Final gov't birth control rule for faith groups (The Arizona Republic)

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Business Operations Manager, Access Fund - Sustainable Business

When you apply for this position, please say you saw this job on Green Dream Jobs!!

Categories:
Admin/ Gen Mgmt
Nat. Resources/ Restoration
Outreach/ Advocacy

The Access Fund is the national advocacy organization that keeps U.S. climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment. Founded in 1991, the Access Fund supports and represents over 2.3 million climbers nationwide in all forms of climbing: rock, ice, mountaineering, and bouldering.

Position Overview:

Thank you for your interest in working for the Access Fund. We are currently seeking a Business Operations Manager (BOM).?

The BOM manages daily business and financial operations of the organization, working closely with the Executive Director to ensure the financial health of the organization. The BOM provides support necessary for financial management, human resources oversight, vendor and lease relationships, and general operations of the Access Fund. ?

Responsibilities:

Budget:

• Lead annual budget process by working closely with AF staff.
• Prepare budget worksheets for each department and compile comprehensive operating budget.
• Support staff to track actual performance vs. budget throughout the year.
• Provide financial leadership for the organization through analysis, planning and staff mentorship.

Financial Reporting:

• Prepare accurate and timely financial reports for department heads, executive director, and board of directors on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.
• Prepare financial statements for board meetings, the annual report and as needed for grant reporting. Prepare financial projections for year end.

Accounting:

• Process all accounts payable and accounts receivable.
• Invoice corporate partners on a monthly basis.
• Responsible for entering all deposits into the Access Fund's books and for depositing all income into the Access Fund's bank account.
• Track and record legal and corporate in-kind donations.

Financial Audit and 990 Preparation:

• Primary AF contact with external auditors working to ensure AF meets all requirements and provides all information necessary to complete yearly financial audit in a timely manner.
• Facilitate auditor review of supporting financial records, and other items as needed.
• Ensure proper internal controls are in place.
• Once audit is complete, assist in the finalization of the Form 990.

Human Resources:

• Administer employee benefits and payroll.
• Ensure compliance with state and local employment obligations.
• Act as primary contact with staff insurance carriers; medical, dental, disability etc.
• Complete payroll reporting twice monthly.
• Maintain all personnel records. Ensure payroll and tax reporting are accurate.
• Maintain the Employee Manual and general office-wide policies.

Grants Program:

• Oversee all logistics of the grants program including application review, correspondence with applicants, organizing committee conference call to decide awards, grant awards and post project reporting compliance.

Vendors and Leases:

• Manage all vendor and lease relationships to ensure conformity with Access Fund policies and fulfillment of obligations.
• Facilitate contracting process.
• Provide background information and contractual obligations to ED for approval.
• Purchase hardware/software as needed and oversee warranties.
• Maintain all fixed assets records.

Insurance:

• BOM is the point of contact for all insurance issues, including directors and officers, business owners insurance, general liability insurance, auto and event insurance, etc.
• Provide for ongoing contact with AF broker and resolution of insurance issues when they arise.
• Review and renew all insurance policies in a timely fashion, consulting with ED first when significant changes are to occur.

State Fundraising Registration:

• BOM is responsible for ensuring that the Access Fund complies with all state charitable solicitation registration requirements; filing all necessary paperwork in a timely manner, and tracking the schedule for annual renewals.

Land Management:

• BOM is the point of contact for all commercial guiding permits on AF land.
• Responsible for reviewing applications and ensuring all requirements are met.

Management:

• The BOM manages AF's Office Manager.
• Responsible for providing oversight, direction, support and training to this position.

Qualifications:

• Must be able to work a consistent 40 hour week, with flexibility to work some weekends and travel when necessary.
• Must possess excellent computer skills, specifically QuickBooks and Microsoft Excel.
• Must be able to balance multiple priorities and requests from across the organization.
• Familiarity with non-profit organizations and fundraising tasks.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Detail-oriented, highly organized.
• Self-starter, capable of taking direction but working independently.
• Interest in climbing, advocacy and the work of the Access Fund.
• Bachelor's degree required.?

Compensation:?

• Salary dependent on experience.
• Pro-deal participation.
• Health insurance, dental, disability, gym membership.

To Apply:

Please click below: "Apply Now Online!" to submit your cover letter and resume with "Business Operations Manager" in the subject line.

No phone calls please.?

When you apply for this position, please say you saw this job on Green Dream Jobs!!

Source: http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/greendreamjobs.display/id/3056190

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NKorea likely to get cold shoulder at Asia forum

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) ? The upcoming regional security summit in this tiny Southeast Asian sultanate is the sort of venue where North Korea has often managed to open up sideline discussions with Seoul and Washington. This time, while there will be plenty of talk about Pyongyang, there is little chance of substantive talk with it.

North Korea has sought negotiations with the U.S. and South Korea but has ignored their demands that it first honor prior commitments to move toward nuclear disarmament. At high-level diplomatic talks beginning this weekend, it can expect the cold shoulder from those countries and others frustrated by Pyongyang's insistence on developing nuclear weapons.

After a December long-range rocket launch, a February nuclear test and weeks of threats to launch nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States, North Korea earlier this month made a surprise offer for separate talks with its rivals. Government delegates from the two Koreas met and agreed to hold senior-level talks on non-nuclear issues, but the agreement collapsed because of a protocol dispute. The United States responded coolly to Pyongyang's appeal for direct negotiations, which some analysts view as a familiar effort to win aid in return for ratcheting down tensions.

"While it is certainly preferable for North Korea to pursue diplomatic rather than missile or nuclear tests, all of North Korea's neighbors by now are well aware of North Korea's history of diplomatic initiatives as just another tool through which North Korea has sought to consolidate gains following periods in which North Korean brinkmanship has driven political tensions to high levels," Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, wrote in a blog post.

He added that agreeing to hold talks with the North "and come back to the table as though nothing has changed since the last six-party talks were held in 2008 would imply acceptance" of Pyongyang's rocket launches and nuclear tests.

Whether or not Washington and its allies ignore Pyongyang's diplomats, North Korea's atomic aspirations are on the agenda in talks surrounding the 27-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, which takes place Tuesday in the Bruneian capital of Bandar Seri Begawan.

A draft of the forum chairman's statement provided to The Associated Press said that those meetings would reaffirm the importance of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and that most participants urged North Korea "to abide by its obligations" under U.N. Security Council resolutions and commitments made in a joint statement following six-party talks in 2005.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterparts from South Korea, China and Japan will attend the forum and could hold private meetings that touch on Pyongyang. North Korea is expected to send its longtime foreign minister, 80-year-old Pak Ui Chun, to the meeting, according to South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

Because the ASEAN forum gathers diplomats from all six countries involved in long-stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations ? the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas ? it has previously provided a chance to use informal, sideline talks to break stalemates over the nuclear issue.

In 2011, top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas met on the sidelines of the forum in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to work toward a resumption of the dormant six-nation talks, though the negotiations remained stalled. The Koreas' foreign ministers held sideline talks in 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2007, and top diplomats from Pyongyang and Washington also met privately in 2004 and 2008.

North Korea will likely seek similar talks in Brunei, but South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters Tuesday that officials from Seoul aren't considering meeting the North Korean foreign minister on the sidelines. In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Monday that he knew of no discussions planned between Kerry and Pak in Brunei, and that such talks would be "fairly unusual."

Analysts said North Korea appeared to be repeating its pattern of following aggressive rhetoric with diplomatic efforts to get outside aid and concessions.

Chang Yong Seok, an analyst at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, said Pyongyang must do something to show it's refraining from continuing nuclear activities, such as announcing some disarmament steps, if it wants to have talks.

Despite its recent bid for diplomacy, North Korea has raised renewed worries about a nuclear program that outsiders estimate to include a handful of crude nuclear bombs. Pyongyang followed up its February nuclear test, its third since 2006, with an announcement that it planned to restore all of its atomic bomb fuel producing facilities. The February test drew widespread international condemnation and tightened U.N. sanctions, which subsequently led the North to issue a torrent of warlike threats and sharply raise tensions on the divided peninsula.

Recent satellite photos show signs of new tunnel work at North Korea's underground nuclear test site, the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said in an analysis Tuesday. The analysis said it doesn't appear to indicate another atomic blast is imminent but suggests the country has continued to work on its nuclear weapons program even as tensions eased.

Other issues expected to draw keen media attention in Brunei include South China Sea territorial disputes and relations between the U.S. and China, the world's two biggest economies.

China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia over the South China Sea and its potentially oil- and gas-rich islands. Several claimants want group discussions in order to create a legally binding "code of conduct" to prevent clashes in the sea, but Beijing has not clearly stated when it will sit down with the 10-nation ASEAN bloc to discuss such a nonaggression pact.

China prefers one-on-one negotiations with each rival claimant to resolve the territorial dispute, something that would give it an advantage because of its sheer size and clout.

Southeast Asian countries believe that "having bilateral negotiations with a strong guy would be a losing game," said Bae Geung-chan, a professor at the state-run Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul.

The regional forum chairman's statement said ministers welcome efforts to work toward a code of conduct, and commended ASEAN nations and China for their work to maintain peace and stability.

Analysts say China and the U.S. probably won't have sensitive talks in Brunei that could change their relations. Their leaders recently held an unusually lengthy informal summit in California, during which both countries expressed optimism that the closer personal ties forged between the leaders could stem the mistrust between the world powers.

During the summit, President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, were in broad agreement over the need for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-likely-cold-shoulder-asia-forum-095914963.html

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Mouse cloned from drop of blood

Link Information - Click to View

Mouse cloned from drop of blood
In a pioneering experiment, scientists in Japan clone a mouse from white blood cells collected from the tail of a living donor.

Source: BBC News
Posted on: Thursday, Jun 27, 2013, 8:51am
Views: 12

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128827/Mouse_cloned_from_drop_of_blood

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Starting today, you can pre-order Recon Instrument's Jet for only $499.

Starting today, you can pre-order Recon Instrument's Jet for only $499. That's a lot cheaper than Glass! [Recon]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/starting-today-and-through-july-21-you-can-pre-order-r-589198154

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Droplr 3 brings iPad support, native sharing, and more

Droplr has been updated to version 3.0 which brings with it native iPad support, new sharing options, a tweaked interface, and more. For those not familiar with Droplr and what it does, it's a great way to share all kinds of files and store them in one universal place. With support from many third party apps, it's a great option for keeping track of all the files, photos, and videos you want to share across all your networks.

Droplr has long been a favorite when it comes to sharing images and other kinds of files and sharing them across the internet. With support for both Mac and Windows as well as iPhone and now iPad, it's a good option if you want access to all your files from anywhere. If you want to repost a video or image you previously shared, it's as simple as copying a link.

Many third party apps such as Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and many other services have native support for Droplr built right in which means you have access to everything you've uploaded to every network all within one app. The new version of Droplr also offers an option to upgrade to Pro within the app for $39.99 a year. Pro will remove ads and allow you to upload larger file sizes.

Version 3.0 of Droplr also allows you to share images in new ways via the sharing menu and also adds some visual enhancements that are a nice addition. You can pick up Droplr 3 from the App Store now for free and purchase Pro if you'd like via in-app purchase. For current Droplr users, 3.0 will simply be an update.

• Free - Download Now

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/tZrSiW-9CTI/story01.htm

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Study of insect bacteria reveals genetic secrets of symbiosis

June 20, 2013 ? Mealybugs only eat plant sap, but sap doesn't contain all the essential amino acids the insects need to survive. Luckily, the bugs have a symbiotic relationship with two species of bacteria -- one living inside the other in a situation unique to known biology -- to manufacture the nutrients sap doesn't provide.

The net result: The bacteria get a comfy mealybug home, and the bugs get the nutrition they need to live.

University of Montana microbiologist John McCutcheon describes such mutually beneficial relationships used to solve life's little problems as "almost hilariously complicated. But animal-bacterial relationships are extremely common in nature, and it's my goal in life to help people understand that it's normal."

McCutcheon and his research partners recently delved deeper into the genes involved in the "tripartite nested mealybug symbiosis," and their work was published in the June 20 issue of Cell, a scientific journal. The researchers discovered the already complex three-way symbiosis actually depends on genes from six different organisms -- three more than the number of species that currently exist in the symbiosis.

Tremblaya princeps is the larger of the two bacteria species living within special organs inside mealybugs. Tremblaya houses the smaller bacterial species, Moranella endobia, within its cytoplasm. But what makes Tremblaya truly odd is the size of its genome, or genetic code. With only 120 genes, its genome is the smallest known and smaller than many scientists consider necessary for life. By comparison, common E. coli bacteria have about 4,200 genes and humans have about 21,000.

"We wanted to discover how this genome got so small," McCutcheon said. "We suspected Tremblaya's genome may have gotten smaller by transferring genes to the host animal, which is called horizontal transfer."

The researchers looked for genes in the mealybug genome that resemble bacteria genes. However, after extensive analysis they only found one weak possibility for horizontal transfer from Tremblaya.

"Our hypothesis that Tremblaya was transferring genes to the host was dead wrong," said McCutcheon. They did, however, find 22 other bacterial genes mixed in with the mealybug code -- genes that seem to support activities missing in Tremblaya, Moranella and the mealybug.

How can this be?

"The genes are probably from historical bacterial infections," McCutcheon said. "These bacteria are no longer present in the mealybugs we work with, but their horizontally transferred genes are, and these genes allow the symbiosis to work."

The research team also examined a strain of Tremblaya that doesn't have Moranella living inside it. This variety employs about 50 more genes than the one containing Moranella, which strongly suggests Moranella plays a key role in allowing the insect-dwelling Tremblaya to operate with such a tiny genome.

McCutcheon said Tremblaya, with its shrinking genome, in many ways resembles organelles called mitochondria -- tiny structures found within all plant and animal cells that scientists believe started out as symbiotic bacteria in the early history of life. The mealybug/bacteria relationship he studies may illustrate one pathway bacteria take in becoming essential and highly integrated components of other cells.

"So this research really touches on some fundamental questions of the origin of life," he said. "It's exciting to see if we can get some insight into the origin of organelles."

McCutcheon said this study involved an international cast of 12 collaborators. Filip Husnik, the study's lead author, is a Czech doctoral student from the University of South Bohemia who worked in McCutcheon's UM lab. Other team members were from Japan, England, California, Utah and Florida.

The study was funded by a $529,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

"Our work illustrates how an animal's interactions with bacteria can drive hidden organismal complexity," McCutcheon said. "A tree is more than a tree, and an animal is more than an animal. They are really mosaics of plants and animals and bacteria all working together."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/4m1gkoy6CoY/130620142954.htm

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Dusty surprise around giant black hole

June 20, 2013 ? ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy. Rather than finding all of the glowing dust in a doughnut-shaped torus around the black hole, as expected, the astronomers find that much of it is located above and below the torus. These observations show that dust is being pushed away from the black hole as a cool wind -- a surprising finding that challenges current theories and tells us how supermassive black holes evolve and interact with their surroundings.

Over the last twenty years, astronomers have found that almost all galaxies have a huge black hole at their centre. Some of these black holes are growing by drawing in matter from their surroundings, creating in the process the most energetic objects in the Universe: active galactic nuclei (AGN). The central regions of these brilliant powerhouses are ringed by doughnuts of cosmic dust [1] dragged from the surrounding space, similar to how water forms a small whirlpool around the plughole of a sink. It was thought that most of the strong infrared radiation coming from AGN originated in these doughnuts.

But new observations of a nearby active galaxy called NGC 3783, harnessing the power of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile [2], have given a team of astronomers a surprise. Although the hot dust -- at some 700 to 1000 degrees Celsius -- is indeed in a torus as expected, they found huge amounts of cooler dust above and below this main torus [3].

As Sebastian H?nig (University of California Santa Barbara, USA and Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel, Germany), lead author of the paper presenting the new results, explains, "This is the first time we've been able to combine detailed mid-infrared observations of the cool, room-temperature dust around an AGN with similarly detailed observations of the very hot dust. This also represents the largest set of infrared interferometry for an AGN published yet."

The newly-discovered dust forms a cool wind streaming outwards from the black hole. This wind must play an important role in the complex relationship between the black hole and its environment. The black hole feeds its insatiable appetite from the surrounding material, but the intense radiation this produces also seems to be blowing the material away. It is still unclear how these two processes work together and allow supermassive black holes to grow and evolve within galaxies, but the presence of a dusty wind adds a new piece to this picture.

In order to investigate the central regions of NGC 3783, the astronomers needed to use the combined power of the Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope. Using these units together forms an interferometer that can obtain a resolution equivalent to that of a 130-metre telescope.

Another team member, Gerd Weigelt (Max-Planck-Institut f?r Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), explains, "By combining the world-class sensitivity of the large mirrors of the VLT with interferometry we are able to collect enough light to observe faint objects. This lets us study a region as small as the distance from our Sun to its closest neighbouring star, in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away. No other optical or infrared system in the world is currently capable of this."

These new observations may lead to a paradigm shift in the understanding of AGN. They are direct evidence that dust is being pushed out by the intense radiation. Models of how the dust is distributed and how supermassive black holes grow and evolve must now take into account this newly-discovered effect.

H?nig concludes, "I am now really looking forward to MATISSE, which will allow us to combine all four VLT Unit Telescopes at once and observe simultaneously in the near- and mid-infrared -- giving us much more detailed data." MATISSE a second generation instrument for the VLTI, is currently under construction.

Notes

[1] Cosmic dust consist of silicate and graphite grains -- minerals also abundant on Earth. The soot from a candle is very similar to cosmic graphite dust, although the size of the grains in the soot are ten or more times bigger than typical grain sizes of cosmic graphite grains.

[2] The VLTI is formed from a combination of the four 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes, or the four moveable 1.8-metre VLT Auxiliary Telescopes. It makes use of a technique known as interferometry, in which sophisticated instrumentation combines the light from several telescopes into one observation. Although it usually does not produce actual images, this technique dramatically increases the level of detail that can be measured in the resulting observations, comparable to what a space telescope with a diameter of over 100 metres would measure.

[3] The hotter dust was mapped using the AMBER VLTI instrument at near-infrared wavelengths and the newer observations reported here used the MIDI instrument at wavelengths between 8 and 13 microns in the mid-infrared.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/a50idejqDD0/130620071438.htm

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Ben McLemore's Previous AAU Coach Reportedly Accepted Money From a real estate agent.

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A Minute With: Gemma Arterton on choosing roles, new challenges

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - British actress Gemma Arterton does not need to worry about typecasting with roles ranging from a fairy tale character and literary heroines to MI6 agent Strawberry Fields in the 2008 James Bond film "Quantum of Solace."

In "Unfinished Song," a comedy-drama that opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, Arterton, 27, stars as Elizabeth, a music teacher in a boys' school.

She also directs a choir for seniors, which includes Marion, played by Vanessa Redgrave, and forges a special friendship with her cantankerous retired husband, played by Terence Stamp.

The following week Arterton will be seen in U.S. theaters as a sexy vampire in Neil Jordan's film "Byzantium."

Arterton spoke to Reuters about her choice of characters, sharing the big screen with Redgrave and Stamp, and her first French-speaking role in the upcoming film "Gemma Bovery."

Q: You have some interesting films coming out. Two are opening in the space of a week. How did you manage that?

A: It's weird that it happened that way. I made them about three months apart. It's nice. I remember when the Bond film came out in the UK I also made the TV show called "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and they were so different and it was really good that it happened. It's nice when people can see the range.

Q: "Unfinished Song" is a small British film that is about as far away as you can get from a Bond film. What attracted you to the role?

A: The script. I was making an action-comedy at the time and it was a long shoot, a four- or five-month shoot, and I thought I just want to do something real, something close to home. My agent sent me the script and I read it and I was crying.

Q: In the film you develop a special relationship with Terence Stamp. What was that like?

A: Everyone thinks that Terence Stamp is a very serious, stern Englishman. I was thinking he was going to be a very grumpy guy but for some reason we just got on really well and we brought out the best in each other and we're friends now ...

In the film we warmed to each other and ended up helping each other in certain ways. He is such a lovely guy. It was so lovely to see him play that kind of role. Usually he plays these gangsters or villains and for him to take on that role was a real decision because he is playing an old man. He was nervous about it but it was beautiful and he did such a good job.

Q: How intimidating was it working with Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp, both highly acclaimed British actors?

A: It was incredible. Vanessa is one of my all-time theater idols. For me she just represents the ultimate in strength and dignity. She can do anything. Working with her made me quite nervous and I was fascinated by the way she was working. This film was really, really important to do. It was a love letter to her sister (Lynn Redgrave), who died of cancer. You could feel it was a special thing for her.

Q: How do you choose your roles?

A: At first I was quite mindless. I didn't really think about it. I was pleased I was being offered stuff ... And then I realized I'm not happy with what is going on and had to be a bit more thoughtful. Now I think about what I want to do in relation to what I have just done.

Q: What projects do you have coming up?

A: I am just preparing now for my next film, which is my first French film. It is called "Gemma Bovery" and Anne Fontaine is directing it. She directed "Coco Before Chanel." It is my first French-speaking movie so I am a bit nervous about it.

Q: Are you fluent in French?

A: I started learning French in January and then in February this script came through called "Gemma Bovery," based on "Madame Bovary" ... For me it's a really big challenge but I feel if I can do it then I have opened another door. I love French cinema and some of my favorite actors are French. It would be something I would really be proud of doing. I start filming that in August.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/minute-gemma-arterton-choosing-roles-challenges-101109286.html

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Metamorphosis of moon's water ice explained

June 19, 2013 ? Using data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, scientists believe they have solved a mystery from one of the solar system's coldest regions -- a permanently shadowed crater on the moon. They have explained how energetic particles penetrating lunar soil can create molecular hydrogen from water ice. The finding provides insight into how radiation can change the chemistry of water ice throughout the solar system.

Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have published their results online in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR): Planets. Lead author of the paper is research scientist Andrew Jordan of the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS).

Discovering molecular hydrogen on the moon was a surprise result from NASA's Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, which crash-landed the LCROSS satellite's spent Centaur rocket at 5,600 miles per hour into the Cabeus crater in the permanently shadowed region of the moon. These regions have never been exposed to sunlight and have remained at temperatures near absolute zero for billions of years, thus preserving the pristine nature of the lunar soil, or regolith.

Instruments on board LCROSS trained on the resulting immense debris plume detected water vapor and water ice, the mission's hoped-for quarry, while LRO, already in orbit around the moon, saw molecular hydrogen -- a surprise.

"LRO's Lyman Alpha Mapping Project, or LAMP, detected the signature of molecular hydrogen, which was unexpected and unexplained," says Jordan.

Jordan's JGR paper, "The formation of molecular hydrogen from water ice in the lunar regolith by energetic charged particles," quantifies an explanation of how molecular hydrogen, which is composed of two hydrogen atoms and denoted chemically as H2, may be created below the moon's surface.

"After the finding, there were a couple of ideas for how molecular hydrogen could be formed but none of them seemed to work for the conditions in the crater or with the rocket impact." Jordan says. "Our analysis shows that the galactic cosmic rays, which are charged particles energetic enough to penetrate below the lunar surface, can dissociate the water, H2O, into H2 through various potential pathways."

That analysis was based on data gathered by the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument aboard the LRO spacecraft. Jordan is a member of the CRaTER scientific team, which is headed up by principal investigator Nathan Schwadron of EOS. Schwadron, a co-author on the JGR paper, was the first to suggest energetic particles as the possible mechanism for creating molecular hydrogen.

CRaTER characterizes the global lunar radiation environment by measuring radiation dose rates from galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles. Says Jordan, "We used the CRaTER measurements to get a handle on how much molecular hydrogen has been formed from the water ice via charged particles." Jordan's computer model incorporated the CRaTER data and showed that these energetic particles can form between 10 and 100 percent of the H2 measured by LAMP.

The study notes that narrowing down that percent range requires particle accelerator experiments on water ice to more accurately gauge the number of chemical reactions that result per unit of energy deposited by cosmic rays and solar energetic particles.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/7MZh-RAvJps/130619164758.htm

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An article in 'Cell' reveals a new resistance mechanism to chemotherapy in breast and ovarian cancer

Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
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Contact: Press Office
comunicacion@cnio.es
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO)

CNIO researchers take part in an international project that describes the molecular bases of resistance to a new chemotherapeutic agent in familial breast and ovarian cancers

It is estimated that between 5% and 10% of breast and ovarian cancers are familial in origin, which is to say that these tumours are attributable to inherited mutations from the parents in genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2. In patients with these mutations, PARP inhibitors, which are currently in clinical trials, have shown encouraging results that make them a new option for personalised cancer treatment, an alternative to standard chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the latest studies indicate that a fraction of these patients generate resistance to the drug and, therefore, stop responding to the new treatment.

The team led by Spanish National Cancer Research Centre researcher scar Fernndez-Capetillo, head of the Genomic Instability Group, together with researchers from the National Cancer Institute in the US, have participated in a study that describes the causes that explain why tumours with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations stop responding to PARP inhibitor drugs.

"PARP inhibitors are only toxic in tumours that have an impaired DNA repair mechanism, such as those that contain BRCA1/2 mutations" says Mara Nieto-Soler, a researcher from Fernndez-Capetillo's team.

According to the researchers, the problem arises when these tumours, in addition to having BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutations, also contain secondary mutations in other proteins such as 53BP1 or PTIP, whose function is to restrain DNA repair. In these cases, the mutations mutually compensate for each other, the tumour cells recover the ability to repair their DNA and the drug stops working.

Fernndez-Capetillo says: "This is one of the first studies to demonstrate that secondary mutations can make tumours resistant when faced with specific treatments like, in this case, PARP inhibitors".

NEW DIAGNOSTIC TESTS WITH SECONDARY MUTATIONS

When the researchers compared different treatments, they observed that for those tumours with BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutations that also presented mutations in 53BP1 or PTIP, standard treatment with cisplatin was more efficient than personalised therapy.

"These data indicate that only patients containing mutations in BRCA1 and/or BRCA2, but not in the secondary genes we have described, would be candidates for an effective personalised therapy with PARP inhibitors", explains Fernndez-Capetillo, concluding that: "Our results suggest that 53BP1 and PTIP genes would need to be evaluated in patients with familial breast and ovarian cancer when deficiencies in the BRCA genes were present before deciding on their treatment".

In this context, researchers intend to warn healthcare providers in personalised medicine that the challenge, in addition to the search for markers of drug sensitivity for new pharmacological compounds, also encompasses the search for secondary resistance markers. The aim would be to bring about significant improvements in treatment outcomes.

###

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Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
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comunicacion@cnio.es
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO)

CNIO researchers take part in an international project that describes the molecular bases of resistance to a new chemotherapeutic agent in familial breast and ovarian cancers

It is estimated that between 5% and 10% of breast and ovarian cancers are familial in origin, which is to say that these tumours are attributable to inherited mutations from the parents in genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2. In patients with these mutations, PARP inhibitors, which are currently in clinical trials, have shown encouraging results that make them a new option for personalised cancer treatment, an alternative to standard chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the latest studies indicate that a fraction of these patients generate resistance to the drug and, therefore, stop responding to the new treatment.

The team led by Spanish National Cancer Research Centre researcher scar Fernndez-Capetillo, head of the Genomic Instability Group, together with researchers from the National Cancer Institute in the US, have participated in a study that describes the causes that explain why tumours with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations stop responding to PARP inhibitor drugs.

"PARP inhibitors are only toxic in tumours that have an impaired DNA repair mechanism, such as those that contain BRCA1/2 mutations" says Mara Nieto-Soler, a researcher from Fernndez-Capetillo's team.

According to the researchers, the problem arises when these tumours, in addition to having BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutations, also contain secondary mutations in other proteins such as 53BP1 or PTIP, whose function is to restrain DNA repair. In these cases, the mutations mutually compensate for each other, the tumour cells recover the ability to repair their DNA and the drug stops working.

Fernndez-Capetillo says: "This is one of the first studies to demonstrate that secondary mutations can make tumours resistant when faced with specific treatments like, in this case, PARP inhibitors".

NEW DIAGNOSTIC TESTS WITH SECONDARY MUTATIONS

When the researchers compared different treatments, they observed that for those tumours with BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutations that also presented mutations in 53BP1 or PTIP, standard treatment with cisplatin was more efficient than personalised therapy.

"These data indicate that only patients containing mutations in BRCA1 and/or BRCA2, but not in the secondary genes we have described, would be candidates for an effective personalised therapy with PARP inhibitors", explains Fernndez-Capetillo, concluding that: "Our results suggest that 53BP1 and PTIP genes would need to be evaluated in patients with familial breast and ovarian cancer when deficiencies in the BRCA genes were present before deciding on their treatment".

In this context, researchers intend to warn healthcare providers in personalised medicine that the challenge, in addition to the search for markers of drug sensitivity for new pharmacological compounds, also encompasses the search for secondary resistance markers. The aim would be to bring about significant improvements in treatment outcomes.

###

---

[ | 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/2013-06/cndi-aai061813.php

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Tai Chi for fitness: slow-moving Chinese exercise can improve health

By Dorene Internicola
NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - For modern, harried lifestyles focused on getting and spending, fitness experts say tai chi, the ancient Chinese slow-moving exercise, can be an ideal way for anyone to stay fit.
A staple in senior citizen centers and a common dawn sighting in public parks, the practice can offer long-term benefits for all age groups.
"In this high-tech world that's all about speed, greed and instant gratification, tai chi is the antidote to bring us back to balanced health," according to Arthur Rosenfeld, a tai chi master and the author of a new book called "Tai Chi - The Perfect Exercise: Finding Health, Happiness, Balance, and Strength."
"It doesn't mean you can win the marathon or clean and jerk 750 pounds or win a cycle sprint," said the South Florida resident, 56. "It's not about getting there sooner." Tai chi is more about how the body works than how it looks, and is about aging gracefully and "with less drama."
"The last time I looked, there were some 500 studies about the various physical benefits of tai chi, from improving balance and attention span to boosting the immune system to beating back the symptoms of arthritis, asthma and insomnia," said Rosenfeld.
An estimated 2.3 million U.S. adults have done tai chi in the past 12 months, according to a 2007 National Health Interview Survey.
The practice is not perfect. Tai chi "does not supply the cardiovascular component that we'd be looking for in a well-rounded routine," said Jessica Matthews, a San Diego, California-based exercise physiologist. "The exertion level, while challenging, is not going to increase your heart rate."

'GRAND ULTIMATE MOTION'
T'ai chi ch'uan, as it is formally known, derives from a form of Chinese martial arts. Explaining the slow, circular movement of the practice, Rosenfeld said tai chi is a philosophical term that means the harmonious interplay of opposing forces.
When nature encounters a strong force, the way it answers that force to maintain harmony in the world is with a spiral, he said. "Astronomers see galaxies moving in spirals, water goes down the drain in a spiral, tornados form as a spiral. We spiral in tai chi because the most effective way to move fluid through solid is a spiral."
Hawaii-based personal and group-fitness trainer Jordan Forth, who has studied tai chi since 2006, said one translation of tai chi is "grand ultimate motion."
"I recommend it to everybody," said Forth. "It teaches people to move well in multiple planes of motion with a state of awareness not cultivated in everyday fitness. Most people check out on a treadmill or during high-intensity activity."
Forth said tai chi improves mobility, movement and flexibility and can be even more dynamic than yoga, which the 35-year-old has studied since he was a teenager.
"With tai chi you're grounded the entire time," he said. "For me, (it) translates more into functional everyday movement."
Matthews, who is also a spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise, said because tai chi is slow motion and low impact, many assume it's just for older people or not a viable means of exercise.
Not so, she said: Research studies have found that the practice increased mineral bone density, boosted endurance, strengthened the lower body, and eased depression.
(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Walsh)

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/tai-chi-fitness-chinese-exercise-age-health_n_3452006.html

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Treatment of mental illness lowers arrest rates, saves money

June 10, 2013 ? Research from North Carolina State University, the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and the University of South Florida shows that outpatient treatment of mental illness significantly reduces arrest rates for people with mental health problems and saves taxpayers money.

"This study shows that providing mental health care is not only in the best interest of people with mental illness, but in the best interests of society," says Dr. Sarah Desmarais, an assistant professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research.

The researchers wanted to determine the extent to which treating mental illness can keep people with mental health problems out of trouble with the law. It is well established that people with mental health problems, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, make up a disproportionate percentage of defendants, inmates and others who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

The researchers identified 4,056 people who had been hospitalized for mental illness in 2004 or 2005 and then tracked them from 2005 to 2012. The researchers were able to determine which individuals were receiving government-subsidized medication and which were receiving government-subsidized outpatient services, such as therapy. The researchers were also able to determine who was arrested during the seven-year study period.

"Our research shows that people receiving medication were significantly less likely to be arrested," Desmarais says. "Outpatient services also resulted in a decreased likelihood of arrest."

The researchers also compared criminal justice costs with mental health treatment costs. Individuals who were arrested received less treatment and each cost the government approximately $95,000 during the study period. Individuals who were not arrested received more treatment and each cost the government approximately $68,000 during the study period.

"It costs about $10 less per day to provide treatment and prevent crime. That's a good investment," Desmarais says.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/uDriAw3hxvg/130610112722.htm

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It's Official: Google Buys Waze Reportedly For $1B, Giving A Social Data Boost To Its Mapping Business

After months of speculation, the fate of Waze, the social-mapping-location-data startup, is finally decided: Google is buying the company, giving the search giant a social boost to its already-strong mapping and mobile businesses. Speculation has had it at $1 billion to $1.3 billion, but so far there is no price on the deal. In any event, it's a doubly strategic move. Google's purchase comes in the wake of what appeared to be failed negotiations between the Israel-based startup two big rivals of the search giant: Facebook, which was eyeing up the company but apparently faltered at the due dilligence phase; and Apple (neither company ever publicly confirmed interest in acquiring Waze).

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bV6Z-CLi5WM/

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Republican IRS agent says Cincinnati began 'Tea Party' inquiries

By David Morgan and Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Internal Revenue Service manager, who described himself as a conservative Republican, told congressional investigators that he and a local colleague decided to give conservative groups the extra scrutiny that has prompted weeks of political controversy.

In an official interview transcript released on Sunday by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, the manager said he and an underling set aside "Tea Party" and "patriot" groups that had applied for tax-exempt status because the organizations appeared to pose a new precedent that could affect future IRS filings.

Cummings, top Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducting the probe, told CNN's "State of the Union" program that the manager's comments provided evidence that politics was not behind IRS actions that have fueled a month-long furor in Washington.

"He is a conservative Republican working for the IRS. I think this interview and these statements go a long way toward showing that the White House was not involved in this," Cummings told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"Based upon everything I've seen, the case is solved. And if it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on," he added.

Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said he would release a full transcript of the committee's interviews with IRS officials by the end of this week, if the panel's Republican chairman, Representative Darrell Issa, does not.

Issa has released his own excerpts of interviews with IRS employees the committee is conducting jointly, which the Republican says suggests the added attention given to Tea Party groups originated from Washington, D.C. and had political motivations.

Issa vowed to press ahead with the investigation and said the IRS manager's comments "did not provide anything enlightening or contradict other witness accounts."

"I strongly disagree with ... Cummings' assertion that we know everything we need to know about inappropriate targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS," the California Republican said in a statement released by his office.

Revelations that the tax agency set aside conservative groups for scrutiny has raised a political furor over the past month, leading President Barack Obama to fire the IRS commissioner. The House oversight panel, several other congressional committees and the FBI have launched investigations.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a report on the matter last month finding no evidence of involvement beyond IRS officials.

Still, Republicans have raised questions about whether the scrutiny was directed politically at Obama's opponents and have sought evidence of any White House involvement.

The House oversight committee has now completed five lengthy interviews with IRS employees, including four based in the Cincinnati office where applications for tax exempt status are handled.

Cummings said congressional investigators now know what happened based on these interviews.

CINCINNATI SOUGHT ADVICE FROM WASHINGTON

The excerpts of interviews with IRS workers released by Cummings indicate that the IRS manager and an underling first decided to contact Washington, D.C. IRS officials for guidance on the cases from groups aligned with the anti-tax Tea Party movement.

They did so to consolidate them, as they might be precedent-setting for future cases, the manager said, according to the interview transcripts.

It was an unidentified Cincinnati IRS worker who reported to the manager, identified as John Shafer by committee aides, who identified the first Tea Party case. That individual has not been interviewed by the committee yet.

Investigators asked Shafer if he believed the decision to centralize the screening of Tea Party applications was intended to target "the president's political enemies."

"I do not believe that the screening of these cases had anything to do, other than consistency and identifying issues that needed to have further development," the manager answered, according to a transcript released by Cummings.

Asked if he believed the White House was involved, the manager replied: "I have no reason to believe that."

John Shafer could not be reached for comment.

"They wanted to make sure that it was handled in a way whereby when other cases came behind it that were similar, that they would be treated in a consistent way," the lawmaker said.

Another Cincinnati screener who worked for Shafer, Gary Muthert, indicated in committee interviews released in part by Issa last week, that "Washington wanted some cases," to review.

Democratic committee staff said Muthert's involvement came later, after the initial screener and Shafer first sought advice from Washington about the legal aspects of the newly-emerging cases.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Kim Dixon; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Theodore d'Afflisio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/democrat-irs-testimony-shows-no-white-house-involvement-162842119.html

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Victim of Santa Monica shooting leaves hospital

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) ? A woman who was critically wounded in the Santa Monica shooting spree died Sunday, bringing the total number of victims killed by the gunman to five.

Marcela Franco, 26, died of her injuries at UCLA Medical Center, according to Santa Monica College spokeswoman Tricia Ramos.

Franco had been a passenger in a Ford Explorer driven by her father, campus groundskeeper Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, who also was killed in Friday's attack. They were going to the school to buy textbooks for classes the young woman was enrolled in for the summer, president Chui L. Tsang said in a statement posted on the college's website.

"Her family was with her by her side" when she died, Tsang said.

Meanwhile, the husband of a woman shot during last week's deadly rampage in Santa Monica said a bullet nicked his wife's ear and she'll likely have to live with shrapnel in her shoulder.

Debra Lynn Fine, 50, was released in good condition late Saturday from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to a hospital statement.

Bullets missed his wife's vital organs by inches, Russell Fine told The Associated Press Sunday.

"She will have some shrapnel for the rest of her life," he said. "One bullet clipped her right ear and took some small bit with it. She will probably have some reconstructive surgery for that."

She was resting at home.

Investigators trying to determine why the gunman planned the shooting spree were focusing on a deadly act of domestic violence that touched off the mayhem.

The heavily armed man's attack against his own family at their home led to the violence in Santa Monica streets, lasting just a matter of minutes until he was shot to death in a chaotic scene at the college library by police.

Investigators were looking at family connections to find a motive because the killer's father and brother were the first victims, an official briefed on the probe who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly told The Associated Press.

The killer, who died a day shy of his 24th birthday, was connected to a home that went up in flames after the first shootings, said police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks.

Police were not naming the shooter or the two men found dead in the house because next of kin was out of the country and hadn't been notified. Neighbors and colleagues of the boys' mother said she was visiting family in Lebanon.

SWAT team officers searched the mother's Los Angeles apartment and officers interviewed neighbors about the son who lived with her, said Beverly Meadows who lives in the adjoining unit.

Public records show that Meadows' neighbor is Randa Abdou, 54, the ex-wife of Samir Zawahri and former co-owner of the house where the first shooting took place.

Abdou wasn't expected home for another week, Meadows said. It wasn't clear if the son who lived with Abdou was a victim or the suspected gunman.

Zawahri, 55, brought his family to the neighborhood of small homes and apartment buildings tucked up against Interstate 10 in the mid-1990s, according to property records.

Not long after arriving on Yorkshire Avenue, the couple went through a difficult divorce and split custody of their two boys, said Thomas O'Rourke, a neighbor.

When the sons got older, one went to live with his mother while the other stayed with the father.

Standing next to the weapons and ammo found at multiple crime scenes, Seabrooks said at a Saturday news conference that the "cowardly murderer" planned the attack and was capable of firing 1,300 rounds.

The killer had a run-in with police seven years ago, but Seabrooks wouldn't offer more details because he was a juvenile at the time.

The gunman was enrolled at Santa Monica College in 2010, Seabrooks said.

After neighbors watched in shock as he shot at his father's house and it went up in flames, he opened fire on a woman driving by, wounding her, and then carjacked another woman.

He directed her to drive to the college, ordering her stop along the way to shoot at a city bus and people on the street. Two people on the bus were injured.

Police had received multiple 911 calls by the time the mayhem shifted to the college, a two-year school with about 34,000 students located more than a mile inland from the city's famous pier, promenade and expansive, sandy beaches.

On campus, he opened fired on a Ford Explorer driven by Navarro Franco, who plowed through a brick wall into a faculty parking lot.

Joe Orcutt heard gunshots and went to see what happened in the parking lot. He said he saw the Explorer in the brick wall and was looking for the shooter when, suddenly, there he was 30 feet away firing at people like it was target practice.

The gunman then moved on foot across campus, firing away. Students were seen leaping out windows of a classroom building and running for their lives. Others locked themselves behind doors or bolted out of emergency exits.

Trena Johnson, who works in the dean's office, heard gunshots and looked out the window and saw a man in black with a "very large gun" shoot a woman in the head outside the library. That victim was transported to a hospital, where she died.

At some point, police say the gunman dropped an Adidas duffel bag loaded with ammunition magazines, boxes of bullets and a .44 revolver. Police also found a small cache of ammunition in a room in the burned-out house.

Surveillance photos showed the gunman in black strolling past a cart of books into the library with an assault-style rifle by his side.

The shooter fired at least 70 rounds in the library. Miraculously, no one was injured until two Santa Monica police officers and a campus cop arrived and took out the shooter.

The Santa Monica College Foundation has started the Carlos Franco Family Memorial Fund.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this story. Tami Abdollah can be reached at: http://www.twitter.com/latams

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/victim-santa-monica-shooting-leaves-hospital-224215994.html

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Army leaders walk fine line as Afghan advisers

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FINLEY-SHIELDS, Afghanistan (AP) ? ? In previous years, the U.S. Army would have helped the Afghan National Army if their troops had run out of fuel or money or run into some other logistical problem, but with the U.S. getting ready for a significant withdrawal, the Americans are teaching the Afghans to rely on themselves.

The U.S. military's new role of trying to train and mentor a young Afghan army comes after nearly 12 years of war. U.S. troops have borne most of the fighting over the past decade, but now the Afghan military is taking the brunt of the fighting against a resilient insurgency while the U.S. takes on more of an advisory role.

It is a daunting task for both countries.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Matthew Stader usually commands a field artillery battalion, but this year he's leading a team of military advisers in eastern Afghanistan for an Afghan National Army brigade.

"With advising, you can't be the one that fixes everything," Stader said.

Since the Afghans are adept at fighting, patrolling and searching for weapons or insurgents, the U.S. Army is helping them with logistics, training and leadership that will have to support about 352,000 Afghan military troops after 2014. To that end, the American advisers are walking a fine line to counsel, but not fix the more sophisticated problems that still plague the Afghan military.

Stader recalled when the country's military was a fraction of its current size and had far less tactical skills. Now he recently congratulated his counterpart, Brig. Gen. Dadan Luwang, on a recent successful air assault operation in the western district of Hesarak in Nangarhar Province that involved nearly 200 Afghan troops.

"My brigade is getting more capable every day," Luwang said.

He is a gregarious former Afghan special forces officer who is leading the 4th Brigade of the 201st Corps, one of the Afghan National Army's newest brigades. Stader and his team of nearly two dozen advisers make daily trips to Luwang's brigade headquarters near Jalalabad to help him plan operations, track the brigade's progress and develop leadership among their young officers and soldiers. Additional advisers from his team are spread throughout the province to assist with the brigade's smaller units.

The complex and cultural differences between the two militaries can create friction. The Americans have a very deliberate planning style, but the Afghan brigadier general has different motivations, Stader said.

"We are by nature very aggressive," he said. "He's concerned about surviving."

The majority of U.S. and coalition forces are expected to begin a significant drawdown later this year, leaving Afghan forces in charge of security across the country. Afghanistan is gearing up for a presidential election next spring, and the Taliban have not yet accepted an offer to engage in peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar.

There currently are about 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. The U.S. troop total is scheduled to drop to about 32,000 by early next year.

While there has been no final decision on the size of the post-2014 force, U.S. and NATO leaders say they are considering a range of between 8,000 and 12,000 ? most of them trainers and advisers.

Most U.S. combat troops have already been replaced by teams of mentors and advisers, while brigade-size combat teams have shrunk and support smaller teams in the field. In the east, there are six such smaller brigades and about 76 teams of advisers. Countrywide, there are 13 such brigades and 381 advisory teams.

The advisers track their Afghan partner's expenditures, equipment, ammunition and other maintenance issues. They know when the unit is selling fuel in the local village, or when soldiers are sleeping on the job. They know the good leaders from the toxic ones. They make sure paperwork and requests for supplies don't get lost at military headquarters.

But progress in Afghanistan can be frustratingly slow for the U.S. Army, whose ranks are full of headstrong personalities that want to lead the fight, not sit in the background.

Stader personally picked soldiers and officers from his 2nd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division to come on this deployment, leaving about half back at home at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Many of his soldiers have multiple combat deployments, but this role was more challenging for some.

"They get down there and they don't see any progress because it's like watching grass grow," he said. "This is a hard mission to define clear success as an adviser."

In the Shinwar district of Nangarhar Province, U.S. Army Capt. Nicholas Drake and his team have been advising the brigade's 2nd Kandak, a unit about the size of a battalion. The previous kandak commander wasn't very good at leading his staff and many key leaders were leaving.

A new kandak commander, Lt. Col. Mohammed Bashir, was appointed about two-thirds of the way into Drake's nine-month deployment. Drake, 28, of Calabasas, Calif., wishes he had more time to work with the new commander.

"It takes time to build a rapport," Drake said. "Our whole job is to know the kandak."

The advisers keep a careful eye on the Afghan operations and are always willing to lend a hand in an emergency, but they try not to interfere or impose decisions on the Afghans.

When the Afghan troops got into two firefights in one day, the advisers listened and watched as reports were called in by radio and cellphone to the kandak's operations center. One kandak soldier was killed and others were injured.

Bashir said he was determined to hit the insurgents back and vowed to send more soldiers the following day to thoroughly search the village where they were attacked.

"Next time when he gets in contact with his enemy, he is going to follow them even if it takes 24 hours," Bashir said through a translator interpreting his comments to Drake.

Drake shifts the conversation and wants the commander to focus on planning operations based on intelligence, a tactic American advisers are trying to encourage the Afghans to use.

He points out that historically the insurgents have placed bombs near the base very early in the morning. Drake suggested the kandak could send some soldiers out to patrol around the base to try to catch them. Bashir agreed, and then decided he would also set up additional checkpoints on the road leading to the base.

The following day the kandak gathers together to hold a short memorial service to honor the slain soldier.

The Afghan soldiers stand at attention, but Bashir allows them to sit cross-legged as he gives them a short speech in which he says they should have surrounded the enemy fighters instead of letting them flee. He told them they were brave, but then reminded them to wear their helmets.

The Afghans will still be fighting insurgents long after the Americans leave, but the advisers are hopeful.

"The kandak will be successful not if they kill all the Taliban," Drake said. "It will be successful if they outlast the Taliban."

__

Follow Kristin Hall on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kmhall

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/army-leaders-walk-fine-line-afghan-advisers-153820954.html

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Was IRS targeting limited to Cincinnati office?

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congressional investigators are starting to see cracks in the Internal Revenue Service argument that a small group of agents in the Cincinnati office solely targeted conservative political groups.

Investigators, who are still in the early stages of their probe, have not uncovered any direct evidence that senior officials in Washington ordered the agents to target tea party groups, or why they may have done so.

But two agents in the IRS's Cincinnati office say they believe their work was being closely monitored by higher-ups in Washington. One agent, Elizabeth Hofacre, complained to investigators that she was being micromanaged by Washington when she processed applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups, according to a transcript of her interview with investigators.

Her interview suggests a long trail of emails that could support her claim.

"It was demeaning," Hofacre said. "One of the criteria is to work independently and do research and make decisions based on your experience and education, whereas on this case, I had no autonomy at all through the process."

The revelation could prove to be significant if investigators are able to show that Washington officials were involved in singling out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. IRS officials have said repeatedly that the targeting was initiated by front-line agents in the Cincinnati office and was stopped once senior officials in Washington found out.

A yearlong audit by the agency's inspector general found no evidence that Washington officials ordered or authorized the targeting. However, the inspector general blamed ineffective management by senior IRS officials for allowing the targeting to continue for nearly two years during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

In the latest IRS personnel move in the wake of the episode, the agency has replaced one official who helped oversee the workers who process applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status.

An internal IRS announcement said Friday that Karen Schiller will have that job starting Monday. Until now that post has been held by Holly Paz.

According to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Paz was involved in an internal IRS investigation that in May 2012 essentially concluded that the agency had been targeting conservative groups. That was a year before the IRS revealed the targeting publicly.

Paz has been a top deputy to Lois Lerner, a Washington official who oversaw the Cincinnati IRS division that processed conservative groups' applications.

Friday's announcement did not address Paz's status. Since President Barack Obama made Danny Werfel the new IRS chief last month, some IRS workers have been put on administrative leave, including Lerner.

Three congressional committees and the Justice Department are also investigating. Investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have interviewed at least four IRS workers as part of their probe, including Paz.

The Associated Press viewed transcripts of interviews with two IRS agents working in the Cincinnati office.

Gary Muthert, an IRS agent there, said his local supervisor told him in March 2010 to check the applications for tax-exempt status to see how many were from groups with "tea party" in their names. The supervisor's name was blacked out in the transcript.

"He told me that Washington, D.C., wanted some cases," Muthert said of his supervisor.

Muthert said he came up with fewer than 10 applications. But after checking some of the group's websites, he noticed similar groups with "patriots" or "9-12 project" in their names, so he started looking for applications that mentioned those terms too.

Over a two-month period, Muthert said he found about 40 applications that mentioned tea party, patriots or 9-12 project ? the latter being groups that aspire to re-instill a post-9/11 spirit of unity in the country.

Muthert said his supervisor told him that someone in Washington wanted to see seven of the applications, so Muthert prepared the files.

Muthert did not respond to multiple requests by the AP for comment.

The IRS was screening the groups' applications because agents were trying to determine their level of political activity. IRS regulations say tax-exempt social welfare organizations may engage in some political activity but the activity may not be their primary mission. It is up to the IRS to make that determination.

Then-Commissioner Doug Shulman and Steven Miller, who was a top deputy at the time, told Congress that they didn't learn about tea party groups being targeted until the spring of 2012. They said they didn't come forward publicly until this year because the agency's inspector general was investigating the matter.

The inspector general's report said Lerner, who headed the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, had been briefed on the targeting in June 2011. She ordered the initial tea party criteria to be scrapped, but it later evolved to include groups that promoted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the report said.

Lerner is the IRS official who first publicly disclosed the targeting at a legal conference in Washington on May 10.

Hofacre, who also works in the Cincinnati office, told investigators she was in charge of processing applications from tea party groups ? once they were selected by other agents ? from April 2010 to October 2010. Hofacre said her supervisor in Cincinnati, whose name was blacked out in the transcript, told her to handle the applications.

But, she said, an IRS lawyer in Washington, Carter Hull, micromanaged her work and ultimately delayed the processing of applications by tea party groups.

Neither Hofacre nor Hull responded to requests for comment.

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Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irs-targeting-limited-cincinnati-office-165011146.html

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