Australia's F-35 Joint Strike Fighters Purchase Timeline Reviewed

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Australia is reviewing its timetable for buying 12 of the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighters between 2015 and 2017 after the Unites States announced a rethink of its own purchase schedule for the futuristic warplanes.

Australia is a funding partner in developing the JSF, which the U.S. Defense Department describes as the largest fighter aircraft program in history.

Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith said Monday that Australia is only contractually obligated to take delivery of two of the warplanes. They will be based in the United States and be available from 2014 for training Australian pilots.

Smith says Australia is reconsidering its schedule of buying another 12 during the following three years.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/australia-f-35-joint-strike-fighters_n_1240701.html

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Florida highway smashes kill 10 people (Reuters)

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) ? Ten people died and at least 18 were injured in a series of accidents before dawn Sunday near Gainesville after smoke and fog reduced visibility on the main interstate highway, police said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said the smashes involving 12 cars and six or seven trucks occurred shortly before 4 a.m. on Interstate 75 after smoke from a marsh fire combined with fog to reduce visibility on both the northbound and southbound lanes.

Eighteen people were transported to Shands Hospital emergency room, six of them to a trauma center for people in critical condition, according to hospital spokeswoman Alison Wilson.

By Sunday evening, nine of the people treated in the emergency room had been released.

"It's tragic. It's probably the worst one (accident) I've seen in 27 years," Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Patrick Riordan told Reuters.

Riordan said investigators are still trying to determine how many separate collisions occurred on the interstate, which is a main artery through Florida.

In one crash, two cars and a tractor trailer caught fire and melted asphalt on the road, Riordan said.

The interstate remained closed until Sunday evening, when the northbound lanes were reopened, a highway patrol spokesperson said. It was not immediately clear when the southbound lanes would be reopened.

Riordan said he had no information yet on the ages or gender of the victims. He said several people died in one car. Crumpled cars littered northbound and southbound lanes and in the grass shoulders of the interstate.

Gainesville is home to Florida's flagship university, the University of Florida. The marsh fire was in or near Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park south of town.

Florida Forest Service investigators are trying to determine whether the fire was set intentionally, Ludie Bond, a spokeswoman for the service, told Reuters. A lack of rain in recent months meant the fire spread quickly through the parched prairie.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Tim Gaynor)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/us_nm/us_highway_deaths_florida

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Need for courtroom artists fade as cameras move in (AP)

CHICAGO ? One marker in hand and one in his mouth, Lou Chukman glances up and down from a sketchpad to a reputed Chicago mobster across the courtroom ? drawing feverishly to capture the drama of the judge's verdict before the moment passes.

Sketch artists have been the public's eyes at high-profile trials for decades ? a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.

Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly as states move to lift longstanding bans on cameras in courtrooms. As of a year ago, 14 states still had them ? but at least three, including Illinois this month, have taken steps since then to end the prohibitions.

"When people say to me, `Wow, you are a courtroom artist' ? I always say, `One day, you can tell your grandchildren you met a Stegosaurus," Chukman, 56, explained outside court. "We're an anachronism now, like blacksmiths."

Cutbacks in news budgets and shifts in aesthetic sensibilities toward digitized graphics have all contributed to the form's decline, said Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien.

While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Lien says something significant is being lost. Video or photos can't do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events.

The best courtroom drawings hang in museums or sell to collectors for thousands of dollars.

"I think people should lament the passing of this art form," Lien said.

But while courtroom drawing has a long history ? artists did illustrations of the Salem witch trials in 1692 ? the artistry can sometimes be sketchy. A bald lawyer ends up with a full head of hair. A defendant has two left hands. A portly judge is drawn rail-thin.

Subjects often complain as they see the drawings during court recesses, said Chicago artist Carol Renaud.

"They'll say, `Hey! My nose is too big.' And sometimes they're right," she conceded. "We do the drawings so fast."

Courtroom drawing doesn't attract most aspiring artists because it doesn't afford the luxury of laboring over a work for days until it's just right, said Andy Austin, who has drawn Chicago's biggest trials over 40 years, including that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

"You have to put your work on the air or in a newspaper whether you like it or not," she said.

The job also involves long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of action as a witness sobs or defendant faint. It can also get downright creepy.

At Gacy's trial, a client asked Austin for an image of him smiling. So, she sought to catch the eye of the man accused of killing 33 people. When she finally did, she beamed. He beamed back.

"The two of us smiled at each other like the two happiest people in the world until the sketch was finished," Austin recalled in her memoirs, titled "Rule 53," after the directive that bars cameras in U.S. courts.

There's no school specifically for courtroom artists. Many slipped or were nudged into it by circumstance.

Renaud drew fashion illustrations for Marshall Field's commercials into the `90s but lost that job when the department store starting relying on photographers. That led her to courtroom drawing.

Artists sometime get to court early and sketch the empty room. But coming in with a drawing fully finished in advance is seen as unethical.

Some artists use charcoal, water colors or pungent markers, which can leave those sitting nearby queasy. Most start with a quick pencil sketch, then fill it in. Austin draws right off the bat with her color pencils.

"If I overthink it, I get lost," she said. "I have a visceral reaction. I just hope what I feel is conveyed to my pen."

These days, Chukman and Renaud fear for their livelihoods. They make the bulk of their annual income off their court work. Working for a TV station or a newspaper can bring in about $300 a day. A trial lasting a month can mean a $6,000 paycheck. Chukman does other work on the side, including drawing caricatures as gifts.

Austin is semiretired and so she says she worries less. She also notes that federal courts ? where some of the most notorious trials take place, like the two corruption trials of impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich ? seem more adamant about not allowing cameras.

Still, though Rule 53 remains in place, federal courts are experimenting with cameras in very limited cases.

"If federal courts do follow, that will be the end of us," Austin said.

Renaud holds out hope that, even if the worst happens, there will still be demand from lawyers for courtroom drawings they can hang in their offices. Lien plans to bolster his income by launching a website selling work from historic trials he covered, including of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Chukman, a courtroom artist for around 30 years, jokes that if asked for his opinion, he'd have told state-court authorities to keep the ban in place a few more years until he retires.

"I recognize my profession exists simply because of gaps in the law ? and I've been grateful for them," he said wistfully. "This line of work has been good to me."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_us/us_camera_in_courts_sketch_artist

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Obama to senators: Change the way you do business (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama is pressing his case for changes in how the Senate does business, hoping to ease the partisan gridlock, and he wants to bar lawmakers from profiting from their service.

In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said many people he met during his five-state tour after his State of the Union address were optimistic but remained unsure "that the right thing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or the year after that."

"And frankly, when you look at some of the things that go on in this town, who could blame them for being a little cynical?" Obama said.

The president reiterated his calls for government reform made in Tuesday's address, saying he wants the Senate to pass a rule that requires a yes-or-no vote for judicial and public service nominations after 90 days. Many of the nominees, he said, carry bipartisan support but get held up in Congress for political reasons.

Obama noted that "a senator from Utah" said he would hold up nominations because he opposed the recess appointment of the head of the new consumer protection agency and three members of the National Labor Relations Board. Obama put the officials in their post during the Senate's holiday break; many Republicans have called that move unconstitutional. Obama said the American people deserve "better than gridlock and games."

"One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned," the president said.

While Obama did not name the lawmaker, Utah GOP. Sen Mike Lee said Thursday that because of the president's "blatant and egregious disregard both for proper constitutional procedures and the Senate's unquestioned role in such appointments, I find myself duty-bound to resist the consideration and approval of additional nominations until the president takes steps to remedy the situation."

Obama said he also wants Congress to pass legislation to ban insider trading by lawmakers and prohibit lawmakers from owning securities in companies that have business before their committees.

In addition, the president is seeking to prohibit people who "bundle" campaign contributions from other donors for members of Congress from lobbying Congress. Obama urged the public to contact their member of Congress and tell them "that it's time to end the gridlock and start tackling the issues that really matter."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivering the GOP address, said Obama's address to Congress lacked much discussion of the president's achievements "because there isn't much."

"This president didn't talk about his record for one simple reason," Rubio said. "He doesn't want you to know about it. But you do know about it, because your feel the failure of his leadership every single day of the week."

Rubio accused the president of driving up the national debt, failing to reduce high unemployment across the country and offering divisive economic policies.

The Florida senator said there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor but the best way to solve the problem is by embracing the American free enterprise system. Rubio said he hopes 2012 "will be the beginning of our work toward a new and prosperous American century."

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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More retail centers installing electric vehicle charging stations

"Charge it" may soon have new meaning at shopping malls and retail centers across the country.

As sales of electric cars begin to pick up, retailers nationwide are installing electric vehicle charging stations in their parking lots so customers can plug in and juice up their vehicles while browsing inside.

Leading the way is drugstore chain Walgreen Co., which is installing chargers at about 800 stores nationwide, including about 100 Southland locations.

Macy's Inc. is installing chargers at a handful of department stores in San Diego. Kohl's Corp. is undertaking a pilot program to equip 33 stores nationwide with charging stations, and Best Buy said it will test them at 12 locations, including San Diego and Los Angeles.

Retailers view the chargers as a good investment for the future, a way to one-up competitors and burnish a green reputation. Although adoption of electric cars has been tepid so far ? only about 17,000 sold in the U.S. last year ? many retail chains are hoping to win goodwill with eco-conscious, high-income customers by offering an amenity that very few actually need yet.

California leads the nation with about 89,000 registered electric cars on the road last year, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

One roadblock for electric car sales has been the need for drivers to regularly recharge the batteries and the limited number of public places to do so.

There's even a term for it: "range anxiety," or the fear of getting stranded on the road with no outlet in sight. Only 5,084 public chargers are scattered around the country, and more than a quarter of them are in California, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Retailers are moving quickly to fill that void. And, for now, most are providing electricity for free.

At Walgreen "we said, 'Let's lead in this area," said Menno Enters, the Deerfield, Ill., drugstore chain's director of energy and sustainability. "We're all about convenience, and many of our stores are located around commuter routes. We realized that Walgreens was ideally situated to implement a strategy for electric chargers."

If the electric car movement takes off, Walgreen is hoping to snatch sales from nearby gas stations that "seek the same convenience-type customers," Enters said.

In the last three months, furniture giant Ikea has equipped five California stores along with a store in Portland, Ore., and one in Seattle with charging stations. Additional chargers are coming to locations in East Palo Alto, Calif., and Tempe, Ariz.

The Swedish retailer doesn't track how often the stations are used, but the chargers have been conversation pieces, said Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth.

"You can just stand and watch folks driving by in the parking lot. They see the space and you can kind of see that 'oh wow, that's kind of neat' look on their faces," Roth said. "We view it as another aspect of the shopping experience."

Whether shoppers think so is up for debate.

At an Ikea in Covina during a recent weekend, most shoppers walked into the store with nary a glance at the three chargers planted squarely in front of an entrance in the parking garage.

Although she's a frequent patron of the store, Jennifer Ingalls, 48, said she's never noticed the stations.

"I'm all for green, but that doesn't make me want to shop here more," said the 48-year-old human resources assistant. "I'm a big truck fan myself."

Retailers usually get most of the costs covered with subsidies by partnering with a handful of companies such as ECOtality and Coulomb Technologies that specialize in installing and supporting charging stations. These companies have in turn received money ? millions of dollars, in some cases ? from the Energy Department to build up an infrastructure that encourages increased use of electric vehicles.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/1FGNUSkgK0k/la-fi-retail-electricity-charging-20120126,0,3933441.story

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Obama to target rising college tuition costs (AP)

ROMULUS, Mich. ? President Barack Obama wants to shift some federal dollars away from colleges and universities that aren't controlling tuition costs to those that are. He's also proposing competitions among higher education institutions to encourage them to run more efficiently.

Obama will spell out his plans Friday during a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor focused on college affordability.

On Tuesday during his State of the Union address, Obama put colleges and universities on notice to control soaring tuition costs or face losing federal dollars.

The money Obama is targeting is what's known as "campus based" aid given to colleges to distribute in areas such as Perkins loans or in work study programs. Of the $142 billion in federal grants and loans distributed in the last school year, about $3 billion went to these programs.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

President Barack Obama has put colleges and universities on notice to control tuition costs or face losing federal dollars. Now, schools are waiting to hear how big a stick he plans to wield to enforce his message.

Obama was expected to spell out his plan in a speech Friday at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor focused on college affordability. His plan could set a new precedent in the federal government's role in controlling the rising costs of college ? a move making people in higher education nervous. Obama's speech will cap a three-day post-State of the Union trip by the president to promote different components of his economic agenda in politically important states.

The president hinted at what's ahead in education during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, which coincided with the release of a White House "blueprint" that said he wants to shift federal aid away from colleges that don't keep net tuition down and provide a good value. But it's unclear exactly what pot of federal dollars Obama plans to target and how his plan would work.

The Obama administration already has taken a series of steps to expand the availability of grants and loans and to make loans easier to pay back, and Obama spelled out Tuesday other proposals to make college more affordable such as extending tuition tax breaks and asking Congress to keep loan interest rates from doubling on July. His administration has also targeted career college programs ? primarily at for-profit institutions ? with high loan default rates among graduates over multiple years by taking away their ability to participate in such programs.

But until now, it has done little to turn its attention to the rising cost of tuition at traditional colleges and universities. The average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges last fall rose 8.3 percent and with room and board now exceed $17,000 a year, according to the College Board. Rising tuition costs have been blamed on a variety of factors, including a decline in state dollars, an over-reliance on federal student loan dollars and competition for the best facilities and professors.

During Tuesday's speech, the president said he'd met with university presidents who described to him ways some universities through technology and redesigning courses were able to help students finish more quickly ? efforts that helped curtail costs.

"The point is, it's possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can't be a luxury_ it's an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford," Obama said.

Barry Toiv, spokesman for the Association of American Universities, said some of its members participated in the meeting Obama referred to and agree that there are good examples of things that can be done to make colleges more efficient. But he said universities are concerned that any proposal by the president "doesn't hurt students" because anything that does is "obviously counterproductive."

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary, said the autonomy of U.S. higher education is what makes it the best of the world, and he questioned whether Obama could enforce any such plan without hurting students. Potentially, billions of dollars are at stake. In the 2010-2011 school year, the federal government awarded $142 billion in federal student aid ? most of it directly to students in the form of grants and loans, according to the Education Department.

"It's hard to do without hurting students and it's not appropriate to do," Alexander said. "The federal government has no business doing this."

Some public institutions worry about being unfairly blamed for state cuts that led to an increase in tuition prices. Neal McCluskey, an education analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said it's difficult for the federal government to dictate what is a reasonable increase because some colleges and universities might have legitimate reasons to raise tuition some years, such as the need to replace buildings in disrepair.

Obama's plan reflects that in the race between subsidizing tuition with student aid and rising tuition, student aid is going to lose, said Andrew P. Kelly, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Instead of redesigning their business model or using more online programs to save money, many colleges and universities have made small changes hoping to wait out the nation's fiscal crisis that don't solve the problem long term, Kelly said.

"This signals I think a sense of how acute that problem is and the fact that it can't just be about pouring money into federal student aid programs and hoping that affordability is maintained, that there has to be some kind of way, or at least a signal sent, to the institutions that benefit, and the states, frankly ... that they just can't continue to ratchet up prices and use federal aid to fill in the gaps," Kelly said.

Even though it's not politically popular, McCluskey said a good way to control rising tuition costs would be to cut federal aid to students, which would force colleges and universities to keep tuition low.

This isn't the first time a politician has sought to control tuition costs. In 2003, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., proposed a plan to hold back aid to colleges and universities that raised tuition much faster than inflation. It met resistance from higher education and wasn't passed.

Come Friday, "we'll be watching and listening carefully," said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.

___

Hefling reported from Washington.

___

Online:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Education Department: http://www.ed.gov/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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SEC charges trader with hijacking accounts (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? U.S. securities regulators charged a Latvian trader with reaping more than $850,000 in illegal profits by hacking into online brokerage accounts and manipulating more than 100 securities.

In a complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Igors Nagaicevs broke into accounts at large U.S. brokerages and drove up stock prices by making unauthorized purchases and sales.

Separately, the SEC also took administrative enforcement action on Thursday against four electronic trading firms and eight executives, saying they all enabled Nagaicevs's scheme by giving him "anonymous and unfiltered access" to the U.S. market.

Two individuals and one firm have agreed to settle the matter, the agency said.

(Reporting By Sarah N. Lynch; editing by John Wallace)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/us_nm/us_sec_hacking

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Heiress Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans dies at 91 (AP)

RALEIGH, N.C. ? Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, heiress to a vast Gilded Age fortune built on tobacco and member of the family that endowed Duke University, has died. She was 91.

Her daughter, Rebecca Trent Kirkland, said the Durham, N.C., resident died Wednesday at Duke Hospital.

She was the great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, a Confederate soldier who returned home after the Civil War and planted a crop of tobacco. With his sons, Duke helped build the worldwide popularity of cigarettes. He also endowed a small Methodist college that would become Duke University."

"She was our principal link to Duke's founding generation and continued her family's tradition of benevolence throughout her life," Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead said. "She supported every good thing at this university, and she was a powerful force for good in Durham and the Carolinas."

She was elected to the Durham City Council in 1951, becoming the mayor pro tem two years later. From 1961 to 1981, she served as a trustee at Duke University.

Semans was a patron of the arts and charities, as well as a crusader for equal rights for women. For decades, she helped run The Duke Endowment, a Charlotte-based foundation founded by her great uncle, James B. Duke.

She also was a longtime trustee of Lincoln Community Hospital, a Durham facility her family started in 1901 to serve the needs of black patients.

Semans was born in 1920 to Mary Lillian Duke and Anthony Drexel Biddle, Jr., a U.S. Army general who later served as ambassador to Poland and Spain. She and her family divided their time between her parents' country estate in Irvington-on-Hudson and their Fifth Avenue mansion in New York City, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At age 14, she moved from Manhattan to Durham to live with her grandmother. She enrolled at Duke University at age 15 and studied art history, graduating in 1939.

While in college, she met and married medical student Josiah Charles Trent, who later became the chief thoracic surgeon at Duke Hospital. They had four daughters before Trent died of cancer at age 34.

In 1953, she married Dr. James Semans, a surgeon and associate professor of urology at Duke. They had three children. In the 1960s, they helped lead the establishment of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Dr. Semans died in 2005 at age 94.

A funeral service is planned for 2 p.m. Jan. 30 at Duke Chapel.

___

Follow Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_duke_heiress

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Gaming Everything ? Blog Archive ? European Metal Gear Solid HD ...

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Source: http://gamingeverything.com/14286/european-metal-gear-solid-hd-collection-trailer/

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Poland reviews stance on treaty after web attacks (AP)

WARSAW, Poland ? Polish leaders will debate on Monday their stance on an international copyright agreement after activists attacked government websites to protest the treaty.

The attacks, which left many websites, including those of the prime minister and parliament, inaccessible Monday for the second straight day, were claimed by Anonymous, a loose network of online activists who oppose Warsaw's plans to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA.

"Dear Polish government, we will continue to disrupt and interfere with your government official websites until the 26th. Do not pass ACTA," one message on Twitter said. The message was posted from an account called "AnonymousWiki," the same one that announced the planned attacks before government websites went down on Sunday.

ACTA is a far-reaching agreement aimed at harmonizing intellectual property protections across different countries. It covers everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals to fake Prada bags to online piracy. Critics fear it could lead to censorship on the Internet.

Poland was originally scheduled to sign ACTA on Thursday, but whether it will do so is now unclear.

Michal Boni, the minister for administration and digitization, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk and other members of the government were meeting to determine what to do now.

Boni also acknowledged in a radio interview Monday that the government had failed to hold consultations over its stance on the issue.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_hi_te/eu_poland_websites_attacked

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Compounds in mate tea kills cancer cells | ScienceBlog.com

Could preventing colon cancer be as simple as developing a taste for yerba mate tea? In a recent University of Illinois study, scientists showed that human colon cancer cells die when they are exposed to the approximate number of bioactive compounds present in one cup of this brew, which has long been consumed in South America for its medicinal properties.

?The caffeine derivatives in mate tea not only induced death in human colon cancer cells, they also reduced important markers of inflammation,? said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I associate professor of food chemistry and food toxicology.

That?s important because inflammation can trigger the steps of cancer progression, she said.

In the in vitro study, de Mejia and former graduate student Sirima Puangpraphant isolated, purified, and then treated human colon cancer cells with caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) derivatives from mate tea. As the scientists increased the CQA concentration, cancer cells died as a result of apoptosis.

?Put simply, the cancer cell self-destructs because its DNA has been damaged,? she said.

The ability to induce apoptosis, or cell death, is a promising tactic for therapeutic interventions in all types of cancer, she said.

de Mejia said they were able to identify the mechanism that led to cell death. Certain CQA derivatives dramatically decreased several markers of inflammation, including NF-kappa-B, which regulates many genes that affect the process through the production of important enzymes. Ultimately cancer cells died with the induction of two specific enzymes, caspase-3 and caspase-8, de Mejia said.

?If we can reduce the activity of NF-kappa-B, the important marker that links inflammation and cancer, we?ll be better able to control the transformation of normal cells to cancer cells,? she added.

The results of the study strongly suggest that the caffeine derivatives in mate tea have potential as anti-cancer agents and could also be helpful in other diseases associated with inflammation, she said.

But, because the colon and its microflora play a major role in the absorption and metabolism of caffeine-related compounds, the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects of mate tea may be most useful in the colon.

?We believe there?s ample evidence to support drinking mate tea for its bioactive benefits, especially if you have reason to be concerned about colon cancer. Mate tea bags are available in health food stores and are increasingly available in large supermarkets,? she added.

The scientists have already completed and will soon publish the results of a study that compares the development of colon cancer in rats that drank mate tea as their only source of water with a control group that drank only water.

This in vitro study was published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, vol. 55, pp. 1509-1522, in 2011. Co-authors include Sirima Puangpraphant, now an assistant professor at Kasetsart University in Thailand; Greg Potts, an undergraduate student of the U of I; and Mark A. Berhow and Karl Vermillion of the USDA, ARS, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois. The work was funded by the U of I Research Board and Puangpraphant?s Royal Thai Government Scholarship.

Source: http://scienceblog.com/51739/compounds-in-mate-tea-kills-cancer-cells/

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Buffett sings in video for China's New Year gala

BEIJING (AP) ? A hugely popular Chinese Lunar New Year variety show has a special guest star playing the ukulele: American billionaire Warren Buffett.

Buffett is shown wearing a dark sweat shirt and singing the folk song "I've Been Working On The Railroad" in the video posted on state broadcaster CCTV's "Spring Festival Gala" website Sunday.

There are no details on the website about where the 45-second clip was shot, but Buffett appears to be sitting in a small room with an elaborate model railroad set up in the background.

The video's simplicity contrasts with other performances posted on the website of the gala, which is usually a flashy extravaganza that draws 800 million viewers.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-22-AS-China-Buffett/id-4334704b2f2444c0a10d9d1c4276b13c

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Cycling To Raise Funds for Cancer Patients | TopNews United States

It has been reported that as many as 7,000 cyclists would be taking part in the coming fundraising event with the aim of helping the researchers in conducting further research in the field of cancer. The cancer is a deadly disease, which leads to deaths of millions every year all over the world.

The cyclists would be ridding their cycles from Norwood to Adelaide Hills and the race would end at Tanunda, located in the Barossa Valley. In 2011, a similar event helps the Cancer Council to raise an amount of $400,000.

Brenda Wilson, the Chief Executive of the Cancer Council of chief executive of the Cancer Council was reported as saying, ?All of the people riding for a reason including myself have lobbied our friends and colleagues to support us in this ride and personally I think I've raised nearly $3,000 this year and there are a lot of people who have raised a lot more?.

It has been informed that the Opposition Leader and Sport Minister, Tony Abbott and Mark Arbib, respectively, would also be taking part in the event. Besides, many celebrities from the football field and other would also be taking part in the cycling event.

There are about 500 cyclists who have decided to take part in the event in the memory of their loved ones whom they lost to cancer. International visitors are also said to be taking part in the fund raising event.

Cancer has been taking its toll over the life of many for long. However, there is not any permanent cure for it. The money raised through the event would be directed towards Cancer Council and will be used towards improving the lives of cancer patients. So, this year do take part in the fund raising activities to help cancer patients relish their lives.

Source: http://topnews.us/content/245744-cycling-raise-funds-cancer-patients

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Illinois Considers Ban on All Cellphone Use While Driving (ContributorNetwork)

According to Fox News, a statewide ban on operating a motor vehicle while using a handheld cellphone has been proposed in the Illinois House of Representatives. State Rep. John D'Amico, D-Chicago, has proposed the bill that would make holding a cellphone, specifically to make calls, illegal and would require the use of headsets or other hands-free systems if drivers want to talk on their phone.

Driving while holding a cellphone is illegal in Chicago and the suburbs of Evanston and Highland Park. Here are some statistics about cellphone driving and efforts to reduce this safety hazard:

* ABC Local reported that Illinois' ban on texting while driving, which includes sending and reading texts, went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010, and stood alongside a ban on all handheld cellphone conversations while driving through construction and school and school zones.

* The texting ban also includes strict penalties resulting in marks against a driver's record with three marks leading to a suspended driver's license in addition to fines ranging from $75 to $150.

* Statistics collected from Nationwide indicate that distraction from a cellphone while driving impairs a driver's reaction as much as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08, the legal limit.

* The No. 1 source of driver distraction is the use of a wireless device and people operating a motor vehicle while using cellphones are four times as likely to get into serious enough crashes to injure themselves.

* In 2010, Chicago Police Department officers issued 23,393 tickets for using a mobile device while driving, which was the highest number of tickets handed out in a single year for the offense and in total the tickets brought the city $2.2 million in revenue, noted the Chicago Tribune.

* The Windy City has become more proactive about issuing tickets to drivers violating the cellphone ban and the tickets, notorious for being extremely hard to fight, come with $500 fines.

* On Jan. 1, 2010, Illinois also adopted a law against using a cellphone in both school zones and construction zones as a way to decrease traffic accidents in these areas, according to the Journal Star.

* Talking or texting on a cellphone while driving through these restricted zones faces an automatic $74 ticket even when pedestrians or construction workers are not present.

* The Chicago Sun-Times added the Chicago City Council also passed an ordinance in October prohibiting bicycle riders from texting and talking on the phone while riding and fines range from $20 to $500 depending on the offense and if it also involves a traffic accident.

* The purpose of the cellphone ban for bicycle riders was to level the playing between riders and other motorists while also aiming to keep city streets safer.

Rachel Bogart provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120121/pl_ac/10862821_illinois_considers_ban_on_all_cellphone_use_while_driving

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O.C. business leaders receptive to governor's plan | brown, tax ...

IRVINE ? Gov. Jerry Brown's call for a combination of tax hikes and massive public works projects was warmly received when he pitched it to 50 of Orange County's top business executives Thursday.

On the heels of Wednesday's unveiling of the plan, Brown is touring Southern California to garner support for a temporary tax initiative, high-speed rail construction, a water project, public pension reform and key changes to education.

Gov. Jerry Brown cracks a smile while talking to the press after meeting with the Orange County Business Council Thursday in Irvine. He talked about raising the retirement age, cutting the budget and investing in a bullet train.

MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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While the 300-member Orange County Business Council has not voted to support any of the specific plans, OCBC Executive Director Lucy Dunn said the group has been supportive of those proposals in the past and that Brown's presentation Thursday at an Irvine roundtable with 50 key members was greeted with enthusiasm.

Commercial real estate broker Fran Inman was among those embracing Brown's approach, including sweeping cuts previously signed into law by the governor.

"I just think it's time for that kind of commitment and passion," she said. "I think we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. ... It's pretty clear we need both cuts and additional revenue."

Brown pitched his proposed tax initiative as costing half as much as the temporary tax hikes imposed under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ? and which expired last year. That point was emphasized by Dunn when she and Brown met with reporters after the hour-long roundtable meeting.

"It's half the tax that Gov. Schwarzenegger raised," she said. "It's less money than we paid in 2010."

Brown's four-year proposal calls for an additional half-cent sales tax and a marginal tax hike of up to 2 percent for the state's highest earners in order to cover a $9 billion budget deficit. Brown last year wanted legislators to put the measure on the ballot, but it was blocked by the Republican minority. So now Brown has launched the measure as a citizen's initiative, with petitions being circulated to qualify the measure for the November ballot - although those same Republicans remain critical.

"If I lay out the truth, I think the public will vote for it," Brown said.

Dunn noted that her group endorsed the effort to have legislators place the measure on the ballot provided it was accompanied by regulatory reforms. She said the group had previously backed a similar water project, the high-speed rail project, and reforms to public pensions and schools.

One potential obstacle facing Brown and his ballot measure are three other proposed initiatives to hike taxes. Brown acknowledged that if more than one competing tax hike was on the ballot, it lowered the chances of any of them passing.

"If they all go down, it doesn't help anybody," he said, adding that he hope to convince proponents of other plans to back his measure instead.

Brown also emphasized the improving business climate in California, saying that job creation here last year was 50 percent higher than the national average. In particular, he touted his new business development office.

"We are prepared with highly skilled people to cut the red tape," he said.

Brown didn't flinch when asked about the state losing jobs to places like Texas.

"Texas specializes in minimum-wage jobs," he said. "We have more higher-wage jobs."

He was also asked about critics who complain that Brown should not be adding massive water and rail projects at time when other services are being slashed.

"For some, chewing gum and jumping rope is daunting," he quipped. "You have to do both. For rail and water, we're talking about the next 100 years. This state - it's a building place. It's important for America that California lead the way."

Contact the writer: 714-796-6753 or mwisckol@ocregister.com

Source: http://www.ocregister.com/news/brown-336427-tax-measure.html

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Genes May Give Clues to Severe Form of Lupus (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified a DNA sequence that appears to speed up the progression of lupus, an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks healthy tissues.

"Enhancers" are DNA sequences that accelerate the activation of neighboring genes, according to Italian researchers. In the case of lupus, researchers identified a particular DNA sequence, called HS1.2, which may play a role in the most severe cases of the disease, which can cause joint pain, fever, skin rashes, hair loss and anemia.

The study's authors explained that HS1.2 leads to increased activation of the "transcription factor NF-KB" (a molecule that "reads" the genes to make them work). As a result, this accelerator boosts the production of antibodies that attack the tissues, and increases the aggressiveness of the disease.

The discovery of the accelerator could lead to more effective treatments for lupus, such as medications that "turn off" the accelerator, the study authors said.

The study appears in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

"Our results suggest that new drugs that turn off the enhancer HS1.2, or inhibit its effect on NF-KB, can stop the disease without the need for immunosuppressive drugs or other therapies with many side effects," the study's leader, Gianfranco Ferraccioli of the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Rome, said in a university news release. "Moreover, the discovery of the role of this enhancer allows us to better classify patients and formulate a precise prognosis for each one moving toward more personalized care."

Treatments for lupus include cortisone, antimalarial drugs, immunosuppressants and biologic drugs.

HS1.2 also plays a role in other autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and may increase susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, according to the news release.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health has more about autoimmune diseases.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120119/hl_hsn/genesmaygivecluestosevereformoflupus

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MTV's New Crusade: Helping Students Battle College Debt With A Facebook App

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Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.

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The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.

3. Third Party Advertisers

The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.

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As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.

Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2012/01/18/MTVs_New_Crusade_Helping_Students_Battle_College_Debt_With_A/

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Tales emerge of missing and dead in ship disaster (AP)

ROME ? An Italian dad and his 5-year-old daughter. A retired American couple treating themselves after putting four children through college. A Hungarian musician who helped crying children into lifejackets, then disappeared while trying to retrieve his beloved violin from his cabin.

As details emerged Wednesday about the missing and the dead in the grounding of the Costa Concordia, the captain was quoted as saying he tripped and fell into the water from the listing vessel and never intended to abandon his passengers.

The search for the 21 people still unaccounted for in the disaster ground to a halt after the cruise liner shifted again on its rocky perch off the Tuscan island of Giglio, making it too dangerous for divers to continue. Rough seas were forecast for the next few days.

The bad weather also postponed the start of the weekslong operation to extract the half-million gallons of fuel on board the vessel, as Italy's environment minister warned Parliament of the ecological implications if the ship sinks.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into a reef and capsized Friday after the captain made an unauthorized diversion from his programmed route and strayed into the perilous waters.

Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship before everyone was safely evacuated, was placed under house arrest Tuesday, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

The ship's operator, Crociere Costa SpA, has accused Schettino of causing the wreck by making the unapproved detour, and the captain has acknowledged carrying out what he called a "tourist navigation" that brought the ship closer to Giglio. Costa has said such a navigational "fly by" was done last Aug. 9-10, after being approved by the company and Giglio port authorities.

However, Lloyd's List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, said Wednesday its tracking of the ship's August route showed it actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused Friday's disaster.

"This is not a black-and-white case," Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd's List, said in a statement.

"Our data suggests that both routes took the vessel within 200 meters (yards) of the impact point and that the authorized route was actually closer to shore."

New audio of Schettino's communications with the coast guard during the crisis emerged Wednesday, with the captain claiming he ended up in a life raft after he tripped and fell into the water.

"I did not abandon a ship with 100 people on board, the ship suddenly listed and we were thrown into the water," Schettino said, according to a transcript published Wednesday in the Corriere della Sera paper.

Initial audio of Schettino's conversations made headlines on Tuesday, showing an increasingly exasperated coast guard officer ordering Schettino back on board to direct the evacuation, and the captain resisting, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping.

The officer's order, "Get back on board, (expletive!)" has entered the Italian lexicon, becoming a Twitter hashtag and adorning T-shirts.

Eleven people have been confirmed dead so far, and 21 are missing. Italian officials have only released 27 names so far, including two Americans, 12 Germans, six Italians, four French, and one person each from Hungary, India and Peru.

The Hungarian victim was identified Wednesday as 38-year-old Sandor Feher, who had been working as an entertainer on the stricken cruise ship. His body was found inside the wreck and identified by his mother, who had traveled to the Italian city of Grosseto, according to Hungary's foreign ministry.

Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher on the ship, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to retrieve his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to the area where he was supposed to board a lifeboat.

According to Balog, Feher helped put lifejackets on several crying children before returning to his cabin.

Others among the missing include 5-year-old Dayana Arlotti and her father, William Arlotti, who were on the cruise with the father's girlfriend. The girl's parents separated three years ago.

The girl's mother, Susy Albertini, said she has been desperately calling police, port officials and the cruise company for days for news of her daughter and estranged husband.

"I last heard from her on Thursday," when she waved goodbye at school, Albertini, 28, told the La Voce di Romagna newspaper.

"The absurd thing is that no one can tell me anything, and what little I know is from the newspapers," she said. "Sometimes they ask absurd questions, like if my daughter knows how to swim. Do they understand she is 5 years old? What kind of question is that?"

William Arlotti, 36, had gone on the cruise with his girlfriend, Michela Marconcelli, who survived. She reported seeing Dayana, who was wearing a lifejacket, slide into the water when the boat shifted, but said someone helped retrieve her, the newspaper reported.

Marconcelli said she was pushed forward onto the life raft, and lost track of her companion and his daughter.

Other missing include retirees Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn.

Sarah Heil, their daughter, told WBBM radio in Chicago that her parents had been looking forward to the 16-day cruise after raising four kids and sending them all off to college.

"They never had any money," she said. "So when they retired, they went traveling. And this was to be a big deal ? a 16-day trip. They were really excited about it."

The Heil children said in a blog post Wednesday that their parents were not among the passengers whose bodies were recently recovered, and they were praying that weather conditions would improve so authorities could resume search operations.

A U.S. congressional committee announced Wednesday that it will hold a hearing next month on the safety implications of the Costa Concordia accident, saying U.S. and international maritime organizations need to ensure standards are in place to protect passengers' safety on cruise ships.

Passengers have complained vocally about the chaotic evacuation and poor treatment by Costa officials once they got on land, with some saying they were provided only a single night of hotel accommodations and denied help getting to their embassies to get new passports.

Costa owner, Miami-based Carnival Corp., responded Wednesday, saying it was offering assistance and counseling to passengers and crew and was trying to take stock of lost possessions.

"Costa has also begun the process of refunding all voyage costs including both passenger cruise fares and all costs incurred while on board," Carnival said in a statement. "Our senior management teams are working together to determine additional support."

Rescue operations were suspended early Wednesday after instruments attached to the ship detected it had shifted, raising concerns for the safety of rescuers. By evening, officials still did not have enough data to assure the ship had stopped resettling and it was unclear when the search would resume.

Environment Minister Corrado Clini, who has warned of an environmental catastrophe in the waters around Giglio, a sanctuary for marine mammals, briefed Parliament on the effort to extract the half-million gallons of fuel. He said the ship risked sinking if it slips off its rocky perch.

Schettino was questioned by a judge for three hours Tuesday, then ordered held under house arrest rather than jailed ? a decision that federal prosecutors plan to challenge.

The judge, in her reasoning released Wednesday, said Schettino didn't represent a flight risk since he had stayed near the ship even after abandoning it, the ANSA news agency reported.

Schettino's lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, told reporters house arrest made sense.

"He never left the scene," the lawyer said. "There has never been a danger of flight."

Leporatti added that Schettino was upset by the accident, contrary to depictions in the Italian media that he did not appear to show regret.

"He is a deeply shaken man, not only for the loss of his ship, which for a captain is a grave thing, but above all for what happened and the loss of human life," Leporatti said.

Criminal charges including manslaughter and abandoning ship are expected to be filed by prosecutors shortly. Schettino faces a possible 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.

_____

Barry reported from Milan.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Governor Scott Walker Recall: Signatures To Be Turned In Today in Wisconsin (ABC News)

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Lazy Bows Wrapping Paper: The Only Good Use For 3D I've Seen So Far [3D]

There's no better way to say "I truly hate you" than by giving someone a gift that requires them to wear 3D glasses. But this lazy gift wrap is a brilliant way to show someone you actually care, a little. More »

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Regis Philbin sells Conn. house for $3M (omg!)

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) ? Television host Regis Philbin and his wife, Joy, have sold one of their Connecticut homes for $3 million.

The Greenwich Time reports (http://bit.ly/ye4QCb ) that town records show the Colonial home in Greenwich was placed on the market for $3.8 million in July and sold for $3 million in September.

The buyer, Raymond LaChance, told the newspaper that the fact that Philbin is the former owner is "kind of neat," but that did not influence his and his wife's decision to purchase the house.

The home has nearly 6,000 square feet of space and sits on six acres near a state park. It also includes a pool, a tennis court and a gazebo.

The Philbins own another home less than two miles away and an apartment in Manhattan.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_regis_philbin_sells_conn_house3m_202854991/44188022/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/regis-philbin-sells-conn-house-3m-202854991.html

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Kerrey mulling comeback, revives Democratic hopes (AP)

OMAHA, Neb. ? More than a decade after he left this heartland state for New York City, former Sen. Bob Kerrey is considering an improbable comeback run for his old Senate seat, a prospect even he rates as a longshot.

"I would say if you bet ... you'd have to bet against me," Kerrey told The Associated Press this week. "I've been away 11 years. I'm a Democrat. Obama's going to top the ticket, and he's probably going to be unpopular. So I'd say the odds are probably not good."

Since the Senate was founded, only 22 senators have been re-elected to the chamber after a two-term or more gap, according to research by Eric Ostermeier, a research associate at the University of Minnesota, who runs the web site Smart Politics. An even smaller sliver of those, Ostermeier said, have occurred in the "modern era" of political campaigns.

Kerrey, now 68, is not the boyish figure who was elected governor in 1982 and grabbed headlines for briefly dating actress Debra Winger. But Kerrey, Democrats and Republicans seem to agree, is Nebraska Democrats' only hope of holding onto the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Ben Nelson, the man who replaced Kerrey when he retired.

How the Nebraska Senate race unfolds is pivotal for both parties: Republicans need to net four seats in the 2012 election to take back the Senate. If Kerrey doesn't make the race, Republicans are extremely confident they'll have one of the four seats they need.

Former state GOP chairman David Kramer concedes Kerrey is an "instantaneously credible" candidate. Kramer said he is skeptical, though, that Kerrey will be prepared for the rigors of a campaign.

Kerrey is currently on a five-to-six-day visit to his home state, which he says he'll use to determine whether to launch a campaign. He wants to decide quickly, he said, so he can clear the path for any other hopefuls who would otherwise stay out.

Though skeptics ? not least of which include Kerrey himself ? abound, there's recent precedent for a comeback.

Former GOP Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana ran in 2010 after more than a decade out of office and cruised to victory. Former White House spokesman Pete Seat, who worked on Coats' campaign, said candidates who reengage in politics after a long layoff take a while to "get their sea legs back." But he said natural politicians remain natural politicians.

"In many respects it's like riding a bike," Seat said. "It just takes a little bit of time to get back in the game."

Of course, unlike Coats, Kerrey is running in a state that's drifted ideologically away from him since he left. Kerrey's work history could also pose a problem: He left the Senate to become president of the New School, a self-described progressive university in Greenwich Village. While there, he thought about running again for the Senate in Nebraska and passed ? then considered a bid for mayor of New York City.

Kerrey did stay involved with government, working as a member of the 9/11 Commission, but Republicans are sure to highlight what he's been doing the last 10 years.

Kerrey's brushed off the prospect of a brutal campaign with trademark humor, though, alluding to his service as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.

"It's not live rounds," Kerrey said. "It's not like Aaron Burr is challenging me to a duel."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120112/ap_on_el_se/us_kerrey_senate

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Video: Placing Your Bets on Wynn

Insight on the lawsuits against Wynn Resorts to make it reveal more about its finances, with Jake Fuller, Lazard Capital Markets research analyst.

Related Links:

Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45986204/

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Oil tumbles on reports of Iran sanction delay (AP)

NEW YORK ? Anxiety that Iranian oil would soon be forced off European markets eased Thursday, sending crude prices below $100 a barrel for the first time this year.

The U.S. has been pressing other nations to ban Iranian oil quickly, in response to Iran's growing nuclear program. But an official close to the talks said that the European Union probably will not embargo Iranian oil until summer. The EU is expected to make a decision on an oil embargo at a Jan. 23 meeting.

"We have to see what the current contracts are" between Iran and European refineries, and how long it would take those countries to find alternative sources of crude, the official said. The official insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Iran, the world's third-largest oil exporter, sells crude to several European countries including Italy, Spain, France and Greece.

After rising for much of the day, benchmark crude plunged $2 in the final minutes of trading after word of the potential delay surfaced. It ended the day at $99.10 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price foreign oils imported by U.S. refineries, fell by $1.01 to finish at $111.05 per barrel in London.

Analysts and oil traders said it was previously unclear when Europe might act against Iran. A summer embargo was seen as a distant deadline that likely signaled a cooling off period in the Persian Gulf.

"It defuses an explosive situation," independent oil trader Jim Ritterbusch said. "It sharply reduces the likelihood of any military skirmishes."

Iran has denied claims that it is building a nuclear weapon. It's threatened to shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, blocking one-sixth of the world's oil exports, if the U.S. and other nations impose sanctions because of its nuclear program.

Diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear program with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran had refused to engage in talks for more than three years.

Earlier in the day, oil prices were climbing on news out of Nigeria that striking oil workers planned to walk off the job Sunday. Nigeria is the fifth-largest oil exporter to the U.S., and a shutdown would force American refineries to replace 630,000 barrels per day of crude. Nigerian workers have been protesting the end of long-standing government fuel subsidies.

In other energy trading, natural gas prices slipped to 10-year lows for the winter following a government report that U.S. supplies are at the highest levels ever for this time of year.

The Energy Information Administration said supplies are 13.4 percent higher than what they were a year ago and 17 percent above the five-year average. The nation's natural gas supply peaked in mid-November with the highest amount ever recorded. Supplies have dropped since then, but the 3.38 trillion cubic feet in storage as of last week is still a record for the first week in January.

Americans are using less at a time when energy companies are pumping more from fields across the country. Production is booming as rising crude prices encourage drillers to tap new oil and gas fields in North America.

Natural gas prices fell 8 cents, or 2.8 percent, to end at $2.70 per 1,000 cubic feet. Prices have fallen 13 percent in the past week as a mild winter cut into heating demand across the U.S., where more than half of homeowners use natural gas for heat.

"This is becoming the winter that never was," energy analyst and oil trader Stephen Schork said.

As natural gas prices fall, so will heating bills. And power prices also could drop in some parts of the country where utilities burn natural gas to run generators that make electricity.

Heating oil fell by 1 cent to end at $3.05 per gallon and gasoline futures fell 3 cents to finish at $2.73 per gallon.

___

Follow Chris Kahn on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ChrisKahnAP

Raf Casert contributed to this story from Brussels.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120112/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

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Newt Gingrich hits Mitt Romney on abortion in South Carolina ad (Washington Post)

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