick by Israel.

Gloria Winton, 75, had harsh words for Obama on Israel as she headed into Mo's Bagels and Deli, near her home in Aventura, Florida. "I never thought before that Israel couldn't trust the United States. Now, I don't think that they can trust us," she said.

But she said she was leaning toward Romney, not Gingrich, because of Romney's more moderate tone. "I think (Gingrich is) very smart but I don't know if the independent voter would accept him," she said.

As they fight for their party's nomination, Romney and Gingrich have often seemed to compete over who can take the strongest pro-Israel line.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, drew 700 people to a rally on Friday sponsored by a Jewish Republican group, and both he and Romney count pro-Israel businessmen among their financial supporters.

Gingrich dismisses the Palestinians as an "invented people," and promises he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv as soon as he takes office.

Despite years of U.S.-led negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romney insists the Palestinians are not interested in living in their own nation alongside Israel, saying they want to destroy the Jewish state.

The former Massachusetts governor says Obama "threw Israel under the bus" for suggesting negotiations start with borders as they were before the 1967 Middle East war.

Democrats insist that Obama is not hostile to Israel, and call the Republicans' campaign a misleading and desperate attempt to make headway with an overwhelmingly Democratic voter bloc.

"Our ironclad commitment - and I meant ironclad - to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history," Obama said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Jewish voters typically account for 6-8 percent of turnout in Florida elections, and a lower percentage in Republican-only contests like Tuesday's primary, but they can make a difference if the vote is close.

Ira Sheskin, who runs the University of Miami's Jewish Demography Project, said statements like Gingrich's denial of the Palestinians' national identity could alienate the many Jewish voters whose main goal is Middle East peace.

"It was really not good for Gingrich to say that," Sheskin said. "Because if he becomes president, you want him to act as an honest broker in the Middle East. You don't do that if you've told one of the sides that they are an invented people."

"You won't advance the cause of peace."

(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny in Delray Beach; Editing by Alistair Bell and Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/us_nm/us_usa_campaign_jews

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Apple patent looks to create 'secure magnets' to unlock your device

It's an Apple patent application: please be aware this is unlikely to wind up in your next device, please fasten seat belts and fix your tray table in the fixed and upright position. Inside the bezel of your iDevice or Mac is a magnet that operates a switch -- that will only be activated when a "correlated" magnet inside a key-fob makes contact. That's the thinking behind Cupertino's newest patent application, attempting to turn magnets into a way of keeping your stuff secure. An example listed in the patent is using a stylus with specially encoded magnets to securely unlock an iPad, which we attribute to a zealous patent attorney and not a reversal of the "they blew it" rule. It may sound ridiculous when you first consider it, but given the magnetic-activation of the iPad 2's smart cover, it's not as outlandish as you believe. Still, we'll believe it if we see it in a couple of years.

Apple patent looks to create 'secure magnets' to unlock your device originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Patently Apple  |  USPTO  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/28/apple-secure-magnet-patent/

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Freedom 7 Mercury Capsule, Flown by 1st American in Space, Heads to Boston, D.C. (SPACE.com)

The capsule that launched the first American into space more than 50 years ago will soon be moved from Maryland to Massachusetts, before ultimately landing in Washington, D.C. in 2016.

Freedom 7, the Mercury spacecraft that NASA astronaut Alan Shepard rode on a 15-minute suborbital flight on May 5, 1961, is leaving the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where it has been on display since December 1998. Shepard, who died earlier that same year, graduated from the academy in 1945.

The Naval Academy announced the spacecraft's pending departure on Jan. 18, promoting the "last chance" for the public to see the capsule on display at its Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center. Freedom 7 is expected to leave Annapolis in late February, according to an academy spokesperson.

On loan from the Smithsonian Institution, the capsule is departing the Naval Academy to be displayed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum at Columbia Point in Boston, Mass.

"A plan for loaning [Freedom 7] to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston is being developed," the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum said in a statement. [Photos: The Flight of Freedom 7]

Less than a month after the flight of Freedom 7, Kennedy challenged the nation to "commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Shepard later became the fifth man to walk on the moon.

Freedom 7's arrival at the library will mark the second time a Mercury spacecraft has visited Massachusetts. In 2002, Liberty Bell 7, which followed Freedom 7 into space, was displayed at the Museum of Science in Boston.

Long-range plan

Like Liberty Bell 7, the JFK Library's exhibit of Freedom 7 will be temporary.

"The National Air and Space Museum is working on a long range plan for exhibiting the Mercury Freedom 7 capsule," the museum explained in a statement. "The plan includes placement of the artifact in a major new gallery which is expected to open in the museum's Washington building in 2016."

The National Air and Space Museum plans for Freedom 7 to be a part of a "new Apollo gallery for a new generation." Replacing the "Apollo to the Moon" exhibition room, which opened with the museum in 1976, the new gallery "will tell the story of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, going from nothing to six landings on the Moon in only 14 years ? only eight years and two months from Kennedy's challenge to successfully landing."

The new gallery will highlight artifacts from the museum's collection, including Freedom 7, while adding "new content for a whole generation of people who grew up after Apollo was over."

Mercury museums

The Air and Space Museum currently displays Friendship 7, the Mercury capsule that launched John Glenn on the United States' first orbital mission in February 1962, in its "Milestones of Flight" gallery. The museum's annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, has "Freedom 7 II," the Mercury capsule that Shepard had hoped to fly for his second flight before the mission was canceled.

Three other flown Mercury spacecraft are on loan from the Smithsonian to museums around the country, including the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida, Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in Illinois, and at Space Center Houston in Texas.

The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center displays the Liberty Bell 7. In 1999, the museum recovered the sunken spacecraft from the ocean floor.

NASA gave Freedom 7 to the Smithsonian five months after it flew to be the first manned spacecraft added to the National Collection. Prior it going to the Naval Academy in 1998, the capsule was on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and Twitter @collectSPACE and editor Robert Pearlman @robertpearlman. Copyright 2011?collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120128/sc_space/freedom7mercurycapsuleflownby1stamericaninspaceheadstobostondc

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Twitter may censor tweets in individual countries (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or "tweets," remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweet containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed. That's similar to what Internet search leader Google Inc. has been doing for years when a law in a country where its service operates requires a search result to be removed.

Like Google, Twitter also plans to the share the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the chillingeffects.org website.

The similarity to Google's policy isn't coincidental. Twitter's general counsel is Alexander Macgillivray, who helped Google draw up its censorship policies while he was working at that company.

"One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user's voice," Twitter wrote in a blog post. "We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't. The tweets must continue to flow."

Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, is tweaking its approach now that its nearly 6-year-old service has established itself as one of the world's most powerful megaphones. Daisy chains of tweets already have played instrumental roles in political protests throughout the world, most notably in the uprising that overthrew Egypt's government a year ago.

It's a role that Twitter has embraced, but the company came up with the new filtering technology in recognition that it will likely be forced to censor more tweets as it pursues an ambitious agenda. Among other things, Twitter wants to expand its audience from about 100 million active uses now, to more than 1 billion.

Reaching that goal will require expanding into more countries, which will mean Twitter will be more likely to have to submit to laws that run counter to the free-expression protections guaranteed under the First Amendment in the U.S.

If Twitter defies a law in a country where it has employees, those people could be arrested. That's one reason Twitter is unlikely to try to enter China, where its service is currently block. Google for several years agreed to censor its search results in China to gain better access to the country's vast population, but stopped that practice two years after engaging in a high-profile showdown with Chain's government. Google now routes its Chinese search results through Hong Kong, where the censorship rules are less restrictive.

In its Thursday blog post, Twitter said it hadn't yet used its ability to wipe out tweets in an individual country. All the tweets it has previously censored were wiped out throughout the world. Most of those included links to child pornography.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_hi_te/us_twitter_censorship

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Obama to propose tax credit for natgas trucks (reuters)

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

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Citizen Scientists Study Whale Songs: Years of Work Done in Months

Pilot Whale wearing sound-recording tag. Credit: Daniel Ottmann; photo was taken taken as part of research conducted under permit 14241 issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.

In November 2011, Scientific American, Zooniverse and a team of research partners launched the Web site Whale.FM, a citizen-science project devoted to cataloging the calls made by Pilot whales and Killer whales (Orcas), both of which are actually dolphin species. Different whale families have their own dialects and closely related families share calls. Underwater microphones, called hydrophones, typically attached by suction cups to the whales, record the haunting and lovely sounds. Cataloging calls is a step in learning more about the communication of these magnificent marine mammals.

So far, more than 5,000 Whale.FM visitors (including yours truly) have matched a total of more than 100,000 calls. The task is simple and fun?my daughters (ages 11 and 15) like to match calls with me. (The 11-year-old is pretty good at imitating the calls herself.) How it works: You listen to a call and see a spectrogram, a visualization of the sounds. Then you listen to several others that are displayed on the screen and see if you can select a match.

A question that has come up often about citizen-science projects is, How accurate are the data? Our friends at Zooniverse just did a spot check, using a subset of 300 of the calls. As Robert Simpson of Zooniverse put it in a note, ?We?ve compared their call categories to the (very!) preliminary results from Whale FM and it seems that the users are picking out good matches that tally with those of professionals.??? They located 28 subset-to-subset call pairings. A total of 25 of these were matched with calls from the same call category, as defined by professional scientists. Even more exciting, there were more than 350 pairings with calls outside of the 300-call subset?which is an important reason to do Whale.FM.

Whale families share dialects. Credit: Leigh Hickman, Open Ocean Consulting; photo was taken taken as part of research conducted under permit 14241 issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.

One thing is also certain: Whale.FM already has produced the equivalent of years of cataloguing work by scientists in just a couple of months. Although there?s still more work to do, that?s an achievement worth singing about. For more information about other projects in which you can help scientists conduct research, please check out Scientific American?s Citizen Science page.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=7c641213830c497056a83c3455f0f198

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A slim race for best original song at the Oscars (AP)

NEW YORK ? The race for the best original song Oscar is a slim one with two songs up for the honor, a first for the Academy Awards.

Sergio Mendes' "Real In Rio" from the animated adventure "Rio" will compete with Bret McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets," despite having songs from a bevy of all-star musicians like Elton John, Mary J. Blige, will.i.am and Pink in contention for nomination.

Charles Bernstein, the former chairman of the Academy Awards' music branch, says he "personally was surprised" that only two songs are up for the honor.

In the past, the number of nominees for best original song has ranged from three to 14. Only up to five songs are eligible for nomination.

"I personally felt that there may have been more than two that I personally would have championed," he said in an interview after the Oscars nominations were announced Tuesday. "But it is a majority vote situation."

This year, 39 songs were eligible for nomination for best original song, including tracks from Brad Paisley, Robbie Williams, The National, Zooey Deschanel, Zac Brown, Chris Cornell and others.

Members of the music branch can rank songs using 10, 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7, 6.5 or 6, and a song must have at least an average score of 8.25 to be nominated. If only one song gets that score, it and the song receiving the next highest score will be the two nominees.

Since two songs were nominated, it could mean that voters were unimpressed with this year's contenders.

"Each person is voting on a subjective impression ... so you'd have to go into the head of each individual voter to kind of know what it was that made them feel that any given song was or wasn't award-worthy," Bernstein said.

Bernstein also stressed that the songs "have to be written for the picture, and the judgment of its quality has a great deal to do with how it functions in the movie as well as how well written it is."

Bernstein, who did vote in the category, wouldn't say how many people voted this year, but did say that the rules for each Academy Award are carefully observed each year. He says the music branch will most likely take a closer look at the requirements for best original song after this year's results.

"It's very likely because there were two this year that the rules committee will probably take another look at it next year and make sure it wants to continue the same rules," he said.

Madonna's "Masterpiece," which won the Golden Globe for best original song and is from her directorial effort "W.E.," was not eligible for an Academy Award because "the song does not occur either in the body of the film, or as the first song at the end of the film," Bernstein said.

Mendes, who shares his nomination with Siedah Garrett and Carlinhos Brown, says "Rio" director Carlos Saldanha delivered the good news to him.

"I don't know much about the voting process really. I'm not an expert in that, but I'm so happy about me being nominated," Mendes said Tuesday afternoon. "I don't really know the criteria, but I can only think about celebrating."

____

Online:

http://oscar.go.com/

____

Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/musicmesfin

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_en_mu/us_oscar_nominations_best_original_song

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Solar storm sends charged particles toward Earth

A massive explosion on the sun's surface has triggered the largest solar radiation storm since 2005 and has unleashed a torrent of charged plasma particles toward Earth, though the threat to satellites, power grids and other high-tech hardware is believed to be manageable, scientists said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected a solar flare Sunday night that peaked at 7:59 p.m. Pacific time. NOAA satellites traced the bright flash of X-ray light to an area on the sun's surface known as region 1402 ? the same area that had produced a weaker flare Thursday. A coronal mass ejection ? which can hurl billions of tons of plasma up to 5 million mph ? quickly followed.

Radiation from the explosion arrived at Earth within hours of the flash, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. A burst of charged plasma particles is expected to reach Earth by 6 a.m. Tuesday. That charged plasma is traveling uncommonly fast, making the 93-million-mile trip to Earth in about 34 hours, rather than taking two or more days, as is usually the case, Biesecker said.

Sunday's radiation storm is the strongest since May 2005, when another happened that was perhaps 10% larger, Biesecker said. Based on the amount of radiation emitted, both storms measure about a three on a scale of one to five.

While the plasma may cause otherworldly displays of light and color in some parts of the sky Tuesday night, the bombardment of energetic particles can wreak havoc on Earth ? potentially downing GPS systems, wiping out power grids, destroying sensitive satellite equipment in orbit and exposing astronauts to fatal doses of radiation.

As a precaution Monday, some flights were rerouted around polar regions, where the flash flood of charged plasma particles may interfere with navigation systems. Others flew at lower altitudes to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.

Though it had been more than six years since the last storm of this magnitude, storms of this size are expected to become more frequent as a period of peak solar activity approaches in 2013.

"As we ramp up to the solar maximum next year, this sort of storm will become normal," Biesecker said.

Scientists still don't know how to predict these solar events ? which is a problem because they deliver a triple threat to technology on Earth, said Stanford solar astronomer Todd Hoeksema.

X-rays traveling at the speed of light hit the Earth in about eight minutes. These can interfere with radio communications.

A burst of radiation traveling at near-light speeds begins pelting Earth 20 minutes to an hour later. This radiation causes what are known as "single event upsets." Essentially, a high-energy proton traveling through a satellite can interfere with the charges in the silicon-based hardware, which can cause it to spit out spurious signals.

The third and final attack comes from the burst of charged particles that affects Earth's magnetosphere, potentially interfering with airplane navigation systems. This particular worry is expected to force rerouting of some flights during the storm.

These are not hypothetical fears, Biesecker said. For example, the infamous October 2003 "Halloween storm" took out Japan's ADEOS-II spacecraft, among other victims, causing the approximately $600-million satellite to fail less than a year after its launch.

"With all the technology of our advanced civilization, solar storms can have significant effects on communication, power, things like that," said UC Berkeley physicist Robert Lin. "The really big ones can have an enormous effect on space weather on the Earth."

But most satellites built today should be relatively safe from mid-level storms such as the current one, said NOAA research scientist Juan Rodriguez. Modern satellites are built to withstand space weather as severe as a 1989 storm that caused a massive power outage in Canada's Quebec province.

That said, those looking for a light show Tuesday night might be in for a treat. The aurora borealis probably won't be visible in Los Angeles, Rodriguez said, "but in Canada, maybe in the northern United States, it's a pretty amazing sight."

amina.khan@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/1jrtOJgNY7E/la-sci-solar-flare-20120124,0,2353551.story

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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Cocoa could prevent intestinal pathologies such as colon cancer

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

A new study on living animals has shown for the first time that eating cocoa (the raw material in chocolate) can help to prevent intestinal complaints linked to oxidative stress, including colon carcinogenesis onset caused by chemical substances.

The growing interest amongst the scientific community to identify those foods capable of preventing diseases has now categorized cocoa as a 'superfood'. It has been recognised as an excellent source of phytochemical compounds, which offer potential health benefits.

Headed by scientists from the Institute of Food Science and Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN) and recently published in the Molecular Nutrition & Food Research journal, the new study supports this idea and upholds that cacao consumption helps to prevent intestinal complaints linked to oxidative stress, such as the onset of chemically induced colon carcinogenesis.

"Being exposed to different poisons in the diet like toxins, mutagens and procarcinogens, the intestinal mucus is very susceptible to pathologies," explains Mar?a ?ngeles Mart?n Arribas, lead author of the study and researcher at ICTAN. She adds that "foods like cocoa, which is rich in polyphenols, seems to play an important role in protecting against disease."

The study on live animals (rats) has for the first time confirmed the potential protection effect that flavonoids in cocoa have against colon cancer onset. For eight weeks the authors of the study fed the rats with a cocoa-rich (12%) diet and carcinogenesis was induced.

Possible protection

Doctor Mart?n Arribas outlines that "four weeks after being administered with the chemical compound azoxymethane (AOM), intestinal mucus from premalignant neoplastic lesions appeared. These lesions are called 'aberrant crypt foci' and are considered to be good markers of colon cancer pathogenesis."

The results of the study showed that the rats fed a cocoa-rich diet had a significantly reduced number of aberrant crypts in the colon induced by the carcinogen. Likewise, this sample saw an improvement in their endogenous antioxidant defences and a decrease in the markers of oxidative damage induced by the toxic compound in this cell.

The researchers conclude that the protection effect of cocoa can stop cell-signalling pathways involved in cell proliferation and, therefore, subsequent neoplasty and tumour formation. Lastly, the animals fed with the cocoa-rich diet showed an increase in apoptosis or programmed cell death as a chemoprevention mechanism against the development of the carcinogenesis.

Although more research is required to determine what bioactive compounds in cocoa are responsible for such effects, the authors conclude that a cocoa-rich diet seems capable of reducing induced oxidative stress. It could also have protection properties in the initial stages of colon cancer as it reduces premalignant neoplastic lesion formation.

A not-so-guilty pleasure

Cocoa is one of the ingredients in chocolate. It is one of the richest foods in phenolic compounds, mainly in flavonoids like procyanidins, catechins and epicatechins, which have numerous beneficial biological activities in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and cancer (mainly colorectal cancer).

In fact, compared to other foods with a high flavonoid content, cocoa has a high level of procyanidins with limited bioavailability. These flavonoids are therefore found in their highest concentrations in the intestine where they neutralise many oxidants.

###

ldefonso Rodr?guez-Ramiro, Sonia Ramos, Elvira L?pez-Oliva, Angel Agis-Torres, Miren G?mez-Juaristi, Raquel Mateos, Laura Bravo, Luis Goya, Mar?a ?ngeles Mart?n. "Cocoa-rich diet prevents azoxymethane-induced colonic preneoplastic lesions in rats by restraining oxidative stress and cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis". Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, 55:1895-1899, diciembre de 2011. DOI 10.1002/mnfr.201100363.

FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology: http://www.fecyt.es/fecyt/home.do

Thanks to FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology 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/116996/Cocoa_could_prevent_intestinal_pathologies_such_as_colon_cancer

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Obama Administration: U.S. Oil Production Highest Since 2003 (ContributorNetwork)

According to a news release posted at the U.S. Department of Energy's website and that of the White House, domestic energy production is the highest it has been since 2003 and the Obama Administration has been active in other energy policies. Here are the details by the numbers.

90,000: More barrels each day of crude oil were produced in the U.S. in 2011 than in 2010.

7.4: Percent that natural gas production grew in the U.S. in 2011 -- the largest year-over-year volumetric increase ever reported.

45: Percent net oil imports in 2011 was the lowest percentage of oil imports to the U.S. since 1995.

338 million: Dollars in total bids from the December oil and gas lease sale held in the Gulf of Mexico. The sale was the first held since the oil spill.

54.5: Miles per gallon fuel standards will be required for model 2017 to 2025 passenger vehicles, the Obama administration announced in January. The administration expects that this increased vehicle performance will save Americans $1.7 trillion over the life of the program.

2.2 million: Fewer barrels of oil a day will be consumed in the U.S. by 2025 due to the fuel economy standards, the administration says, saving 12 billion barrels total over the life of the program.

$90 billion: The Recovery Act invested in clean energy.

40: Clean energy projects have received funding by the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program.

20: Percent increase in Bureau of Land Management onshore oil and gas lease sales revenue in 2011 over 2010, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

256 million: Dollars from the 32 onshore oil and gas lease sales that took place in 2011, offering 1,755 parcels of land over 4.4 million acres. Of those offerings, the DOI reported, 1,296 parcels were sold.

36: Percent BLM oil and gas leases in 2011 were protested -- a decrease from the 47 percent that were protested in 2009.

32: Additional oil and gas lease sales on public lands will be held in 2012, the DOI reported, offering "thousands of parcels in California, Colorado, the Eastern States, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120122/pl_ac/10866277_obama_administration_us_oil_production_highest_since2003

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PSU editor quits after erroneous Paterno report (AP)

PHILADELPHIA ? The managing editor of a student-run news organization that covers Penn State resigned Saturday after the publication's Twitter account sent messages saying former coach Joe Paterno had died, according to a letter on the publication's website.

Paterno's sons refuted accounts of their 85-year-old father's death in Twitter messages posted after those by Onward State.

"I appreciate the support & prayers. Joe is continuing to fight," Jay Paterno tweeted.

Paterno has lung cancer and has been in a hospital since Jan. 13. His doctors say recent complications have made his condition "serious."

Onward State recanted its posts but not before the erroneous information was reported and amplified by many media organizations across the country and retweeted countless times. The Associated Press did not publish the report.

Devon Edwards said in the letter that he takes responsibility for the misinformation. He said the publication retracted its tweets after "the mountain of evidence stacked opposite that report became too much to ignore." He also apologized to the Paterno family and the Penn State community.

"I never, in a million years, would have thought that Onward State might be cited by the national media," his letter said. "Today, I sincerely wish it never had been."

The incorrect information found its way onto media websites, including CBSSports.com, People.com and the Huffington Post.

CBSSports.com had run a photo of Paterno with a caption saying the longtime Penn State coach "loses his battle with lung cancer at 85." The blurb did not include the source of the information.

In an apology on its site, CBSSports.com said the mistake "was the result of a failure to verify the original report. CBSSports.com holds itself to high journalistic standards, and in this circumstance tonight, we fell well short of those expectations."

Last January, several media organizations erroneously reported that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died after being shot in the head during a public event in Arizona.

Edwards did not explain in his letter how the error occurred but hinted that the pressure to get the story first may have been a factor.

"In this day and age, getting it first often conflicts with getting it right, but our intention was never to fall into that chasm," the letter said. "All I can do now is promise that in the future, we will exercise caution, restraint, and humility."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_sp_ot/us_penn_state_paterno_editor_resigns

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Dramatic Turnaround (talking-points-memo)

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High levels of MRSA bacteria in U.S. retail meat products, study suggests

ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2012) ? Retail pork products in the U.S. have a higher prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (MRSA) than previously identified, according to new research by the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

MRSA can occur in the environment and in raw meat products, and is estimated to cause around 185,000 cases of food poisoning each year. The bacteria can also cause serious, life-threatening infections of the bloodstream, skin, lungs and other organs. MRSA is resistant to a number of antibiotics.

The study, published Jan. 19 in the online science journal PLoS ONE, represents the largest sampling of raw meat products for MRSA contamination to date in the U.S. The researchers collected 395 raw pork samples from 36 stores in Iowa, Minnesota and New Jersey. Of these samples, 26 -- or about 7 percent -- carried MRSA.

"This study shows that the meat we buy in our grocery stores has a higher prevalence of staph than we originally thought," says lead study author Tara Smith, Ph.D., interim director of the UI Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases and assistant professor of epidemiology. "With this knowledge, we can start to recommend safer ways to handle raw meat products to make it safer for the consumer."

The study also found no significant difference in MRSA contamination between conventional pork products and those raised without antibiotics or antibiotic growth promotants.

"We were surprised to see no significant difference in antibiotic-free and conventionally produced pork," Smith says. "Though it's possible that this finding has more to do with the handling of the raw meat at the plant than the way the animals were raised, it's certainly worth exploring further."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Iowa, 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. Ashley M. O'Brien, Blake M. Hanson, Sarah A. Farina, James Y. Wu, Jacob E. Simmering, Shylo E. Wardyn, Brett M. Forshey, Marie E. Kulick, David B. Wallinga, Tara C. Smith. MRSA in Conventional and Alternative Retail Pork Products. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (1): e30092 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030092

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://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120120182427.htm

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Sundance Film Fest opens with 4 films, new snow (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? A fresh dusting of snow over Park City heralded the beginning of the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday.

Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford opened the festival by characterizing the slate of 117 feature films as products of "dark and grim" times and the "suffering from a government that's in paralysis."

"Even though the work reflects hard times, there's not paralysis here," the 75-year-old filmmaker said at an afternoon news conference. "They're breathing life into fresh, new stories."

The selection of films are "as diverse as they can be" and no overriding theme has emerged, said festival director John Cooper.

"Independent film is the theme," he said.

For 11 days every January, Sundance becomes the focal point of the independent film world as established directors and stars mix with up-and-coming talent, while theatrical distributors prowl the festival looking for the next indie hit, and film lovers just have a good time being the first audiences to see new movies.

"You can't make a film with a festival in mind, and it's not something I would have expected or taken for granted. But it's always kind of the dream in the back of your mind," said Lauren Greenfield, who premiered her debut documentary "Thin" at Sundance in 2006 and returns this time with one of the opening-night films, "The Queen of Versailles," chronicling the housing-bust story of a couple that tried to build a palatial 90,000-square-foot mansion.

"I think it's this really magical environment, a place that's such a nurturing, supportive influence for independent films. Even when you're out there making your film, I think that you think about Sundance, and it just kind of gives you motivation."

Also opening Thursday is "Hello I Must Be Going," actor-turned-director Todd Louiso's U.S. dramatic entry that centers on a love story between a 19-year-old man and a 35-year-old divorcee, and stars Melanie Lynskey; the world-cinema drama "Wish You Were Here," a dark story of a vacation gone wrong from Australian filmmaker Kieran Darcy-Smith that stars Joel Edgerton and Teresa Palmer; and Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul's world-cinema documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," a portrait of promising 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez and his fade into obscurity.

Sundance also is a launch place for films that already have distributors, who show off their films hoping to build buzz among audiences and the legions of cinema journalists and bloggers who attend the festival.

"All the film press in North America is at Sundance to discover films," said Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, which is showing director Nadine Labaki's Lebanese drama "Where Do We Go Now?" and Gareth Huw Evans' Indonesian action tale "The Raid" at the festival. "Sundance is like the best place to set up a film for release. You have instant press junkets at Sundance."

Among the more established filmmakers showcasing their work at the festival are Spike Lee with his urban drama "Red Hook Summer," in which he reprises the character he played in "Do the Right Thing"; Stephen Frears with his sports-wagering caper "Lay the Favorite," starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rebecca Hall; documentary veteran Joe Berlinger with his Paul Simon portrait "Under African Skies"; and Julie Delpy with her relationship comedy "2 Days in New York," in which she stars with Chris Rock.

The Sundance Film Festival has grown tremendously over its 28 years, but Redford said the institute's mission remains the same: to support and encourage independent filmmakers and provide a platform for their work to be seen.

"There are those people who say, `Why give money to art? It means nothing,'" Redford said. "I think it means a lot. And we're here to try and prove how much it does mean. So we can only do what we can do, but we're going to keep doing it.

The Sundance Film Festival continues through Jan. 29.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter at http:// www.twitter.com/APSandy. AP Movie Writer David Germain contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org/festival

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_en_mo/us_film_sundance

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95% Pina

All Critics (60) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (57) | Rotten (3) | DVD (1)

What the filmmaker has created is an inspired simulacrum - a jewel-box that contains more of Bausch's kinetic soul than film has any right to.

Crane and steadycam allow Wenders to get so close to the action that in the minimalist Caf? M?ller, one's illusion of being on stage is uncanny.

"Pina"is the best possible tribute to Bausch, and to adventurous image-making.

I watched the film in a sort of reverie.

Whether you're familiar with Pina Bausch's work or not, the new film "Pina" is a knockout.

So this is what 3-D is capable of when used for art rather than the commerce of hiking ticket prices and repurposing cartoons!

An exhilarating experience, both in its celebration of Bausch's groundbreaking work and in the thrilling way that Wenders captures it on camera.

It's not an overview of Bausch's career or a statement on her art, but a celebration of her work and the dancers who bring it to life.

This is a stunning film, a glorious homage to modern dance and one of its premier authors and the best justification of 3D technology to date.

With a breakout use of 3D for artistic rather than solely commercial blockbuster purposes, German director Wim Wenders gives extraordinary life to the work of choreographer Pina Bausch.

From the hauntingly beautiful to the scary, Pina Bausch's post-modern dance sparkles in 3D.

It's an enchanting film, one that makes you feel you are missing something dear if you don't dance or appreciate it as an art form.

An often exhilarating, lively, magical and breathtaking experience of Pina Bausch's art.

A welcome departure from the by-the-numbers fossilization in today's documentary deluge.

Thanks to 3D technology it's dance film quite unlike any other, which was filmmaker Wim Wenders' intention, and it's a transporting experience for the uninitiated and the cognoscenti alike.

...filmmaking as glorious music.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pina_3d/

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Iranian lawmaker: Obama proposed talks; US denies (AP)

TEHRAN, Iran ? An Iranian lawmaker claimed Wednesday that President Barack Obama called for direct talks with Iran in a secret letter to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader that also warned Tehran against closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Obama administration officials denied there was such a letter.

Iran has threatened to close the waterway, the route for about one-sixth of the global oil flow, because of new U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program.

Conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari revealed the content of the letter days after the Obama administration said it was warning Iran through public and private channels against any action that threatens the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.

"In the letter, Obama called for direct talks with Iran," the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Motahari as saying Wednesday. "The letter also said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is (Washington's) red line."

"The first part of the letter contains threats and the second part contains an offer for dialogue," he added.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast confirmed that Tehran received the letter and was considering a possible response.

In Washington, an Obama administration official denied that Obama sent a letter to Khamanei, saying communication of U.S. views were being delivered through other diplomatic messages. The official would give no further details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor pointed to earlier comments from the Obama administration that noted the U.S. had a number of ways to communicate its views to the Iranian government. He said the U.S. remained committed to engaging with Tehran and finding a diplomatic solution to its larger issues with Iran's nuclear program.

Spokesmen have been vague on what the United States would do about Iran's threat to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but military officials have been clear that the U.S. is readying for a possible naval clash.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the country's most powerful military force, says Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the oil route if Iran's oil exports are blocked. A senior Guard officer said earlier this month that the decision has been made by Iran's top authorities.

Iranian politicians have made the threat in the past, but this was the strongest statement yet that a closure of the strait is official policy.

Iran's regular army recently held naval war games near the vital waterway that were described by hard-liners as part of preparations to close the strait if sanctions are imposed. The Guard is planning major naval military exercises next month in the same region.

The U.S. last month enacted new sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad over Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months, worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy is struggling.

Closing the strait would have immense world economic impact. Iran is OPEC's second largest oil producer, and oil exports account for 80 percent of Iran's foreign currency income. To Tehran, an oil embargo would be tantamount to a declaration of war that could provoke the Iranian leadership to block the Hormuz strait.

At issue is Iran's nuclear program. The U.S., Israel and others charge that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Their case was bolstered by a report from the International Atomic Energy late last year, citing evidence that Iran was employing methods and equipment used in making bombs.

Iran has consistently denied that, saying its nuclear program is peaceful, aimed at producing electric power and isotopes for cancer treatment.

___

Associated Press writer Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us

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Apple iBooks 2 textbooks video walkthrough and screenshots (hands-on)

We had a few minutes to browse through iBooks 2 textbooks following Apple's press conference this morning, but now we have a fully-loaded iPad 2 to play with, so we decided to spend some more time getting educated in the comfort of our in-house studio. You already had a chance to get familiar with the new app and associated media earlier today, so this time it's all about the visuals. Browse through the galley below as we explore Life on Earth before taking a front seat in Biology and getting our hands dirty with Frog Dissection. And if you're feeling brave, there's a juicy video walkthrough just past the break.

Gallery: Apple iBooks 2 screenshots

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