Canon announces middling Q4 2011 earnings report, president steps down

In the wake of a relatively strong Q3, Canon today unveiled a slightly less rosy earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2011. Net sales for the quarter reached ¥964.8 billion (about $12.6 billion), up from the ¥916 billion the company reported last quarter, but down about 9.7 percent from Q4 2010. Quarterly operating profit, meanwhile, rose 14.2 percent on the year, to ¥94.6 billion ($1.2 billion). Profit for the full fiscal year, however, declined by 2.4 percent to ¥378.1 billion (approximately $4.9 billion), compared with the ¥387.6 billion ($5.1 billion) Canon raked in for all of 2010. Net income, on the other hand, rose by nearly 14 percent over Q4 2010 (¥61.4 billion from ¥54 billion), but only 0.8 percent over the full fiscal year (¥248.6 billion in FY 2011, ¥246.6 billion in FY 2010).

Looking forward to 2012, the cameramaker expects net income to increase to ¥250 billion, which would mark the second straight year of less than one percent growth. This forecast is lower than what many analysts expected, though Canon based its projections on assumptions that the yen will continue to rise against both the dollar and the euro, making Japanese exports more expensive in Western markets. It was against this backdrop of disappointment that company president and COO Tsuneji Uchida announced his resignation today, effective March 29th. The 70-year-old Uchida will be replaced by 76-year-old chairman Fujio Mitarai, with Uchida slipping into an advisory role. Coming off a year that saw a devastating tsunami in Japan and supply chain disruptions in flood-ravaged Thailand, Canon underscored its cautious outlook for 2012, in a statement: "The future remains increasingly uncertain amid growing concern over a global economic slowdown." Find Canon's full report at the source link, below.

Canon announces middling Q4 2011 earnings report, president steps down originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/30/canon-announces-middling-q4-2011-earnings-report-president-step/

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Neeson's 'The Grey' tops box office with $20M

NEW YORK (AP) ? Beware the Liam in Winter. Liam Neeson's "The Grey" topped the weekend box office with $20 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, continuing the actor's success as an action star in the winter months.

The Alaskan survivalist thriller opened above expectations with a performance on par with previous Neeson thrillers "Taken" and "Unknown." Those films, both January-February releases, opened with $24.7 million and $21.9 million, respectively.

But the R-rated "The Grey," which has received good reviews, drove home the strong appeal of Neeson, action star. It's an unlikely turn for the 59-year-old Neeson, previously better known for his dramatic performances, like those in "Schindler's List" and "Kinsey."

"Liam is a true movie star, period," said Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films. It's the second release for the newly formed distributor, created by theater chains AMC and Regal.

"My guess is that Liam Neeson in action thrillers would work just about any time of year."

January is often a dumping ground for less-stellar releases, a tradition held up by two badly reviewed new wide releases: "Man on a Ledge," with Sam Worthington, and "One for the Money" with Katherine Heigl.

"One for the Money" fared better, earning $11.8 million, while "Man on a Ledge" opened with $8.3 million.

Those were reasonably solid returns, and, in an unusual twist, were both ultimately for Lions Gate Entertainment. Its film studio, Lionsgate, released the romantic comedy "One for the Money." The action thriller "Man on a Ledge" was released by Summit Entertainment, which Lions Gate bought for $412.5 million earlier this month.

"One for the Money" was helped by a promotion with Groupon, the Internet discount site, with which Lionsgate previously partnered for "The Lincoln Lawyer." David Spitz, head of distribution for Lionsgate, said the large number of older, female subscribers of Groupon matched well with the audience of "One for the Money."

Groupon email blasts, he said, had a significant promotional effect.

Last week's box-office leader, "Underworld: Awakenings," Sony's Screen Gem's latest installment in its vampire series, came in second with $12.5 million, bringing its cumulative total to $45.1 million.

The unexpectedly large haul for "The Grey," strong holdovers (such as the George Lucas-produced World War II action film "Red Tails," which earned $10.4 million in its second week) and the bump for Oscar contending films following Tuesday's nominations added up to a good weekend for Hollywood. The box office was up about 15 percent on the corresponding weekend last year.

So far, every weekend this year has been an "up" weekend, after a somewhat dismal fourth quarter in 2011.

"'Mission: Impossible,' I think, really helped reinvigorate the marketplace, and that's carried over into the first part of the year," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "That's good news for Hollywood after the down-trending box office of 2011."

Oscar favorites "The Descendants," ''Hugo" and "The Artist" sought to capitalize on their recent Academy Awards nominations. Each expanded to more theaters and saw an uptick in business.

Fox Searchlight's "The Descendants," which is nominated for five Oscars including best picture, added 1,441 screens in its 11th week of release. It added $6.6 million and has now made $58.8 million, making it one of Fox Searchlight's most successful releases.

Sheila DeLoach, senior vice president of distribution for Fox Searchlight, said the film's nominations and its recent Golden Globes wins (for best drama and best actor, George Clooney) "played a big role" in its weekend box office.

Paramount's "Hugo," which led Oscar nominations with 11 including best picture, saw a 143 percent jump in business over its last weekend. In its tenth week of release, it earned $2.3 million, bringing its total to $58.7 million.

The Weinstein Co.'s "The Artist," with 10 Oscar nominations including best picture, expanded a modest 235 screens to bring it to a total of 897 screens in its 10th week of release. It earned $3.3 million, with a total of $16.7 million.

The Weinstein Co. is being careful with the black-and-white, largely silent film. Thus far, it has appealed particularly to older audiences.

"It's not the same type of picture as any other picture in the marketplace," said Erik Loomis, head of distribution for the Weinstein Co. "Now that the nominations are out, we're going to look to capitalize on it as best we can. ... We're being very, very meticulous with it. We're not throwing it out there and grabbing every theater we can. At some point, we'll open the floodgates on the movie, maybe closer to the awards."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Grey," $20 million.

2. "Underworld: Awakening," $12.5 million.

3. "One for the Money," $11.8 million.

4. "Red Tails," $10.4 million.

5. "Man on a Ledge," $8.3 million.

6. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," $7.1 million.

7. "The Descendants," $6.6 million.

8. "Contraband," $6.5 million.

9. "Beauty and the Beast," $5.3 million.

10. "Haywire," $4 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-29-US-Box-Office/id-3a45dd8e69224f159d9850fb268e5b4f

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Researchers find cancer in ancient Egyptian mummy (AP)

CAIRO ? A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.

The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

"Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors," she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_sc/ml_egypt_ancient_cancer

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Florida highway smashes kill 10 people (Reuters)

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

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

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

Eight of the people treated in the emergency room had been released from the hospital by mid-afternoon.

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

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

In one crash, two cars and a tractor trailer caught fire and melted asphalt on the road, Riordan said. The interstate remained closed hours later while the investigation continued, and an analysis of the road pavement was under way to determine whether it could be safely re-opened, he said.

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

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

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

(Reporting By Barbara Liston; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan adn Tim Gaynor)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/us_nm/us_highway_deaths_florida

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Macworld Is Weird Now [Video]

I love Macworld Expo. I've gone more years than I haven't out of the last dozen. But for most of those years, Apple was presenting. That's changed. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/eAcktiFCUig/macworld-is-weird-now

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Tubby tabby gets revolutionary new knee joint (AP)

RALEIGH, N.C. ? Because Cyrano weighs more than 20 pounds, amputating his cancer-weakened leg was out of the question. So the tubby tabby's owners turned to doctors and engineers at North Carolina State University to get him back into mice-catching trim.

On Thursday, the 10-year-old cat from Upperville, Va., received what doctors believe is the first feline total knee replacement in the U.S.

"This is the most complex implant that NC State has made and really, in all honesty, that anyone has built for any situation that I know of," said surgeon Denis Marcellin-Little, a French-born veterinarian.

Cyrano ? his full name is Mr. Cyrano L. Catte II ? underwent treatment last year at Colorado State University for cancer in his left hind leg. The disease is in remission, but the treatment left the leg nearly useless and extremely painful.

Marcellin-Little and NCSU engineer Ola Harrysson are pioneers in osseointegration, a process that fuses a prosthetic limb with living bone. In 2005, Marcellin-Little performed the world's first surgery to fuse leg implants with a cat's bone tissue, so Cyrano's owners turned to him for help.

Britain's Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick was credited with the world's first total knee replacement in 2009 on a cat named Missy, whose leg was crushed by a car. But Marcellin-Little said Cyrano's plastic and cobalt chromium alloy implant is more like those used in humans.

"It has a form of articulation that is unique ? that allows the implant to bend and rotate," he said, demonstrating with a model during a news conference the day before the surgery. "The devil is in the details."

Such implants have become commonplace in dogs. But a cat's smaller anatomy has proved more difficult to work with, and Cyrano's damaged bones posed an additional challenge, Marcellin-Little said.

Unlike other joints, which are machined, Cyrano's knee ? in cats, it's actually called a "stifle" ? was fabricated using a laser process that hardens metal powder to exactly replicate his bones. More than a dozen people worked on developing and testing the implant, each half of which is about 2 inches long.

Marcellin-Little practiced the procedure four times on plastic models before Thursday's surgery.

The operation began around 10:30 a.m. Attendants did not wheel Cyrano to the intensive care unit until almost 5 p.m.

Marcellin-Little said the tabby's girth and big bones were a plus. He said Cyrano should be up and around in about a week, though he won't be climbing trees for a while yet.

"We would like him to take it easy for about three months after surgery," the doctor said. "And then we will let him be himself."

Because so much of the time and material were donated, university representatives could not give a total cost estimate.

"Part of this is a pure research project, in a way," said Harrysson, an NCSU professor of industrial and systems engineering.

The bill to owners Sandra Lerner and Len Bosack will be around $20,000. Sitting in a waiting room after the surgery, a visibly exhausted Lerner ? who helped found electronics giant Cisco Systems ? said "Rat Boy" is worth every penny.

"He's my child. And if it were your child, would you begrudge the money?" she said. "I have a personal philosophy that people are, at best, equal with the other inhabitants of the planet. And I'm very, very grateful that I have the money and (am) able to do it."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Allen G. Breed is a national writer, based in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at features(at)ap.org.

Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/(hash)!/AllenGBreed

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_us/us_cyrano_s_new_knee

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Update: Apple, Google, 5 Others To Be Denied Dismissal Of ?No Poach? Conspiracy Case

7 of the world's most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy to suppress the compensation of their employees by entering into "no poach" agreements. Today, a San Jose judge will heard a motion to dismiss a class action civil lawsuit in which former employees seek damages from defendants Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm. The damning evidence against the defendants from a 2010 Department of Justice investigation and the plaintiffs' statement indicate there is more than sufficient evidence for the case to proceed towards trial. If the defendants lose to or settle, tens of thousands of full-time employees of these companies could be compensated. [Update 4:30pm PST : The judge says "This case is going to survive the motion to dismiss", meaning she'll almost surely deny the defendants' motion to dismiss the case when she soon files her official ruling.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-i-g4KE_G5o/

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Intel bolsters video patent portfolio with purchase from RealNetworks

Silicon juggernaut Intel has inked a multi-million dollar deal with RealNetworks, agreeing to purchase scores of video-related patents and annex an entire software team. Specifics of the accord have Intel shelling out $120 million in exchange for 190 patents, 170 patent applications and a video codec development squad. In addition, the two companies have signed a "memorandum of understanding," agreeing to collaborate on future development of the licensed software. RealNetworks states that the sale "will [not] have any material impact on its businesses" and it will retain "certain rights" to the sold technologies. Intel says the sale will improve its ability to "offer richer experiences and innovative solutions [...] across a wide spectrum of devices." The full PR is queued up for you after the break.

Continue reading Intel bolsters video patent portfolio with purchase from RealNetworks

Intel bolsters video patent portfolio with purchase from RealNetworks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/26/intel-bolsters-video-patent-portfolio-with-purchase-from-realnet/

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The FBI Is Already Getting Sued for Shutting Down MegaUpload [Piracy]

Well that didn't take long. Pirate Parties International is assembling a list of users who had lost data in MU's shutdown last week as it builds a case for an upcoming lawsuit against the Feds. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/clwgkBT_mok/the-fbi-is-already-getting-sued-for-shutting-down-megaupload

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Mint Competitor And Personal Finance Platform HelloWallet Raises ...

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney???s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... ? Learn More

HelloWallet, a personal finance software, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from Morningstar and TD Fund. The startup previously raised $9 million in Series A funding, from Grotech Ventures and AOL co-founder Steve Case?s VC fund Revolution Ventures.

HelloWallet, which launched last year, helps users track and proactively manage their personal finances from both the web and mobile. But HelloWallet aims to be a full-service financial advisor, and looks forward to proactively uncover savings opportunities and potential threats for its members.

Additionally, HelloWallet does not allow banks to advertise or promote products, so its recommendations claim to be untouched by any business interests. The startup plans to use the fund to further product development and build out its businesses development team.

HelloWallet?s team of consumer finance experts have developed a platform that helps users set and reach specific financial short- and long-term goals for important life milestones including buying a home, saving for retirement, reducing debt safely, and saving for college.

For example, HelloWallet stores tuition information for nearly every college and university across the country, and models the tuition out to a users? expected enrollment date. The service is then able to make specific recommendations for the best approach to educational savings, on an individual basis.

The company has sold more than 300,000 subscriptions since it launched its enterprise application in mid-2011. During this same period, HelloWallet?s personalized financial guidance has helped its average members increase their monthly savings contributions by more than 80 percent, creating about $350 in extra savings contributions every month per person.

The new funding will be used to expand its client base.

HelloWallet is an independent, online financial guidance service for workers founded by former Brookings Institution scholar Matt Fellowes. HelloWallet is primarily distributed through Fortune 500 and other employers as a workplace benefit. HelloWallet helps workers improve their overall household finances by ???finding the money??? to boost their contributions to retirement savings and reduce debt. Retirement plan providers also provide the service to help workers improve their personal finances. HelloWallet???s independence comes from the fact that it receives no commissions...

Learn more

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/26/mint-competitor-and-personal-finance-platform-hellowallet-raises-12m-from-morningstar/

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'30 Rock' star back at work after hospitalization (AP)

SALT LAKE CITY ? Comedian and "30 Rock" cast member Tracy Morgan is back at work in New York after a brief hospitalization in Utah.

Morgan's publicist, Lewis Kay, says Morgan appreciates fans' concern. The actor was hospitalized Sunday while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, where the elevation is 7,000 feet.

Kay says Morgan suffered from exhaustion and altitude. Morgan also has diabetes.

Kay says no drugs or alcohol were found in Morgan's system.

Recordings of 911 calls made on the night he collapsed, and obtained by The Associated Press, indicate Morgan passed out at the Blue Iguana restaurant.

One caller says he didn't know if the actor had been drinking, but said he was unconscious. An ambulance later took him to a nearby hospital. He was released a day later.

___

AP Writer Jennifer Dobner contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_en_ot/us_film_sundance_tracy_morgan

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Bank of England chief backs CEO pay restraint (AP)

LONDON ? The governor of the Bank of England has joined calls from government and Parliament for banks and other big businesses to curb lavish executive pay.

Mervyn King also said Tuesday that there is scope for the bank to pour more billions into economic stimulus, a step some analysts believe could come as early as next month.

Speaking in Brighton, King said those who set executive pay need to accept that the market economy relies on a perception that rewards are distributed fairly.

"The legitimacy of a market economy will inevitably be challenged if rewards go disproportionately to a small elite, especially one which benefited from the support of taxpayers," King said.

Major British banks, both those that were bailed out and those which benefited from the implicit support of taxpayers, are now in the spotlight of public concern about high pay and the bonus culture.

British Business Secretary Vince Cable said Monday his government will be making proposals this year to give shareholders more clout to curb excesses.

"The tragedy of the financial crisis is that those who have suffered most have been those who bear no responsibility for it, and who, whether employees or businesses, accepted the disciplines of a market economy only to find that others were excused that discipline because they were 'too important to fail,'" King said, again pointing to the financial sector.

The High Pay Commission, an independent body, reported last year that executive pay in Britain's top 100 corporations had risen far faster than overall pay.

At oil company BP, for instance, the top executive was paid 63 times the company's average pay in 2009-2011. At Barclays bank the multiple was 75 times, as was bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group.

Since December 2009, the Bank of England has spent 275 billion pounds ($430 billion) to buy high-grade assets, including government and corporate bonds, a program known as quantitative easing.

The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, concerned about the lagging growth of the U.K. economy, authorized the latest injection of 75 billion pounds in October.

"With inflation falling back and wage growth subdued, there is scope for interest rates to remain low, and, if necessary, for further asset purchases, to prevent inflation falling below the 2 percent target," King said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_economy

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Life on Venus? Russian scientist's claim proven false

A respected Russian scientist claims to have found signs of life on Venus in photographs taken by a Soviet probe 30 years ago. However, outside analysis suggests he is breathing life into an assortment of camera lens covers and image blurs.

According to the Russian news service RIA Novosti, Leonid Ksanfomaliti, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who worked on unmanned Soviet missions to Venus during the 1970s and '80s, has written a new article in the journal Solar System Research. In the article, he calls attention to several objects photographed by the Venera 13 landing probe, a spacecraft that landed on Venus in 1982.

The objects ? including features described as a disc and a scorpion ? appear to change locations from one photo to the next. "Let's boldly suggest that the objects' morphological features would allow us to say that they are living," Ksanfomaliti stated, according to RIA Novosti.

1. More space news from msnbc.com

   1. Auroras spark awe across the north

      Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: From Scandinavia to Alaska, skywatchers are getting awe-inspiring views of the northern lights, thanks to a strong solar storm.

   2. Life on Venus? Russian scientist's claim proven false
   3. 'Year of the Dragon' should be big for SpaceX
   4. Mystery surrounds Air Force's secretive X-37B

Whether the scientist really has suggested that the old photographs contain living creatures that were somehow overlooked previously, or whether his words have been mistranslated, misconstrued or should have been quietly ignored, the claim has made headlines around the globe.

In one image,the Venera 13 landing probe is seen parked on the rocky Venusian foreground, and an object shaped somewhat like a crab stands inches from the probe. In another image, also taken by Venera 13, this crablike object appears to be in a different location. [NASA Debunks Mysterious UFO Near Venus]

According to Jonathon Hill, a research technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, who processes many of the images taken during NASA's Mars missions, higher-resolution versions of the Venera 13 images show that the crablike object is actually a mechanical component, not a living creature. The same object shows up in a photograph taken by an identical landing probe, Venera 14, which landed nearby on Venus.

"If those objects were already on the surface of Venus, what are the chances that Venera 13 and 14, which landed nearly 1,000 kilometers apart, would both land inches away from the only ones in sight and they would be in the same positions relative to the spacecraft? It makes much more sense that it's a piece of the lander designed to break off during the deployment of one of the scientific instruments," Hill told Life's Little Mysteries.

According to NASA, the half-circle components are camera lens covers that popped off the Venera probes after they landed. As for why they appear to be in different places in the two Venera 13 photos, "Venera-13 had two cameras, one in front and one in back. The one image shows the front camera lens cap and the other shows the rear camera lens cap, not one lens cap that moved," said Ted Stryk, a photo editor who reprocesses and enhances many NASA and Soviet space program images.

In fact, the half-circle objects are famous for being lens caps, because the one that popped off Venera 14's camera landed exactly where a spring-loaded arm was meant to touch the Venusian surface in order to measure its compressibility. The lander ended up measuring properties of the cap.

The other photograph highlighted by Ksanfomaliti, which supposedly shows a scorpionlike creature, contains a blur. "The features that Ksanfomaliti shows are nothing more than processed noise, at best, in some particularly bad versions of the images. They are not in the original data," Stryk said.

Or, as Hill put it, the image is an example of "letting your mind see patterns in low-resolution data that simply aren't real."

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @ llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

Martian illusions from msnbc.com:

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46107931/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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On Megan Fox Island, you better know English

By Kurt Schlosser

"Welcome to Megan Fox Island." Sold! Oh, there's more? What are we buying?

Pardon us for not making a lot of sense, but that seems to be the point of this Brazilian commercial starring the "Transformers" actress.

A pair of young plane crash survivors who show up on the shores of fantasyland learn the hard way that not being able to speak English equals a quick ticket off the imagined world of many Foxes.

"Finally, our wait is over," Fox says to her lookalike tribe as they greet two young men on a beach. "Please, please talk to us."

But without the English language lessons necessary to communicate with Megan Fox (really?) the bumbling lads are set adrift. Next stop? Mike Tyson Island -- a land of flaming torches, skulls and head locks.

It's a clever spot that plays in any language.

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216969-on-megan-fox-island-you-better-know-english

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Williams out of Australian Open in 4th round

Serena Williams of the US reacts in frustration during her fourth round match against Russia's Ekaterina Makarova at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Serena Williams of the US reacts in frustration during her fourth round match against Russia's Ekaterina Makarova at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Serena Williams of the US yells in frustration during her fourth round match against Russia's Ekaterina Makarova at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Serena Williams of the US makes a forehand return to Ekaterina Makarova during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)

Serena Williams of the US reacts as she plays Russia's Ekaterina Makarova in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)

Serena Williams of the US bounces her racket during her fourth round match against Russia's Ekaterina Makarova at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Numbers told the surprising story for Serena Williams in her fourth-round loss at the Australian Open on Monday.

Seven double-faults, including four in one game; 37 unforced errors, and a first-serve percentage of just over 50 percent that had her convinced "maybe I should have started serving lefty."

Some other numbers indicated why her 6-2, 6-3 loss to Russia's Ekaterina Makarova on what she admitted was a still-sore left ankle was more of a shock, particularly at this stage of the year's first major.

She has played 43 singles matches at Melbourne Park since she won the first of her five Australian Open titles in 2003, and Monday's loss was just her third. She's 54-7 since playing here for the first time in 1998, and she hasn't gone out this early here since 2006.

"I'm not physically 100 percent, so I can't be so angry at myself, even though I'm very unhappy," Williams said. "I know that I can play a hundred times better than I did this whole tournament."

Without Williams, who injured her left ankle in Brisbane two weeks ago, the only major winners still in contention were Maria Sharapova, defending champion Kim Clijsters and Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova.

Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, still in search of her first Grand Slam title, played Clijsters in a quarterfinal on Tuesday. The Belgian advanced to the quarterfinals with a comeback win over Li Na on Sunday in a rematch of the 2011 decider, while Kvitova had some trouble late before beating former top-ranked Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 7-6 (2) Monday. Sharapova was playing Sabine Lisicki on Monday night.

Kvitova will next play Sara Errani of Italy, who beat 2008 semifinalist Zheng Jie 6-2, 6-1.

Defending men's champion Novak Djokovic will try to advance to the quarterfinals and keep alive his chance of winning his third straight Grand Slam when he plays Lleyton Hewitt on Rod Laver Arena after the Lisicki-Sharapova match. The Djokovic-Hewitt winner will play fifth-seeded David Ferrer, a 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 winner over Richard Gasquet, in the quarterfinals.

Earlier, two-time runner-up Andy Murray was leading 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 when Mikhail Kukushkin retired from their fourth-round match with a left hip injury, giving Murray an easy path into the quarters.

"It's obviously good for me, I get to conserve some energy," Murray said. "Tough for him, first time in the fourth-round of a Slam."

Murray will next play Kei Nishikori, who had a 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win over sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 2008 finalist.

The 22-year-old Nishikori became the first Japanese man in the last eight at the Australian Open in 80 years, and only the second man from his country to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since the Open Era started in 1968. Shuzo Matsuoka reached the 1995 Wimbledon quarterfinals.

"Is feeling unbelieveable. My first quarterfinal and beating Tsonga, makes me really happy," Nishikori said. "I hope it's big in Japan. A lot of people messaged me a couple of days ago about the round of 16 and now the quarterfinals. It's really exciting."

Makarova, a 23-year-old Russian left-hander, was equally thrilled about her win over Williams. And considering she'd lost in the first round of the last six tournaments she'd played, in awe over who she beat.

"Yeah, I'm surprised because she's a great player and it's really tough to play against her. But, I don't know, I just feeling so good and so focus. So I played my game, and that's it. I won against Serena. That's amazing."

Makarova overcame plenty of Williams crowd support, many of whom weren't that familiar with the Russian. Oracene Price, Williams' mother, was in the players' box with her sunglasses on and a wide-brimmed hat.

In the fourth game of the second set with Makarova serving, Williams netted an easy forehand return. She made an angry sound, and there was a bit of laughter in the crowd. Price just turned away, shaking her head.

After Williams' fourth double-fault in the fifth game of the second set, which gave Makarova the game and a 3-2 lead ? Williams shouted "Oh my god." She looked ready to smash her racket, but in the end bounced it on the court and caught it on the rebound.

The 13-time Grand Slam winner had only played two competitive matches since losing the U.S. Open final to Sam Stosur in September, and her light preparation was curtailed when she badly twisted her ankle as she won her second-round match at Brisbane earlier this month.

For that reason, Williams wasn't about to beat herself up over Monday's loss.

"Am I usually angry? I don't know. Crying? I don't cry. So I don't know what I usually project," she said. "I feel like I didn't play well today. I don't feel like I can't get better."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-23-TEN-Australian-Open/id-61ffb542abd946bba85179896cc357ca

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Attacks on Mitt Romney Over Tax Return Issue Are Unfair (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Few presidential candidates have faced more pressure to make available their tax returns than Mitt Romney. Despite the fact Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have also not released their tax returns, as revealed in a South Carolina debate, the former Massachusetts governor is being singled out by the media. The hyperbole scrutiny of Romney's tax returns reveals bias in the part of the media.

If Romney was a salaried man with less than eight-digit figures in his bank account, he would not have faced the same pressure to release his tax returns as he is now. People love a narrative. A successful and wealthy businessman must have a lot of skeletons in his closet, and hence we need see his tax returns. Even if Romney decides to release his tax returns at this instance, the media will follow up and demand to see returns from previous years and decades.

What the media seems to forget is that they are journalists and not auditors. It is the job of the IRS to scrutinize Romney's tax returns for problems. All the media will do is scouring the Michigan native's returns for politically inexpedient details and magnifies them. The decision to release tax returns should be his to make and for the public to judge.

Legally, Romney has the right not to disclose his tax returns. Moreover, he is only a candidate and not the president. If Romney is elected to the presidency, he will likely follow traditions and release his tax returns every year of his term. The media obsession over Romney's tax returns gives the impression that presidential candidates are required to make public their returns, which is incorrect.

Ultimately, it is more prudent for Romney to release his tax returns as soon as possible to temper the controversy. To his credit, the Michigan native has indicated that he will make available his tax returns in April. Four years ago, GOP nominee John McCain also released his tax returns in April. All in all, Romney's wealth is expected to continue to be a hotly debated topic in the 2012 Republican race.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120122/pl_ac/10866931_attacks_on_mitt_romney_over_tax_return_issue_are_unfair

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House Republicans look to each other for rebirth (Reuters)

BALTIMORE (Reuters) ? Republicans in the House of Representatives, having seen their 2010 election victory dissolve into a near-suicidal tax fight, are promoting a repackaged jobs message they hope carries them to victory in the 2012 elections.

At a three-day retreat at a harborfront hotel in Baltimore, an hour's drive from Washington, House Speaker John Boehner mobilized prayer sessions, motivational speakers, spin doctors and even colorful New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to cheer up his 242-member House Republican conference.

House Republicans were ebullient when they gathered last year for their annual retreat after wresting control of the House from Democrats in elections a few months earlier. Twelve months later, the party faces a tough fight to hold those gains.

Polls show that Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats for the gridlock in Congress that has paralyzed decision-making on some of the toughest problems facing the country - job creation and dangerously high deficits.

By the time the retreat wrapped up on Saturday after gripe sessions, policy discussions and lectures on tactics and messaging, House Republicans may not have figured out how they will handle those problems, but Boehner proclaimed to reporters that in 2012, "our focus will be on the economy and jobs."

With a national jobless rate of 8.5 percent and millions of long-term unemployed people losing hope, Republicans and Democrats will both try to convince voters in the November presidential and congressional elections that they hold the keys to an improving economy.

President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats want to position themselves as protectors of the poor and middle class and a bulwark against Republicans who want to enrich the already rich.

Republicans counter that a free-spending president who racked up about $5 trillion in government debt wants nothing more than to overregulate job-creating companies and drive the country into the same economic ditch into which Europe is peering.

Emerging from the retreat, House Republicans plan to tout the 30 pieces of legislation they passed last year aimed at spurring job growth. While it is unclear how many jobs those bills would have actually created, Republicans will complain the measures were killed by an uncooperative Democratic majority in the Senate.

'PARTY OF SMALL BUSINESS'

The strategy is clear -- to rebut Obama's concerted efforts to paint Republicans as obstructionist for refusing to pass his own $447 billion jobs bill.

The 30 jobs bills will become a staple of the Republican election rhetoric, but that could open the party to the same accusations they level against Obama - that they are simply rehashing old ideas instead of proposing new ones.

"We must be the party of small business," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, urged fellow lawmakers at the retreat, which was held behind closed doors.

"If you say it once an hour, it's not enough, if you say it every 15 minutes, it's still not enough," Cantor said.

Both parties cast themselves as the champions of small businesses, which economists say are the engines of U.S. economic growth and job creation.

Cantor, who has courted the often rebellious 85 first-term or "freshmen" congressmen, many of them small-government Tea Party activists, acknowledged their disappointment with the slow pace of change in Washington.

Reflecting on his party's year in control of the House - which ended with the U.S. budget being about the same size as when Republicans took power - Cantor told the rank and file, "We learned this year that progress must be more incremental than some of us would have liked."

FOOTBALL AND POLLSTERS

To rally his troops, Boehner recruited former Washington Redskins football coach Joe Gibbs, a three-time Super Bowl winner now involved in NASCAR auto racing, to deliver a pep talk.

"He talked about football and NASCAR and about his life. His message was about the value of teamwork. That is what we are all about, teamwork," said first-term Representative Chuck Fleischmann.

Teamwork is something Boehner's fractious caucus has struggled with since Republicans won control of the House in 2010. Zealous freshmen aligned with the conservative Tea Party movement repeatedly frustrated the speaker's efforts to negotiate compromises with Democrats, raising questions from some about his effectiveness as a leader.

In Baltimore, some of the second-guessing about Boehner's decision-making continued, according to lawmakers who attended, but there was no overall discontent with his leadership.

So if the Republican message to voters this year is all about small business and job creation, the internal Republican message is party unity, something the party lacked in 2011.

"Every (Republican) leader ... talked about unity and working together, communicating to each other better. Unity, unity, unity," said Representative Lee Terry, a 14-year veteran.

The opposite of Republican unity was on display in the U.S. Capitol through much of last year, especially in November and December, as Obama and his Democrats pushed ahead with an extension of a tax cut for 160 million workers to help stimulate the economy.

It was a tax cut that Republicans were cool toward - partly because it was Obama's idea and partly because they had doubts about its effectiveness.

But as workers embraced having more money in their paychecks and economists warned against letting the year-old tax cut lapse, House Republicans fought with one another, first over whether to kill the tax cut and then over how to quell outrage from even the most conservative quarters that their delaying tactics would help re-elect Obama and give congressional Democrats a political boost in November.

Terry, a Nebraska lawyer who has been known to reach across the political aisle to get legislation moving, told reporters: "We've got to get on the same page here. We can't have what happened in December."

Former Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie delivered a simple message: "It's a tough year. You have to be ready."

Most political pundits think Democrats face an uphill battle

in November's elections to gain the 25 seats they need to return Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker's job. But Democrats are hoping to get within reach.

Pelosi, who grew up just blocks from where the Republican retreat was held and whose father was mayor of Baltimore, likely will likely do everything she can to poke holes in the new-found unity that Republicans say they forged in this blue-collar city.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and David Lawder; Editing by Ross Colvin and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120121/pl_nm/us_usa_congress_republicans

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High levels of MRSA bacteria in retail meat products

Public release date: 20-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jennifer Brown
jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu
319-356-7124
University of Iowa Health Care

Researchers found that 26 of 395 raw pork samples (about 7 percent) collected from 36 stores in Iowa, Minnesota and New Jersey carried MRSA

Retail pork products in the U.S. have a higher prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (MRSA) than previously identified, according to new research by the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

MRSA can occur in the environment and in raw meat products, and is estimated to cause around 185,000 cases of food poisoning each year. The bacteria can also cause serious, life-threatening infections of the bloodstream, skin, lungs and other organs. MRSA is resistant to a number of antibiotics.

The study, published Jan. 19 in the online science journal PLoS ONE, represents the largest sampling of raw meat products for MRSA contamination to date in the U.S. The researchers collected 395 raw pork samples from 36 stores in Iowa, Minnesota and New Jersey. Of these samples, 26--or about 7 percent--carried MRSA.

"This study shows that the meat we buy in our grocery stores has a higher prevalence of staph than we originally thought," says lead study author Tara Smith, Ph.D., interim director of the UI Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases and assistant professor of epidemiology. "With this knowledge, we can start to recommend safer ways to handle raw meat products to make it safer for the consumer."

The study also found no significant difference in MRSA contamination between conventional pork products and those raised without antibiotics or antibiotic growth promotants.

"We were surprised to see no significant difference in antibiotic-free and conventionally produced pork," Smith says. "Though it's possible that this finding has more to do with the handling of the raw meat at the plant than the way the animals were raised, it's certainly worth exploring further."

###

To read the full findings from the study, visit: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030092. Additional information about the Center for Emerging Infectious Disease can be found at http://www.public-health.uiowa.edu/CEID/index.html, and more on Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy at http://www.iatp.org.

---

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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.

Public release date: 20-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jennifer Brown
jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu
319-356-7124
University of Iowa Health Care

Researchers found that 26 of 395 raw pork samples (about 7 percent) collected from 36 stores in Iowa, Minnesota and New Jersey carried MRSA

Retail pork products in the U.S. have a higher prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (MRSA) than previously identified, according to new research by the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

MRSA can occur in the environment and in raw meat products, and is estimated to cause around 185,000 cases of food poisoning each year. The bacteria can also cause serious, life-threatening infections of the bloodstream, skin, lungs and other organs. MRSA is resistant to a number of antibiotics.

The study, published Jan. 19 in the online science journal PLoS ONE, represents the largest sampling of raw meat products for MRSA contamination to date in the U.S. The researchers collected 395 raw pork samples from 36 stores in Iowa, Minnesota and New Jersey. Of these samples, 26--or about 7 percent--carried MRSA.

"This study shows that the meat we buy in our grocery stores has a higher prevalence of staph than we originally thought," says lead study author Tara Smith, Ph.D., interim director of the UI Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases and assistant professor of epidemiology. "With this knowledge, we can start to recommend safer ways to handle raw meat products to make it safer for the consumer."

The study also found no significant difference in MRSA contamination between conventional pork products and those raised without antibiotics or antibiotic growth promotants.

"We were surprised to see no significant difference in antibiotic-free and conventionally produced pork," Smith says. "Though it's possible that this finding has more to do with the handling of the raw meat at the plant than the way the animals were raised, it's certainly worth exploring further."

###

To read the full findings from the study, visit: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030092. Additional information about the Center for Emerging Infectious Disease can be found at http://www.public-health.uiowa.edu/CEID/index.html, and more on Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy at http://www.iatp.org.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uoih-hlo012012.php

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Obama orders streamlining of foreign tourist visas (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/188688738?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Mexican drug movie 'Miss Bala' portrays a dark, cartel-fueled world of violence

The film is spellbinding and provocative, with none of Hollywood's usual easy answers to brutality

When the ambitious Mexican film ?Miss Bala? made its Mexican debut last September, more than one local newspaper article questioned whether the film should have been made at all. Indeed, the latest project from director Gerardo Naranjo ("I?m Gonna Explode") is an uncomfortable and horrifying journey into the grit and brutality of the country?s cartel-fueled violence, a journey devoid of the neatly packaged shoot-?em-up heroics typical of Hollywood?s action flicks. It?s dark stuff. But Naranjo?s unapologetically ruthlessness interpretation is also what makes his newest statement piece both spellbinding and provocative.?

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?Miss Bala? roughly translates to Miss Bullet, a cunning reference to both the main protagonist, unlikely Baja beauty queen Laura Guerrero (played by the model-turned-actress Stephanie Sigman), and the entrenched violence of the region. Subtitles spell out that cartel violence has killed more than 36,000 people since 2006. It?s telling, however, that in the short interim between the film?s production and US distribution, that tally has swelled to more than 47,000; some critics warn even that number could be too low.?

The story, based loosely on the true story of disgraced former beauty queen Laura Zunega, is told through the eyes of a poor 23-year-old from Tijuana who enters the local pageant on a whim. Laura?s quiet country life is turned upside down after she witnesses the bloody murders of several discotheque patrons ? including cops and a U.S. federal agent ? by members of the local gang La Estrella. In the attack?s chaotic aftermath, Laura is kidnapped by gang leader Lino (played with a bestial quality by Noe Hernandez). Captivated by her beauty, Lino also shrewdly recognizes Laura?s value and uses her as a pawn in the gang?s rapidly escalating schemes before she is eventually captured and framed?by the government for a host of La Estrella?s crimes.?

The unrelenting tension of the film is enhanced by Naranjo?s use of long, unbroken takes ? there are only 130 cuts in the entire movie ? and an almost complete lack of a soundtrack. In one memorable scene, Lino drives Laura to the beach and silently rapes her in the cab of his pickup. It is an outcome sickening in its apparent inevitability. The camera pans the beach at sunrise, the drug lord?s truck a dark blot on an otherwise beautiful tableau and the crashing waves a welcome respite from the malicious silence of the night.?

Written by Naranjo and Mauricio Katz, the script is a tangle of deception and double crosses that blurs the line between good guys and bad with a series of twists that emphasize the entrenched nature of corruption.?The minimization of Laura?s character begins the first?time we meet her, with an opening shot from behind to obscure her face. The prevalence of such shots throughout the film deprives Laura of her identity and humanity and adds to the sense of powerlessness that pervades?the movie's 113 minutes as her silencing gradually becomes a metaphor?for her homeland.

The question for American audiences accustomed to sexed-up cartel dramas like Stephen Soderbergh?s "Traffic," and the more recent heroics of Zoe Saldana in "Columbiana,? is why doesn?t Laura fight back? Why doesn?t she just pick up a gun and shoot her kidnapper and rapist? In a society that has robbed Laura completely of her power, repurposed her identity, and stolen away her family, perhaps the question instead should be, why would she? In the real world, having nothing left to lose is hardly the motivating factor the film industry makes it out to be.

Ultimately ?Miss Bala,? like other recent Mexican films depicting the drug war, does not offer viewers much in the way of hope. Justice, for Laura, is not served. As smoke billows from the skyline early in her ordeal and gunfire crackles faintly, a white limousine rolls past, its celebrating, formally attired occupants happily waving bouquets from the skylight ? a wedding procession perhaps, or a Quincea?era? Life goes on, but how many more Laura Guerreros are out there, their fates uncertain, their voices muffled by the harsh directives of men with walkie-talkies and bullets.

Miss Bala opens in the US Jan. 20 and?has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/SE6ChoW8dbA/Mexican-drug-movie-Miss-Bala-portrays-a-dark-cartel-fueled-world-of-violence

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Explaining Health Insurance Exchange | Focus on health

The health care reform President Obama signed acts which in the law in early 2010 calling for the creation of the Health Insurance Exchange. Many people do not know exactly what that means. According to President Obama wrote a letter to Senator Ted Kennedy, ET wants the Health Insurance Exchange, a market where the Americans one-stop shop for health care plan, and benefits can compare prices and choose the plan that best to ?em. Actually, this function is very similar to insurance brokers currently do now. However, some people do not know that they can shop with the help of an insurance broker, for the same price as you could if buying directly from an insurance company. So to this point, the federal government the establishment of health insurance exchanges thesis, which is how to choose the members of Congress and their families, their health insurance.

The idea of ??health insurance exchange organized better information out there about health insurance, the transparency in the health insurance industry to improve, and to set it up in a competitive market to drive down prices. Regulating this would allow aussi Some policies and procedures for the supply and pricing of health insurance. Another main goal of the Health Insurance Exchange is a better explanation of the American public in terms of their health insurance options, help them better vocabulary, health insurance and know the process less intimidating shopping.

This is not the first time that the health insurance exchange has-been proposed in the government. There is currently a Health Insurance Exchange in Massachusetts, where it is set as the connector. Even active years Utah Health Insurance Exchange. In the past they have been proposed as a health aid agencies, which is only another name for the Health Insurance Exchange. Regardless of what they were called, hoped Congress members Health Insurance Exchange to help the thesis have insured and uninsured are facilitating change and reform in the insurance industry.

To start, takes over the health insurance exchange most beneficial to those persons who need to acquire the individual and family health care. Finally, it is hoped that employers and employees may also offer health insurance through the Health Insurance Exchange, rather than the uses that sponsored group health plan offered to IS register ?em. This in turn increases the possibilities and the freedom of the American Individual. Self-employed would benefit greatly from aussi Health Insurance Exchange, because they would be in a position that many health insurance policies available and em ?lake.

information on health insurance plans would be in a straightforward, objective, unbiased manner are presented. It is unclear at this time, whether you There Will share-run national health insurance, whether There Will be Regional Health Insurance Exchange. It may be more effective Regional Health Insurance Exchange may have to exchange it objectively even lower overhead with a national health insurance. Thesis final decisions have been decided-nots. It is also unclear who Regulate Health Insurance Exchange, whether it be done by the federal or state governments will, if will be exchanged for the administration of health insurance companies or outside agencies.

Sat Dicosta shares historical knowledge about the health insurance that you want to find the best fit Makes your plans to the needs. If you know about health insurance exchange , health insurance, individual ? family, health care plans, affordable health insurance georgia , Medicare, Medicare Supplement wellpath North Carolina to visit www.usa-healthinsurance.com

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Source: http://www.lovefinanceweb.com/?p=29823&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=explaining-health-insurance-exchange

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