DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't bother me until recently. Doug had a party, and while he was drunk he told one of his buddies -- in front of me -- that he should watch a certain porn film starring his ex-girlfriend. ...
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The Latest Abortion Battle: Pro-Lifers vs. Telemedicine
Label: BusinessFive years ago, doctors at the Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Austin, Tex., began prescribing abortion-inducing drugs to patients in McAllen, a town about 300 miles away on the Mexican border. The women consulted with the clinic’s physicians by telephone and videoconference, eliminating travel time and lowering costs for doctor and patient. Before this service was available, the clinic would pay doctors to drive to the town two to four days a week. Remote visits allowed the clinic to offer abortions six days a week.
That’s no longer possible. In the past two years, 10 states* have effectively outlawed what opponents call webcam abortions. Nine passed legislation requiring doctors who prescribe abortion drugs to be in the same room as patients. Texas says doctors must perform ultrasounds on all women seeking abortions and describe the results in person. Whole Woman’s Health no longer administers abortions from afar in Texas. “We still do it in our Maryland clinic and plan to start it up in our Minnesota clinic, but our five Texas sites are very limited now,” says Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of the for-profit chain of seven clinics.
Telemedicine bans are the latest attempt by anti-abortion activists to curtail the widespread use of drugs that allow women to avoid undergoing surgery to end a pregnancy. Since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a pill to induce miscarriage, drugs have increasingly replaced surgical abortions. They accounted for 17 percent of nonhospital abortion procedures in 2008, the latest year for which data are available, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group.
This year, Republican lawmakers in Iowa, Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, and Mississippi have introduced similar bills restricting the use of telemedicine in prescribing abortion drugs. All but one of the measures are based on model legislation written by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group in Washington that calls abortion drugs “the new profit-boosting frontier” for providers. Remote abortion services are about making money, says Charmaine Yoest, the group’s president. “It’s appalling that the self-described defenders of women’s health demonstrate over and over that they’re willing to put their economic interests ahead of actually protecting women.”
Miller says Yoest has it backward. Remote consultations didn’t increase the number of abortions her clinics offered, she says. But it did make them safer by enabling women seeking abortions to obtain them earlier in their pregnancies, which research shows reduces the risk of complications.
Since its introduction in the 1960s, telemedicine has revolutionized how people in rural and other underserved areas get all kinds of medical care, giving them access to cardiologists, neurologists, and other specialists. States have generally encouraged its use, aided by millions of dollars in public and private investment. In the U.S., 10 million people took advantage of virtual doctor visits last year, quadruple the number five years before, according to the American Telemedicine Association. Abortion is the only area where lawmakers have curbed its use or prevented it from expanding, says its president, Jon Linkous. In June, Republican Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan lauded a bill promoting telemedicine as an “incredible opportunity” to deliver care to those without easy access to a doctor. Six months later, he signed into law a ban on the same remote consultations for drug-induced abortions.
Yoest of Americans United for Life says states are seeking to outlaw telemedicine abortions out of concern for patients’ safety. Women up to nine weeks pregnant typically take a first dose of the abortion drug at a clinic, a second dose at home 48 hours later, and then follow up with a doctor after two weeks. Yoest argues it’s dangerous to take the drugs without that face-to-face supervision.
A 2011 study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology shows otherwise. Researchers in Iowa—which has 16 clinics offering video doctor visits for abortions, more than all other states combined—compared the experiences of 449 patients, 226 whose doctors prescribed abortion drugs in person and 223 who were given the treatment after a teleconference. It found the complication rate, 1.3 percent, to be the same in both groups.
* Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Texas
The bottom line: In the U.S., 10 million people in underserved areas see doctors via telemedicine. Activists want to restrict its use for abortion services.
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New digs: Federal research chimps savor retirement
Label: WorldKEITHVILLE, La. (AP) — For the first time in their lives, four aging chimpanzees once used in federal research can go outside whenever they like. They can lie on the grass, clamber onto a platform 20 feet up on a chimp-style jungle gym and gaze freely at the open sky, the vista unbroken by steel bars.
Fifty-two-year-olds Julius and Sandy, 46-year-old Phyllis and 44-year-old Jessica have arrived. These and several other primates are now “living like chimpanzees” as they play, groom each other and tussle at Chimp Haven in northwest Louisiana — the only national sanctuary for retired federal research chimps.
Julius’ group is among 111 chimpanzees coming to Chimp Haven over the next 18 months from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center. They could be the vanguard of a much larger immigration of former research chimps on the way to the refuge in Keithville, La.
A National Institutes of Health committee recommended Jan. 22 that most of the other 350 federally owned research chimpanzees be retired to “the federal sanctuary system” — a system of one. The agency’s director will decide whether to accept the recommendations after a 60-day period for public comment.
The proposal to retire all but about 50 federally owned chimpanzees is the latest step in a gradual shift away from using chimps as test subjects, owing to technological advances and growing ethical concerns about research on primates that share more than 98 percent of the DNA of humans.
Research on the chimps has ranged from psychological studies to trying to develop vaccines for HIV and hepatitis.
The arrivals are staggered so the small staff can integrate small groups of newcomers with old-timers at Chimp Haven. And some of their living quarters and play spaces haven’t yet been built at Chimp Haven, which opened in 2005.
The newcomers led by Julius were among nine that arrived Jan. 22. Another seven arrived later that week and eight more Tuesday.
Julius and his “girls” got their first view of unobstructed sky last week. New arrivals spend 17 days in quarantine before being moved into an indoor bedroom area near a bedroom occupied by chimps already settled into the sanctuary, to see how they get along.
Their first outdoor time is in one of two grassy, quarter-acre play yards that open onto the bedrooms. A network of steel mesh tunnels lets the staff move chimps from any part of the sanctuary to any other.
Staffers say it’s amazing to see them savor new freedoms.
“They light up, look up at the sky, look at us watching them,” behaviorist Amy Fultz said.
Like most newcomers to Chimp Haven, Julius’ group first explored the edges of its new surroundings. Their play yards are surrounded by a high concrete wall that can’t be climbed, and the larger areas of dense pine forest by similar concrete walls and, on one side, a moat.
Chimps in the wild make regular perimeter patrols, alert for any encroaching bands and for a chance to expand their own territory.
These retirees will send the rest of their lives at the 200-acre sanctuary in a forested park belonging to the Caddo Parish government, which donated the land to Chimp Haven.
They get about a month at a time with access to each of the quarter-acre play areas and the habitats of 3 to 5 acres populated by dense stands of pines where the primates can nest high in the trees.
Two other groups of recent arrivals from the university lab in New Iberia are getting acquainted with each other because each includes a youngster. The aim is to meld them and other groups with juveniles into a group with Chimp Haven’s three “oops” babies, all sired by Conan, who has been at Chimp Haven for years.
The 111 incoming chimps include a total of eight youngsters; one was born to a female chimp with HIV, but the others and their mothers all are destined to become part of Conan’s social group.
On Tuesday, Conan’s crowd was in a play area, catching fruit thrown by staffers. A female named Sheila slapped her hands together and then held up an arm to attract attention.
A few minutes’ walk away, another group of 15 chimps raced from the steel mesh tunnel between their sleeping area and a 5-acre forested habitat toward an array of fruits and vegetables strewn on the ground. Some grabbed a hoard of bananas, apples and oranges before starting to munch; others ate immediately.
After a bit, several turned to a tall, pointed structure with PVC pipes stuck in it — an imitation termite mound. In the wild, chimps poke sticks into termite mounds to pull out insects to eat. At Chimp Haven, the tubes may hold honey-coated bits of fruit or sugar-free candy, inducing the great apes to use tools as they would in the wild.
Fultz said some newcomers won’t even step on the grass in the play yards, but Julius’ group had no qualms.
“They sit and look around. They look up at the sky. To me, they seem to be thinking, ‘There’s no bars,’” Fultz said.
That isn’t to say bars don’t exist in the sanctuary.
Indoor bedrooms, furnished with straw and blankets for making nests, and old fire hose for climbing, have steel mesh interior walls to keep chimps in.
Chimps with HIV, hepatitis or other major medical or psychological problems have outdoor areas surrounded by the same wide, heavy steel mesh. The peaked ceilings are of pipes laid a few inches apart from each other so the chimps can swing across the ceiling arm over arm, as they might in trees.
“Those spaces are huge. They’re huge,” said Lori Gruen, a Wesleyan University philosophy professor who specializes in animal ethics. Chimp Haven is “a pretty remarkable facility. I think it will be quite interesting and exciting to see it expand.”
But there’s a major hurdle. When Chimp Haven was made the national sanctuary in 2002, Congress capped spending on the project at $ 30 million. That cap will be hit this year.
U.S. Rep. John Fleming, a Republican representing northwest Louisiana, said in a statement emailed by his press secretary that any additional federal spending “will be difficult” in the current budget climate of mounting federal debt and ongoing national security priorities.
Kathleen Conlee, vice president for animal research issues of the Humane Society of the United States, and other advocates say there’s no need for additional spending if Congress would let NIH put money now spent on research contracts into the animals’ retirement.
That would save money, because the 75 percent federal share of care at Chimp Haven is lower than the research contracts’ cost, Conlee has said.
With help from the Humane Society and other nonprofit groups, the sanctuary has in recent months raised $ 2.6 million needed to add bedrooms, six play yards and an open-air enclosure to accommodate all 111 federal chimps coming from New Iberia and another $ 100,000 toward a total $ 5.1 million goal announced in November.
“We certainly expect and hope the cap will be extended,” said Cathy Willis Spraetz, who became president of Chimp Haven three weeks ago.
If it isn’t? “Then we have to rely on our wonderful donors,” she said.
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Armstrong facing Wednesday deadline with USADA
Label: TechnologyAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong is facing a Wednesday deadline to decide whether he will meet with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials and talk with them under oath about what he knows about performance-enhancing drug use in cycling.
The agency has said Armstrong's cooperation in its cleanup effort is the only path open to Armstrong if his lifetime ban from sports is to be reduced.
Armstrong has given mixed signals about whether he plans to talk with USADA officials. Armstrong attorney Tim Herman previously suggested Armstrong would not meet with USADA before the agency's original Feb. 6 deadline. The two sides then agreed to give Armstrong another two weeks to work out an interview with investigators.
Armstrong previously denied using performance-enhancing drugs, but in January admitted doping to win seven Tour de France titles.
How can U.S. deal with cyber war?
Label: LifestyleMichael Hayden says lack of domestic agreement is driving U.S. to take the offense on cyber attacks.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Obama administration beefing up effort to counter cyberattacks
- Michael Hayden says emphasis is on striking first, as the U.S. does with drone attacks
- Ex-CIA director says drone policy reflects lack of consensus on handling prisoners
- Hayden: Is killing terrorists preferred because of division over how to try them?
Editor's note: Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was appointed by President George W. Bush as CIA director in 2006 and served until February 2009, is a principal with the Chertoff Group, a security consulting firm. He serves on the boards of several defense firms and is a distinguished visiting professor at George Mason University.
(CNN) -- Human decisions have complex roots: history, circumstance, personality, even chance.
So it's a dangerous game to oversimplify reality, isolate causation and attribute any particular course of action to one or another singular motive.
But let me tempt fate, since some recent government decisions suggest important issues for public discussion.
Michael Hayden
Over the past several weeks, press accounts have outlined a series of Obama administration moves dealing with the cyberdefense of the United States.
According to one report, the Department of Defense will add some 4,000 personnel to U.S. Cyber Command, on top of a current base of fewer than a thousand. The command will also pick up a "national defense" mission to protect critical infrastructure by disabling would-be aggressors.
A second report reveals another administration decision, very reminiscent of the Bush Doctrine of preemption, to strike first when there is imminent danger of serious cyberattack against the United States.
Both of these represent dramatic and largely welcome moves.
But they also suggest the failure of a deeper national policy process and, more importantly, the failure to develop national consensus on some very difficult issues.
Chinese military leading cyber attacks
Let me reason by analogy, and in this case the analogy is the program of targeted killings supported and indeed expanded by the Obama administration. Again, I have no legal or moral objections to killing those who threaten us. We are, as the administration rightly holds, in a global state of war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.
But at the level of policy, killing terrorists rather than capturing them seems to be the default option, and part of that dynamic is fairly attributable to our inability to decide where to put a detainee once we have decided to detain him.
Congress won't let him into the United States unless he is going before a criminal court, and the administration will not send him to Guantanamo despite the legitimate claim that a nation at war has the right to detain enemy combatants without trial.
Failing to come to agreement on the implications of the "we are at war" position, we have made it so legally difficult and so politically dangerous to detain anyone that we seem to default to killing those who would do us harm.
Clearly, it's an easier path: no debates over the location or conditions of confinement. Frequently such action can be kept covert. Decision-making is confined to one branch of government. Congress is "notified." Courts are not involved.
Besides, we are powerful. We have technology at our fingertips. We know that we can be precise, and the professionalism of our combatants allows them to easily meet the standards of proportionality and distinction (between combatants and noncombatants) in such strikes, despite claims to the contrary.
And we also believe that we can live with the second and third order effects of targeted killings. We believe that the care we show will set high standards for the use of such weapons by others who will inevitably follow us. We also believe that any long-term blowback (akin to what Gen. Stanley McChrystal calls the image of "arrogance" such strikes create) is more than offset by the immediate effects on America's safety.
I agree with much of the above. But I also fear that the lack of political consensus at home can drive us to routinely exercise an option whose long-term effects are hard to discern. Which brings us back to last week's stories on American cyberdefense.
In the last Congress, there were two prominent bills introduced to strengthen America's cyberdefenses. Neither came close to passing.
In the Senate, the Collins-Lieberman Bill created a near perfect storm with the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Chamber of Commerce weighing in strongly against the legislation. That two such disparate bodies had issues with the legislation should suggest how far we are from a national consensus.
In the House, a modest proposal from the Intelligence Committee to enhance cybersharing between the private sector and the National Security Agency was met with a presidential veto threat over alleged privacy concerns and was never even considered by the Senate.
Indeed, my preferred option -- a more active and well-regulated role for NSA and Cyber Command on and for American networks -- is almost a third rail in the debate over U.S. cybersecurity. The cybertalent and firepower at Fort Meade, where both are headquartered, are on a short leash because few dare to even address what we would ask them to do or what we would permit them to do on domestic networks.
And hence, last week's "decisions." Rather than settle the roles of these institutions by dealing with the tough issues of security and privacy domestically, we have opted for a policy not unlike targeted killing. Rather than opt for the painful process of building consensus at home, we are opting for "killing" threats abroad in their "safe haven."
We appear more willing to preempt perceived threats "over there" than spill the domestic political blood that would be needed to settle questions about standards for the defense of critical infrastructure, the role of government surveillance or even questions of information sharing. And we seem willing to live with the consequences, not unlike those of targeted killings, of the precedent we set with a policy to shoot on warning.
I understand the advantage that accrues to the offense in dealing with terrorists or cyberthreats. I also accept the underlying legality and morality of preemptive drone or cyberstrikes.
I just hope that we don't do either merely because we don't have the courage to face ourselves and make some hard decisions at home.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael Hayden.
Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe Lincoln makes unstoppable Oscar force
Label: HealthLOS ANGELES (Reuters) – If there is one sure bet in this roller coaster movie awards season, it is that Daniel Day-Lewis will take home the Best Actor statuette at the Oscars on Sunday.
Day-Lewis, known for his meticulous preparation, would become the first man to win three Best Actor Oscars, and awards pundits say it’s not hard to see why.
The tall, intellectual actor has swept every prize in the long Hollywood awards calendar for his thoughtful, intense portrayal of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg‘s movie “Lincoln.”
“No-one has emerged to take him on. I don’t think he has lost a single (pre-Oscar) race. We have 25 experts and every single one is betting on Daniel Day-Lewis,” said Tom O’Neil of awards website Goldderby.com.
More surprising perhaps is that Day-Lewis will also be the first person to win an Oscar for playing a U.S. president. And it has taken a Briton with dual Irish citizenship, portraying one of America’s most revered leaders, to do it.
Although “Lincoln” started the Oscar race with a leading 12 nominations, its Best Picture front-runner status has dimmed in recent weeks with the ascendance of Iran hostage drama “Argo.”
But Day-Lewis’s star has only risen with Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and British BAFTA trophies, along with a slew of honors from film critics.
LINCOLN FOR A NEW GENERATION
Day-Lewis, 55, plays Lincoln in the last few months of a life cut short by his 1865 assassination in a film that focuses on the president’s personal commitment to abolish slavery and end the bloody four-year U.S. Civil War.
He’s not the first actor to play Lincoln on screen. Yet his quiet assurance, his adoption of a high-pitch voice rather than the booming tones associated with Lincoln, and the movie’s focus on complex political debates have shone new light on a man that many Americans thought they already knew well.
“It’s a performance that is subtle. It’s not the Lincoln you expect. It’s a different interpretation of Lincoln than we have seen and we feel, wow! This could be the way Lincoln was,” said Pete Hammond, awards columnist at Deadline.com.
“We are seeing a real human being played out here for the first time and that is extraordinary. Day-Lewis is bringing the character to life in a way we haven’t seen in years,” Hammond told Reuters.
It took Spielberg three attempts to convince Day-Lewis to play the role. Explaining his decision last month to take the part, Day-Lewis noted that “it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln. Therefore, somehow it’s only fitting that every now and then, an actor tries to bring him back to life again.”
The London-born actor threw himself into the role with the same devotion that marked his Best Actor Oscar-winning performance as quadriplegic Irish writer Christy Brown in “My Left Foot” in 1989, when he spent weeks living in a wheelchair.
In “Gangs of New York,” he sharpened knives on sets between takes to capture the menace of Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, earning another Oscar nomination, and in 2008 he won his second Best Actor Award at the Oscars for his turn as a greedy oil baron in “There Will Be Blood.”
TEXTING LIKE LINCOLN
Sally Field, who plays his screen wife Mary Todd Lincoln, said Day-Lewis sent her text messages that were completely in character and in 19th century vernacular over a seven-month period prior to shooting “Lincoln.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays Lincoln’s son Robert, said he didn’t get to know Day-Lewis until after production wrapped.
“I never met Daniel in person,” Gordon-Levitt told reporters. “I only ever met the president, only ever heard the president’s voice. I called him sir, and he called me Robert.”
With four Academy Award nominations and two wins before “Lincoln,” Day-Lewis appears to have barely set a foot wrong in his 30-year career. Yet there have been missteps, including the box-office flop of star-laden musical “Nine” in 2009.
“He was sorely miscast as Guido, the adorable gigolo, and he was not convincing at all. He brought the whole film down,” recalled O’Neil. “‘Lincoln’ is a spectacular career rally for him after that disaster.”
While others are betting on Day-Lewis to take home a third Academy Award on Sunday, the actor has been modest about his chances.
“Members of the Academy love surprises, so about the worst thing that can happen to you is if you’ve built up an expectation. I think they’d probably be delighted if it was anybody else,” he told reporters after winning the Screen Actors Guild trophy in January.
Those “anybody elses” in the running are Bradley Cooper for “Silver Linings Playbook,” Denzel Washington’s alcoholic pilot in “Flight,” Joaquin Phoenix for “The Master” and Hugh Jackman in musical “Le Miserables.”
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Todd Eastham)
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Wall Street gains on M&A optimism, health insurers weigh
Label: WorldNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks advanced on Tuesday after the long holiday weekend and a seven-week winning streak for the S&P 500 as merger activity buoyed investor optimism, but health insurer shares muted gains.
Office Depot Inc
OfficeMax shares jumped 28.8 percent to $13.85 while larger rival Staples Inc
"M&A is providing an enormous amount of enthusiasm in pockets and it is really a function of the cost of money, the cost of borrowing. It is a sign there is a shift going on in the economy that is very, very positive," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.
"At the same time, if you take the M&A activity out of the picture, you will see that many on the Street are expecting a pullback.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 59.94 points or 0.43 percent, to 14,041.7, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 6.62 points or 0.44 percent, to 1,526.41 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 12.01 points or 0.38 percent, to 3,204.04.
U.S. markets were closed on Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.
Health insurer stocks tumbled, led lower by a 9 percent drop in Humana Inc to $70.98 after the company said the government's proposed 2014 payment rates for Medicare Advantage participants were lower than expected and would hurt its profit outlook.
UnitedHealth Group
The benchmark S&P index is up 7 percent for the year and is coming off its longest weekly winning streak since January 2011.
The strong start was fueled by legislators in Washington temporarily averting automatic spending cuts and tax hikes as well as by stronger-than-expected earnings and economic data. The Federal Reserve's stimulus policy has also been a major factor.
But further gains for the S&P 500 have been a struggle as investors look for new catalysts to lift the index, which hovers near five-year highs.
The compromise by lawmakers on across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, only postponed the matter, and Democrats and Republicans have until March 1 to resolve differences or the cuts, which are predicted to damage the economy, will take effect.
The uptick in merger and acquisition activity, a sign of optimism about the outlook on Wall Street, has resulted in more than $158 billion in deals announced so far in 2013.
Last week, deals were reached for the acquisition of H.J. Heinz Co
Economic data showed the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index edged down to 46 in February from 47 in the prior month and below expectations of 48 as builders faced higher material costs.
Express Scripts
According to the Thomson Reuters data through Monday morning, of the 391 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.1 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.
Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Barry)
First Came the Russian Meteor, Now the Meteorite Deals
Label: Business
A meteorite for sale on Avito.ruPsssst! Want to buy a piece of that meteor that exploded over Russia the other day? Hundreds of vendors will be happy to hear from you. Some of them might even be selling real meteorites.
Avito.ru, the Russian equivalent of Craigslist, has been flooded with ads offering meteorites from Chelyabinsk, site of the dramatic Feb. 15 explosion that injured more than 1,000 people. Listings are also starting to turn up on EBay (EBAY). Prices range from less than $ 20, for fragments weighing about 100 grams (a little over 3 ounces), to more than $ 3,300 for a meteorite described as “the size of an egg.”
Some samples of the deals on offer:
• An eBay ad offers “samples from the scene of a Chelyabinsk meteorite” for $ 200. The vendor admits: “We aren’t sure for 100% that it is a meteorite.”
• A vendor on Avito.ru is proposing a “private tour of the crash site and sightseeing excursion of the destruction” for $ 167, including airport pickup.
• A second vendor on Avito.ru is asking about $ 3,300 for a meteorite “found near the zinc factory.”
That sounds like a lot. But, says Rob Elliott, a meteorite dealer near Edinburgh, “Any serious collector is going to want a piece.” (Yes, there are serious meteorite collectors and dealers, as well as national and international associations of meteorite enthusiasts.)
The RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Russian scientists as saying the Chelyabinsk meteor was made of “ordinary chondrites,” with iron content of about 10 percent. “This sounds like a very common type of meteorite,” Elliott says, “but it has the added attraction of the fireball and being seen by so many people and doing so much damage.”
What if you’re not a serious collector but still want your own piece of the biggest object to enter Earth’s atmosphere in more than a century? What should you expect to pay?
Meteorites are subject to the laws of supply and demand that govern earthly objects, says Mark Ford, a longtime collector who is chairman of the British and Irish Meteorite Society. “Some meteorite falls are just a few kilograms, and they tend to be more valuable.” Ford says he’s heard of some particularly rare specimens fetching as much as $ 1,000 per gram.
However, the Chelyabinsk meteor was enormous—NASA estimated its weight at between 7,000 and 10,000 tons—which means lots of meteorites probably fell, and prices are likely to be lower. That’s the good news for potential buyers. The bad news, Ford says, is that “if you buy now, you’ll pay too much.” Prices typically plummet after the initial excitement of a major meteorite fall, he says.
An even bigger risk is that what you buy won’t be a meteorite at all. Russian authorities have issued a stern warning to online vendors, saying that police “will be monitoring advertising around the clock” and that anyone selling phony meteorites “will be immediately prosecuted.”
Exactly how Russian police are going to authenticate meteorites was not explained. In the meantime, Scottish dealer Elliott says he has looked at a number of online ads for purported Chelyabinsk meteorites, “and so far I haven’t seen any meteorites. All I’ve seen is a lot of old rocks.”
One particularly imaginative vendor is offering to sell bags of Chelyabinsk topsoil to people who want to search for meteorites in the comfort of their own homes. Buying these is probably not a good idea, as the Chelyabinsk region is home to a major plutonium-processing facility that in the 1950s suffered one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.
Ford advises would-be buyers to steer clear of online ads with blurry photographs and to look for rocks with a jet-black outer coating, caused by superheating as the meteorite passes through the atmosphere at supersonic speed. But, he adds, “There are a lot of black rocks around.” Even chunks of tarmac can easily be mistaken for meteorites.
The best bet, Ford says, is to buy from a dealer who is a member of the International Meteorite Collectors Association, a self-policing group of dealers. Ordinarily, after a major meteorite fall, “the dealers are on the next plane,” he says. “But this being Russia, it’s a bit more difficult. They have to get visas, and there are some security issues because Chelyabinsk is a nuclear city.”
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Pistorius: Thought lover an intruder in shooting
Label: TechnologyPRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius wept Tuesday as his defense lawyer read the athlete's account of how he shot his girlfriend to death on Valentine's Day, claiming he had mistaken her for an intruder.
Prosecutors, however, told a packed courtroom that the double-amputee known as the Blade Runner intentionally and mercilessly shot and killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp model as she cowered inside a locked bathroom.
Pistorius told the Pretoria Magistrate's Court at a bail hearing he felt vulnerable in the presence of an intruder inside the bathroom because he did not have on his prosthetic legs on, and fired into the bathroom door.
In a major point of contention that has already emerged, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Pistorius took the time to put on his prostheses, walked seven meters (yards) from the bed to the enclosed toilet inside his bathroom and only then opened fire. Three of the bullets hit Steenkamp of the four that were fired into the door, Nel said.
Pistorius said in his sworn statement that after o0pening fire, he realized that Steenkamp was not in his bed.
"It filled me with horror and fear," Pistorius said. The 26-year-old Olympian said he put on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the door before finally giving up and bashing it in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over. He said he lifted her bloodied body into his arms and tried to carry her downstairs to seek medical help.
But by then, it was too late.
"She died in my arms," the athlete said.
The Valentine's Day shooting death hocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.
Nel charged Pistorius with premeditated murder and said the athlete opened fire after they engaged in a shouting match.
"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," Nel said. "It must have been horrific."
A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.
Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that Pistorius must face the harshest bail requirements available in South African law. That means Pistorius' lawyers must offer "exceptional" reasons for the athlete to be free before trial, besides simply giving up his two South African passports and posting a cash bond.
Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.
"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" he asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."
Pistorius' emotional outbursts again played a part in how the hearing progessed, as it did during an initial hearing Friday. At one point, Nair stopped the hearing after Pistorius wept as Roux read a portion of the athlete's statement describing how Steenkamp bought him a Valentine's Day present, but wouldn't let him open it the night before.
"Maintain your composure," the magistrate said. "You need to apply your mind here."
Pistorius' voice quivered when he answered: "Yes, my lordship."
Affidavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp read out by Roux in the hearing described the two as a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans in order to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home, in a gated neighborhood of Pretoria.
Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging that Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.
As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.
South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Another council study estimates a child or woman is raped every four minutes. While homicide rates have dropped, the number of women killed by current or former partners has increased, said the council's Professor Rachel Jewkes. At least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million, she said.
Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.
What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle Mike Steenkamp, the family's spokesman, said after her memorial.
He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.
Pistorius has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.
On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says: "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"
And Clarins Group, which owns Thierry Mugler Perfumes, said in an email that "out of respect and compassion for the families involved in this tragedy, Thierry Mugler Perfumes have taken the decision to withdraw all of their advertising campaigns featuring Oscar Pistorius."
___
Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Johannesburg and AP photographer Schalk van Zuydam in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP . Gerald Imray can be reached at www.twitter.com/geraldimrayAP .
Borneo tension linked to rebel deal
Label: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- More than 100 Filipinos arrived by boat on the Malaysian coast last week
- They say they represent a sultanate that once ruled the area
- The move seems to be a response to a recent peace deal in the Philippines
- The leaders of the sultanate appear to have felt left out of the accord, an expert says
(CNN) -- The peculiar standoff on Borneo between Malaysian security forces and a group of men from the southern Philippines has its roots in a recent landmark peace deal between Manila and Muslim rebels, according to an expert on the region.
More than 100 men from the mainly Muslim southern Philippines came ashore in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo early last week demanding to be recognized as representatives of a sultanate that has historical claims on the area.
Their claims touch on an unresolved territorial question between the Philippines and Malaysia, as well as Manila's efforts to improve relations with Islamic insurgents in the country's south after decades of violence.
Malaysian police and armed forces soon surrounded the village in the eastern Sabah district of Lahad Datu where the men had gathered. Police officials said they were negotiating with the group in an effort to persuade its members to return to their homes in the Philippines peacefully.
The Philippine government also urged them to come back to the country, saying it hadn't authorized their voyage. There was no indication of a resolution to the standoff on Monday.
The men claim to be the Royal Army of the Sultanate of Sulu, which once encompassed Sabah, and say they don't want their people to be sent away from the area, Malaysian authorities said. There are conflicting claims about to what extent the men are armed.
Eroded power
Over the weekend, comments appeared in the news media from representatives of the sultanate, whose power is now largely symbolic, saying that their followers who had gone to Sabah planned to stay where they were.
"Nobody will be sent to the Philippines. Sabah is our home," Jamalul Kiram, a member of the sultanate's ruling family, told reporters in Manila on Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse.
The sultanate's claim to Sabah plays a long-standing and important role in the Philippine government's relationship with the country's Muslim minority and with neighboring Malaysia, said Julkipli Wadi, the dean of the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines.
Established in the 15th century, the Sultanate of Sulu became an Islamic power center in Southeast Asia that at one point ruled Sabah.
But the encroachment of Western colonial powers, followed by the emergence of the Philippines and Malaysia as independent nation states, steadily eroded the sultanate's power, according to Wadi.
It became "a sultanate without a kingdom" to rule over, he said. Sulu is now a province within the Republic of the Philippines.
But the sultanate has nonetheless retained influence over some people in the southern Philippines and Sabah who still identify themselves with it, according to Wadi.
Excluded from a peace deal
The members of the sultanate's royal family, although riven by internal disputes over who the rightful sultan is today, appear to have felt isolated by the provisional accord signed in October by the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has fought for decades to establish an independent Islamic state in southern Philippines.
Malaysia, a mainly Muslim country, helped facilitate the agreement.
Kiram was cited by AFP as saying that the sultanate's exclusion from the deal, which aims to set up a new autonomous region to be administered by Muslims, prompted the decision to send the men to Sabah this month.
Dispatching the boat loads of followers to Lahad Datu served to make the sultanate's presence felt, according to Wadi.
"The whole aim is not to create conflict or initiate war, it is just to position themselves and make governments like Malaysia and the Philippines recognize them," he said.
Historical ties
The economic, cultural and historical links between Sabah and the nearby Philippines islands, as well as the porous nature of the border between the two, means that many of the Filipino men have friends and relatives in Lahad Datu.
But the historical connection still fuels tensions between Malaysia and the Philippines, with Manila retaining a "dormant claim" to Sabah through the Sultanate of Sulu, according to the CIA World Factbook.
According to the official Philippine News Agency, Manila still claims much of the eastern part of Sabah, which was leased to the British North Borneo Company in 1878 by the Sultanate of Sulu. In 1963, Britain transferred Sabah to Malaysia, a move that the sultanate claimed was a breach of the 1878 deal.
Malaysia still pays a token rent to the sultanate for the lease of Sabah, according to Wadi.
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