Best quarter in Apple's history? Check. Retaking the smartphone crown from Samsung? Check. How about becoming the world's largest PC manufacturer? If you're Canalys and you factor iPads into the equation, then yes, another check. Per the research firm, "client PCs" (which include "desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tabs") grew by 16 percent to hit 120 million in Q4, from which Apple's 20 million units (15 million iPads + 5 million Macs) grabbed the leading 17 percent share. Cupertino's followed by HP, Lenovo, Dell and Acer in that order -- all of whom, save for Lenovo, saw their piece of the PC pie shrink. Not only did their slices shrink, but without slates the entire tart was .4 percent smaller than last year -- meaning that all of the growth in "client PC" segment was due to tablets. With that kind of statistical precedence Windows 8 can't come soon enough, right Stevie B?
iVillage Chief Correspondent Kelly Wallace and iVillage Election Editor/Correspondent Joanne Bamberger and author of PunditMom.com focus on how President Obama has some work to do to win over women voters who supported him in 2008. Hint Mr. President -- chocolates always help!
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Stamey, The Gainesville Sun)
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Stamey, The Gainesville Sun)
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Matt Stamey)
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Matt Stamey)
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Matt Stamey)
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Stamey, The Gainesville Sun)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) ? Hazy fog and heavy smoke from a brush fire clouded a north Florida interstate overnight, leaving drivers blinded and causing wrecks that killed at least nine people, authorities said Sunday.
Photographs taken Sunday morning showed the burned-out shells of at least two vehicles and a tractor-trailer, with gray smoke still rising above the asphalt on an otherwise desolate Interstate 75.
Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Patrick Riordan said the pileups happened around 3:45 a.m. on both sides of I-75 south of Gainesville. All lanes of the interstate ? there are three lanes running each direction ? remained closed as investigators began trying to figure out exactly what caused the wrecks. Vehicles were still smoldering, and firefighters sprayed foam to try to put out the fires.
Cars appeared to have smashed into tractor-trailers and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were badly crushed beneath the wreckage of the larger rigs.
Riordan said several people were injured and taken to Gainesville hospitals. Their conditions were unclear.
At least 18 people hurt in the wreck were being treated at Shands at the University of Florida, said hospital spokeswoman Allison Wilson.
Donna Henry told The Gainesville Sun that she was driving south on the interstate at 3:45 a.m. when she encountered the smoke.
"We just hit it, and you couldn't see anything," said Henry, who was driving with friends back home to Palm Bay. She said her car struck a guardrail and ended up sideways in the outside lane. She pulled off the highway and called 911. She told the paper that she could hear the other crashes.
"You heard like 15 times somebody hit, from this side and that, north and south. It was bad."
The FHP had briefly closed the highway before the crashes because of a mixture of fog and smoke from a marsh fire in the Paynes Prairie area south of Gainesville. Officers patrolling the highway had reopened the road when visibility improved.
Riordan said he is not sure how much time passed between the reopening of the highway and the first crash.
Riordan said this is the worst accident he's seen in his 27-year career with FHP.
Traffic is being diverted onto U.S. 301 and State Road 27, Riordan said.
Heavy fog and smoke were blamed for another serious crash four years ago. In January 2008, four people were killed and 38 injured in a series of similar crashes on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa, about 125 miles south of Sunday's crash. More than 70 vehicles were involved in those crashes, including one pileup that involved 40 vehicles.
___
Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro contributed to this report from Miami.
Google is already testing its autonomous cars on the roads of California, and plenty of other manufacturers are starting to muscle in on the act, too. But when they hit the roads, how do you go about policing a city full of self-driven cars? More »
If you're a recent college graduate or getting ready for retirement, it's not too late to come up with a plan for your financial future.
Finance coach Pete D'Arruda discusses the top five investing mistakes you should avoid.
1. No investment plans or goals. It is important to outline your future monetary aspirations, whether it includes college, retirement, buying a home, or all of the above. Having a long term goal and an investment strategy to help achieve your goal can help prevent you from acting on market swings.
2. Putting all your eggs in one basket. Portfolio diversification helps to reduce risk and enhance performance.
3. Not investing soon enough. The younger you are, the more you have to gain from stock appreciation. The effects of compounded
returns are greater for those who invest earlier.
4. Trying to time the market. There is no way for any individual to predict a stocks future performance. When investors do try to time the market they end up buying on the highs and selling on the lows.
5. Paying too much in fees. It is important to know how much each investment is costing you. The best way to maximize your returns is to minimize your costs.
If you have any questions about your finances, leave a message for Pete on our Facebook page and he'll answer them for you. We're at NBC 17.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Tablets and e-readers were a popular gift over the holidays, so much so that the number of people who own them nearly doubled between mid-December and January, a new study finds.
A report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, released on Monday, found that 29 percent of Americans owned at least one tablet or e-reader as of the beginning of this month. That's up from 18 percent who said the same in December.
The iPad from Apple Inc. is perhaps the best-known example of these gadgets, along with Amazon.com's various Kindle devices and the Nook from Barnes and Noble. The iPad put tablets on the map and the cheaper Kindle Fire and Nook devices helped get them in the hands of more people.
The percentage of people who own a tablet jumped to 19 from 10 between mid-December and early January. E-book reader ownership also rose to 19 percent from 10 percent of U.S. adults.
Men and women were equally likely to own tablets, and the likelihood of tablet ownership was higher for people with higher household incomes, the report found. Those with higher levels of education were also more likely to own tablets than those who completed fewer years of school.
E-readers, meanwhile, were slightly more common among women.
The figures are from ongoing surveys conducted by Pew about tablet and e-reader ownership. They were conducted between November 2011 and January 2012. The first, pre-holiday survey was conducted among 2,986 Americans 16 and older. Two post-holiday surveys were conducted among about 2,000 adults in January.
Contact: Andrew Myers admyers@stanford.edu 650-736-2245 Stanford School of Engineering
Stanford University Unstructured is an open-source software package that gives advanced engineering students a crucial leg up on the time-consuming process of writing their own code to optimize aerospace designs
Each fall at technical universities across the world, a new crop of aeronautical and astronautical engineering graduate students settle in for the work that will consume them for the next several years. For many, their first experience in these early months is not with titanium or aluminum or advanced carbon-fiber materials that are the stuff of airplanes, but with computer code.
Thanks to a team of engineers in the Aerospace Design Lab at Stanford University, however, those days of coding may soon go the way of the biplane. At a recent demonstration, the Stanford team debuted "Stanford University Unstructured" (SU2), an open-source application that models the effects of fluids moving over aerodynamic surfaces such as fuselages, hulls, propellers, rotors, wings, rockets and re-entry vehicles.
Dubbed SU2 for short, the application incorporates everything engineers need to perform a complete design loop for optimizing the shapes of aerospace systems. While commercial programs offering similar capabilities are available, they can be prohibitively expensive. SU2, on the other hand, can be downloaded for free from the lab's website.
In engineering circles, the discipline is known as computational fluid dynamics, or CFD. Creating custom software applications to accurately model the interactions of an object in flight can take months, even years, to write and perfect. And yet, when the student graduates, the software is often forgotten.
"These are incredibly complex calculations involving innumerable variables," said Tom Taylor, a doctoral candidate who studies the dynamics of fluid flows beyond the sound barrier. "Essentially, every student has to create their own code for their specific designs, even though the equations at the core are virtually identical."
Brainchild
SU2 is the product of a team led by research associate Francisco Palacios, in the Aerospace Design Lab, who works on complex simulations of the propulsion systems in hypersonic vehicles.
Palacios witnessed all the coding the students around him were doing and, realizing that much of it was built upon a common foundation, decided to combine their work. Palacios, together with lab director Juan Alonso, then led a team of multi-disciplinary engineers in compiling, debugging and documenting the application that became SU2.
"The commercially available software is out of reach for most students," said Palacios, "and does not allow for modifications to the source code that are needed for doctoral-level research. It occurred to us that all this time and effort could be combined and packaged to allow students to focus more on their research problems and less on writing code."
Dynamic applications
Fluid dynamics applies to any three-dimensional structure moving through a medium, including air, water, chemicals and even blood.
"People can use this for everything from rockets to the design of more efficient wind turbines, and even boats, racecars and more," said PhD candidate Sean Copeland, who specializes in re-entry of space vehicles.
"Just plug in the geometry of your plane or wing or rotor, and tell the program to increase lift or reduce drag, for instance," said Tom Economon, a doctoral student working on efficient and quiet engine design. "SU2 goes to work, optimizing the shape for you in an automated way, showing you exactly where to alter your designs for maximum effect."
"I often work on modeling plasmas," said PhD candidate Amrita Lonkar, who studies flow control over wind turbines. "It was really easy so easy to modify the program for my research. For me, it reduced about a year's worth of work to just four months."
Open source, open possibilities
SU2 is a freely customizable software package. In true open-source fashion, developers, designers and engineers are encouraged to make the software their own, customizing the application to fit their needs.
"We welcome corrections, additions and improvements to our application," said Palacios. "They help everyone."
Of all SU2's many virtues, however, the most promising is perhaps its documentation, including a quick-start guide and in-depth tutorials. Absent or inadequate documentation is a problem that plagues many scientific computer codes.
"These materials are exhaustive and continually updated," said Taylor. "Students can hit the ground running."
Like the source code, the documentation and training are available via the website, which also includes a public forum where users and developers can seek advice and post support questions to a growing SU2 community.
"We are proud of SU2. We hope that students will use it to focus not on coding, but on their research creating better aerodynamic designs," said Palacios. "This is, after all, the real reason they came to school."
The Stanford Aerospace Design Lab is led by associate professor Juan J. Alonso and assistant professor (consulting) Karthik Duraisamy. Research associate Michael Colonno, post-doctoral researcher Jason Hicken and doctoral candidate Alejandro Campos also contributed to SU2.
###
This article was written by Andrew Myers the associate director of communications at the School of Engineering.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Andrew Myers admyers@stanford.edu 650-736-2245 Stanford School of Engineering
Stanford University Unstructured is an open-source software package that gives advanced engineering students a crucial leg up on the time-consuming process of writing their own code to optimize aerospace designs
Each fall at technical universities across the world, a new crop of aeronautical and astronautical engineering graduate students settle in for the work that will consume them for the next several years. For many, their first experience in these early months is not with titanium or aluminum or advanced carbon-fiber materials that are the stuff of airplanes, but with computer code.
Thanks to a team of engineers in the Aerospace Design Lab at Stanford University, however, those days of coding may soon go the way of the biplane. At a recent demonstration, the Stanford team debuted "Stanford University Unstructured" (SU2), an open-source application that models the effects of fluids moving over aerodynamic surfaces such as fuselages, hulls, propellers, rotors, wings, rockets and re-entry vehicles.
Dubbed SU2 for short, the application incorporates everything engineers need to perform a complete design loop for optimizing the shapes of aerospace systems. While commercial programs offering similar capabilities are available, they can be prohibitively expensive. SU2, on the other hand, can be downloaded for free from the lab's website.
In engineering circles, the discipline is known as computational fluid dynamics, or CFD. Creating custom software applications to accurately model the interactions of an object in flight can take months, even years, to write and perfect. And yet, when the student graduates, the software is often forgotten.
"These are incredibly complex calculations involving innumerable variables," said Tom Taylor, a doctoral candidate who studies the dynamics of fluid flows beyond the sound barrier. "Essentially, every student has to create their own code for their specific designs, even though the equations at the core are virtually identical."
Brainchild
SU2 is the product of a team led by research associate Francisco Palacios, in the Aerospace Design Lab, who works on complex simulations of the propulsion systems in hypersonic vehicles.
Palacios witnessed all the coding the students around him were doing and, realizing that much of it was built upon a common foundation, decided to combine their work. Palacios, together with lab director Juan Alonso, then led a team of multi-disciplinary engineers in compiling, debugging and documenting the application that became SU2.
"The commercially available software is out of reach for most students," said Palacios, "and does not allow for modifications to the source code that are needed for doctoral-level research. It occurred to us that all this time and effort could be combined and packaged to allow students to focus more on their research problems and less on writing code."
Dynamic applications
Fluid dynamics applies to any three-dimensional structure moving through a medium, including air, water, chemicals and even blood.
"People can use this for everything from rockets to the design of more efficient wind turbines, and even boats, racecars and more," said PhD candidate Sean Copeland, who specializes in re-entry of space vehicles.
"Just plug in the geometry of your plane or wing or rotor, and tell the program to increase lift or reduce drag, for instance," said Tom Economon, a doctoral student working on efficient and quiet engine design. "SU2 goes to work, optimizing the shape for you in an automated way, showing you exactly where to alter your designs for maximum effect."
"I often work on modeling plasmas," said PhD candidate Amrita Lonkar, who studies flow control over wind turbines. "It was really easy so easy to modify the program for my research. For me, it reduced about a year's worth of work to just four months."
Open source, open possibilities
SU2 is a freely customizable software package. In true open-source fashion, developers, designers and engineers are encouraged to make the software their own, customizing the application to fit their needs.
"We welcome corrections, additions and improvements to our application," said Palacios. "They help everyone."
Of all SU2's many virtues, however, the most promising is perhaps its documentation, including a quick-start guide and in-depth tutorials. Absent or inadequate documentation is a problem that plagues many scientific computer codes.
"These materials are exhaustive and continually updated," said Taylor. "Students can hit the ground running."
Like the source code, the documentation and training are available via the website, which also includes a public forum where users and developers can seek advice and post support questions to a growing SU2 community.
"We are proud of SU2. We hope that students will use it to focus not on coding, but on their research creating better aerodynamic designs," said Palacios. "This is, after all, the real reason they came to school."
The Stanford Aerospace Design Lab is led by associate professor Juan J. Alonso and assistant professor (consulting) Karthik Duraisamy. Research associate Michael Colonno, post-doctoral researcher Jason Hicken and doctoral candidate Alejandro Campos also contributed to SU2.
###
This article was written by Andrew Myers the associate director of communications at the School of Engineering.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Former CIA interrogator John Kiriakou describes waterboarding in an interview with Chris Matthews on "Hardballl."
By Michael IsikoffNBC News
A former U.S. Senate investigator who had previously worked for the CIA was arrested Monday and?charged with repeatedly leaking classified information to journalists as well as violating the federal law that forbids disclosing the identity of covert intelligence officers.
John Kiriakou, who between 2009 and last year worked as an investigator for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged by a federal grand jury with one count of violating the Intelligence Agencies Protection Act, two counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of lying to the CIA about his actions in an effort to convince the agency to let him publish a book, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror."
Kiriakou turned himself into the FBI Monday morning.?In an initial court appearance in Alexandria, Va., Monday afternoon, Kiriakou waived a preliminary hearing and was released on a $250,000 bond after surrendering his passport and agreeing to stay in the Washington area and not to contact any witnesses in the case. His lawyer, Plato Cacheris, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The charges cap a three-year investigation by Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago,? into?how photographs of covert CIA officers involved in the interrogation of terror suspects ended up in the Guantanamo prison cell of one of the accused 9/11 terrorists. The discovery of the photographs stunned top CIA officials. Fitzgerald was then appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder to oversee the probe because of his prior expertise in the intelligence protection act as special counsel in charge of the Bush era investigation into the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
DOCUMENT: Read the complaint against Kiriakou
The investigation initially focused on the role of defense lawyers, who used a private investigator to obtain surveillance photos of CIA officers. But the probe found no wrongdoing by the defense lawyers or the investigator.?Instead, a Justice Department complaint charged, it found that Kiriakou provided information to three journalists, emailing one of them the name of a covert officer who then supplied the name of the officer to a defense investigator. (The journalist is not identified in the complaint). The complaint also alleges that Kiriakou provided another reporter at the New York Times with classified information about another CIA officer's role in the capture of accused Gitmo terrorist Abu Zubaydah. The information was included in a front page June 22, 2008, article in the Times entitled, "Inside the Interrogation of a 9/11 Mastermind" that raised questions about the use of waterboarding.
Msnbc's Alex Witt talks with author John Kiriakou about his book "The Reluctant Spy."
In an interview with FBI agents last week, Kiriakou denied disclosing information about the CIA officer to the New York Times reporter, Scott Shane, answering, "Heavens no," when asked if he had done so, according to the criminal complaint. But the complaint charges that Kirikou provided the reporter with the CIA officer's phone number and personal address.
The charges are the latest in a series of criminal leak cases brought by the Justice Department under President Barack Obama. But the cases have so far proven difficult for federal prosecutors; one major one, involving former NSA employee Thomas Drake, accused of leaking classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter, resulted in a resounding defeat for the Justice Department last year when federal prosecutors withdrew all criminal charges against him.
Kiriakou spent 14 years with the CIA, between 1990 and 2004. He was hired by Kerry in 2009 to help investigate national security related issues for the Foreign Relations Committee. This came after Kiriakou gained prominence by giving a 2007 interview to ABC News about the use of waterboarding and how it allegedly broke Zubaydah in 35 seconds -- a claim that has been much disputed. (It was later disclosed that Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times.)? Kiriakou, who for a time worked as an ABC News consultant and appeared on several NBC News and MSNBC TV programs, later said that he did not personally participate in the waterboarding and had only read about it in intelligence reports.
A judge last year refused to find the CIA in contempt of court when it destroyed dozens of videotapes of?the interrogation of Zubaydah and other detainees.
Dec. 11: Former CIA agent John Kiriakou talks with TODAY's Matt Lauer about the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.
In December 2007, the CIA acknowledged doing so as part of?the detention program begun after the Sept. 11 attacks. A spokeswoman for Kerry, Jodi Seth, emailed this statement Monday to NBC News: ?John Kiriakou was an investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from mid-2009 to 2011 when he left the committee voluntarily.? These charges date back to actions allegedly taken when he was employed by the intelligence community and both pre-date and are unrelated to his work for the committee. Understandably, our office has no information beyond what is publicly available, and only today did we become aware of this situation.?
In a statement issued after the charges were filed, CIA Director David Petraeus issued a statement to agency employees reminding them of the need to protect classified information.
"In return for the secrecy we need to do our work, the American people and our elected representatives expect us to uphold our nation?s laws and values," Petraeus said in the email. "When we joined this organization, we swore to safeguard classified information; those oaths stay with us for life. Unauthorized disclosures of any sort -- including information concerning the identities of other Agency officers -- betray the public trust, our country and our colleagues. Given the sensitive nature of many of our agency?s operations and the risks we ask our employees to take, the illegal passage of secrets is an abuse of trust that may put lives in jeopardy."
Michael Isikoff is NBC News national investigative correspondent. Msnbc.com news services contributed to this report.
NEW YORK - The days of big, brash talk by Rex Ryan could be over.
The New York Jets coach told WFAN Radio on Friday that he'll remain confident but might tone down his comments after his Super Bowl guarantees and bravado might have hurt his team this season. Ryan, who has promised big things for the Jets since taking over as coach in 2009, predicted a Super Bowl victory this season during the NFL combine last February.
"My thing about, 'I'll guarantee that we get it done this year,' I thought the bull's-eye was going on my back, and that's fine," Ryan said. "I was trying to put pressure on myself. So that's something that obviously I have to learn from."
The Jets lost their last three games to finish 8-8 and out of the playoffs. Ryan said he drove by MetLife Stadium during the Giants' playoff-opening win against Atlanta two weeks ago to see it "in all blue" to motivate himself to get the Jets back on track.
"Clearly, when you have a team that went to back-to-back championship games, what else is there to go for?" Ryan said. "It's Super Bowl or bust. Well, we busted."
Recent comments by LaDainian Tomlinson about Ryan's bravado and a conversation with former 49ers quarterback Steve Young, now an ESPN analyst, about his style got the coach thinking about tweaking his approach.
"I've got to look at the entire dynamic of what I say," Ryan said, "and how it doesn't just affect me."
Despite being done playing for nearly three weeks, the Jets have still made news ? with players taking swipes at quarterback Mark Sanchez and revealing a troublesome locker room environment. On Showtime's "Inside The NFL" on Wednesday night, Tomlinson said the Jets' locker room was "as bad as I've ever been around."
As owner Woody Johnson did on Thursday, Ryan disputed that by saying he thought the running back might have overstated the amount of tension. Most notably, Sanchez and wide receiver Santonio Holmes had a rocky relationship throughout the season.
"I think it was an isolated incident," Ryan said. "I don't think it was pervasive throughout the locker room. It's not everybody in the locker room. We certainly had a couple of guys, and it had a huge negative impact on our football team, so there's no question about that."
Ryan acknowledged a few times after the season that he never had his finger fully on the pulse of the team, something he insists will change.
"I want to be a great head coach," he said. "I want to be. Am I there yet? No, I'm absolutely not there yet, but I am willing to work to get there."
In a conference call with season ticket holders earlier Friday, Ryan said the confusing terminology of former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer's system caused him to not be as involved in working with the offense.
"Quite honestly, the verbiage we had last season was probably a little much," Ryan said.
Ryan and general manager Mike Tannenbaum both insisted Sanchez will be the Jets' starting quarterback next season and will benefit from new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano's run-first system.
Ryan isn't totally done making guarantees, though. During his interview with WFAN, the coach predicted the Giants and Baltimore Ravens would make it to the Super Bowl.
"I think the Giants are going to take this game," he said. "Eli (Manning) is hot. I like the fact that both of their running backs are healthy. I think you could be looking at a Ravens-Giants rematch."
He also raved about the Ravens' defense ? a unit he once coached ? and how it could neutralize Tom Brady.
"But the Ravens' offense has to show up," he said. "They've got to protect the football. I think they can move on the ball, no question. Let's face it, I'm cheering for the Ravens."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The pharmaceutical industry may stop investing in medicines to treat diseases like diabetes or obesity without more explicit guidelines from U.S. regulators, the chairman of the drug trade group said on Thursday.
The Food and Drug Administration must approve any medical products sold in the United States, but drug companies say they cannot always predict how the agency weighs risks and benefits for medicines that could be widely used.
To avoid the uncertainty, companies may focus on specialized cancer drugs, where it is clear patients and the FDA are willing to accept serious side-effects in exchange for potentially life-saving treatments.
"You're starting to see primary care diseases becoming somewhat neglected," said Christopher Viehbacher, chairman of the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), in an interview.
"To make sure we're not ignoring unmet needs in primary care, we need a lot more clarity around the risk-benefit so there's predictability when we invest in these products," said Viehbacher, also chief executive of French drugmaker Sanofi SA.
PhRMA and other groups are gearing up their lobbying strategy ahead of Congressional hearings on FDA user fees, or the funds companies pay to the agency in exchange for faster review times.
Since fees from makers of drugs and medical devices provide more than a third of the agency's funding, the bill often serves as a vehicle for broader FDA-related changes.
Congress must renew the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) every five years, with the current legislation expiring in September 2012.
Over the past year, the FDA has drawn fire from some manufacturers for being too cautious in reviewing medical products, hindering U.S. innovation.
They point to obesity drugs, where Arena Pharmaceuticals, Orexigen Therapeutics and Vivus have hit roadblocks in gaining approval for their diet pills because of potential safety concerns.
About a third of U.S. adults are obese and medicines could help manage the weight along with diet and exercise.
Viehbacher said the FDA is aware of the challenge of balancing patient safety and innovation.
"You're hearing the FDA say that yes, we need to protect patients, and yes, we need to keep medicines accessible," he said. "I don't think anybody has to sacrifice. I think there just has to be a lot more science."
(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Matt Driskill)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, stands with, from left, his wife Ann, obscured left, granddaughter Allie, son Tagg, son Matt, and granddaughter Chloe, as he speaks at his South Carolina primary election night reception at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won the Republican primary Saturday night. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, stands with, from left, his wife Ann, obscured left, granddaughter Allie, son Tagg, son Matt, and granddaughter Chloe, as he speaks at his South Carolina primary election night reception at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won the Republican primary Saturday night. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, leaves after a campaign event at Chick-Fil-A, in Anderson, S.C., Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate former, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, campaigns at Tommy?s Country Ham House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Greenville, S.C., on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
A man shelters himself from the rain prior to a scheduled campaign event for Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, outside a polling station at Powdersville Middle School, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Greenville, S.C., on South Carolina's Republican primary election day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Strong backing from conservative and religious voters and people fretting about the uncertain economy fueled Newt Gingrich's victory in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary, an exit poll of voters showed Saturday.
The data also showed that for the first time, the former House speaker grabbed two constituencies that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, prided himself in winning in the year's two previous GOP contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Gingrich bested Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, among the nearly half of voters looking for someone to defeat President Barack Obama this November, 51 percent to 37 percent. And of the 6 in 10 who considered the economy the top issue in picking a candidate, Gingrich prevailed, 40 percent to 32 percent.
Gingrich benefited most from the campaign's final, tumultuous week, the figures showed.
Just over half said they'd chosen a candidate in the last few days, and 44 percent of them backed Gingrich, doubling Romney's support. By 50 percent to 23 percent, the roughly two-thirds who said campaign debates were an important factor also supported Gingrich. There were two GOP debates in South Carolina during the past week, and Gingrich was widely considered to have turned in strong performances in both.
In the campaign's last days, Romney stumbled badly when asked whether he will release his income tax returns and about investments in the Cayman Islands. Gingrich endured an allegation by one of his two former wives, Marianne, that he had asked permission for an open marriage while he was having an affair with the woman who is his current wife, Callista.
That accusation seemed to take only a slight toll on Gingrich.
He was supported by 6 percent of those who said what they most wanted in a candidate was strong moral character, but these voters were less than 1 in 5 of those who showed up Saturday at the polls. Gingrich did better than Romney among women, and fared a bit more strongly among married than unmarried females.
Gingrich won healthy margins among the state's conservatives, who comprise more than 6 in 10 voters in the state, one of the country's reddest. While those results were bad news for Romney, they were even more damaging to Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who has been dueling with Gingrich to become the GOP's conservative champion and alternative to Romney.
Gingrich won among conservatives and tea party supporters by nearly 2-1 over Romney. Santorum was slightly behind.
Nearly two-thirds of voters said they are born again or evangelical Christians, and they backed Gingrich over Romney by 2-1.
More telling, 6 in 10 said it was important that their candidate share their religious beliefs. Nearly half of such voters backed Gingrich, while only 1 in 5 chose Romney and about the same number picked Santorum.
About 8 in 10 voters they were very worried about the direction of the country's economy, and they picked Gingrich over Romney, 42 percent to 28 percent.
South Carolina's unemployment rate of 9.9 percent is worse than the national average, and the exit poll provided evidence of the state's economic pain. About 3 in 10 said someone in their household has lost a job in the past three years. And about 1 in 5 said they are falling behind financially ? around double the proportion who said so in exit polling in the state's 2008 GOP presidential contest.
Romney's earlier career heading Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, clearly wounded his prospects. During much of the campaign, Gingrich and others accused Romney and his company of killing jobs in the companies they bought and restructured.
Those blows showed Saturday. According to the exit polls, Gingrich and Romney broke about even among the nearly two-thirds of voters who said they had a positive view of Romney's activities at Bain. But among those who viewed Romney's work negatively, half picked Gingrich and 3 percent backed Romney.
Underscoring how poorly Romney fared in South Carolina, less than 4 in 10 said they could enthusiastically back him should he eventually win the GOP nomination.
Romney's defeat was so sweeping that he lost to Gingrich among voters of every age. The only income group Romney won was people making above $200,000 a year ? 1 in 20 of those who voted Saturday. Gingrich also prevailed among voters of every education level except those who have pursued post-graduate degrees, which he split with Romney.
Around two-thirds of voters approved of the job Nikki Haley is doing as governor, which she won with strong tea party support. Haley endorsed Romney, but 7 in 10 tea party backers gave her high marks anyway.
The survey was conducted for AP and the television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 35 randomly selected sites in South Carolina. The survey involved interviews with 2,381 voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Associated Press global polling director Trevor Tompson contributed to this report.
FILE - In this March 17, 2006, file photo, Sarah Burke of Canada, smiles as she celebrates her gold medal in the halfpipe FIS world Cup event Friday, March 17, 2006 at Apex Mountain in Penticton, British Columbia. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jacques Boissinot)
FILE - In this March 17, 2006, file photo, Sarah Burke of Canada, smiles as she celebrates her gold medal in the halfpipe FIS world Cup event Friday, March 17, 2006 at Apex Mountain in Penticton, British Columbia. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jacques Boissinot)
FILe - In this Oct. 15, 2007, file photo, honoree Sarah Burke arrives at the Women's Sports Foundation's 28th Annual Salute to Women in Sports at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)
FILE - In this March 12, 2008, file photo, Sarah Burke, of Canada, celebrates on the podium after winning the women's halfpipe freestyle title at the World Cup finals in Valmalenco, Italy. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - In this March 12, 2008, file photo, Sarah Burke, of Canada, celebrates on the podium after winning the women's halfpipe freestyle title at the World Cup finals in Valmalenco, Italy. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2011, file photo, Sarah Burke, of Canada, competes in the women's halfpipe finals at the freestyle skiing world championships in Park City, Utah. Burke died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah. She was 29. Burke was injured Jan. 11 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ? Sarah Burke was an X Games star with a grass-roots mentality ? a daredevil superpipe skier who understood the risks inherent to her sport and the debt she owed to it for her success on the slopes.
The pioneering Canadian freestyler, who helped get superpipe accepted into the Olympics, died Thursday after a Jan. 10 crash during a training run in Park City, Utah.
Burke, who lived near Whistler, in British Columbia, was 29.
"Sarah was the one who, in a very positive way, stood in the face of adversity and asked, 'Why not?'" said Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle team. "What she would have wanted was for her teammates and others in her sport to stand up and also say, 'Why not?' To benefit from the significant opportunities available to them, being able to compete in the Olympics and the X Games. Those were the things she wanted and cherished and fought for."
A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke crashed on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce sustained a traumatic brain injury during a training accident on Dec. 31, 2009.
Tests revealed she sustained "irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest," according to a statement released by her publicist, Nicole Wool, on behalf of the family.
She said Burke's organs and tissues were donated, as the skier had requested before the accident.
"The family expresses their heartfelt gratitude for the international outpouring of support they have received from all the people Sarah touched," the statement said.
Judge said the accident did not come on a risky trick, but rather, a simple 540-degree jump that Burke usually landed routinely.
"It was more the freak nature of how she landed," he said. "The angle of how she hit must have been exactly the right way, to create a very bizarre circumstance."
Burke will be remembered as much for the hardware she collected as the legacy she left for women in superpipe skiing, a sister sport to the more popular snowboarding brand that has turned Shaun White, Hannah Teter and others into stars.
Aware of the big role the Olympics played in pushing the Whites of the world from the fringes into the mainstream, Burke lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Winter Games program, noting that no new infrastructure would be needed.
Her arguments won over Olympic officials, and the discipline will debut in two years in Russia, where Burke likely would have been a favorite for the gold medal.
She was, Judge said, as committed to mentoring up-and-coming competitors and giving clinics as performing at the top levels.
"She was a kind person who was easygoing and approachable," Judge said. "There was no pretense about her."
News of Burke's death spread quickly through the action-sports world, where the Winter X Games are set to start next week in Aspen, Colo., without one of their biggest and most-beloved stars.
"She's probably one of the nicest people I've known in my life, and that's about the only thing I have to say about it," said American superpipe skier Simon Dumont, a multiple X Games medalist.
Jeremy Forster, the program director for U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding, said freeskiers would remember Burke "first, as a friend, and then as a competitor who constantly inspired them to do greater things."
"She was a leader in her sport, and it's a huge loss for the freeskiing community," Forster said.
"I am eternally indebted to Sarah for what she has done for this sport," said American superpipe skier Jen Hudak. "Every turn I ever make will be for her."
A moment of silence for Burke was observed before Canada's women's soccer team played Haiti in an Olympic qualifying match in Vancouver on Thursday night.
Burke's death is sure to re-ignite the debate over safety on the halfpipe.
Pearce's injury ? he has since recovered and is back to riding on snow ? was a jarring reminder of the dangers posed to these athletes who often market themselves as devil-may-care thrillseekers but know they make their living in a far more serious, and dangerous, profession.
The sport's leaders defend the record, saying mandatory helmets and air bags used on the sides of pipes during practice and better pipe-building technology has made this a safer sport, even though the walls of the pipes have risen significantly over the past decade. They now stand at 22 feet high.
Some of the movement to the halfpipe decades ago came because racing down the mountain, the way they do in snowboardcross and skicross, was considered even more dangerous ? the conditions more unpredictable and the athletes less concerned with each other's safety.
But there are few consistent, hard-and-fast guidelines when it comes to limiting the difficulty of the tricks in the halfpipe, and as the money and fame available in the sport grew, so did the tricks. In 2010, snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton told The Associated Press that much of this was self-policed by athletes who knew where to draw the line.
"If the sport got to the point where halfpipe riding became really dangerous, I think riders would do something about it," Burton said. "It wouldn't be cool anymore."
His opinion is shared by many.
"From a safety perspective, it's just very difficult to really understand if there was anything that could've been done any differently to make it any safer," Judge said.
In 2009, Burke broke a vertebra in her back after landing awkwardly while competing in slopestyle at the X Games. It was her lobbying that helped get the X Games to include women's slopestyle ? where riders shoot down the mountain and over "features" including bumps and rails.
It wasn't her best event, but she felt compelled to compete because she pushed for it. She came to terms with her injury quickly.
"I've been doing this for long time, 11 years," she said in a 2010 interview. "I've been very lucky with the injuries I've had. It's part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I'd probably do the exact same thing again."
She returned a year after that injury and kept going at the highest level, trying the toughest tricks and winning the biggest prizes.
A native of Midland, Ontario, Burke won the ESPY in 2007 as female action sports athlete of the year.
In 2010, she married another freestyle skier, Rory Bushfield, and they were headliners in a documentary film project on the Ski Channel called "Winter."
In her interview with AP two years ago, Burke reflected on the niche she'd carved out in the action-sports world.
"I think we're all doing this, first off, because we love it and want to be the best," she said. "But I also think it would've been a great opportunity, huge for myself and for skiing and for everyone, if we could've gotten into the (Vancouver) Olympics. It's sad. I mean, I'm super lucky to be where I am, but that would've been pretty awesome."
A little more than a year later, with Burke's prodding, her sport was voted in for the next Winter Games.
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AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this story from Denver.
ZURICH - World and European champion Spain retained the top spot in the FIFA rankings for the fifth straight month, and the United States moved up one place to 33rd.
The Americans' ranking is its highest since it was 31st in September. The U.S. had been 11th in September-October 2009 and reached a high of fourth in April 2006.
The top 10 places were unchanged from December after just 11 international matches were played last month. The Netherlands is second, followed by Germany, South American champion Uruguay, England. Brazil, Portugal, Croatia, Italy and Argentina.
Mexico, at 21st, has the top ranking in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Puyol, Abidal spark Barca
Carles Puyol and Eric Abidal scored rare goals to rally Barcelona over defending champion Real Madrid 2-1 Wednesday night in the first leg of their Copa del Rey quarterfinal.
Robert Cianflone / Getty Images
He's back
David Beckham has re-signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy, agreeing to a new two-year contract with the Major League Soccer club.
Following up on the pioneering success of the 2006's?Nike+, the company that started the?wearable digital fitness revolution has a slick new product. Meet the Nike+ FuelBand, a bracelet in the same fitness-forward family as the?FitBit and the?Jawbone Up
The FuelBand has a few neat tricks to set it apart. Sure, it'll track your perambulations, but it also converts all of your physical activity into a kind of health currency called NikeFuel. It tracks steps walked and calories burned, but it also uses oxygen kinetics to take a more precise measurement of your exertion ? and in true Nike fashion, it turns the result into a competitive sport.
You can compete against your own NikeFuel score of course, but you'll also be able to compare against your friends (or foes!) on Twitter and Facebook (and later Foursquare and Path, potentially). You can also check your progress toward your own goals at a glance via the bracelet's little colorful LED lights. The Nike FuelBand goes on pre-order today for $149 and begin shipping on February 22.
DEBT SALES: Auctions of short-term debt by Spain, Greece and Europe's bailout fund drew strong investor demand on Tuesday, despite recent credit rating downgrades by Standard & Poor's. Many had feared the downgrades would prevent them from obtaining funds and worsen the debt crisis.
CHINA GROWTH: The Chinese government said its economy slowed less dramatically in the fourth quarter than analysts had feared. Demand from China is key to sustaining the global economy.
MIXED EARNINGS: Stocks rose on the encouraging news from abroad, despite mixed earnings reports from big U.S. banks.
At last year's CES, Aha Radio brought its hyper-connected social media ways to two high-end Pioneer head units. This year, however, the service is about to make a bigger splash by announcing it'll be built into select 2013 Subaru and Honda vehicles. Equipped autos will have access to "thousands of personalized, web-enabled stations" like MOG, Rhapsody and Slacker, appearing as a selectable source alongside more traditional AM, FM and satellite radio options. And naturally it'll integrate with Aha's iPhone and Android apps. If a new vehicle isn't to your liking, Kenwood will also start integrating the service into head units later in 2012. We'll get hands-on with the above system in a Subaru's new BRZ soon, but to tide you over, two PRs await the break.
On this day in 1864, seventeen-year-old David Owen Dodd was hanged. The Texas native was captured as he tried to cross Federal lines near Little Rock, with notes in Morse code hidden in his shoe. After a military court found him guilty, he confessed that he had been sent to gather information about Union troops. Dodd may have been the youngest person hanged as a spy in the Civil War.
Boston College head football coach Frank Spaziani announced Friday that former Ohio State coach Jim Bollman has been named the offensive line coach and running game coordinator for the Eagles.
"As a former offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes, Jim brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our program,"?Spaziani said in a Boston College athletic department release.
Boston College did not make salary information available for Bollman, who will be replacing former offensive line coach Sean Devine. Devine remains on the Eagles' staff as tight ends coach.
"Boston College has a great offensive line tradition and has produced some of the best talent in the NFL,"?Bollman said in the release. "I look forward to the challenge of continuing and enhancing that tradition."
Bollman, an Ashtabula, Ohio, native and Ohio University graduate, was a member of the Buckeye's coaching staff from 2001-2011, and he served under former head coaches Jim?Tressel and Luke Fickell.
Bollman was the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for the Buckeyes during his time at Ohio State.
Bollman was not retained by new OSU head coach Urban Meyer, who took control of the Buckeyes after their 24-17 Monday loss to Florida in the Gator Bowl.
Under Bollman's tutelage, 10 former Buckeye linemen went on to make an NFL team.
Bollman, who began his coaching career in 1977 as a graduate assistant at Miami University (Ohio), brings more than 30 years of experience to the Eagle's coaching staff.
This will be?Bollman's third coaching job in the Atlantic Coast Conference, having previously spent time at the University of Virginia and North Carolina State University.
Bollman?also has NFL coaching experience, having come to Ohio State from the Chicago Bears. He spent time on the coaching staff of the Philadelphia Eagles as well.
Members of the Boston College athletic department did not immediately respond to The Lantern's request for comment regarding Bolllman's hiring. ?
According to a brief report that just went live at Reuters, Sprint is "merging its sales and marketing operations for its business and consumer operations in a streamlining that includes the departure of four top executives." Reportedly, that news was delivered by none other than CEO Dan Hesse himself, who has been in the news a fair amount since 2012 began. Reportedly, the carrier is aiming to "gain efficiencies" in a market where hordes of customers snap up services as individuals, but actually use services tied to "employer-related contractual discounts." Hesse's exact words? "As the wireless market has evolved, the lines between consumers and businesses have blurred." Evidently, they've blurred enough to oust four unnamed bigwigs, too.
SAN FRANCISCO ? A judge sentenced a California lawmaker to three years of probation after she pleaded no contest to stealing leather pants and other merchandise, thefts that her attorney blamed on a benign brain tumor.
Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi was arrested on Oct. 23 after surveillance cameras at a Neiman Marcus store at Union Square showed her walking out the doors with unpaid merchandise in her shopping bag. She was accused of stealing nearly $2,500 worth of clothing.
She entered the plea in San Francisco Superior Court Friday after the judge reduced a theft charge against her from a felony to a misdemeanor at a prosecutor's request.
In addition to probation, Judge Gerardo Sandoval ordered her to pay $180 in fines and court costs, and told her to stay at least 50 feet away from the Neiman Marcus store.
Shortly after her arrest, a spokesman for Hayashi had explained that she was distracted by a cellphone call and forgot to pay for the merchandise.
Hayashi declined to speak to reporters after Friday's court hearing, but her attorney, Douglas Rappaport, said Hayashi was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that contributed to the shoplifting incident.
"Now that Ms. Hayashi's medical condition resulting in her arrest has been taken care of, she decided that she would resolve the case as well," Rappaport said.
"It is being treated," he added. "It's no longer affecting her concentration or her judgment."
Ross Warren, a spokesman for Hayashi, said Friday the Democratic lawmaker "acknowledges that she did accidentally walk out of the building with unpaid merchandise."
"She admitted that she made a mistake, and today she is accepting the consequences of that mistake," said Warren, adding that her condition "can lead to some absentmindedness."
Hayashi has no plans to resign from office, Warren said.
If she had been convicted of a felony, Hayashi would have lost her pay but not necessarily her job in the Legislature.
Assembly rules do not say what happens if a lawmaker is convicted of a misdemeanor.
Hayashi, 44, who is married to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Dennis Hayashi, has represented Castro Valley since 2006 but can't run for re-election because she is termed out of office after this year.
Prosecutors said they agreed to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor because Hayashi was willing to enter the no-contest plea and had no prior criminal record.
"Her condition never factored into our decision," said Stephanie Ong Stillman, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
Speaking at a news conference before the court hearing, District Attorney George Gascon said his office would accept the judge's decision.
"She is a first-time offender. She has no criminal record. So while what she did is inexcusable and she needs to be held accountable for her actions, I think it's appropriate to examine and explore all the different possibilities," Gascon said.
Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said Friday that he's confident Hayashi will "continue to ably serve her constituents."
"While she made a serious mistake, she has owned up to her actions and taken responsibility for them," Perez said in a statement.
Barbara O'Connor, a communications professor at California State University, Sacramento, said Hayashi's conviction is another example of bad behavior by politicians whose public standing has plummeted.
"It doesn't make people feel better about their elected officials," she said.