LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made his first public appearance since the announcement that he and his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, had separated.
Speaking Tuesday night at a Los Angeles event marking Israeli independence, Schwarzenegger thanked friends and family for an outpouring of …
The Pakistani Taliban staged a public execution in front of hundreds of tribesmen in the country's northwest Tuesday after an Islamic court convicted the man of killing two brothers, intelligence officials and a local resident said.
The execution illustrated the level of militant control in North Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border that the U.S. has long pushed Pakistan to target. Many Islamist militants use North Waziristan as a base to launch attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The man who was executed Tuesday was caught by the Taliban minutes after he killed the brothers two weeks ago in Miran Shah, the main town in North …
Selina Midkiff, center, and members of the Appalachian Children'sChorus take time out for a photo when they arrived at Waikiki, Hawaiifor the Pacific Rim Children's Chorus Festival, an eight-day eventthat included 13 other choirs from the United States and Canada. Inaddition to learning how to …
Kobe Bryant asked to be traded last spring in part because he wanted to play for a team that could contend for a championship. He just might have gotten his wish by staying put.
Bryant scored 26 of his 38 points in the second half, Andrew Bynum had a career-high 28 points to go with 12 rebounds and a season-high four assists, and the Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns 122-115 on Tuesday for their ninth win in 11 games.
The victory lifted the Lakers (18-10) to a season-high eight games over .500 and within one game of the Pacific Division-leading Suns (19-9), who lost for the fifth time in eight games.
Bryant, who complained about a lack of talent …
The New York City medical examiner's office says DJ AM's death was accidental. It blames a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs and cocaine.
The toxicology report released Tuesday shows the 36-year-old had cocaine, OxyContin, Benadryl and another drug used to cut cocaine in his system.
The medical examiner says the death was acute intoxication.
…
Anna C. Willens, 94, a philanthropist and retired businessexecutive, died Friday in Skokie Valley Hospital.
Mrs. Willens operated Willens Printing Corp. in Chicago withher husband for 40 years. She retired in 1965.
She had been treasurer of the Sisterhood of Congregation AnsheEmmet, Chicago, secretary at Temple …
DUBLIN, Ohio - Wendy's International Inc. said changes meant to improve performance at its restaurants is paying off, but that a decision about the possible sale of the nation's third-largest hamburger chain is taking longer than expected.
"It's a complicated process. I know you'd like to hear more, but the board's special committee is following a very disciplined approach," Wendy's Chief Financial Officer Jay Fitzsimmons said Friday on a conference call to discuss the company's third-quarter results, released Thursday.
Wendy's reported its third-quarter earnings fell 57 percent from a year ago, before it spun off the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain. But its results …
The former top executive of American International Group Inc. plundered an AIG retirement program of billions of dollars because he was angry at being forced out of the company, a lawyer for AIG told jurors Monday at the start of a civil trial. Attorney Theodore Wells told the jury in Manhattan that former AIG Chief Executive Officer Maurice "Hank" Greenberg improperly took $4.3 billion in stock from the company in 2005, after he was ousted by the company amid investigations of accounting irregularities.
"Hank Greenberg was mad. He was angry," Wells said in U.S. District Court of the emotional state of the man who, over a 35-year-career, built AIG from …
Traveling the Fox River trail corridor leads to a gentleforgetfulness not only of suburban sprawl, but also of age, as itrestores the pace of long summer days of childhood.
But plans for more bridges, more riverboat casinos and moredevelopment along the Fox could change this character, according tosome of the naturalists and environmental advocates who have foughtto preserve it.
"What you have here is a corridor of habitat not only for humans. . . but for wildlife," said Pat Reese, executive director of theFriends of the Fox River, an environmental advocacy group, during abike trip from Elgin to Algonquin. The corridor serves as amigratory link for both plants …
PARIS (AP) — Sounding like a stuck record by a lovesick crooner, but repellently sour not sweet, Jose Mourinho wailed why, oh, why? In the warped view of Real Madrid's coach, the dice are stacked in Barcelona's favor. "They have got great power. The rest of us have no chance," he said.
And some of Europe's most respected referees — Mourinho rattled off the names of several of them — are seemingly part of some kind of pro-Barca plot.
Well, Jose, here's the real question: Why are you such a bad loser?
There is simply no excuse for it, and UEFA should now make it painfully clear that his hinted-at conspiracy theories, his mutterings of "scandalous goings-on" and suggestion …
Nine young men who formed a neo-Nazi group and killed six non-Slavs were sentenced to prison Thursday, as Russia officials battle a surge in racist assaults, hate crimes and xenophobia.
The Moscow City Court said in a statement that 12 mostly underage neo-Nazis who called themselves "White Wolves" were charged with committing 11 murders and one assault since April 2007. A jury found nine of them guilty of six murders and one assault.
The group was formed on Adolf Hitler's birthday to "exterminate" non-Russians and was active until early 2009, when its members were arrested.
They preyed on Central Asians and other non-Slavs …
At the Four Seasons Hotel, the board welcomed 425 women forcocktails, luncheon and a brief talk by Mirabella. She is thefounder of Mirabella magazine, which she has directed since 1989.
Guests were also reminded of another first: The Woman's Boardfashion show will be held on Sept. 27 at the Medinah Temple. BrendaDick is chairwoman of the first show.
Mirabella, the former editor of Vogue …
Michael Palij. The Ukrainian-Polish Defensive Alliance, 1919-1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution. Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1995. viii, 391 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $44.95, cloth.
Perhaps, the clearest evidence of Michael Palij's admirable efforts to reconstruct Ukrainian-Polish relations during the revolutionary period is the fact that the endnotes, bibliography and index compose almost half of his book. In that not too distant past, difficult for the younger historians to recall, when Ukrainian and Polish archives were closed to foreigners, Palij did almost all imaginable to get around the silent archives, compiling an exhaustive list of published sources on his topic. Thus, his finished work is not only the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Petliura-Pilsudski alliance and will also serve as a great bibliographic resource on many aspects of the Ukrainian Revolution and Ukrainian-Polish relations in particular. Unfortunately, Palij's very thorough research is the most laudable aspect of this book.
Palij understands the revolutionary period which followed the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires exclusively as a clash amongst nations: "The renascence of Russian power threatened both Ukraine and Poland; hence, the more farsighted leaders of those nations realized that only by combining forces could they resist occupation by Soviet Russia. Ukrainian-Polish political collaboration culminated in the Ukrainian-Polish alliance of 1920" (p. 1). Even though he discusses at various points in his story the conflicts amongst the political leaders of both nations-Petliura vs. Vynnychenko and Pilsudski vs. Dmowski-Palij holds fast to the idea that the agreement between Petliura and Pilsudski was "The Ukrainian-Polish Alliance."
While such an approach may have been understandable at a time when many Ukrainians were struggling for a truly independent state, this reviewer hopes that we, as Ukrainian historians, can now move beyond such a narrow framework. For especially in the revolutionary period in Ukraine, there was so much more going on besides "The National Struggle": Reds, Greens, Whites, anarchists, SRs, peasants, tiny village republics, violence, anarchy and Jewish pogroms, to name a few. By focusing on those self-proclaimed national leaders, Petliura and Pilsudski, Palij pushes aside all of those other individuals, ideas and movements, competing for people's allegiance, so that we read only about "Ukraine" and "Poland" versus "Russia." This approach ignores the overwhelming majority of the populations of all these nations. I take Ukraine as the example I know best. As recent research on the civil war has shown (i.e., Graziosi, Brovkin), throughout this period most of the inhabitants of Ukraine did not consider their choices only between "Ukraine" and "Russia." In fact, it is even questionable that most of the inhabitants, who were after all illiterate peasants, thought in national terms at all. Having spent the past two years researching the countryside in Ukraine during this period, I could provide reams of evidence to support the contention that during this tumultuous period most peasants were concerned above all with their own plots of land and obtaining more of them. At times, they were willing to fight for that piece of land, even though quite often they did not have the time or livestock to work it. But beyond their village and volost', most peasants were not willing to venture. Beyond acquiring land, pasture, forest and inventory, most of them were not very much interested in the politics of the revolutionary period, and those who were had many different ideological trends from which to chose. The peasantry as a rule thought and behaved in understandably very local ways. Hence, it is very unlikely that Simon Petliura could possibly be said to have represented "the Ukrainian people," let alone sign an agreement with Poland on the people's behalf. The problem with an exclusively nationalist approach to history is that it ignores all those people, whom I would certainly consider Ukrainians, but who did not "struggle for the nation." And in doing so, we lose much of the richness and tragedy of Ukraine's history.
Even remaining within the nationalist paradigm, there is a rather large problem with Palij's presentation of his admirable research efforts. Palij argues that the UkrainianPolish Alliance, sealed by the Treaty of Warsaw in October 1919, was a necessary and logical step in the national struggles of Poland and Ukraine for their existence against a quickly reborn and expansionist Bolshevik Russia. And yet, this reader found it very difficult to find much of use in that alliance or treaty, especially to the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). As Palij admits, the Treaty of Warsaw was anything but mutual. UNR leader Simon Petliura ceded Eastern Galicia to the Poles in order to gain Right Bank Ukraine, at the expense of the support of most Galician Ukrainian troops, who had just lost a bitter war to Petliura's new ally, Jozef Pilsudski. Left-Bank Ukraine was not even mentioned in the treaty. The joint Polish-Ukrainian invasion brought the UNR forces back to Kyiv, but not for long. Polish military authorities proved reluctant to tolerate, let alone encourage the creation of new UNR military forces, so necessary to defend the fledgling government against the Red Army. Moreover, after UNR troops had fought loyally alongside the Poles for most of 1920, the Polish government signed the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921) with Soviet Russia, recognizing an "independent" Ukraine under the control of the third-time installed "Ukrainian" Soviet government.
Finally, Petliura's hope that the Polish alliance would provide a bridge to the Entente proved quite unfounded. Thus, it does not appear to me that the Treaty of Warsaw was so much an "Alliance" as a temporary act of convenience for the Poles and an act of desperation for Petliura. And so, I was left to wonder at the possible consequences of Palij's concluding remark: "The Treaty of Warsaw is a symbol of an historical current in Polish-Ukrainian relations that may well assert itself again" (p. 202), Let us hope that Ukrainians and Poles can find more positive and fruitful symbols than the Treaty of Warsaw on which to base their future, mutual relations.
Mark Baker, Harvard University
Giampaolo Pazzini was called up to Italy's squad Sunday in place of injured strikers Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino for key World Cup qualifiers against Montenegro and Ireland.
Pazzini has scored eight goals in 10 games since transferring from Fiorentina to Sampdoria in January. He notched a hat trick in the first game at the new Wembley Stadium two years ago _ a 3-3 draw between the Under-21 teams from Italy and England.
Antonio Di Natale, Vincenzo Iaquinta, Fabio Quagliarella and Giuseppe Rossi were the other forwards called up by coach Marcello Lippi.
Toni, who plays for Bayern Munich, has an Achilles tendon injury, while Gilardino exited Fiorentina's 1-0 win over Siena on Sunday with a muscle problem.
Also unavailable are midfielders Gennaro Gattuso, Mauro Camoranesi and Simone Perrotta.
Along with Pazzini, defenders Marco Motta and Salvatore Bocchetti also received their first call ups, while midfielders Matteo Brighi and Pasquale Foggia _ with one and two appearances, respectively _ rejoined the squad.
Italy is tied for the Group 8 lead in European World Cup qualifying with Ireland. The Azzurri visit Montenegro on Saturday and host Ireland four days later in Bari.
Talented but temperamental striker Antonio Cassano was again left out. Cassano is from Bari and the city's fans made an appeal to Lippi in the form of a large banner at a Serie B match Saturday, but to no avail.
Pazzini plays alongside Cassano at Sampdoria and both scored in a 3-1 win over Torino in Serie A on Sunday.
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Squad:
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Marco Amelia (Palermo), Morgan De Sanctis (Galatasaray).
Defenders: Salvatore Bocchetti (Genoa), Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Andrea Dossena (Liverpool), Alessandro Gamberini (Fiorentina), Fabio Grosso (Lyon), Marco Motta (AS Roma), Gianluca Zambrotta (AC Milan).
Midfielders: Matteo Brighi (AS Roma), Daniele De Rossi (AS Roma), Pasquale Foggia (Lazio), Riccardo Montolivo (Fiorentina), Angelo Palombo (Sampdoria), Simone Pepe (Udinese), Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan).
Forwards: Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), Vincenzo Iaquinta (Juventus), Giampaolo Pazzini (Sampdoria), Fabio Quagliarella (Udinese), Giuseppe Rossi (Villarreal).
Siemens AG filed suits Monday seeking millions of euros (dollars) in damages from two former executives over a corruption scandal at the German industrial conglomerate.
The company said it filed the suits at a district court in Munich, where it is based.
It is seeking euro15 million ($21 million) from former chief financial officer Heinz-Joachim Neubuerger and euro5 million from Thomas Ganswindt, a former head of its telecommunications business.
Siemens did not detail the specific grounds for the suits, but the two are among 11 former executives whom it threatened to sue in 2008 over alleged supervisory failings in a scandal that cost the company heavily in fines and damaged its reputation.
It has since reached settlements with nine former board members, including two ex-chief executives _ Heinrich von Pierer and Klaus Kleinfeld, both of whom have denied any wrongdoing. The annual shareholder meeting is to ratify those agreements on Tuesday.
Siemens, which makes a wide range of products including wind turbines and trams, has acknowledged making dubious payments in the past to secure business. An investigation commissioned by Siemens found evidence of violations across the company, and in several countries.
In 2008, Siemens agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines in Germany and the U.S. stemming from the scandal.
ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — Dolly Parton said Tuesday that winning the 2010 Applause Award for her theme park, Dollywood, is like winning "the Oscar of the business."
"I'm just honored and proud," she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "I'm excited that this is our 25th anniversary for Dollywood, that we won it this year, and that I had a chance to be here."
Parton accepted the award in person in Orlando at an amusement park trade show, IAAPA Attractions Expo 2010, hosted by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
The Applause Award has been given out every other year since 1980 to honor a park whose "management, operations and creative accomplishments have inspired the industry with their foresight, originality and sound business development," according to a statement from Liseberg park in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Applause winner is decided by a board of governors chaired by Mats Wedin, Liseberg's CEO. The board includes theme park professionals from around the world.
Parton said that although country music "has allowed so many of my dreams to come true, you don't have to be a country music fan to come to the park. ... There's something for everyone."
She said she would put the award in a museum at the park "to share it with the fans."
Dollywood beat out Alton Towers of Great Britain and Phantasialand of Germany for the 2010 award. Previous U.S. winners include Disney's Magic Kingdom, Nashville's Opryland in Tennessee, Pennsylvania's Hershey Park, Universal Studios Florida and Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia.
Parton opened Dollywood in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Located next to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Dollywood is Tennessee's No. 1 ticketed tourist attraction, with 2.5 million visitors in a typical season.
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Online:
http://www.dollywood.com/
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — An international rights group on Friday called on Romanian authorities to investigate allegations of police violence against demonstrators during two weeks of anti-government street protests.
Amnesty International said video footage showed police beating two people who were not behaving violently. It also claimed police hit and sprayed chemicals on a man lying on the ground.
In a statement, the group urged authorities to conduct "a prompt, independent, thorough and effective investigation."
Prosecutors are investigating four police officers for their conduct during the clashes.
On Friday, dozens massed in Bucharest's University Square, despite the frigid weather and falling snow, yelling "Shame on you!"
They called for the resignation of the government and President Traian Basescu, whom they blame for austerity cuts and ineffective government.
Israel has approved the construction of almost 1,700 homes in contested territory since renewing peace talks with the Palestinians at a U.S.-hosted summit in November, an Israeli watchdog group reported Monday.
The report came as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a visit to the region designed to breathe life into the talks.
Although the survey contained little new information, Peace Now said Israel was undermining negotiations by repeating one of its "worst mistakes" _ building on disputed land while holding peace talks.
The U.S. has been urging Israel to halt construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas that Israel captured in the 1967 war but are claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. Israeli construction projects in the disputed areas have sparked a series of crises in the peace negotiations, prompting the Palestinians at one point to suspend negotiations.
In its report Monday, Peace Now said Israel's Defense Ministry has approved plans to build 946 homes in the West Bank since last November's peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland. Peace Now said the government has also given final approval for at least 750 homes in east Jerusalem since talks renewed.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied that West Bank building had been stepped up. "All the reports of dramatic construction projects in the (Palestinian) territories are not true, and it's not true that we're building in violation of commitments that were made," Olmert told a meeting of his Kadima Party.
Olmert also said Israel would continue to build in east Jerusalem and in heavily Jewish areas of the West Bank that Israel wants to keep in a final peace agreement.
"This is going on within the framework of negotiations, and the negotiations will continue to progress," he said.
Settler leader Pinchas Wallerstein accused Peace Now of "recycling statistics," and said nearly all of the construction in the report had been approved long ago. The government is no longer funding new building projects or issuing new building permits, Wallerstein said.
As far as a settlement freeze is concerned, "I'm sad to say the Peace Now report is wrong," he added.
At the Annapolis conference, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to base their peace talks on the 2003 "road map." The U.S.-backed peace plan calls on Israel to "freeze all settlement activity" and obligates the Palestinians to dismantle militant groups. Neither side has fully carried out its obligations.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said officials presented information on Israeli settlement activity to Rice. "President (Mahmoud) Abbas told Rice this is the most dangerous obstacle to peace," he said.
Speaking Sunday to reporters, Rice said Israel's commitment on the matter was integral to progress in the talks.
"I've raised this issue, that Israel has a road map obligation here that is essential," Rice said. "What's very important is that the reason that obligation is there is that there cannot be anything that prejudges a final status agreement. And that's why people concern themselves with this particular obligation. And yes, we've talked about it."
Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, the retired U.S. military man appointed by Rice to monitor implementation of the road map, is expected in the region around April 11, U.S. officials said Monday.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel remains committed to the talks and that the government never promised a total settlement freeze.
It says it is not building any new settlements and has halted outward expansion of existing settlements. However, it continues to allow construction in major settlement blocs and east Jerusalem _ areas it expects to keep under a final peace agreement.
Israel does not consider construction in east Jerusalem to be settlement activity because it annexed the sector after the 1967 war. The Palestinians and international community do.
The lion was king.
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"roared into the box office this weekend, and the film version of theC.S. Lewis classic's $67 million didn't disappoint Disney, which islooking at turning the film into a major family-friendly franchise.
"Narnia 2," anyone?
Director Andrew Adamson told this column that the magical wardrobeprobably will open again, but he doesn't know when the lion and thewitch will come out to play.
"Honestly, I'm not in production right now on the sequel. We'renot even thinking about it seriously, except that the next one willfeature the kids, and there is a wonderful Prince Caspian story thatLewis wrote about in other books."
Young star Georgia Henley is the first one who wants to sign on."I'd be on the first plane if I hear there's a sequel. But no onereally knows what's happening with that. I just hope every singleday."
NARNIA NIBBLES: Adamson says casting the voice of the lion was oneof his tougher jobs. Enter Liam Neeson.
"Liam came to me. ... He said, 'Can I read for you.' I knew he'dbe perfect because he's so likable. Kids need to feel his warmth."
Adamson cast Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in order to avoid acliche. "We've already seen the evil Cruella and the bad witchcharacters. This had to be a different kind of evil. ... She talkedabout what's terrifying for children and came up with emotionaldetachment."
MILLER TIME: "It really comes down to begging. That's what I did!Begging!" So says Sienna Miller, who has a coveted role in theupcoming film "Casanova" with Heath Ledger.
"I think as a young actress, you're either the love interest orjust the girl," she says. "Here was this heroine who was thisintelligent feminist. She's sword fighting and cross-dressing. ... Ithought this was a fantastic modern character."
That joy abated a bit when she was asked to pick up a sword. "I'mnot the most coordinated person," Miller laments. "So it took a bitof work. But it's really lovely learning something new."
BIG APE: Naomi Watts says King Kong wasn't the biggest star shemet while filming Peter Jackson's epic, which opens Wednesday. Theactress got to have a little sitdown with original "Kong" actressFaye Wray before filming began on the new ape picture.
"Meeting Faye was wonderful," Watts says. "There was a smalldinner party where Peter Jackson and I were invited to meet her."
Watts says Jackson introduced her as the new object of Kong'saffections, which had been Faye's claim to fame. "Faye looked up
at me and said, 'You're not Ann Darrow. I am!' I thought, 'Oh,great. She's 96 and her humor is still right there.' But I also had amoment thinking, 'She doesn't like me.' I thought, 'I'm not goodenough.' "
After dinner, Jackson and Watts dropped Wray off at her house. "Wekissed and hugged, which is when Faye whispered into my ear, 'AnnDarrow is in good hands.' It was like she was giving me permission. Iwas given the baton."
Big Picture News Inc.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Estimated ticket sales for
Friday through Monday at
North American theaters:
1. The Chronicles of Narnia $67.1 mill.
2. Syriana 12 mill.
3. Harry Potter ... Goblet of Fire 10.3 mill.
4. Walk the Line 5.75 mill.
5. Yours, Mine & Ours 5.15 mill.
6. Aeon Flux 4.6 mill.
7. Just Friends 3.9 mill.
8. Pride & Prejudice 2.5 mill.
9. Chicken Little 2.3 mill.
10. Rent 2 mill.
NEW YORK - This holiday season, a big challenge at Wal-Mart is convincing shoppers like Portia Goodman and Karen Wade to buy fashion instead of just basics.
"I buy more at Target than I do here," said Goodman, a 31-year-old graduate student from Riverside, Ill., who was recently shopping for candy at a local Wal-Mart with her son. "I think they should be more like Target." At Target, known for its cheap chic offerings, Goodman is attracted to apparel by designer Isaac Mizrahi and favors athletic gear by Champion.
As for Wade, a 47-year-old from LaGrange, Ill., she shops at Wal-Mart for "shirts and jeans because the price is good."
Such reluctance from these consumers comes more than a year and a half after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has worked hard to improve its image with new fashion brands, a trendspotting office in Manhattan, and fashion shows during New York's Fashion Week. The company's fashion faux pas, such as stocking up on too many trendy items like skinny jeans, was a big factor behind disappointing sales for September and October, and is expected to weigh down business in the critical fourth quarter, the company acknowledged late last month.
The upgrading of its fashion is part of the company's larger campaign to expand into better quality, trendier merchandise to revitalize anemic sales and sluggish profit growth, a strategy that has gotten mixed grades from its customers so far.
Wal-Mart, which has built its reputation on selling basics like socks and detergent, made a push into $2,000 flat-screen TVs and other trendy electronics, 600-thread count sheets and organic foods. The goal is to pry more money from the hands of its wealthier customers, diversifying beyond its core-low income shoppers who are more vulnerable to economic downturns.
But while the company's electronics business is "making progress," organic foods and home furnishings have gotten mixed reactions, according to company's CEO and president Lee Scott in a recent address to investors.
Fashion appears to be the most challenging. In fact, in a sign that Wal-Mart's upscale strategy has fallen flat, the company dumped its two long-time ad agencies and hired Draft FCB late last month. Draft, a division of Interpublic Group of Cos. Inc., will develop future advertising to better attract both low-price fans and higher-income shoppers.
The company, which played down its low prices over the past year, is reemphasizing its rollback, or discount strategy this holiday season, with deep price cuts on toys and electronics. On Friday it extended the price cuts to home appliances. Wal-Mart's "Be Bright" holiday campaign, produced by lame duck ad agency Bernstein-Rein Advertising Inc., focuses on value fashion.
Wal-Mart needs to win in apparel for several reasons. Shoppers are facing more fashion choices this holiday season from low to mid-price stores like Target Stores Inc. and from mid-price department stores like J.C. Penney Co. and Kohl's Corp., both of which have developed more exclusive brands.
Apparel also offers fatter profit margins compared to electronics and food, according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a New York-based retail consulting and investment banking firm.
But more importantly, fashion sets the tone for the entire store, said Robert Buchanan, retail analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons
"Fashion tends to drive the train," he said.
Wal-Mart has blamed its flawed fashion strategy on execution, such as overexpanding Metro 7, an apparel brand aimed at fashionistas. Metro 7 successfully launched in 500 stores in the fall of 2005, then stalled when it expanded to 1,500 stores this past spring. The company now says Metro 7's distribution shouldn't be in more than 900 stores.
Scott told investors that the company needs to better heed to a pyramid, where the bottom is basics such as underwear and socks, the middle is fashion basics and the top is trendy fashions like skinny jeans.
"We need to remember who we are and be able to fill that center part of this pyramid and then have a little bit up there at the top, just so our customers know that we have a sense of what's happening out there in the world," Scott said.
Meanwhile, one of the company's top apparel labels George, which is offered in men's, women's and children's assortments has had "significant growth," according to Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. Wal-Mart also unveiled a hip-hop inspired men's clothing brand earlier this fall called Exsto, which is now in 600 stores. Blakley declined to comment on Exsto's performance, saying with any launch, "you listen as you roll it out."
Other big apparel brands include Faded Glory and No Boundaries, aimed at teens.
Buchanan noted that men's fashions needs to be improved, and home furnishings is another area that could be further sharpened.
Investors will probably have to wait until after the holidays for any significant improvement in apparel sales. That's when Wal-Mart will expand its strategy to give stores a more customized mix of goods and layout for six key groups of customers: Hispanics, African-Americans, empty-nesters/boomers, affluent, suburban and rural shoppers. The plan, which is currently being tested in a couple dozen stores, is to retool over 3,000 U.S. stores over the next two years.
Wal-Mart said such segmentation, welcomed by Wall Street analysts, was the missing element in the company's merchandising strategy. Scott told investors that it helps explain what happened with Metro 7 and plays a critical role in better serving its customers.
Still, a big problem with Wal-Mart is that it needs to do a better job in marketing and displaying its brands. Candace Corlett, principal of WSL Strategic Retail, noted she has spotted wrinkled clothes on the racks.
"The merchandise is more exciting than the display," observed Corlett. "Specialty clothing stores have the window advantage. They use the window to display the tempting outfits. What is Wal-Mart's window for the fashion statements? What is the style guide for their floors?"
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AP Business Writer Ashley Heher in Chicago contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
There is a song from a '60s film - and it's not the film'stitle song - that was a hit on the Cash Box Top 100 charts for fivedifferent artists simultaneously. All five of these singles made theTop 30, but none reached the Top 10.
As for the Billboard Hot 100, four of the five recordscharted.Again, all entered the Top 30 but not one cracked the Top 10.Identify the film and the hit song title. Name all the artistswho charted with this tune. Indicate which is the original version -the one heard in the movie.Here's the answer:The film in question, a 1960 British-made release, is "Circusof Horrors." Its melodious theme - somewhat disjointed from thefilm's plot - is the beautiful "Look for a Star."The recording heard in "Circus of Horrors" is by Garry Mills(Imperial 5674). That single made its debut on Billboard's Hot 100the week of June 20, 1960. Three cover versions also charted thatweek, one of which was by an artist with a name so incredibly similarto Mills that it caused confusion: Garry Miles (Liberty 55261).Another fine hit vocal of "Look for a Star" came out by DeaneHawley (Dore 554), and Billy Vaughn scored with an instrumentalrendition (Dot 16106).Billboard and Cash Box magazines had strikingly different waysof listing the hits. Billboard assigned different chart spots toeach individual release, whereas Cash Box lumped all the hit versionsat the same chart number.Besides the four recordings already mentioned, Cash Box alsocharted a vocal version by Nicky Como (Laurie 3061).Other artists to release single versions of "Look for a Star"that summer were Jericho Brown (Warner Bros. 5161), Buddy Chase (20thCentury-Fox 205) and yet another Gary, Gary Marlene (Maverick 591).None of these reached either chart.Having eight different singles competing for sales surely workedagainst any of them landing in the Top 10. That many recordings,though, is proof of how highly industry people regarded this tune.Jerry Osborne is a syndicated columnist. Write to him at theChicago Sun-Times, 401 N. Wabash, Chicago 60611.
The West Bromwich Building Society, which was reportedly on the verge of an arranged takeover, said Friday it has reached an innovative agreement with creditors to boost its capital ratios and keep it independent.
Using a new financial instrument sanctioned by regulators, West Bromwich said holders of its subordinated debt totaling 182.5 million pounds agreed to convert their assets to profit-participating deferred shares.
The bank said this would strengthen its tier 1 capital ratio, a key measure of banks' viability, from 6.8 percent to 11.6 percent. Holders of the new shares will be eligible for dividends of as much as 25 percent of future consolidated post-tax profits.
The Financial Services Authority said the new type of share was devised in cooperation with the Treasury to allow the building society to better deal with losses. Investors in these shares are not covered by government guarantees on ordinary deposits.
"Prior to this the only source of core tier 1 available to building societies under the FSA's rules was reserves grown from internally generated profits," the regulator said. "Now building societies, like banks, have the option of raising core tier 1 capital from external sources."
The British Broadcasting Corp. had reported on Thursday that the Financial Services Authority was working to arrange a takeover of West Bromwich, as it had done in March when the Nationwide Building Society took over key assets of Scotland's Dunfermline Building Society.
"The exchange of the society's tier 2 sub-debt into core tier 1 capital materially strengthens our capital position and, under stress-test scenarios, has demonstrated our ability to withstand a further significant deterioration in market conditions," said the society's chief executive, Robert Sharpe.
The announcement came as the mutual society reported a loss of 39.3 million pounds ($64.9 million) for the year ending March 31, compared to a profit of 33.1 million pounds a year earlier. The company took charges of 88.3 million pounds on bad loans, losses on investments and provisions for liabilities.
West Bromwich said three-fourths of its risk provisions related to commercial loans, which it is no longer providing. It said arrears figures on prime residential and buy-to-let mortgages were lower than industry averages, but gave no figures.
The 160-year-old West Bromwich Building Society employs 850 people in 46 branches in west-central England.
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On the Net: http://www.westbrom.co.uk
Introduction
Information assurance (IA) and logistics operations permeate all areas of the Army transformation. IA is critical to distribution-based logistics operations because timelines and pipelines for delivery of logistics packages are increasingly constrained by environmental factors that are rarely under direct Army control. Short timelines are critical to the such cess of OCONUS military operations, but they clearly challenge operational planners more than ever. The convergence of emerging logistics and information technologies, intransit visibility systems, new players and advanced delivery capabilities reflect more complexity than Army logisticians have previously encountered.
The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) is responsible for enforcing three critical factors involved in distribution-based logistics operations: IA, fraud deterrence, and logistics security (LOGSEC). The CID provides law enforcement and criminal investigative support for information assurance and pre- and in-transit delivery of logistics packages, including preconfigured loads. In fact, LOGSEC is a strategic mission for the CID. The command considers it a key force protection capability that it can uniquely offer to the Army.
Although responsible for only three of the factors that add to the complexity of modern logistics operations, the CID is modeling its role and interfaces into the entire LOGSEC knowledge-management process, understanding that criminal investigative support is critical to logistics operations throughout the logistics process. This article examines some initial intersections of the CID's roles and research in IA, knowledge management, and logistics security.
Because of the complexity of the logistics system and its information support systems, and the countless threats to these systems, a new approach by criminal investigators is required. The CID is conducting preliminary research into new areas of modeling and simulation, known as agent-based modeling. This research involves studying the intersections of critical nodes and their linkages to produce insights for those responsible for the direction of logistics and IA operations.
Initially directed at the criminal investigation domain, the CID has initiated research into knowledgemanagement support for advanced network intrusion defense and forensics capabilities for IA. Supported by the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts, the CID and the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies at George Mason University (GMU) are working jointly to model roles and actions of important players in the IA world.
Findings from this joint research will support logistics operations in at least two important ways. First, any improvement in IA will directly benefit LOGSEC and strengthen the role of the CID in supporting in-transit security of logistics packages. Second, in keeping with the extensibility of new agent-based modeling tools, insights gained from understanding networks of communication nodes will likely have significant application in logistics preparation and distribution. Research will be peripherally directed at the convergence of IA and LOGSEC, both in support of the CID's role in IA and LOGSEC as well as all logistics operations for the Army. Agent-Based Modeling
Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is an emerging modeling technology for enhancing inference about complex problems. ABM complements deduction and induction as a method of testing what American philosopher Charles S. Peirce called abductions (creative reasoning in uncertainty for which we have little or no probabilistic support). Abductive reasoning enhances the processes of discovery and incorporating theories and explanations about relationships for which we initially have only scant proof.
This new modeling technique encourages visualization of complex relationships and agent interaction. Agents are software manifestations of objects (animate or inanimate) used to represent the components of a problem domain. These agents are typically imbued with constraints (rules) to govern their behavior in an environment, and characteristics that may include movement, selfawareness, and processing capabilities such as learning and memory. Agents typically act on our behalf or sometimes on the behalf of themselves or others.
Using agent-based modeling, analysts and investigators can develop novel strategies for protecting and delivering both informationrich logistics support and the more conventional physical objects such as "beans and bullets." ABM supports transportation planning and operational deployment as well because complex scheduling problems lend themselves nicely to an agent-based modeling environment. (See agent-based modeling resources at http://www.cna.org/isaac/ for more background on these important new modeling techniques.)
Generally, ABM is an excellent starting point to uncover meaningful and often nonlinear relationships among diverse objects in circumstances where planners are not certain where to begin their planning and development efforts. While not explicitly incorporated into the Army acquisition and logistics community's modeling and broad-reaching simulation effort called Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements and Training (SMART), ABM clearly has a role in both strategic and tactical applications of logistics operations.
Roles And Research
The CID applies distinct efforts toward protecting and enforcing Army information assurance and logistics operations. Two essential CID units in these efforts are components of the 701st Military Police (MP) Group headquartered at Fort Belvoir, VA. The Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU) is the Army's leading IA enforcement agency and is responsible for investigating felony intrusions of all Army information technology assets. The Major Procurement Fraud Unit, also a 701 st MP Group asset, currently investigates criminal activity associated with the production and delivery of Army materials from manufacturer to points of embarkation. Garrison and deployed CID elements take up LOGSEC responsibilities from the points of embarkation through theater delivery of logistics. Likewise, local and regional CID computer crime coordinators support the CID and CCIU in the IA arena.
The CID began its ABM research with the introduction of the Agent Based Evidence Marshaling (ABEM) model. This model visually reflects the results of interactions among all agents to which a complex crime is only partially visible. Through these interactions, relevant agents build time-space vectors of their existence from the time they were first involved in the crime (either as witnesses or supporting objects otherwise associated in the crime).
The agents share information and learn to infer the importance of other agents' time-space vectors to their own, producing a global visualization of the crime. This results in emergent, self-organized databases capable of producing and testing hypotheses about their existence in the overall environment of the crime. This work has been extended in projects supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
In the ABEM model, each agent has only incomplete local knowledge about the crime. By allowing these agents to interact and build a selforganizing database, the knowledge about the crime dynamically emerges in a time-space relationship. The agents communicate with each other by means of tuples (a messagepassing schema). (See http://www. msiac.dmso.mil/journal/hunt23. html for more information about the ABEM model.)
In August 2001, the CID began collaborating with the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies at GMU and Bios Group Inc. to extend the ABEM work by building an agentbased model of network intrusions in support of an OSD advanced concept technology demonstration. This collaboration, known as Advanced Network Intrusion Defense, will involve studying the feasibility of using ABM. The CID-GMU collaboration will create agent-based representations of the major players in a network intrusion activity.
The objects and their interactions studied in this model include computer intruders (e.g., hackers); network assets (routers, switches, and host computers); computer users; law enforcement officials; and the legal/policy environment. A proposal under consideration is a scenario involving a logistics distribution event, further demonstrating the important intersections of IA and LOGSEC.
Future research in this area may also embrace agent-based modeling of fraud cases to study the complex relationships of various animate and inanimate objects associated with such crime. Such a model could aid individuals in visualizing the people, surroundings, equipment, and supporting documents as agents capable of interacting to produce novel behaviors. This will enhance discovery of important relationships. These future agents could interact on their own behalf to build associations that chart the environment of the crime, much as the ABEM model tracks relationships of witnesses to inanimate objects empowered to act on their own behalf.
Summary
The CID plays an important role in securing logistics distribution for the Army as well as enforcing federal laws that protect information assurance. Because IA and LOGSEC are integral components of successful distribution-based logistics operations, the CID's force protection contributions are essential to those emerging logistics processes envisioned in the Army transformation. The CID is studying the role of innovative modeling and simulation support to IA and LOGSEC. This initial research is expected to support the transformation of Army logistics operations, thus resulting in effective and reliable tools for all commanders to enhance their force-protection capabilities.
[Author Affiliation]
LTC CARL W. HUNT is Commander of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command's Computer Crime Investigative Unit. He received his Ph.D. in information technology from George Mason University and can be contacted at carL hunt@us.army.mil.
Albania 0, Sweden 0
Hungary vs. Denmark
Malta vs. Portugal
Group Two
Israel vs. Switzerland
Luxembourg vs. Greece
Moldova 1, Latvia 2
Group Three
Poland 1, Slovenia 1
Slovakia 2, Northern Ireland 1
Group Four
Liechtenstein vs. Germany
Wales 1, Azerbaijan 0
Group Five
Armenia 0, Turkey 2
Belgium vs. Estonia
Spain vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina
Group Six
Croatia vs. Kazakhstan
Ukraine vs. Belarus
At Barcelona, Spain
Andorra vs. England
Group Seven
Austria vs. France
Romania vs. Lithuania
Serbia vs. Faeroe Islands
Group Eight
Cyprus vs. Italy
Montenegro vs. Bulgaria
At Mainz, Germany
Georgia 1, Ireland 2
Group Nine
Macedonia 1, Scotland 0
Norway 2, Iceland 2
South America
Argentina vs. Paraguay
Colombia vs. Uruguay
Ecuador vs. Bolivia
Peru vs. Venezuela
North and Central America and Caribbean
Semifinals
Group One
Trinidad and Tobago vs. Guatemala
Cuba vs. United States
Group Two
Canada vs. Honduras
Mexico vs. Jamaica
Group Three
Costa Rica vs. Suriname
El Salvador vs. Haiti
Asia
Finals
Group A
Bahrain vs. Japan
Qatar vs. Uzbekistan
Group B
Saudi Arabia vs. Iran
United Arab Emirates vs. North Korea
Africa
Second Round
Group One
Cape Verde Islands 1, Cameroon 2
Mauritius 1, Tanzania 4
Group Two
Kenya 1, Namibia 0
Group Four
Sierra Leone 2, Equatorial Guinea 1
South Africa 0, Nigeria 1
Group Six
Gambia 3, Liberia 0
Group Eight
Mauritania vs. Rwanda
Group Nine
Burkina Faso vs. Tunisia
Seychelles 1, Burundi 2
Group 10
At Cairo, Egypt
Sudan vs. Chad
Group 11
Zambia vs. Togo
Oceania
New Zealand 3, New Caledonia 1
Vanuatu 0, Fiji 2
Friendlies
Netherlands vs. Australia
Oman vs. Morocco
Cheddar Valley schools went spotty for BBC Children In Need, likeFairlands Middle School and its mega dance-a-thon.
The school raised Pounds 2,800 through buying raffle tickets -the lucky ones getting to take advantage of teachers' promises.These included shadowing the head teacher, mountain biking for theclass and an explosive lesson in science.
For the dance-a-thon, children voted for favourite songs and theweather stayed dry as they and staff danced for Pudsey.
Mike Conroy, event organiser, said: "We have been fundraising forChildren In Need for the last 20 years and in that time we haveraised more than Pounds 35,000.
"I would like to say a big well done and thank you to everyoneinvolved."
See inside for more Children In Need madness.
An international human rights agency says it will assist Bosnian police in combating hate-motivated crimes.
The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights says it will train Bosnian police in recognizing and responding to hate crimes, and in engaging with communities victimized by hate-motivated crime.
Deputy Minister Mijo Kresic says harsher punishments will be introduced for crimes motivated by nationality, religious or political orientation.
The OSCE office, referred to as ODIHR, said in 2006 it was concerned about attacks on people returning after Bosnia's 1992-95 ethnic war and on minorities including Gypsies, or Roma.
The office reached the agreement Monday with Bosnia's Security Ministry.
NASHVILLE, Indiana (AP) — Rocker John Mellencamp has filed for divorce in a U.S. court.
The Brown County Clerk's office tells The Herald-Times of Bloomington that a three-page petition against Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp was filed on Jan. 14, two weeks after the couple announced that they were splitting after 18 years of marriage.
Irwin-Mellencamp is the 59-year-old Mellencamp's third wife. They married on Sept. 5, 1992, and have two teenage sons, Hud and Speck Mellencamp.
Mellencamp and his first wife, Priscilla French, had one daughter, Michelle. Mellencamp has two other daughters, Teddi Jo and Justice, with his second wife, Victoria. The couple divorced in 1990.
Mellencamp's latest album, "No Better Than This," was released earlier this year.
Gov. Sarah Palin's administration is threatening to block any subpoenas by the Alaska Legislature as it investigates whether she abused her authority in trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.
On Friday, the lawmakers are expected to issue subpoenas compelling several state officials to appear for interviews with an investigator. That could prompt a legal showdown between the governor's office and state lawmakers over whether the governor's staff is allowed to look into the personnel files of state employees.
The Legislature has hired a retired prosecutor, Stephen Branchflower, to examine whether Palin canned her public safety commissioner in July because he had refused to fire state trooper Mike Wooten. Wooten went through a messy divorce from Palin's sister, and the investigation essentially is looking at whether Palin used her power to try to settle a personal score.
One member of Palin's administration was caught on tape discussing personal information about Wooten, raising questions of how he knew those details.
In a letter made public Thursday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Barnhill promised to go to court to block the subpoenas "unless the current manner of pursuing the investigation changes."
At the same time, Barnhill outlined a potential compromise: If lawmakers agree that the governor has legal authority to designate staff to review confidential personnel files, the staff members will voluntarily speak with the Legislature's investigator _ no subpoenas necessary.
The investigation _ known as "Troopergate" _ began before Palin was chosen as Sen. John McCain's running mate, but it's taken on new significance since then. Palin's supporters and even her lawyer have charged that the investigation is politically motivated, and urged lawmakers to turn the matter over to the three-member State Personnel Board, which is appointed by the governor and charged with handling ethics complaints.
Palin has said she fired the commissioner, Walt Monegan, over disagreements about budget priorities. Monegan says he received repeated e-mails and phone calls from Palin, her husband and her staff expressing dismay over Wooten's continued employment.
In his letter to the 12 members of the state's Legislative Council, the bipartisan body that unanimously approved the investigation, Barnhill criticized the way it has been conducted.
"At present the investigation is using such tactics as a tipline and secret depositions in which witnesses are asked under oath to testify to rumor and gossip," he wrote. "Those tactics raise questions about the scope and true purpose of the investigation."
Barnhill took exception to statements made by Sen. Hollis French, the Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee. French was quoted early this month as saying that if the governor's office obtained confidential information from Wooten's personnel file "it would be a violation of state law."
Under state law, personnel records of state employees are confidential except for names, titles, dates of employment and compensation. Under standard operating procedures set out by the Department of Administration, which maintains many personnel records, routine access to confidential documents "is limited to those employees who must use state personnel records in order to perform their regular ongoing assigned job duties."
But nothing in those regulations prevents the governor from assigning staff members to review personnel files, Barnhill said.
"Conducting these depositions under an improper threat of potential prosecution is unfair," Barnhill wrote.
If the lawmakers agree in writing with his interpretation of the Personnel Act, he said, the attorney general's office "will drop its objections and the depositions may proceed without subpoenas."
Sen. Kim Elton, who chairs the Legislative Council, was on a plane and could not be reached for comment Thursday. An aide, Jesse Kiehl, said: "He's read the letter. I don't believe that we have written back."
Barnhill acknowledged that if any administration officials improperly disclosed information from Wooten's personnel file, that could violate the law. But, he said, he knows of no evidence any did so.
One administration official, Frank Bailey, was recorded calling an Alaska State Troopers lieutenant and discussing confidential information about Wooten, including his job application and worker's compensation claim. In a deposition taken by Palin's attorney, he testified that he never saw Wooten's file, but instead received the information from the governor's husband, Todd Palin.
On the advice of Barnhill and their own attorneys, Bailey and six other witnesses canceled their scheduled depositions early this month.
Byline: ASSOCIATED PRESS
EUSTIS, FLA. -- A group of teens from a self-described ``Vampire Clan'' in Kentucky was being sought on murder warrants Thursday in the bludgeoning deaths of a Florida couple.
Richard and Naomi Wendorf were found beaten to death late Monday and their 15-year-old daughter, Heather, was missing. At first, investigators feared she had been abducted. Then they realized she was a suspect, along with her former boyfriend and three other teen-agers linked to the Kentucky group.
``They apparently like to suck blood. They cut each other's arms and suck the blood. They cut up small animals and suck the blood. They honestly believe they're vampires,'' Murray, Ky., police detective Sgt. Mike Jump said Thursday.
Heather was thought to be traveling with the Kentucky teens in her father's blue 1994 Ford Explorer.
The vehicle was missing when Heather's 17-year-old sister, Jennifer, found her parents' bodies in separate rooms of their rural home late Monday night, the Lake County sheriff's office said.
The sheriff's office said there was no evidence of satanic rituals in the deaths, but said Heather had told friends she was a demon in past lives and had talked with spirits during human blood-drinking rituals.
Prosecutors issued murder warrants Wednesday for Heather Wendorf; Roderick Ferrell, 16, and Dana Cooper, 19, both of Murray; and Scott Anderson, 16, of Mayfield, Ky.
From what authorities and schoolmates told the Orlando Sentinel, Ferrell and Heather Wendorf stood out in their rural communities. He sported shoulder-length black hair, wore a black trench coat, carried a wooden stick and boasted of immortality as a vampire. She wore purple hair, black fishnet stockings and a dog chain around her neck.
TEEN CULTISTS SOUGHT IN DEATH OF COUPLE YOUTHS, LINKED TO ``VAMPIRE CLAN,'' INCLUDE A DAUGHTER OF THE FLA. PAIR.(FRONT)Byline: ASSOCIATED PRESS
EUSTIS, FLA. -- A group of teens from a self-described ``Vampire Clan'' in Kentucky was being sought on murder warrants Thursday in the bludgeoning deaths of a Florida couple.
Richard and Naomi Wendorf were found beaten to death late Monday and their 15-year-old daughter, Heather, was missing. At first, investigators feared she had been abducted. Then they realized she was a suspect, along with her former boyfriend and three other teen-agers linked to the Kentucky group.
``They apparently like to suck blood. They cut each other's arms and suck the blood. They cut up small animals and suck the blood. They honestly believe they're vampires,'' Murray, Ky., police detective Sgt. Mike Jump said Thursday.
Heather was thought to be traveling with the Kentucky teens in her father's blue 1994 Ford Explorer.
The vehicle was missing when Heather's 17-year-old sister, Jennifer, found her parents' bodies in separate rooms of their rural home late Monday night, the Lake County sheriff's office said.
The sheriff's office said there was no evidence of satanic rituals in the deaths, but said Heather had told friends she was a demon in past lives and had talked with spirits during human blood-drinking rituals.
Prosecutors issued murder warrants Wednesday for Heather Wendorf; Roderick Ferrell, 16, and Dana Cooper, 19, both of Murray; and Scott Anderson, 16, of Mayfield, Ky.
From what authorities and schoolmates told the Orlando Sentinel, Ferrell and Heather Wendorf stood out in their rural communities. He sported shoulder-length black hair, wore a black trench coat, carried a wooden stick and boasted of immortality as a vampire. She wore purple hair, black fishnet stockings and a dog chain around her neck.
As much as Beverly and I insist on making things quick and easyinthe kitchen, I sometimes forget to translate those time-saving tipsto my oldest favorite recipes.
Most of our conversations revolve around food, whether it isshopping for it, cooking it or eating it. One morning we weretalking about pimento cheese spread.
"I used to make the best pimento cheese," I boasted."So why don't you anymore?" Beverly asked.Without thinking, I answered honestly. "I hate getting the foodprocessor out to shred all that cheese. And cleaning the processoris the pits."To say she was shocked would be putting it mildly. Truth be told,so was I. Shred cheese? When was the last time I …
Authors: Eligius F Lyamuya (corresponding author) [1]; Said Aboud [1]; Willy K Urassa [1]; Jaffer Sufi [1]; Judica Mbwana [1]; Faustin Ndugulile [2]; Charles Massambu [2]
Background
Several types of assays for HIV antibody detection have been developed and promoted for HIV screening and diagnosis. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is the most commonly used technique for screening purposes followed by confirmatory testing, most commonly by using Western blot (WB) assay or a second ELISA based on a different test principle and antigen source in an alternative confirmatory strategy. Simple rapid HIV assays which do not require use of instruments have been widely used especially in resource limited settings including African countries. Currently there are many different commercially available ELISAs, as well as simple rapid HIV assays for detection of antibodies to HIV. Evaluation of various anti-HIV-1 assays using panels of American and European sera have shown that most of these assays have a high sensitivity and specificity [1]. However, studies have shown that some of these assays do not have a similar test performance when used for testing of African sera [2]. It is therefore generally recommended to evaluate HIV assays in the context in which they will be used before adopting them for wide scale use [3, 4].
Various combinations of ELISAs as alternative confirmatory strategies have been shown to have the same diagnostic accuracy as the use of antibody ELISA followed by WB assay [5]. In recent years, interest has centred on the use of simple rapid HIV assays, especially in voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) facilities. Suitable algorithms based on a combination of two or more simple rapid assays have been shown to have diagnostic accuracy comparable to double ELISA or double ELISA and WB testing strategies [6, 7, 8, 9]. Current initiatives and interventions for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV-1 require the use of simple rapid assays in VCT services and antenatal clinics aiming at giving same day results. The World Health Organization (WHO) performance characterization of rapid HIV tests shows that a number of assays perform very well using international panels of blood samples. Likewise, new assays entering the diagnostics market address both performance characteristics and operational requirements that allow expansion of access to HIV testing in resource-constrained countries.
The current rapid HIV testing algorithm which is in use in Tanzania was developed 6 years ago [10]. This serial testing algorithm is based on the use of Capillus HIV-1/2 assay (Trinity Biotech, Ireland) for screening followed by confirmatory testing of reactive samples by Determine[TM] HIV-1/2 assay (Abbott Diagnostics, UK) [10]. Capillus assay requires cold storage, making it unsuitable for use in hard to reach areas where electricity is not available or in settings where power outages are frequent. The cold chain dependency for Capillus assay coupled with availability on the market, of newer HIV rapid tests that are cheaper, do not require cold storage and have acceptable performance characteristics compelled the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to embark on evaluation of some of these rapid HIV assays aiming at developing alternative algorithms for use in Tanzania. Furthermore, there is an urgent need within the country for a suitable algorithm(s) that meet the demand for the scale up of access to HIV screening, diagnosis, treatment and care in line with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare Strategic Plan for Prevention, Treatment and Care for HIV/AIDS.
The aims of this study were to evaluate the performance of five simple rapid HIV assays using whole blood samples from hospital patients, pregnant women, VCT attendees and blood donors, and to formulate an alternative cost-beneficial confirmatory strategy based on rapid HIV testing algorithms suitable for use in Tanzania.
Methods
Selection of Rapid HIV Assays for Evaluation
The rapid HIV assays …
Byline: CATHY WOODRUFF Staff writer
Rensselaer County legislative leaders have sidelined County Executive Henry Zwack's request for more money to cover expanding costs of a new county computer system for the moment, saying they need a better explanation of the project's status.
But legislators said it is possible that Zwack's request to add at least $450,000 to the $1.45 million computer installation budget could be back on their agenda in time for tonight's meeting at 6 p.m.
The matter was tabled during legislative committee meetings last week, and Finance Committee Chairman Edward Swartz, R-Schodack, said he was hoping to discuss the matter …
DENVER (AP) — Defenseman John-Michael Liles scored twice in the first period, Peter Budaj stopped 27 shots, and the Colorado Avalanche beat the struggling St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Monday night.
Brandon Yip and David Jones scored 17 seconds apart in the second period, and Paul Stastny and Kevin Porter added goals for the Avalanche, who have won five straight over the Blues.
Alexander Steen scored 54 seconds in, Carlo Colaiacovo added a goal, and Brad Boyes had one on a power play, but St. Louis lost its fourth straight.
Budaj bested Jaroslav Halak, who came in allowing 1.79 goals a game but surrendered a season-high six.
The two goalies were teammates for Slovakia at …
Accepted for publication Nov. 5, 2002.
Correspondence to: Dr. Joy C. MacDermid, Hand and Upper Limb Centre, St. Joseph's Health Centre, 268 Grosvenor St., London ON N6A 4L6; fax 519 646-6049; jmacderm@.uwo.ca
Introduction: Arthritis in the trapeziometacarpal joint of the thumb can cause swelling and loss of motion. Treatment options include arthrodesis, replacement arthroplasty and interposition arthroplasty. Our objective in this clinical study was to determine outcomes after trapezial arthroplasty with a silicone rubber implant and the relationship between self-reported and measured outcomes. Methods: At the Hand and Upper Limb Centre, St. Joseph's Hospital, London, …
Byline: University of California, Davis
DAVIS, Calif., Nov. 6 (AScribe Newswire) -- Warmer winter temperatures may allow invasive species to become established and even dominate marine communities, according to new research by a UC Davis marine biologist.
"The spread of exotic species and climate change are serious threats to the environment, yet little research has addressed the interaction of these two factors," said assistant professor John Stachowicz. "Our findings suggest that global warming may help invasive species establish in new territory, accelerating the homogenization of the world's ecosystems."
Since 1991, Stachowicz and colleagues …
"A high percentage of heifers calve with intramammary infections. One of the measures available to control intramammary infections is treatment with antibiotics before calving," scientists writing in the Journal of Dairy Science report.
"In this study, the effects of prepartum treatment of nonlactating heifers with a 600-mg cloxacillin dry cow treatment on the prevalence of culture-positive milk samples at calving and 10 to 14 d in milk (DIM), the incidence of clinical mastitis, somatic cell count (SCC), and milk production during first lactation were quantified. A total of 184 heifers on 13 dairy farms were treated with antibiotics 8 to 10 wk before the expected …
An 18-year-old Albany woman who had been hit on the head with a hammer was listed in critical condition at Albany Medical Center Hospital Wednesday night, about 16 hours after she was found by police in an apartment at 291 Sheridan Ave., city police reported.
Tanya McCann, address unknown, was suffering from a severe head wound and was conscious when police, responding to a …
Byline: Associated Press
ALBANY Single-handedly, Joseph Bruno has reintroduced an almost forgotten element into the Senate, formerly known as the land time forgot:
Punctuality.
After decades in which the carved grandfather's clock in the corner of the Senate chambers was regarded as little more than a handsome ornament, time matters again under the new majority leadership of Bruno.
When Bruno has scheduled his senators to meet at 10 a.m., he has meant 10 a.m. and not, as under his predecessors, 11 a.m. or noon or later. No more do the bells calling the Senate to session ring for hours after the appointed time, echoing incessantly …
In a word, first-quarter network television scatter sales were slow. Buyers report paying price premiums about 5% over upfront prices--30% lower than a year ago.
But executives say the scatter pace will pick up later in the year when Olympics- and election-related spending heats up.
"Things are kind of soft right now," says Bob Riordan, EVP/ director of network broadcast, PMG. "It's very much like fourth quarter. There was a burst of telecom, pharmaceutical and entertainment/studio dollars. Then it got quiet."
Jean Pool, EVP/COO, Universal McCann, agrees. "It's quiet out there. First-quarter scatter doesn't seem very strong. And fourth quarter …
ZANESVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio man who collected wild and rare animals admitted he was having a tough time taking care of them just days before he unleashed dozens of tigers, bears and lions into the countryside and killed himself.
A sheriff's deputy visited Terry Thompson's farm in eastern Ohio last week after a neighbor complained about his horses roaming away from the property where the wild animals were kept.
Records released Friday show Thompson said he had just left prison and didn't have good control over the animals.
Thompson freed his 56 animals Tuesday before committing suicide. Police officers shot and killed 48 of them in rural Ohio in the interest of …
