US drawdown in Afghanistan includes many trainers

Monday, 8 July 2013

Camp Leatherneck, July 9 (Newswire): For today's drill, an instructor explains, the Taliban will be played by U.S. Marines, and the "village" will be just down from the driving practice loop.

The Afghans grab their weapons and head out, taking cover behind a berm. A pickup drives up. The Afghans take aim and mimic the sound of a machine gun. The Marines tumble out of the vehicle, grabbing their chests as they fall to the ground.

That's a successful day at the U.S. Marine-run Joint Sustainment Academy in southwestern Afghanistan, which has been offering supplementary training on weapons, specialized skills and unit leadership to Afghan soldiers and police since 2009.

The Afghans who attend the academy say they learn things that were never taught in their official training: how to handle different weapons and how to organize a patrol or an ambush.

But now, even as U.S. officials talk about their commitment to training and advising Afghan security forces well past 2014, the Joint Sustainment Academy is preparing to shut down.

Officials in the U.S. talking about the need to decrease combat operations in Afghanistan have been much more reticent to highlight one aspect of the drawdown: that plenty of U.S. advisers and mentors are also leaving.

Those who stay will hop in and out of Afghan units rather than being embedded with one group in a move that is described as a way to get Afghan forces to take more responsibility.

"Someone made the decision, 'OK, I'm going to only have the personnel for this piece,' " said Lt. Col. Mike Cromwell, director of the academy at a U.S. base in Helmand province. "It just means fewer people. It's part of the overall drawdown."

Cromwell and the 31 other American service members running the academy end their tour at the beginning of 2013, and they have been told they won't be replaced. They say it's an opportunity to pass the torch to the Afghan trainers at the academy. But, Cromwell says, the academy as it exists on Camp Leatherneck is closing.

The Marines hope that the Afghan army and police see the value in what they have been teaching and incorporate it into their existing training centers at a nearby army base and at a police facility in the provincial capital.

"As we ramp down, those centers are the longer-term solutions," Cromwell said.

Training classes have already shrunk at the academy. Last year, the Marine academy trained 2,547 Afghans. Cromwell expects to train less than half that — about 1,000 — by the end of this year.

"We may not make that," Cromwell said.

And this is even though the academy is focused now on training Afghan soldiers and police to become trainers themselves — a goal that NATO and U.S. forces say is one of their most important priorities.

The general overseeing the two southwestern provinces of Helmand and Nimroz says the trainer cuts don't worry him.

"We're handing over this part of the training," said Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus. "We will continue to have security force assistance teams — out with the different battalions and brigades and with our police — that will continue to mentor, advise and train as we move forward toward the end of 2014 and potentially beyond."

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Wisconsin woman hurt in Afghanistan gets top Air Force honor

Kabul, July 9 (Newswire): A 23-year-old Wisconsin woman has been named one of the best in the Air Force in part for her actions caring for others after she was injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Afghanistan.

Senior Airman Bryenna Brooks will be honored at a ceremony in September as one of "12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year." The honor recognizes her leadership and achievements as a medic attached to an Army resupply unit in Afghanistan last year and in her current role as a clinician for the 2nd Aerospace Medicine Squadron based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

She earned a Purple Heart and several other medals in the June 3, 2011, attack that left her with shrapnel wounds along the left side of her body.

Brooks had volunteered for deployment to the war zone and was near the end of a six-month tour when the convoy, stalled by mechanical problems, was fired upon shortly after midnight.

Convoy security personnel were shooting back at a distant enemy position when the grenade hit Brooks' vehicle, whizzing within a foot of her left shoulder as it screamed clear through the passenger compartment.

"It was just really loud, and there were a lot of sparks and smoke," Brooks said.

"I went to grab my medical bag, but the RPG had gone through it, and all the equipment was ruined," Brooks said. "It was hard to see at first. When it was happening I guess I was just focused on making sure that everyone was OK."

She gave first aid to the others as they sped to a base where medics treated her.

"We were all very lucky to come out with minor injuries," Brooks said.

She is one of about 800 military women who have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat and noncombat incidents. More than 130 have been killed.

Despite a ban on assigning women to ground combat roles, they still end up in dangerous situations, often in convoys driving through areas that are subject to attack.

Brooks was the sole convoy medic on 25 missions, which transported 1,200 soldiers and countless tons of supplies.

"We're just really proud of her and what she's done," said Capt. Benjamin Meighan. "She's a reflection of everyone here. We have tough people across the board."

The shrapnel robbed her of feeling in her left arm for a while, but it has healed, and she now works in a clinic at the base in Louisiana.

A few hours after the grenade attack that night in 2011, Brooks telephoned her parents' home in Sherwood and calmly told her father that she had been injured in an attack but that she was fine.

Tomas Brooks passed the phone to his wife, Jayme, but the signal soon broke and was lost.

"She just wanted us to know she was all right," he said. "She handled it very well, but it was very stressful. There's a million things that go through your head afterwards when you can't see her and you don't know what happened."

Brooks graduated in 2007 from St. Mary Central High School in Neenah, then attended UW-Milwaukee for a year and held a couple of jobs before enlisting, said her father. He was worried about her joining the military, and doubly concerned when she deployed to Afghanistan.

The oldest of three daughters, Brooks was always a fast learner, but she appeared bored with high school, her father said. She had a little trouble finding direction as a young adult but seems to have grown up fast in the military, he said.

"I'm just so proud of her that she's been able to handle that and do well," Tomas Brooks said.

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300 Duluth fighter wing 'Bulldogs' to deploy to Afghanistan

Duluth, July 9 (Newswire): Some 300 members of the Air National Guard's 148th Fighter Wing out of Duluth, Minn. are deploying to Afghanistan.

The 148th Wing "Bulldogs" will deploy to Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan in August.

This is the Bulldogs' first "aviation package" deployment to Afghanistan and the first time they will deploy with the new Block 50 F-16 aircraft. Most personnel will deploy for two months.

"After two years mastering the Block 50 F-16 and the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) mission, the Air Force has tasked our wing to deploy" said 148th Fighter Wing Commander, Col. Frank Stokes. "The Bulldogs of the 148th are ready for this challenge and proud to serve our great country"

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Researchers sail off on quest for Amelia Earhart's fate

Honolulu, July 9 (Newswire): Researchers seeking to chronicle Amelia Earhart's fate 75 years after she vanished over the Pacific set off from Hawaii on a $2 million expedition to look for wreckage of her plane near a remote island where they believe the U.S. aviator died a castaway.

Researchers will travel 1,800 miles by ship from Honolulu to Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati, where they believe Earhart's Lockheed Electra may rest in waters offshore from where they suspect she survived for weeks or months in 1937.

Richard Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), theorizes Earhart's plane was washed off the reef by surf days after Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed on Nikumaroro, about 400 miles southeast of their Howland Island destination.

The duo had departed Papua New Guinea July 2 in Earhart's quest to circumnavigate the globe along an equatorial route. Gillespie said circumstantial evidence collected on previous trips to Nikumaroro makes a strong case for his theory that Earhart ended her days as a castaway, ultimately perishing in the island's harsh conditions.

Discovered items include what appears to be jar of a once-popular brand of anti-freckle cream from the 1930s, a clothing zipper from the same decade, a bone-handled pocket knife of the type Earhart carried, and piles of fish and bird bones indicative of a Westerner trying to survive.

"We have hints as to how long she did survive," Gillespie said. "Based on the amount of bones, she survived a number of weeks, maybe months. This is a whole chapter in Amelia Earhart's life that no one ever knew. It's heroic stuff."

The state of the discovered fish bones found by what Gillespie believes was Earhart's campsite leads him to believe they were consumed by a Westerner.

"Pacific Islanders usually eat the head of the fish. That's often what they think is the best part. This person isn't eating them," he said.

"We found giant clamshells ... A Pacific Islander will catch them while open and cut them out. There were several up at the campsite bashed in," he added, saying others were laid up concave as if to catch rainwater.

"We've found bottles standing in what was a campfire, with the bottoms melted but the top not heat-damaged, and pieces of wire fashioned into a loop. It looks like someone was boiling water to make it safe to drink."

Researchers have also found bone fragments Gillespie said were too compromised to provide DNA for testing. Gillespie believes a partial skeleton found by a British officer in 1940 may have been Earhart's. The skeleton was taken to Fiji.

A doctor there concluded it belonged to a man, but Gillespie said a reexamination of the recorded bone dimensions indicate the remains were of a Caucasian female. Found along with the skeleton were a man's and woman's shoe, and a sextant box.

What happened to the bones remains a mystery. Gillespie traveled with his group to Fiji last summer to try to find them based on old records. He said they did find a box of bones, but that testing showed they belonged to a Polynesian female.

Such disappointments have happened before in the 24 years Gillespie has been looking for the answer to Earhart's final chapter. At one point TIGHAR believed it had found a navigator's book case from her plane. Another time they thought they would find her plane in the lagoon. Both leads proved false.

Gillespie says there's been no evidence of the fate of Earhart's navigator, Fred Noonan. "We don't know much about Fred. The partial skeleton found in 1940 was that of a woman who had died by the campsite."

He theorized that even if Earhart was catching fish and birds she could have starved to death, or faced other risks.

"You can be getting food, but you don't have enough calories to replace the calories you're expending catching it. The reef is slippery and if you get cut it will become infected immediately and can lead to blood poisoning. Or there could have been injuries from the landing or crash."

In his previous nine trips there, Gillespie has experienced firsthand how hard surviving there would be.

"The island is four degrees south of the Equator. The sun is a hammer. There is no fresh water. When you get ashore you have to cut a trail through the jungle to the lagoon side. There are black tip sharks all over the place."

Throughout the years of looking, Gillespie had always wondered how Earhart might have collected water, as the only containers they'd found were small cosmetic bottles.

"Then on last expedition there was a big rain and squall while we were working in the forest The Boca trees there had large leaves," he said, adding that rain could collect on leaves on the ground. "With a small bottle you could collect from trees and roots."

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Climate change no longer tops US environment worries

New York, July 9 (Newswire): Americans no longer see climate change as the world's number-one environmental issue, according to a public opinion poll released here amid an ongoing heat wave in much of the United States.

Twenty-nine percent cited water and air pollution as the most pressing concern, the Washington Post-Stanford University poll indicated, followed by 18 percent who pointed to climate change -- way down from 33 percent in 2007.

More than 800 adults took part in the telephone survey between June 13 and 21, several days before record-setting temperatures unleashed fierce thunderstorms and left millions without power in many states.

The poll -- which also followed the warmest spring on record in the United States -- had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

While downgrading climate change, nearly three in four poll respondents said the Earth is warming, and just as many felt global temperatures will keep going up if nothing is done to address the matter.

Reporting the poll findings, the Washington Post said the reduced priority given by Americans to global climate change could be due to President Barack Obama's own low profile on the issue ahead of the November election.

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Questions about chief justice's health-care ruling could have lasting impact

Washington, July 9 (Newswire): Unprecedented leaks of behind-the-scenes information at the US Supreme Court are raising questions about whether the threat of political attacks and other potential criticism played a role in the high court's recent decision to uphold President Obama's health-care reform law.

The most detailed leaks came in a CBS News report over the weekend, suggesting that Chief Justice John Roberts may have switched sides in the high-profile case in part to insulate the court and his own legacy as chief justice from election-year criticism should the court strike down the massive reform law.

President Obama and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont, among others, made statements after oral arguments in the case suggesting that any decision overturning the health-care law would be the illegitimate work of conservative judicial activists on the Supreme Court.

The warning was clear: The Supreme Court and the justices themselves were about to become fair game in the president's campaign for reelection.

Now, a week after the Supreme Court announced its opinion upholding the health-care law, Justice Roberts is being accused of having caved in to threats of political pressure.

The problem with such accusations is that they are difficult to prove – or disprove. Even worse, if the perception spreads that the chief justice is susceptible to outside pressure, the court will likely come under even more pressure and criticism in future cases – even if the perception is untrue.

Liberal columnists who favor the health-care law are praising Roberts for supposedly rising above conservative politics to give the case fair adjudication. The chief justice exemplified a kind of noble leadership, intent on keeping the court above any taint of politics, they suggest.

Some conservatives were less charitable, branding Roberts a traitor. Although Roberts essentially agreed with the court's conservative wing that the law was unconstitutional, he used his power as chief justice wielding a crucial fifth vote to ensure that the case was decided in a way that upheld the health-care reform law.

These conservative analysts, who oppose the health-care law, accuse Roberts of deliberately shaping his decision to mitigate an election-year political backlash against the Supreme Court – and Roberts himself.

Into this mix comes an intriguing CBS News report citing inside sources claiming that Roberts initially voted to strike down the health-care reform law but later changed his mind and switched sides to uphold it.

According to the report, Roberts abandoned his conservative colleagues and joined forces with the court's liberal wing in what the report suggests was an effort to avoid partisan criticism of the Supreme Court.

The account, by CBS News Correspondent Jan Crawford, was based on two unnamed sources "with specific knowledge of the deliberations."

Although the account suggested that concern about outside political pressure may have influenced Roberts's switch, his precise motives are not identified.

"It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law," the CBS report says.

The news report sparked a new round of criticism among conservative legal analysts.

"The fact that this decision was apparently political, rather than legal, completely undermines its legitimacy as a precedent," said Randy Barnett, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the first legal scholars to raise questions about the constitutionality of the health-care reform law.

"Its result can be reversed by the People in November," he added in a statement, "and its weak tax power holding reversed by any future court without pause."

The Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The decision surprised many conservative analysts who expected the chief justice to side with the court's conservative wing to strike down the centerpiece of the law, the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

At issue in the case was whether Congress overstepped its authority under the Commerce Clause by ordering Americans to engage in commercial transactions (buying insurance), which Congress would then regulate.

Roberts and four other conservative justices concluded that the so-called individual mandate exceeded limits on congressional power. Those five votes would have been enough to invalidate the mandate and establish a clear limit on the expansion of federal power under the Commerce Clause.

That alone could have resolved the case and would have qualified as a landmark decision.

Instead, Roberts sided with the court's four liberal justices to uphold the health-care reform law as a valid exercise of Congress's power to raise and collect taxes. In effect, Roberts and the liberal justices concluded that the penalty required in the individual mandate was not a penalty at all, but a tax.

Even though the law was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, it could still stand because Congress had full authority to enact it as a tax, Roberts announced.

The chief justice also joined with the court's liberal wing to uphold a major expansion of Medicaid, provided the administration dropped its threat to withdraw all existing Medicaid funding from states that choose to opt out of the Medicaid expansion.

The federal government must give the states a genuine choice of whether to participate in the federal expansion or not, the justices said.

Many conservatives saw a silver lining in the decision, noting that five justices – including Roberts – announced a new limit to expansive claims of power by the federal government under the Commerce Clause. In addition, for the first time ever, the Supreme Court had recognized a limit on coercive conditions Congress could place on federally funded programs administered at the state level.

At the same time, liberals celebrated the high court's constitutional endorsement of the president's signature legislative accomplishment, the largest expansion of the nation's social safety net since the 1960s.

Although the decision seemed to offer something for everyone, it was not the clear victory many were anticipating.

Conservatives looked at Roberts and wondered what went wrong.

There is no evidence that politics played a role in the outcome. But with 187 pages of decisions, concurrences, and dissents issued by the court, it is clear that the chief justice split with his conservative colleagues not simply over whether to strike down the individual mandate but also whether to strike down the entire law.

Roberts agrees with the four dissenting justices, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, that the individual mandate exceeds the limits of the Commerce Clause and also that the Medicaid expansion is unconstitutionally coercive of the states.

The key difference is Roberts apparently felt there was enough legal justification to uphold the entire law based on Congress's broad authority to raise and collect taxes.

Until Roberts elevated it, the tax question had never emerged as a central issue.

No other judge in two years of litigation challenging the health-care reform law had reached a similar conclusion. President Obama insisted the measure was not a tax. The law itself, as written by Congress, refers 18 times to a "penalty." And the mandate and associated penalty/tax is located in first section of the law, not the ninth section reserved for "Revenue Provisions."

Nonetheless, Roberts and the court's liberal wing agreed that there was enough to conclude the measure was a tax.

The written opinions released in the health-care reform case were highly unusual in that the four conservative justices issued a joint dissent and refused as a bloc to concur in any of the chief justice's decision.

That disposition has spawned a debate over whether portions of the opinions dealing with the Commerce Clause and coercive use of the Congress's spending power established binding legal precedents or just surplus prose.

In their dissent, the four conservatives accused Roberts of effectively rewriting the health-care law as a tax to avoid having to strike it down as unconstitutional.

"To say that the individual mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it," the dissent said.

"The court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty. It is not," the dissent added. "It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect."

Roberts concedes in his decision that his interpreting the individual mandate as a tax is not the most natural way to read the statute. But the court's task is only to decide whether it is "fairly possible" to justify the law as a tax, he said.

"It is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that [the individual mandate] can be interpreted as a tax," Roberts said.

It is unclear whether Roberts will enforce the same significant deference to Congress in future federalism cases or will instead side with his conservative colleagues.

What is clear is that the chief justice will likely be the target of escalating criticism from one side or the other, regardless of what he does.

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Disruptive JetBlue Airways pilot ruled not guilty by reason of insanity

Washington, July 9 (Newswire): The JetBlue pilot who in March left the cockpit during a flight and began screaming at passengers has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson of Texas made the ruling in favor of Clayton Osbon, 49, media reported. In her decision, Robinson said that at the time, Osbon suffered "from a severe mental disease or defect that impaired his ability to appreciate the nature, quality, or wrongfulness of his behavior."

After a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, Osbon was found mentally competent to stand trial. At the time, Judge Robinson said Osbon was "not now suffering from a mental disease or defect."

However, he will now be sent to a federal mental health facility in Fort Worth, Texas, for further evaluation.

Osbon's attorney, Dean Roper, declined to comment on the ruling. Another hearing is scheduled for Osbon on August 6, during which a judge will decide whether the former pilot should be released or sent to a mental health facility.

In April, Osbon was released from a hospital and appeared in court, where he was indicted on one charge of interfering with a flight crew after the March 27 incident. During the flight from New York to Las Vegas, Osbon allegedly shouted incoherent statements at passengers, citing both al-Qaida and Jesus Christ. Witnesses say Osbon had to be wrestled to the floor before the plane could land safely.

Before beginning his tirade, Osbon reportedly said to the flight crew, "We're not going to Vegas," and told the first officer, "We're going to have to take a leap of faith."

Had he been convicted, Osbon could have faced 20 years in prison, media reported.

JetBlue spokeswoman Alison Croyle said that the airline "continues to support the Osbon family; we don't have further comment as we let the judicial process play out. We can confirm he is still employed, on inactive status, with JetBlue," she said.

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My three daddies: California eyes multiple parenting law

New York, July 9 (Newswire): California, the battleground state for the arguments for and against same-sex marriage, is now considering an unconventional law that would allow children to be legally granted more than two parents.

The bill -- SB1476 -- would apply equally to men and women, and to homosexual or heterosexual relationships. Proposed by State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, it has passed the Senate and awaits an Assembly vote.

Leno cites the evolving American family, which includes surrogacy arrangements, same-sex marriages and reproductive techniques that involve multiple individuals.

"The bill brings California into the 21st century, recognizing that there are more than 'Ozzie and Harriet' families today," Leno told the Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco."

Leno told ABCNews.com that he recognized a "problem" in the legal system in 2011 when an appellate court placed a girl in foster care when her legally married parents -- two lesbians -- could not care for her.

The child was taken into state custody when one of her mothers was jailed and the nonbiological mother was hospitalized.

The court did not have the authority to appoint the girl's biological father, with whom she had a relationship, as a legal parent. That third parent could have "benefitted the well-being of the child," said Leno.

"We are not touching the definition of a parent under the current law," said Leno. "When a judge recognizes that a child is likely to find his or her way into foster care and if there is an existing parent who qualifies as a legal parent, why not have the law when it is required to protect the well-being of the child?"

Parents would have to qualify under all legal standards and agree on custody, visitation and child support before a judge could divide up responsibilities.

Several other states, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maine and the District of Columbia, recognize more than two parents.

"Most children have at most two parents, but some children have more than two people in their lives who have been a child's parent in every way," says Leno in his fact sheet on the bill. "For example, a child raised from birth by a biological mother and a non-biological father may also have a relationship with his or her biological father.

"In such a situation, the child may consider both adults in the home to be parents, as well as his or her biological father. In such a case, it may be in the child's best interests to have a legally protected relationship with all three of the parental figures in his or her life."

Glenn T. Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies for the conservative group Focus on the Family, argues that the bill appears to advocate for children's rights, but in reality gives adults legal protection to create "radical families."

"We hear all this celebratory talk about 'new families,' but there is no sociological, psychological or medical data showing any of these new family forms have served to the elevate the general physical, mental, educational or developmental well-being of children in any meaningful way," said Stanton.

"That job is best done for children by their own mother and father," he said. "And this bill would only take us farther down the trail of more 'experimental families' that fulfill adult desires, but consistently fail our children."

But Leno argues that a new law would address more than just same-sex families, including one in which a man raises a nonbiological child with a woman, but the child also has a relationship with the biological father.

A lesbian couple, for example, might also want to include a male friend who provided sperm for the conception of their child as a legal parent.

Leno maintains that it is in the best interest of a child to designate multiple parents to provide financial support, health insurance and other state benefits.

Not to do so can have "disastrous emotional, psychological, and financial consequences for the child," according to Leno.
Adoptive Families Might Use Law

Such a law might serve not only same-sex families, but adoptive ones as well, where there may be a relationship with a biological parent.

However, Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, said situations where the law might be applicable are "pretty limited."

"Most people don't aim for this and don't need it," he said. "It's an arrangement that's created for specific circumstances -- but I don't see a big trend here."

"People in the adoption world get very concerned about a law like this," said Pertman. "One of the concerns they have about open adoptions is co-parenting and it simply is not. There are circumstances where there is a real need and individual cases where it serves the needs of the child. That should be the focus, to have a law that permits the child to get what he or she needs."

And some legal experts in California question the impact of such a law on an array of issues like tax deductions and wrongful death suits.

Leno acknowledges that the law might be applied in "rare circumstances" and only when it is required "for the best interests of the child."

"Some of the hyperbolic corners of the opposition are suggesting there could be four, six or eight parents," he said. "But I think that it will not be used when a child has too many parents, but when there are too few."

The bill was co-sponsored by the University of San Diego School of Law's Children's Advocacy Institute and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

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Easy fix eludes power outage problems in US

Washington, July 9 (Newswire): In the aftermath of violent storms that knocked out power to millions from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic , sweltering residents and elected officials are demanding to know why it's taking so long to restring power lines and why they're not more resilient in the first place.

The answer, it turns out, is complicated: Above-ground lines are vulnerable to lashing winds and falling trees, but relocating them underground involves huge costs — as much as $15 million per mile of buried line — and that gets passed onto consumers.

With memories of other extended outages fresh in the minds of many of the 1.07 million customers who still lacked electricity, some question whether the delivery of power is more precarious than it used to be. The storms that began knocked out power to 3 million and have been responsible for the deaths of 24 people in seven states and the District of Columbia, including a utility contractor who fell to his death in Garrett County, Md.

"It's a system that from an infrastructure point of view is beginning to age, has been aging," said Gregory Reed, a professor of electric power engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. "We haven't expanded and modernized the bulk of the transmission and distribution network."

The powerful winds that whipped through several states, toppling trees onto power lines and knocking out transmission towers and electrical substations, have renewed debate about whether to bury lines. District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray was among officials calling for the change this week and was seeking to meet with the chief executive of Pepco, the city's dominant utility, to discuss what he called a slow and frustrating response.

"They obviously need to invest more in preparing for getting the power back on," said Maryland state Sen. James Rosapepe, who is among those advocating for moving lines underground. "Every time this happens, they say they're shocked — shocked that it rained or snowed or it was hot — which isn't an acceptable excuse given that we all know about climate change."

Though the newest communities do bury their power lines, many older ones have found that it's too expensive to replace existing networks.

To bury power lines, utilities need to take over city streets so they can cut trenches into the asphalt, lay down plastic conduits and then the power lines. Manholes must be created to connect the lines together. The overall cost is between $5 million and $15 million per mile, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, Inc., a nonprofit research and development group funded by electric utilities. Those costs get passed on to residents in the form of higher electric bills, making the idea unpalatable for many communities.

Power lines are already underground in parts of Washington, but initial estimates are that it would cost as much as $5.8 billion to bury them throughout the entire city and would cost customers an additional $107 per month, said Michael Maxwell, Pepco's vice president of asset management.

North Carolina considered burying its lines in 2003, after a winter storm knocked out power to 2 million utility customers. The North Carolina Public Staff Utilities Commission eventually concluded it was "prohibitively expensive" and time-consuming. The project would have cost $41 billion and taken 25 years to complete — and it would have raised residential electric bills by 125 percent.

An onslaught of recent extreme weather around the country, including heat waves, wildfires and flooding, has increased strain on infrastructure already struggling to meet growing consumer demand. And some scientists predict the severe weather will only increase, though it will take time to study this year's weather before any conclusions can be drawn.

Pepco has contingency plans for dealing with severe weather like tornadoes and hurricanes and runs periodic drills in which staff go through the process of responding to mass outages. In this case, though, the hurricane-force winds lashed the region with no advance notice, creating a type of quick-hit storm that caught the utility flat-footed and for which it had not practiced, Maxwell said.

"That's going to be a very big lesson for us," he said. "We need to understand how we recover from this."

A stress index created by the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which monitors the country's power supply to annually assess its performance, shows that day-to-day performance seems to have improved, but there was an increase in high-stress days. The company counted six high-stress days in 2011, slightly more than the three preceding years. Weather was a contributing factor in nine of the 10 failures severe enough to generate a federally required report in 2011.

But utility insiders acknowledge that the math is little comfort when a customer's air conditioner fails during a triple-digit heat wave and the food spoils.

"The industry is getting better and better," said Aaron Strickland, who oversees distribution and emergency operations for Georgia Power, a subsidiary of the Atlanta-based Southern Co. "In my opinion, I think the expectations of customers are higher and higher because we depend so much on electricity. ... We expect to push that button and it works."

Still, he noted the storms pummeled the region with no advance warning, and "you can't prepare for that."

"You don't see it coming," Strickland said. "It just happens."

Seth Blumsack, an assistant professor of energy policy and economics at Penn State, said utilities are making investments in transmission upgrades but "it doesn't look like blackouts are getting any less common."

"Some studies have suggested that they are getting more common," he said. "Some studies have suggested that they're happening at basically the same rate as they used to."

Though the country's power infrastructure is reliable, it was mostly built between the 1930s and 1970s and is starting to age, said Reed of the University of Pittsburgh.

Bruce Wollenberg, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Minnesota who specializes in power systems, said it's hard to tell if extended outages are more common than in years past. But the capacity for high-voltage transmission systems has not increased with demand, he said, in part because of the cost of moving power lines underground and the general distaste for having above-ground lines right outside homes.

"People don't want power lines — period ...They don't like the way they look, they don't like a lot of things," Wollenberg said. "It's universal across the country, and I think across the world. People don't want power lines. They don't want more power lines."

Residents' complaints about the latest outages have increased with their duration.

Kevin Fogg, a barber from the rural community of Jefferson, about 45 miles northwest of Washington, scoffed when asked if he'd be willing to pay Potomac Edison higher rates to prevent more outages like the one he's been suffering through.

"I think it's more than it should be already," Fogg said.

He said the utility company should do a better job of trimming trees and branches that threaten power lines.

"There's a huge, dead tree hanging over our line and they said, 'Well, we're not going to cut it down,'" Fogg said. "It's got to break first and knock the power line down before they'll do anything about it. So I guess they won't do any preventive maintenance — or at least not as much as they should."

Jean Cuseo, a middle-school art teacher from Jefferson, said she's not sure if she'd be willing to pay more to prevent outages, even if that were an option.

"I'm pretty environmentally friendly. If I could live off the grid I would," she said.

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Iran says OPEC will not lift output ceiling

Tehran, July 9 (Newswire): Iran's caretaker oil minister said on Saturday that OPEC was opposed to any increase in output ceilings in the absence of "well-studied justifications".

"Iran's policy as head of OPEC is to maintain the production ceiling of this organisation," Mohammad Aliabadi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

"It is an issue which a majority of OPEC members agree with." Iran holds the rotating OPEC presidency.

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China June inflation hits three-year high

Beijing, July 9 (Newswire): China's annual inflation accelerated to a three-year high in June, increasing the risk that the central bank will keep raising interest rates as price pressures spread well beyond food and energy.

The consumer price index for June rose 6.4 percent from a year earlier, slightly above economists' forecasts for a 6.3 percent increase, with sharp rises recorded in food, consumer goods and property.

"The central bank may have to raise interest rate once more in the third quarter," said Cui Yong, an economist with GF Securities in Beijing, adding that inflation is expected to accelerate further in July.

At 3 percent, the rise in non-food prices was the highest since records began in 2002. Food prices rose 14.4 percent, driven by a spike in pork prices.

Saturday's report, which came three days after the People's Bank of China hiked interest rates, suggested inflation pressures may persist even if global commodity prices fall.

Many economists expect China's inflation to cool in the second-half of the year as world oil prices ease, but they are watching carefully for evidence that higher costs are filtering into a broader swathe of the economy.

China's policymakers must strike a delicate balance between sustaining powerful economic growth and ensuring inflation does not get out of hand.

Some investors worry Beijing may clamp down too hard on borrowing costs, choking off growth in one of the world's most reliable economic engines. But if prices rise too much, it could stoke social unrest.

Last month, Premier Wen Jiabao signalled that China would struggle to meet its 4 percent inflation target this year, underlining expectations that interest rates will rise further even as economic growth slows down.

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US stocks rise for the week, despite jobs data

New York, July 9 (Newswire): US stocks ended the week with a modest gain, despite being punished by a disappointing jobs report that showed growth was still limping along in the world's largest economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.59 percent to close at 12,657.20 after a four-day week shortened by the July 4 Independence Day holiday.

The broader S&P 500 gained 0.31 percent to end the week at 1,343.80, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fared better, climbing 1.55 percent to 2,859.81.

Markets rallied earlier in the week in anticipation of a strong jobs number, but then the Labor Department reported that unemployment was up to 9.2 percent and that only 18,000 jobs were created in June, triggering a sell-off.

"We're still in an uptrend, but given the strong market that we've had in the past two weeks, we were due for a pullback," said Michael James, a senior equity trader with Wedbush Morgan Securities.

For the time being, worries about the Greek debt crisis have eased and are not weighing on the market, James added.

Next week, Wall Street's attention will turn to corporate earnings as companies begin to report their second-quarter results.

Prominent companies set to release earnings include aluminum giant Alcoa, on Monday; Google and JPMorgan Chase, on Thursday; and Citigroup and Sony Ericsson, on Friday.

Corporations seem to be in good shape and are ready to put the problems of the second quarter behind them, which could send the stock market higher, said

Marc Pado, US market strategist for Cantor Fitzgerald.

"Companies are well positioned, they have low inventories, they have a lot of cash, they kept their employment costs low," Pado said.

Strong performers this past week included retailer Target, which rose 6.7 percent, and Microsoft, which gained 3.5 percent.

Bank stocks underperformed, with Bank of America down 3.5 percent, JPMorgan

Chase down 2.0 percent and Goldman Sachs down 1.9 percent for the period.

One of the week's biggest winners was Netflix, which gained 10.1 percent as it announced plans to extend its online film- and television-distribution service to Latin America.

Among the big losers was News Corp., which plunged 7.3 percent as it faced anger and investigations over allegations that its British tabloid News of the

World had hacked the phone of a murdered girl and dead soldiers.

After a political and public uproar, News Corp -- which is hoping for British regulatory approval to buy the 61 percent of broadcaster BSkyB that it doesn't own -- announced Thursday that it would close News of the World at the end of the week.

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LivingSocial picks BofA, JPMorgan, Deutsche for IPO

New York, July 9 (Newswire): LivingSocial has picked Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to lead-underwrite an IPO that could value the daily deals site at $10 billion to $15 billion, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The three banks declined to comment.

LivingSocial, runner-up to Groupon in the fast-expanding market, is the latest Internet startup seeking to woo investors keen to pile into social media companies from LinkedIn and Twitter to Zynga and Facebook.

In April, LivingSocial raised $400 million in a round of funding that included LightSpeed Venture Partners and Amazon, giving it a value of about $3 billion.

Larger rival Groupon has filed for its own public debut, at a potential valuation of $15 billion to $20 billion.

LivingSocial offers discounts on restaurant dining, lodging and other items, alerting its 39 million members via email about the deals. It gets its revenue -- expected to hit $1 billion this year -- from local merchants that agree to the discounts.

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China opens up PE business to all brokerage firms

Shanghai, July 9 (Newswire): Chinese brokerage firms will be allowed to conduct private equity business after the securities regulator formalised a 2006 pilot program, a move that could intensify competition in the fast-growing sector.

A booming IPO market and the lure of high returns kept China's private equity sector humming in the first half of 2011, stoking fear of asset bubbles amid rising concerns over the quality of listed Chinese companies.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has issued new guidelines enabling brokerage firms took part in the pilot scheme to incorporate their private equity operations into their regular businesses.

The private equity operations will now be regulated just like the other businesses of the brokerage companies, according to the guidelines posted on the website of the CSRC on Friday.

A total of 34 securities firms have been approved to set up private equity funds under the five-year-old program, the official Shanghai Securities News said on Saturday.

Following the new guidelines, all qualified securities firms can apply to the CSRC for a business license to set up private equity funds.

However, brokerage firms are not allowed to invest more than 15 percent of their own capital in their private equity businesses, the guidelines said.

The guidelines had also capped the maximum number of investors in a private equity fund set up by a brokerage firm at 50.

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Lexus to lose top spot in US luxury car market

Chicago, July 9 (Newswire): Toyota Motor Corp's brand Lexus will end its streak of 11 years as the top luxury brand in the US market due to lost sales in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, said Mark Templin, Lexus Division general manager.

Templin said Lexus US sales will fall about 17 percent to around 190,000 vehicles in 2011. The United States is the biggest market for Lexus.

All Lexus models, except the RX 350 crossover sport utility vehicle, are made in Japan.

Templin said the Cambridge, Ontario plant that makes the RX 350 will be back at full capacity in September.

Most Japanese plants assembling Lexus models have already returned to full strength.

However, the RX 450h hybrid SUV will not be at full production until October. The hybrid is typically 15 percent to 20 percent of RX sales in the US market.

Lexus US sales fell 38 percent in June as dealers ran out of key products. At the end of the month, dealers had about half their normal stock.

"June was the bottom of the trough, and we've turned the corner. We see the rest of the year being much better for us," Templin said, speaking to reporters at a Lexus media event in Chicago.

Lexus sales tumbled 18 percent in the first half of 2011 to 88,010, and German rivals BMW and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz sprinted by.

BMW's sales rose 13 percent to 113,705, and Mercedes-Benz climbed 7 percent to 110,926. If 2011 full year results end as expected, it would be the first time that BMW has outsold Lexus in the US since 1997.

Templin shrugged off the significance of losing the luxury sales crown, and when asked if Lexus could reclaim the top spot in 2012, he said.

"Whether we're No. 1 or not, I don't care. We've never focused on that. We won't change our plan midyear because someone else is selling more cars than us."

Industry analyst Aaron Bragman of IHS Automotive Insight said on Friday the slump at Lexus goes deeper than a shortage of vehicles. He suggested that Lexus could suffer from the same stigma as did General Motors Co's Buick brand for the past several decades: old people's car.

Bragman said it would be "quite a challenge" for Lexus to reclaim No. 1 in luxury sales in 2012 even with full production because its lineup is not as alluring as it once was and it relies heavily on two models, the RX 350 and ES 350 sedan, a spinoff of the Toyota Camry.

The RX so far this year accounts for 45 percent of Lexus US sales and the ES sedan 19 percent.

"Like Toyota, they've lost their momentum. They have an aging buyer base, and a lot of their dealers are afraid they will become the next Buick. Their new products haven't resonated with younger buyers."

The median buyer age for Lexus is in the mid-50s, and Templin said he is comfortable with that because it is a result of high loyalty.

Sportier models such as the IS sedan and CT hybrid sedan are attracting younger owners, said Templin.

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Hurriyet leader rearrested in Srinagar

Srinagar, July 9 (Newswire): In occupied Kashmir, the Indian police have rearrested Hurriyet leader, Ghulam Nabi Sumjhi lodging him in Police Station Rajbagh in Srinagar.

Ghulam Nabi Sumjhi was rearrested outside Central Jail Srinagar after the court quashed his illegal detention under draconian law, Public Safety Act.

He was arrested during last year's mass uprising and was booked under draconian law, Public Safety Act. A daughter of the detained leader is suffering from cancer and is waiting for her father's release desperately.

On the other hand, leader of Tehreek-e-Hurriyet Jammu and Kashmir, Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai has been sent to judicial remand to sub-jail Kupwara immediately after a court issued orders of his release.

Meanwhile, the Tehreek-e-Hurriyet activist, Imtiyaz Hyder who is lodged in Central Jail Srinagar was sent to Bone and Joints Hospital Barzulla after he complained of backache, the party spokesman said.

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Youth martyred, Indian army Major injured in IHK

Srinagar, July 9 (Newswire): In occupied Kashmir, a youth was martyred while an Indian army officer was injured in a clash in Pulwama district, Saturday.

The clash took place at Gulshanabad-Bonhajin in Rajpora area of the district, which resulted in the killing of a youth and injuring of a Major of Indian army.

A minor girl and aged women were also holed up inside the house, which is surrounded by the Indian troops, media reports said. Exchange of fire continued, till last reports came in.

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Vehicle of troops kills teacher, 2 bodies recovered in IHK

Srinagar, July 9 (Newswire): In occupied Kashmir, a speedy vehicle of Indian troops hit and killed a teacher in Rajouri district while two dead bodies of mentally challenged persons were recovered from Srinagar and Bandipore areas.

The teacher, Gulshan Kumar, was killed when a vehicle of Indian Central Reserve Police Force deliberately hit him near Higher Secondary School Lamberi in Rajouri. The teacher was on way to his home after duty from Dharamsal area.

On the other hand, body of a 57 year old mentally challenged, Ghulam Mohammad Dar, was recovered from river Jhelum near Takanwari, in Srinagar.

The deceased was missing since May 25 this year from Safakadal. Another body of a 30-year-old mentally weak, Altaf Ahmad Dar of Noorbagh, was recovered near Maloora in Bandipore. The deceased was also missing since July 4 from Safakadal.

Meanwhile, two persons identified as Mamta Devi, 40, of Akhnoor and Sunil Kumar, 27, of Seri Pantha committed suicide by consuming some poisonous substance at their respective residences.

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Gene therapy stimulates protein that blocks immune attack and prevents type 1 diabetes in mice

Islamabad, July 9 (Newswire): Increasing a specific protein in areas of the pancreas that produce insulin blocks the immune attack that causes type 1 diabetes, researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The discovery could lead to a drug that prevents the progression of type 1 diabetes in people newly diagnosed who are in the "honeymoon" phase of the disease, when the immune system has not yet destroyed all of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.

The finding could also lead to new drugs for overcoming organ rejection in transplant patients and for improving the survival of transplanted islets -- the clusters of cells in the pancreas that contain beta cells.

Normally, as the immune system successfully defeats an infection, a special type of white blood cell called T-regulatory cells produce chemical signals that turn off the immune response.

The researchers took advantage of this phenomenon as they sought to protect the beta cells from immune attack.

They used a modified virus to insert the gene for a protein called CCL22 into the beta cells of a strain of mice known to develop diabetes. The gene caused the beta cells to produce the CCL22 protein. This attracted T-regulatory cells, which blocked the attacking immune cells and prevented most of the mice from developing type 1 diabetes.

CCL22 was discovered years ago by ovarian cancer researchers who noticed that tumours emit the protein to avoid being destroyed by the immune system.

"It's a novel way to turn down the immune system specifically in the region of the beta cells inside the pancreas, and that may be a big advantage over general immune suppression, which can have significant side effects," says Dr. Bruce Verchere, one of the study's principal investigators. He is head of the diabetes research program at the Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI) at BC Children's Hospital, Irving K Barber Chair in Diabetes Research, and professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Department of Surgery at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

The study's co-lead author Dr. Joel Montane says more research is needed before the findings can be used clinically.

"Next, we need to better understand the mechanism," says Dr. Montane, a UBC post-doctoral fellow at CFRI. "We don't know exactly how CCL22 attracts T-regulatory cells to inhibit the immune response. Once we understand that, it may lead to a drug that can prevent or reverse diabetes."

"The research points to CCL22, or a modified form of it, as a potential drug to control the immune response," says Dr. Loraine Bischoff, the co-lead author. "Our strategy might also be used in other autoimmune disorders and in transplantation. The issue is how to administer it to humans. It's exciting because there are presently clinical trials using T-regulatory cells to prevent autoimmune disease."

A team of CFRI-UBC scientists, including co-principal investigator Dr. Rusung Tan, worked on this discovery.

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

The Diabetes Research Program at CFRI is supported by BC Children's Hospital Foundation and the Canucks for Kids Fund.

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Discovery of why sunburn hurts could lead to new pain relief for inflammatory conditions

Islamabad, July 9 (Newswire): Researchers at King's College London have found a molecule in the body which controls sensitivity to pain from UVB irradiation, identifying it as a new target for medicines to treat pain caused by other common inflammatory conditions such as arthritis

Researchers at King's College London have found a molecule in the body which controls sensitivity to pain from UVB irradiation, identifying it as a new target for medicines to treat pain caused by other common inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.

The molecule, called CXCL5, is part of a family of proteins called chemokines, which recruit inflammatory immune cells to the injured tissue, triggering pain and tenderness. This is the first study to reveal this molecule's role in mediating pain.

The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust (as part of the London Pain Consortium), and the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), is to be published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The research teams, led by Professor Stephen McMahon and Dr David Bennett at King's College London, carried out a simple procedure in healthy human volunteers, to expose small patches of their skin to UVB irradiation, creating a small area of sunburn. The treated skin became tender over the following hours, with peak sensory change one to two days later. At this peak the researchers took small biopsies of the affected skin and analyzed the tissue for hundreds of pain mediators.

They found that several of these mediators were over-expressed, so they then examined the biology of these factors in rats to find out whether they were likely to be responsible for driving the pain in the sunburnt skin.

The mediator CXCL5 was significantly over-expressed in the human biopsies and the biology of this chemokine in rats, which suggests it is responsible for a significant amount of sensitivity in the sunburn.

Further tests carried out on the rats showed that a neutralising antibody targeting CXCL5 significantly reduced the sensitivity to pain caused by the UVB irradiation.

Professor Steve McMahon, from the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's and head of the London Pain Consortium, said: 'These findings have shown for the first time the important role of this particular molecule in controlling pain from exposure to UVB irradiation. But this study isn't just about sunburn -- we hope that we have identified a potential target which can be utilised to understand more about pain in other inflammatory conditions like arthritis and cystitis.
'I'm excited about where these findings could take us in terms of eventually developing a new type of analgesic for people who suffer from chronic pain.'

The researchers say that not only are the findings of importance for understanding the aetiology of pain, but the approach they used by first identifying the mechanisms in humans and then looking at these in pre-clinical animal models is a novel one in the field of pain research.

Dr David Bennett, Wellcome clinical scientist at King's and honorary consultant neurologist at King's College Hospital, said: 'Traditionally scientists have first studied the biology of diseases in animal models to identify mechanisms relevant to creating that state. But this often does not translate into effective treatments in the clinic. What we have done is reverse this traditional method by identifying putative mediators in humans first, and then exploring this further in rats. This enabled us to see that the rats' response to these pain mediators closely parallel those occurring in humans and identify mechanisms of action in the preclinical studies."

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Childhood asthma linked to depression during pregnancy

Childhood asthma linked to depression during pregnancy

Islamabad, July 9 (Newswire): Anxiety, stress and depression during pregnancy may lead to a greater risk of asthma for your child, according to researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Study results are published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

"Approximately 70% of mothers who said they experienced high levels of anxiety or depression while they were pregnant reported their child had wheezed before age 5," said Marilyn Reyes, senior research worker at the Mailman School of Public Health's Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH), and lead author of the study. "Understanding how maternal health affects a child's respiratory health is important in developing effective strategies to prevent asthma."

The study of 279 inner-city African-American and Hispanic women was conducted before, during pregnancy and after birth. The findings support a growing body of research showing that exposures can influence the risk of developing asthma. While somewhat similar findings have been reported in non-minority populations, this study is the first to report an association between prenatal psychological stress and wheeze in minority populations.

"The symptoms of pediatric asthma can range from a nagging cough that lingers for days or weeks to sudden and scary breathing emergencies," said allergist/pulmonologist Rachel Miller, MD, Co-Deputy Director of CCCEH and study senior author. "While low-income families experience stressors from many sources that may contribute to adverse health outcomes in children, understanding how children's health may be influenced by these factors is an important step in developing effective interventions."

Common asthma symptoms include:

*Coughing, especially at night
*Wheezing or whistling sound, especially when breathing out
*Trouble breathing or fast breathing that causes the skin around the ribs or neck to pull in tightly
*Frequent colds that settle in the chest

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