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Friday, June 29, 2012
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center notifies patients of stolen laptop with personal information
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center notified patients on June 28 that a physician?s laptop containing personal information was stolen ? nearly two months ago.
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center? notified patients on June 28 that a physician?s laptop containing personal information was stolen ? nearly two months ago.
The unencrypted laptop was stolen from the physician?s home on April 30, and on May 1 M.D. Anderson began working with forensics experts to determine what data the computer contained. That investigation revealed the laptop contained information on nearly 30,000 patients, whom M.D. Anderson began notifying immediately, said Dan Fontaine, M.D. Anderson senior vice president for business affairs.
However, the data was not consistent among all patients, Fontaine said. Social security numbers were present for roughly one-third of the patients. Those patients are eligible for a credit monitoring service paid for by M.D. Anderson.
M.D. Anderson waited to notify patients until it had a ?high degree of certainty? regarding the information, Fontaine said, because the information on the laptop was not consistent for each patient and it did not want to cause undue panic.
?We moved with as much dispatch as we could, not wanting to create unnecessary anxiety? for unaffected patients, Fontaine said.
Other patient information on the laptop included names, medical record numbers, and treatment and/or research information.
Due to the theft, M.D. Anderson has stepped up its encryption program. The center had been encrypting devices for ?quite some time? prior to the theft, Fontaine said. However, factors such as balancing employees? need to communicate with patients via personal devices and dealing with technical problems caused by encryption had made the process slower than desired. Now M.D. Anderson has brought on additional staff and ?basically has opened a 24/7 encryption center,? he said.
Olivia Pulsinelli is the web producer for the Houston Business Journal's award-winning website.
Source: http://feeds.bizjournals.com/~r/vertical_40/~3/3w9pSCDFlMA/md-anderson-cancer-center-notifies.html
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Seeing inside tissue: Researchers develop technique to focus light inside biological tissue
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2012) ? Imagine if doctors could perform surgery without ever having to cut through your skin. Or if they could diagnose cancer by seeing tumors inside the body with a procedure that is as simple as an ultrasound. Thanks to a technique developed by engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), all of that may be possible in the not-so-distant future.
The new method enables researchers to focus light efficiently inside biological tissue. While the previous limit for how deep light could be focused was only about one millimeter, the Caltech team is now able to reach two and a half millimeters. And, in principle, their technique could focus light as much as a few inches into tissue. The technique is used much like a flashlight shining on the body's interior, and may eventually provide researchers and doctors with a host of possible biomedical applications, such as a less invasive way of diagnosing and treating diseases.
If you crank up the power of light, you might even be able to do away with a traditional scalpel. "It enables the possibilities of doing incision-less surgery," says Changhuei Yang, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at Caltech and a senior author on the new study. "By generating a tight laser-focus spot deep in tissue, we can potentially use that as a laser scalpel that leaves the skin unharmed."
Ying Min Wang, a graduate student in electrical engineering, and Benjamin Judkewitz, a postdoctoral scholar, are the lead authors on the paper, which was published in the June 26 issue of the journal Nature Communications.
The new work builds on a previous technique that Yang and his colleagues developed to see through a layer of biological tissue, which is opaque because it scatters light. In the previous work, the researchers shined light through the tissue and then recorded the resulting scattered light on a holographic plate. The recording contained all the information about how the light beam scattered, zigzagging through the tissue. By playing the recording in reverse, the researchers were able to essentially send the light back through to the other side of the tissue, retracing its path to the original source. In this way, they could send light through a layer of tissue without the blurring effect of scattering.
But to make images of what is inside tissue -- to get a picture of cells or molecules that are embedded inside, say, a muscle -- the researchers would have to be able to focus a light beam into the tissue. "For biologists, it's most important to know what's happening inside the tissue," Wang says.
To focus light into tissue, the researchers expanded on the recent work of Lihong Wang's group at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL); they had developed a method to focus light using the high-frequency vibrations of ultrasound. The WUSTL group took advantage of two properties of ultrasound. First, the high-frequency sound waves are not scattered by tissue, which is why it is great for taking images of fetuses in utero. Second, ultrasonic vibrations interact with light in such a way that they shift the light's frequency ever so slightly. As a result of this so-called acousto-optic effect, any light that has interacted with ultrasound changes into a slightly different color.
In both the WUSTL and Caltech experiments, the teams focused ultrasound waves into a small region inside a tissue sample. They then shined light into the sample, which, in turn, scattered the light. Because of the acousto-optic effect, any of the scattered light that passes through the region with the focused ultrasound will change to a slightly different color. The researchers can pick out this color-shifted light and record it. By employing the same playback technique as in the earlier Caltech work, they then send the light back, having only the color-shifted bits retrace their path to the small region where the ultrasound was focused -- which means that the light itself is focused on that area, allowing an image to be created. The researchers can control where they want to focus the light simply by moving the ultrasound focus.
The WUSTL experiment was limited, however, because only a very small amount of light could be focused. The Caltech engineers' new method, on the other hand, allows them to fire a beam of light with as much power as they want -- which is essential for potential applications.
The team demonstrated how the new method could be used with fluorescence imaging -- a powerful technique used in a wide range of biological and biomedical research. The researchers embedded a patch of gel with a fluorescent pattern that spelled out "CIT" inside a tissue sample. Then, they scanned the sample with focused light beams. The focused light hit and excited the fluorescent pattern, resulting in the glowing letters "CIT" emanating from inside the tissue. The team also demonstrated their technique by taking images of tumors tagged with fluorescent dyes.
"This demonstration that we can focus significant optical power deep within tissues opens up significant possibilities in optical imaging," Yang says. By tagging cells or molecules that are markers for disease with fluorescent dyes, doctors can use this technique to make diagnoses noninvasively, much as if they were doing an ultrasound procedure.
Doctors might also use this process to treat cancer with photodynamic therapy. In this procedure, a drug that contains light-sensitive, cancer-killing compounds is injected into a patient. Cancer cells absorb those compounds preferentially, so that the compounds kill the cells when light shines on them. Photodynamic therapy is now only used at tissue surfaces, because of the way light is easily scattered. The new technique should allow doctors to reach cancer cells deeper inside tissue.
The team has been able to more than double the current limit for how far light can be focused into tissue. With future improvements on the optoelectronic hardware used to record and play back light, the engineers say, they may be able to reach 10 centimeters (almost 4 inches) -- the depth limit of ultrasound -- within a few years.
Still, the researchers say, their demonstration shows they have overcome the main conceptual hurdle for effectively focusing light deep inside tissue. "This is a big breakthrough, and we're excited about the potential," Judkewitz says. Adds Caltech's Wang, "It's a very new way to image into tissue, which could lead to a lot of promising applications."
The Nature Communications paper is titled "Deep-tissue focal fluorescence imaging with digitally time-reversed ultrasound-encoded light." In addition to Wang, Judkewitz, and Yang, the other author on the paper is Charles DiMarzio of Northeastern University. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust, and the National Science Scholarship from the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research in Singapore.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Marcus Woo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Ying Min Wang, Benjamin Judkewitz, Charles A. DiMarzio, Changhuei Yang. Deep-tissue focal fluorescence imaging with digitally time-reversed ultrasound-encoded light. Nature Communications, 2012; 3: 928 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1925
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Hoda Kotb to Replace Ann Curry on Today?
Ann Curry is nearly out.
Might Hoda Kotb be in?
With The Today Show on the verge of an anchor change, and with Meredith Viera having turned down an offer to return, insiders tell Radar Online that Kotb may be getting the replacement call.
“Hoda scores off the charts in focus groups, and the audience can relate to her,” says the source of The Today Show's fourth hour co-host.
The long-running program is desperate to hold off Good Morning America, which has overtaken it in the ratings this spring. But would Kathie Lee's wine-drinking cohort really be the answer? Vote now:
Do you want to see Hoda Kotb replace Ann Curry?
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PHOTO: Jessica Simpson Shares Her Post-Baby Cleavage
Jessica Simpson definitely has a sense of humor about her post-baby figure. On June 22, the new mom, 31, shared a most revealing photo of her buxom self on Twitter.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012
New California budget will eliminate Healthy Families program
Listen Now
[12 min 38 sec]Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
California Gov. Jerry Brown
Governor Jerry Brown and California legislators reached a decision yesterday on how to close the state?s $15.7 billion budget deficit.
Among the cuts that have angered various groups is the plan to axe the Healthy Families medical program and move the 880,000 low-income children the program serves to Medi-Cal over the next three years. Many health advocates argue Healthy Families is a much higher quality program partly because it pays doctors and health care providers better.
When the budget is approved next week, what will this mean for the state?s disadvantaged children? And what will it mean for the doctors and health care professionals who provide them with care?
Dylan Roby, Director of the Health Economics and Evaluation Research Program at UCLA Center for Health Policy Research; Assistant Professor in UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
Wendy Lazarus, Co-President and Founder, The Children?s Partnership
Dr. Theodore Mazer, MD, Chair of California Medical Association?s Technical
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Riviera Maya / Cancun Golf Courses
Riviera Maya / Cancun Golf Courses |
With 253 days of sunshine a year, Cancun is a golfer???s paradise. The Mayan Riviera boasts pristine beaches, dense jungles, abundant wildlife and birds; hundreds of Mayan ruins, and modern resort hotels. There is no reason not to take advantage of the beautiful and quite challenging courses in and around Cancun.
The following courses are open in Quintana Roo:
Puerto Aventuras Golf Course
This 18-hole, par 72 championship golf course designed by Robert Von Hagge, is carved through the lush Mayan jungle. A driving range and putting green is available. Rental clubs are available for $30 USD. There is a $90 USD twilight rate (after 2 pm).
Playa del Carmen, Q. Roo.
Tel.: +52 (984) 873-0624
Tee times: teetimes@palaceresorts.com
This 18-hole (par 72) championship course is definitely the selling point for the Hilton Cancun Beach and Golf Resort. Robert Trent Jr. designed the course, incorporating one Cancun's ruins (Ruinas Del Ray) into the grounds. There are some challenging sand traps and an excellent driving range along with a lovely view of the lagoon. The sunsets are especially beautiful. Open 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Pull carts are prohibited. Located at Blvd. Kukulc?n, Km 17. Tel: (9) 881-8016.
Marina, tennis / golf club. Features a par 36, 9-hole course designed by Thomas Leeman. Maximum length 3,236 yards. Also, features a putting green. $45 USD (unlimited holes). Rental clubs / carts are available. Located on the Cancun to Chetumal highway at km. 90 Puerto Aventuras, Playa del Carmen, Q.ROO.
Tel: 52 98-73-5109
Located in Cancun???s Hotel Zone and designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., this 18-hole, par 72 golf course is 6,636 yards long. Features a practice tee, putting green, oceanfront holes and Mayan Ruins. $90 USD. $45 USD twilight rate.
Tel: 52 (998) 883 1230
Eighteen-hole, par 54 course, total length of 1,818 yards. Features a putting green. Located at the Melia Hotel at km. 16 in the Cancun Hotel Zone.
Tel: 52 98-85-1114
Nine-hole, par 27 course with a maximum length of 888 yards and a putting green.
Tel: 52 98-85-0867
This 18-hole, par 72 golf course is 6,767 yards long. Features a practice tee and putting green. $90 USD. Retorno Lacandones km. 17
Tel: 52 98-81-8000
Eighteen-hole, par 72 course. Cancun-Chetumal highway, km 350 Bacalar.
Cozumel Country Club Carretera Costera Norte, KM 6.5 Interior Casa Club Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico 77600 Email: info@cozumelcountryclub.com.mx
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Same-Sex Superhero Wedding Called 'Big Leap Forward' for Comic Books
The best-selling title in comics specialty shops across the nation this week depicted the first ?gay? wedding from industry leader Marvel Comics in which super-speedster Northstar married his long-time partner, a non-super black character named Kyle Jinadu.
Although the announcement regarding Astonishing X-Men #51 drew extensive press coverage back in May, the actual release received surprisingly little media attention, which came almost entirely from websites on homosexuality and comic book news, as well as a few cities where specialty stores hosted special events.
Many stores quickly sold out of the issue, which was hailed by the Advocate.com gay website as a ?big leap forward? for the medium since it featured the wedding of Northstar, a super-powered mutant named Jean-Paul Beaubier, to Jinadu, a sports company?s events manager
At Vanity Fair, writer Julie Miller called the increase of homosexual characters ?an attempt to promote equality and tolerance.?
The author also pointed to the recent announcement that Alan Scott, one of DC Comics' many Green Lanterns, has been rebooted as a gay man.
Miller said that Marvel, DC's main competitor, ?upped the open-mindedness ante by planning the medium?s first same-sex, interracial wedding in a major comic series.?
The story on the topic at sosogay.org was entitled: ?When You Wish Upon a Northstar, Dreams Come True.?
Along with selling copies of the new issue, a number of specialty stores marked the occasion by hosting same-sex wedding ceremonies in their shops.
The largest ceremony took place at Midtown Comics? in New York City where Scott Everhart, 39, and Jason Welker, 33, from Columbus, Ohio, were chosen from more than 50 applicants to take part in at its downtown location.
?It was a wedding for the books?comic books that is,? wrote Candace Wheeler of the Village Voice.
?One reason Welker and Everhart were chosen was that they live in Ohio, where same-sex is not legal,? Wheeler stated. ?They will have a private ceremony for friends and family when they return.?
?Midtown Comics co-owner Gerry Gladston said he was happy to help promote acceptance and tolerance,? she added.
Story Continues Below Ad ?
Also celebrating the occasion was MaximuM Comics in Las Vegas, Nevada, which held parties at its two locations on the day of the comic's release.
According to a report by KTNV-TV, store owner James Bosworth (who's gay) and his employees wore tuxedos during the celebration and stated that the parties were held to help customers ?celebrate the equality issue? regarding same-sex marriage.
?The Marvel Universe has always reflected the world outside your window, so we strive to make sure our characters, relationships and stories are grounded in that reality,? Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso told Jason M. Volack in one of the few articles on the event in the mainstream media.
?We?ve been working on this story for over a year to ensure Northstar and Kyle?s wedding reflects Marvel?s ?world outside your window? tradition,? Alonso added in the ABC News report.
?The story of Northstar and Kyle is universal, and at the core of everything I write: a powerful love between two people who have to fight for it against all odds,? writer Marjorie Liu said in the same article.
?This is the quintessential Marvel story, one that blends the modern world with the fantasy of super heroes in order to tell an exciting story that begins with a wedding?and continues in ways you can?t imagine,? she added.
As NewsBusters previously reported, liberals have taken the first step in the culture war on ?intolerance? by not allowing those on the other side of the issue to express their views.
One of the organizations protesting the inclusion of homosexual characters in comics is One Million Moms, which referred to the Marvel characters' marriage as ?shocking? and ?ridiculous.?
According to that group, homosexuals ?want to indoctrinate impressionable young minds by placing these gay characters on pedestals in a positive light.?
As a result, comic-book companies ?are heavily influencing our youth by using children's superheroes to desensitize and brainwash them into thinking that a gay lifestyle choice is normal and desirable.?
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
Obama to address Latino leaders a day after Romney
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is basking in the aftermath of his breakthrough directive on illegal immigration and pressing his jobs agenda before a meeting of Hispanic leaders, one day after they gave a cool reception to GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney and his newly softened stance on immigration.
The president was to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on Friday near Orlando, his first speech to a Hispanic group since he decreed that many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children would be exempted from deportation and granted work permits valid for two years.
The immigration initiative, announced less than five months before the November elections, delighted many in the Latino community and drew renewed attention to the key Hispanic voting bloc and its potential for affecting the presidential election with its turnout and energy. Obama won 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008, and aides believe he could do even better this time.
Romney, who spoke to the group Thursday, backed off the tough anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric of the Republican primaries and vowed to address illegal immigration "in a civil but resolute manner." He outlined plans to overhaul the green card system for immigrants with families and end immigration caps for their spouses and minor children.
But while he attacked Obama's new plan to ease deportation rules as little more than a "stopgap measure," he was vague about how he would treat immigrant children brought to the country illegally by their parents and refused to say whether he would reverse Obama's policy.
Obama and his advisers clearly see an advantage on the issue, and Obama was expected to draw attention to his initiative Friday and call for an overhaul of the entire immigration system. He also was expected to renew his call for Congress to pass his job creation measures, which he has proposed to pay for with tax increases on the wealthy, an idea Republicans reject outright.
Though hardly monolithic in their approach to politics, a majority of Hispanics have been voting Democratic in recent elections. But Obama risked losing some support in part because Hispanics have been hard hit by the economy. What's more, Latino leaders had also grown frustrated with Obama because he failed to deliver on his 2008 pledge to overhaul immigration and because his administration was deporting illegal immigrants in record numbers.
Then came last week's announcement, which could benefit anywhere from 800,000 to 1.4 million immigrants in the U.S., depending on separate estimates.
Obama was to speak about two hours after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who has been promoting a plan that would have dealt with young illegal immigrants in a similar fashion to what Obama accomplished administratively. Rubio's effort was a response to Democratic legislation, called the DREAM Act, that would have created a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants.
Rubio, mentioned as a possible running mate for Romney, criticized Obama's policy, saying it ignored the Constitution and bypassed Congress. Romney has said he was studying Rubio's proposal but has not endorsed it.
During the Republican primaries, Romney said he would veto the DREAM Act ? formally the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act ? and complete a 2,000-mile border fence with Mexico to help stem illegal immigration.
Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod this week said Romney is "hopelessly twisted" on the issue of immigration. "He went as far to the right as he could in the primaries in order to become the nominee," Axelrod said. "Now he's desperately looking for a way out."
Romney seized on the temporary status of Obama's plan as his prime criticism. The Republican also vowed to offer illegal immigrants who serve in the military "a path to legal status," which the campaign says ultimately could allow for full citizenship.
But Romney's campaign could not immediately detail how many immigrants might be affected by his policies. Nor could they detail which would require legislative action.
"Despite his promises, President Obama has failed to address immigration reform," Romney said. "For two years, this president had huge majorities in the House and Senate ? he was free to pursue any policy he pleased. But he did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our broken immigration system. Nothing. Instead, he failed to act until facing a tough re-election and trying to secure your vote."
Romney also told the Latino officials that he would do away with Obama's signature health care law. Often a huge applause line with his audiences, his declaration prompted just a few to clap and one person in the audience booed.
Obama's campaign, which doesn't draw much attention to the health care law on the campaign trail, has made it a top issue in Spanish-language ads, targeting an audience that is among the most uninsured in the country.
___
Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Orlando contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
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Friday, June 22, 2012
AP IMPACT: Syria rebels divided, at times violent
FILE - In this Tuesday, June 12, 2012 file photo, a Syrian revolutionary flag waves on top of a building on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, June 12, 2012 file photo, a Syrian revolutionary flag waves on top of a building on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, June 10, 2012 file photo, birds fly over a destroyed minaret of a mosque at the northern town of Ariha, on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, June 5, 2012 file photo, a Syrian boy walks next to the rubble of house, destroyed during a military operation by the Syrian pro-Assad army in April 2012 , in the town of Taftanaz, 15 km east of Idlib, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, June 10, 2012 file photo, Syrians sit next to a damaged house at the northern town of Ariha, on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Monday, June 4, 2012 file photo, relatives of Free Syrian Army soldier Moayad Ghafir, who was killed during clashes with Syrian regime gunmen, mourn over his dead body before his funeral in his family house on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria. During two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists found more than 20 rebel groups who often destroy government army posts and convoys but lack the weapons and unity to do more than gradually chip away at the regime of President Bashar Assad _ a recipe for a long, bloody insurgency. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
SARJEH, Syria (AP) ? Rebel commander Ahmed Eissa al-Sheikh keeps a paper on his desk bearing the names of the dead from his brigade. The first 16 are neatly typed below a Quranic verse extolling martyrdom. The next 14 are handwritten and crammed into the margin, because the paper is full.
Al-Sheikh, an Islamist with a long black beard and gray fatigues, runs the Falcons of Damascus group from the mayor's office in his village, which his fighters have taken over. The list is a constant reminder of al-Sheikh's personal score with the Syrian regime: 20 of the dead are his relatives, including three brothers and his 16-year-old son, all killed fighting Syrian forces in the last year.
One of northern Syria's most powerful and best-armed commanders, Al-Sheikh boasts more than 1,000 fighters, and they don't shy away from rougher tactics themselves. They have released prisoners in bomb-laden cars and then detonated them at army checkpoints ? turning the drivers into unwitting suicide bombers.
Most of their weapons are booty, including at least two anti-aircraft guns, some anti-tank missiles and one tank, but they buy arms with donations from "honorable businessmen." Although al-Sheikh, who ran a grocery store before the uprising, wouldn't disclose the source or amount, he gets enough to pay some of his men monthly salaries of about $25, slightly more for those with wives and children. His fighters say the cash comes from Syrian expatriates and other Arabs. He was heard on the phone thanking a group in Bahrain.
"God willing, Syria will not bow to anyone but Allah after the regime falls," he said.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE: Journalist Ben Hubbard was part of a three-member Associated Press team that spent two weeks with rebels in northern Syria, gathering firsthand information on the increasingly bloody rebellion against President Bashar Assad ? the longest and deadliest uprising of the Arab Spring.
___
Al-Sheikh is one face of the rebel movement in Syria. There are many more.
During two weeks in northern Syria, three Associated Press journalists counted more than 20 rebel groups, with anywhere from fewer than 100 to more than 1,000 fighters each. They go by names like the Idlib Martyrs Brigade and the Shield of the Revolution, and while all share a deep hatred of President Bashar Assad's regime, their unity stops there.
Simply put, no one is in charge.
This comes at a time when efforts to end 15 months of strife in Syria are collapsing, and the rebel movement has taken the lead in the struggle against Assad. Some countries have talked of boosting the rebels' capabilities against the regime, and U.S. officials have told the AP that U.S. operatives are sifting among the rebel groups to determine which should receive arms from other Arab nations.
Rebel coordination rarely extends beyond neighboring towns and villages and never to the provincial or national level. Many rebels don't even know the commanders in towns two hours away.
While the regime has been brutal, so have some of the rebels ? another cause of concern for the West.
Opposition activists filter most information about the rebels sent outside the country, making it hard to get an accurate picture. But several groups said they had sent captured soldiers "to Cyprus," which the rebels use as a euphemism for execution usually by gunfire.
One group said it had killed two brothers caught collaborating with the regime ? one during interrogation, the other by firing squad.
Rebels have scored small victories against regime forces throughout Syria's northern Idlib province. Armed with bought, looted or homemade weapons, they have destroyed government army posts and littered main highways with charred army vehicles.
In the countryside, they roam freely in much more territory than was previously known, their bearded, camouflaged gunmen on motorcycles zipping through strings of towns and villages with no remaining police or security presence. Children often hail the fighters with V-for-victory signs and calls of "May God protect you!"
But Syria's army retains a chokehold on many large towns and cities with tanks, attack helicopters and heavy artillery, weapons that the rebels' current arms can't challenge.
Indeed, more than two dozen rebel commanders, fighters and activists said that without better arms they can do no more than chip away at the regime ? a recipe for a long, deadly insurgency.
"If we get military aid, the end will come quickly," said Ahmed Abdel-Qader, a rebel coordinator in the village of Koreen. "If not, we have no idea how this will end. We are here. We're not going back. God will decide the rest."
Even groups associated with the Free Syrian Army, which claims to represent the armed opposition, bemoan the failure of its Turkey-based leadership to deliver aid. While they wait, most rely on guerrilla tactics.
One afternoon, 50 fighters in a vast olive grove crawled under barbed wire, leaped over oil drums and dove through flaming hoops in training for future attacks. Most were in their 20s and 30s and had fled the provincial capital of Idlib when the army seized it in March. Their rifles can't match the tanks guarding the city, and they can't afford better weapons.
Commander Maan Dahnin said a Kalashnikov rifle now costs $1,500 and bullets are $4 each. That's why when they lined up for target practice, most fighters fired only a few times.
Some weapons come from neighboring Iraq, though many are duds, and some from Turkey, he said. The best come from corrupt officers in the Syrian army itself.
"There are those who worry that the regime is going to fall, so they want to fill their pockets first," Dahnin said.
For now, his group's 1,000 men never gather in one place, so that if they are shelled or come under fire, not everyone will die. Meanwhile, they focus on roadside bombs built with dynamite, sugar and fertilizer and detonated by remote control.
Like most rebel commanders, Dahnin said his group gets no outside support.
"Here's the biggest proof," he said, pointing to a fighter wearing plastic flip-flops. "He's only good for one thing: toothpaste advertisements," he said, prying open the man's mouth to reveal a row of rotten teeth.
The conflict in Syria has already killed more than 14,000 people and appears headed for civil war. The Syrian government has ignored popular demands for reform, instead blaming the violence on armed gangs and foreign-backed terrorists. Others have warned against an influx of Islamists. The AP journalists saw no evidence of foreign fighters.
The uprising reached Idlib in April 2011, about a month after Syrian protesters inspired by other Arab Spring revolts first took to the streets and faced violent security crackdowns.
The protests started small in Ariha, a busy commercial center on the face of a round-topped mountain, but residents were shocked when regime forces shot and killed five protesters in one day, said Khalid Naif, a doctor. Many more people then joined in, armed first with hunting guns and later with attack rifles.
A year ago, the army surrounded the city and took over a downtown building, paralyzing the city center, Naif said. He easily named many of the dozens of people he has treated for gunshot and shrapnel wounds since. Others died before reaching the clinic.
Early this month, when a military convoy arrived to quash the city's opposition, rebel fighters blew up tanks and armored cars in a hail of gunfire and grenades and stormed the army position downtown.
Weeks later, battle scars remain. Three destroyed tanks sit in the main boulevard, their tops blown off like bottle caps. The former army post is charred black, and walls of nearby buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes.
Graffiti on one wall reads, in English, "The people wants SOS." Elsewhere: "We bow only for God."
But the rebel victory was limited. Some stores have reopened and shoppers have returned to downtown, but a ring of army checkpoints restricts movement in and out, forcing many residents to sneak out on foot. Military helicopters and snipers still target the city, wounding more people every week.
The city's rebel commander, Jamal Akta, who ran a unisex barber shop before the uprising, said the battle had killed 10 civilians and no rebels. While proud of the fight, he said his men could do no more.
"If we get more weapons, we can get rid of all the checkpoints," he said. "But the ammunition we have now is enough to defend the city, no more than that."
A ring of checkpoints with a central army post full of snipers and armored vehicles also strangles Khan Sheikhoun, a dusty, sun-baked city further south, on the country's main north-south highway. Local rebels can't clear out the army, so they blast military vehicles on the highway with rocket-propelled grenades. Two destroyed armored vehicles, one still on its trailer, now lie in the road, and local fighters say the army has changed its route.
"We can't face the regime as an army face to face, so we have to fight like street gangs," said Waddah Sirmani, head of one of the town's half-dozen rebel brigades.
Fighters have also surrounded the central base and fire on supply vehicles to keep the soldiers inside hungry and short of ammunition, he said.
"You could say that those soldiers are imprisoned among us," said activist Hisham Nijim.
Almost all the rebels the AP journalists met were from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, and many consider the fight a religious cause. When asked what they are fighting for, most said they are fed up with corruption, harassment by security services and a system that gives preference to members of the ruling Baath party and the Alawite sect, to which Assad belongs. The word they used most often was dignity.
"If I go to the beach, I don't want an Alawite to call me a dog and I can't respond," said Ahmed Salim, 27, who left the police for the rebels in October. "I don't want to be treated like an animal. I want to be treated like a human."
Most fighters said they did not target other sects, only those who had fought for the regime.
There was little evidence of rebel attacks on civilians, but they were often merciless with regime troops. For most, the fight to topple Assad has become personal after they have been chased from their cities, their friends and relatives killed. Many frequently flip through "martyr" photos on their cellphones for inspiration.
One night at al-Sheikh's headquarters in Sarjeh, a group of fighters flipped through brigade photos on a laptop.
"Martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr," they said, pointing out those who had died fighting.
Videos of the group's attacks showed roadside bombs destroying tanks and flipping over army buses, as Islamic chanting played in the background. In one video, a booby-trapped van sped toward a checkpoint and blew up, splattering two soldiers into nearby trees.
The group was still high on a recent attack that had destroyed a military camp nearby. In the end, they photographed the dead bodies of 35 soldiers, drove off a tank they now park under a tree in the village graveyard and held trials for five captured soldiers. All were found guilty of killing other Syrians.
"They traveled to Cyprus," al-Sheikh said with a grin. "On a fast plane."
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Syria Confirms Shooting Down Turkish Warplane
By Jonathon Burch and Oliver Holmes
ANKARA/BEIRUT, June 23 (Reuters) - Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean on Friday and Ankara warned it would respond decisively to the incident that threatened to open a new international dimension in the 16-month revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria said the Turkish aircraft was flying low, well inside Syrian territorial waters when it was shot down.
With the second biggest army in NATO, a force hardened by nearly 30 years of fighting Kurdish rebels, Turkey would be a formidable foe for the Syrian army which is already struggling to put down a 16-month-old revolt.
But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's initial comments and subsequent statement on the downing of the F-4 jet were measured in tone. He said Turkish and Syrian forces were working together to search for the two missing crew of the aircraft.
"As a result of information obtained from the evaluation of our concerned institutions and from within the joint search and rescue operations with Syria, it is understood that our plane was brought down by Syria," Erdogan's office said in a statement.
"Turkey will present its final stance after the incident has been fully brought to light and decisively take the necessary steps," the office said after a two-hour emergency meeting between prime minister, the chief of general staff, the defence, interior and foreign ministers, the head of national intelligence and the commander of the air force.
Turkish media had reported earlier that Syria had apologised for the incident, but Erdogan made no mention of any apology.
Violence raged unabated inside Syria, which appears to be sliding into a sectarian-tinged civil war pitting majority Sunni Muslims against Assad's minority Alawite sect. Turkey fears the fighting if unchecked could unleash a flood of refugees over its own border and ignite regional sectarian conflict.
Ankara, which had drawn close to Syria before the uprising against Assad, turned against the Syrian leader when he responded violently to pro-democracy protests inspired by popular upheavals elsewhere in the Arab world. Turkey now gives refuge to the rebel Free Syrian Army on its frontier with Syria.
Erdogan, whose emnity with Assad has assumed a strongly personal nature, gave no hint what action he might contemplate.
A statement by the Syrian military said the Turkish plane was flying low, just one kilometre off the Syrian coast, when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The plane fell in Syrian waters 10-kms (seven miles) west of the village of Um al-Touyour.
"The navy of the two countries have established contact. Syrian naval vessels are participating along with the Turkish side in the search operation for the missing pilots," it said.
Syria has some of the most sophisticated air defences in the Middle East, supplied by Russia.
Turkish state television interviewed witnesses on the country's Mediterranean coast, near the Syrian border, who said they saw two low-flying fighter jets pass overhead in the morning in the direction of Syrian waters but only one return.
Ankara has previously floated the possibility of setting up some kind of safe haven or humanitarian corridor inside Syria, which would entail military intervention, but has said it would undertake no such action without U.N. Security Council approval.
Turkey has said however that Assad must go.
Turkey hosts about 32,000 Syrian refugees and allows the rebel Syrian Free Army to operate from its territory. The opposition Syrian National Council meets in istanbul.
It was unclear why the Syrians had shot down the aircraft, which, having left a base in Malatya, was flying close to a corridor linking Turkey with Turkish forces on Northern Cyprus.
"The Syrian military may have taken a calculated gamble by downing the Turkish plane, which could boost the morale of Assad's loyalists after increased defections from the military we have seen," Yasser Saadeldine, a prominent pro-opposition Syrian political commentator,said.
"A Turkish retaliation would fit into the fantasy he (Assad)is peddling that the uprising is a foreign conspiracy."
Russia and China, Assad's strongest backers abroad, have fiercely opposed any outside interference in the Syrian crisis, saying envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan is the only way forward.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Syrian counterpart that he had urged Syria to "do a lot more" to implement Annan's U.N.-backed proposals, but that foreign countries must also press rebels to stop the violence.
Lavrov said the Syrian authorities were ready to withdraw troops from cities "simultaneously" with rebels. A Syrian military pullback and a ceasefire were key elements in Annan's six-point peace plan, most of which remains a dead letter.
"DESTRUCTIVE COMPETITION"
Annan hit out at some countries he said had taken national initiatives that risked unleashing "destructive competition".
He told a news conference in Geneva that he wanted states with influence on both sides of the conflict to be involved in the peace process, including Iran, Assad's closest ally.
The U.N.-Arab League envoy was speaking a week before a planned Syria crisis meeting that is in doubt because of Western objections to the Islamic Republic's participation.
Rebels killed at least 25 members of a mainly Alawite pro-Assad militia, and in a separate incident troops turned heavy machineguns on opposition demonstrators in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 10, opposition activists said.
"Armed terrorist groups committed a brutal massacre against 25 citizens in Darat Azzah," state TV reported, saying more were missing from the village in Aleppo province.
Several men covered in blood and piled on top of each other on a roadside, some in army fatigues and some in t-shirts, could be seen in a video link sent by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, apparently showing the aftermath of the same incident.
The British-based opposition watchdog said 26 men believed to be pro-Assad "Shabbiha" militiamen had been killed.
Assad's foes have accused troops and Shabbiha militiamen of perpetrating many abuses against civilians, including mass killings, in the uprising that began in March last year with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule.
In Aleppo, Syria's business hub, thousands of demonstrators were marching toward the central Saadallah al-Jabiri Square when four armoured vehicles fired on them, activists told Reuters by telephone. Two of them said they were speaking from Aleppo.
"The wounded were taken to houses and are trapped there. They cannot be transported to hospitals because troops and Shabbiha are surrounding the neighbourhood," one of them said.
Aleppo, along with central Damascus, had stayed relatively quiet in the early months of the revolt that engulfed many other provincial cities, but unrest has gradually spread there too.
Activist video footage showed a large crowd of protesters, some draped in revolutionary flags, running along a street as heavy gunfire cracked out. Another video showed a man whose chest was covered in blood being dragged along the road.
FOUR OFFICERS DEFECT
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy government shelling on opposition strongholds in Idlib, Deraa and Homs provinces, as well as fighting between troops and rebels in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Friday, a day when anti-Assad protests often erupt after Muslim prayers.
The 46-year-old leader's power rests mainly on the military and a cluster of security agencies dominated by his minority Alawite sect, a distant offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Four brothers, two brigadier-generals and two colonels, announced their defection from the army in a video posted on the Internet on Friday, a day after a Syrian air force pilot flew his MiG-21 fighter plane to neighbouring Jordan.
The brothers come from the northern province of Idlib, but do not appear to have had frontline roles in months of fighting there. Two worked as doctors in the Aleppo military hospital, one was an inspector and one was an air force instructor.
The armed forces have suffered a trickle of defections to the opposition, but have remained mostly loyal despite the strain of battling an increasingly potent insurgency. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Burch in Ankara, Ayat Basma in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Steve Gutterman in St Petersburg, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Avril Ormsby in London; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Jon Boyle and Jon Hemming)
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Thursday, June 21, 2012
Boehner takes hard line on Holder contempt vote
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., considers whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. In a showdown with President Barack Obama?s administration, House Republicans are pressing for more Justice Department documents on the flawed gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious that resulted in hundreds of guns illicitly purchased in Arizona gun shops winding up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., considers whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. In a showdown with President Barack Obama?s administration, House Republicans are pressing for more Justice Department documents on the flawed gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious that resulted in hundreds of guns illicitly purchased in Arizona gun shops winding up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., right, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, manages a series of amendments as they consider a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member, watches from left. In a showdown with President Barack Obama's administration, House Republicans had pressed for more Justice Department documents on the flawed gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious that resulted in hundreds of guns illicitly purchased in Arizona gun shops winding up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, left, confers with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., right, as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee considers a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? House Speaker John Boehner demanded Thursday that the Obama administration give in and turn over documents related to a botched gun-tracking operation, insisting that's the only way to stop a House vote to hold the attorney general in contempt.
Boehner took a hard line against the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder despite a willingness by House Republicans and Holder to negotiate a settlement before the matter becomes a constitutional crisis. The president has invoked executive privilege, a legal principle used to avoid disclosure of internal presidential documents.
While a confrontation between the legislative and executive branches of government would be an academic dispute to most voters, Boehner on Thursday injected a human element into the battle over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. He said the family of slain border agent Brian Terry deserved answers about the guns that killed him.
Two guns that were allowed to "walk" from Arizona to Mexico in the failed effort to track weapons were found near Terry after he was killed.
"The Terry family deserves answers about why their son was killed as a result of an operation run by the United States government," Boehner told his weekly news conference.
During the year and a half investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Justice Department turned over 7,600 documents about details of Operation Fast and Furious. But because the department initially denied and then admitted it used a risky investigative technique known as "gun-walking," the committee has turned its attention to how the department responded to the investigation. The additional documents it seeks are about that topic.
Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased. Instead, the goal of gun-walking was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers who had long eluded prosecution and to dismantle their networks.
Gun-walking has long been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Fast and Furious. These experiments came as the department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting every suspected low-level "straw purchaser" was still allowing tens of thousands of guns to reach Mexico. A straw purchaser is an illicit buyer of guns for others.
The agents in Arizona lost track of several hundred weapons in Operation Fast and Furious.
Boehner renewed his allegation that President Barack Obama's decision to assert executive privilege to withhold the documents "is an admission the White House officials were involved in the decision that misled the Congress and covered up the truth." In fact, historically, several presidents have invoked executive privilege over Cabinet department documents that did not directly involve White House officials.
In an election year, each party leveled charges against the other.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused Republicans of pursuing Holder to retaliate against his effort to stop suppression of voters in the upcoming elections. "I'm telling you, this is connected," she told reporters.
In an effort to back up her assertion, Pelosi's office emailed Democratic reports from 2007, when the party accused Republicans of an ongoing effort to deprive people of the right to vote.
Meanwhile, the liberal People for the American Way distributed a video in which Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., suggested a motive for the Obama administration's initial support of the gun-walking fiasco.
"Could it be that what they really were thinking of was in fact to use this walking of guns in order to promote an assault weapons ban?" said Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"Many think so. And they haven't come up with an explanation that would cause any of us not to agree," Issa said.
Issa commented in an interview during the National Rifle Association convention in April.
His spokesman, Frederick Hill, said, "Emails from officials who worked on Fast and Furious clearly show that they wanted to use aspects of the operation to justify new restrictions on gun sales." Hill provided several documents on the subject from Fast and Furious officials.
Holder, in Copenhagen, Denmark, for meetings with European Union officials, said Thursday the administration had given the committee a proposal to negotiate an end to the conflict.
"I think the possibility still exists that it can happen in that way," Holder said. "The proposal that we have made is still there. The House, I think, the House leadership, has to consider now what they will do, so we'll see how it works out."
But he called the contempt vote "unwarranted, unnecessary and unprecedented."
White House press secretary Jay Carney said there was "absolutely" no cover-up on the Fast and Furious controversy. He said executive privilege was asserted only on internal deliberations and "that is separate from trying to find out the truth about this operation."
Democrats contended that a 23-17 party-line contempt vote in the House Oversight committee Wednesday was just political theater.
On Tuesday, Holder offered to give lawmakers a briefing on the withheld documents but insisted that this action satisfy Issa's subpoena for the records and negate the need for a contempt vote.
Boehner on Thursday rejected Holder's approach.
"The negotiation that was proposed by the attorney general is, we should accept some documents of his choosing and, as a result of him turning over some documents of his choosing, that we would never ever pursue contempt," Boehner said. "Now this is not hardly a rational basis for a negotiation, nor is it a reasonable attempt at turning over the documents we've been asking for."
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Court throws out FCC fines for cursing, nudity
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against broadcast companies that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves.
But the justices declined to issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC's indecency policy. Instead, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs and a brief display of nudity on an episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue" could give rise to penalties. ABC and 45 affiliates were hit with proposed fines totaling nearly $1.24 million.
The justices said the FCC is free to revise its indecency policy, which is intended to keep the airwaves free of objectionable material during the hours when children are likely to be watching.
The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, said the ruling "appears to be narrowly limited to procedural issues related to actions taken a number of years ago. Consistent with vital First Amendment principles, the FCC will carry out Congress's directive to protect young TV viewers."
It was the second time the court has confronted, but not ruled conclusively on the FCC's policy on isolated expletives. Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court that "it is unnecessary for the court to address the constitutionality of the current policy."
The narrow decision, coupled with the more than five months that elapsed between the argument in January and Thursday's decision, could mean that the justices struggled and failed to reach agreement on a broader outcome.
Paul Smith, a First Amendment expert and partner with the Jenner and Block law firm in Washington, said the court should expect more challenges until it rules definitively.
"The Supreme Court decided to punt on the opportunity to issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC indecency policy. The issue will be raised again as broadcasters will continue to try to grapple with the FCC's vague and inconsistent enforcement regime," said Smith, who wrote a brief supporting the broadcasters.
The case arose from a change in the FCC's long-standing policy on curse words.
For many years, the agency did not take action against broadcasters for one-time uses of curse words. But after several awards shows with cursing celebrities in 2002 and 2003, the FCC toughened its policy after it concluded that a one-free-expletive rule did not make sense in the context of keeping the airwaves free of indecency when children are likely to be watching television.
But Kennedy said the commission did not adequately explain that under the new policy "a fleeting expletive or a brief shot of nudity could be actionably indecent."
The stepped-up indecency enforcement, including issuing record fines for violations, also was spurred in part by widespread public outrage following Janet Jackson's breast-baring performance during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show on CBS.
That incident and the FCC's proposed fine of $550,000 are not part of the current case. The government has an appeal pending of a lower court ruling that threw out the fine in that case.
But the 2004 Super Bowl also took place before the FCC later that year laid out its new policy and the possibility of fines for even one-time utterances of certain words.
Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, said he read the ruling as a "green light" for the FCC to rule against broadcasters in the many pending complaints of indecent material that aired after the FCC explained its new policy. "Once again the Supreme Court has ruled against the networks in their yearslong campaign to obliterate broadcast decency standards," Winter said.
The material at issue in Thursday's decision includes the isolated use of expletives as well as fines against broadcasters who showed a woman's nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of the show "NYPD Blue."
In December 2002, singer Cher used the phrase "F--- 'em" during the Billboard Music Awards show on the Fox television network. A month later, U2 lead singer Bono uttered the phrase "f------ brilliant" during NBC's broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show. During the December 2003 Billboard awards show on Fox, reality show star Nicole Richie said, "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse? It's not so f------simple."
But the challenge went beyond just the penalties for the use of fleeting expletives.
The broadcasters wanted the court to free them from all regulation of content around the clock. The court's 1978 Pacifica decision upheld the FCC's reprimand of a New York radio station for airing a George Carlin monologue containing a 12-minute string of expletives in the middle of the afternoon.
The broadcasters argued that the revolution in technology that has brought the Internet, satellite television and cable makes even the old rules obsolete. The regulations only apply to broadcast channels.
Viewers have so many options, unlike the handful of channels they had available in the 1960s and 1970s, when the court last weighed in on indecency on the airwaves. In many cases, viewers don't even know when they are switching between the older broadcast channels and cable.
Still, the regulated broadcast channels provide what the government has called a safe haven of milder programming, and those channels remain dominant, even in the Internet age, the administration said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a brief opinion that she would have overturned the Pacifica ruling, which she called wrong even when it was decided. Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not take part in the case because she was involved in an earlier version while sitting as an appeals court judge in New York.
The case is FCC v. Fox, 10-1293.
___
AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2012
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All the way from idea to finished site is divided in the program in five basic steps:
General settings. After selecting a project and add general information about the site (such as description and keywords for search engines indexing the site) you can move on to choose a template for the site. The user can either select any of the 1,500 built-in templates or create your own. In addition to the basic style template, you can customize headers and footers site.
Creating a site map. The program automatically adds the home page, but all other pages must be added manually. First, you need to consider what information and how to be represented on the site, then you can begin to create a site map. Map can have an unlimited number of levels and pages. Based on this "map" of the program will automatically create a menu to navigate through the site. Site map at any time to update.
Creating a page. The process of creating pages is simple and consists in dragging a table cell in the page layout of existing facilities, such as "Text", "Image???, ???Flash-Animation ',' video ',' Audio ',' Table ',' Images Gallery ' "The form of e-mails", "Products List" and ???HTML-code and Widgets." Each object can be customized, or you can embed links to internal or external material. The program has a built-in image editor, so that when you prepare images for placement on the site can do without external graphic programs.
Advanced settings. Once the site is basically ready, you can customize the menu design, text, storefronts and e-mails. Built-in image editor allows you to create a "volume" buttons that change when you hover the mouse over them. In addition to setting the page style, you can use a variety of additional functions, for example, to add a welcome page in multiple languages ??with a sound track, custom parts, blog and online store.
Export. The finished site can place on the Internet with built-in FTP-program. The program WebSite X5 supports encrypted connections, you can save time by working in multisession mode, and booting the server, only those files that have changed since the last export. In addition to publishing the site to hosting server, you can also export the project site as a file on the same computer that created the project, or to another computer to get back up.
Installation manual
A. From the folder setup program for installing
Two. From the folder run the keygen crack, you select the language, generate the key, type in the activation of the program, shut down the internet connection and press "Next" button, enter the unlock code.
Three. From the folder templatepack90x set templates (set as a program)
4. Glad you install a program
Version: 9.0.12.1873
Developer: Incomedia
Web Developer: www.websitex5.com
Bit depth: 32bit +64 bit
Compatibility with Vista: complete
Compatible with Windows 7 full time
Language: Multilingual
Crack: None
System Requirements:
Windows XP, Vista, 7 (32 and 64-bit)
Download link:
(Buy premium account for maximum speed and resumming ability)
Links are Interchangeable - No Password - Single Extraction
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