The chaperone of a teenage cheerleader who fell to her death from a hotel balcony in Hawaii while drunk has been ordered to pay nearly $700,000.
Arbitrator Gerald Sekiya says in his decision May 23 that Susanne Sadler must pay the family and estate of 18-year-old Lauren Crossan.
The …
Kimberly Witzke was awakened from a deep sleep in her West Sidehome this morning by a desperate pawing at her mid-section.
It was her dog, Baby, who sensed something was wrong.
Witzke, 43, got up from her bed just before 5:30 and "smelledsomething funny," she said.
She determined the smell was smoke but didn't know where it wascoming from.
She looked for source rather casually until she opened the doorto her basement.
As she looked downstairs into the garage area, thick, black smokebegan filling the stairwell. She noticed her car was on fire.
"The whole ceiling was engulfed," Witzke said.
That's when she dialed 911 and got her dog out …
Pfleger backs consumer service chief in fair cab plan
Under attack by some taxicab drivers because she's demanding they serve minority communities, St. Sabina's Father Michael L. Pfleger Sunday stood with Consumer Services Commissioner Caroline Shoenberger at his church and strongly supported her plan to end racial profiling of passengers.
During a press conference held at the church, 1210 W. 78th Pl., Pfleger praised Shoenberger's plan that forces cabbies to service underserved communities.
Looking at the commissioner, who stayed the entire service, Pfleger said: "You stand tall and don't bow to these taxicab drivers. They have an obligation to respect every …
A suicide bomber struck a crowd of curiosity seekers gathered around the site of another blast in north Baghdad and a total of 11 people were killed and 35 wounded in the two explosions, police said.
The twin blasts occurred moments apart during the morning rush hour in the Kasrah section of Azamiyah neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.
Police said the first explosion occurred in a car. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.
Police were unsure how many people died in the car and how many were killed by the second blast. Police officials who gave the toll …
Matt Cain gave up one hit over eight innings, Juan Uribe hit a three-run homer and the San Francisco Giants beat the Colorado Rockies 6-1 on Saturday.
Aubrey Huff and Bengie Molina also homered while helping the Giants improve to 6-2 on their current nine-game homestand.
Cain struck out eight and walked three, allowing only a fourth-inning double to Troy Tulowitzki while earning his first win of the season. He also had a two-out, bunt single in the sixth for his hit of 2010.
Cain (1-1) won for the first time since Sept. 27, 2009, throwing 123 pitches _ his most since 125 against Florida on Aug. 20, 2008. He left to a standing ovation after the …
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Authorities began a top-to-bottom cleaning of aprison after an inmate died of a blood infection and 72 others werefound with skin lesions.
Sean Schwamberger, 19, died Tuesday at a hospital, where he wassent April 20 after passing out in the exercise yard at PickawayCorrectional Institution. His lesions were the result of a staphinfection, said Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis.
Schwamberger had a tattoo in progress on his right arm, whereLewis said the infection probably entered his body.
Prison health officials examined each of the prison's more than2,100 inmates on Friday, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for theDepartment of Rehabilitation …
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank's president is prodding European leaders to quickly implement weeks-old decisions to increase the firepower of their rescue fund.
A European summit last month agreed on a second bailout package for Greece and measures to increase the firepower of the bloc's rescue fund, the €440 billion ($600 billion) European Financial Stability …
BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Switzerland defender Scott Sutter has joined FC Zurich on loan for the rest of the season after falling out of favor at Young Boys.
Young Boys says in a statement that it wishes Sutter luck after he was no longer a first choice for coach …
BERLIN
Pia R�nicke
CROY NIELSEN
The private correspondence of Rosa Luxemburg lies at the heart of Pia R�nicke's Rosa's Letters - Telling a Story, 2006. Yet telling the story of this complex multimedia installation might prove more challenging than narrating the life of Luxemburg, the Marxist leader who was often imprisoned for her political activities and then murdered by Freicorps militia in Berlin in 191 9. While alluding to the official public history, R�nicke restaged her own subjective "appropriation" of letters that Luxemburg wrote to her lovers and friends between 1891 and 1918. Instead of one story, there are two: the past and its transmission to the …
In extreme Northern California, far from the bright lights of Hollywood and the foggy charms of San Francisco, is a place unknown to most people: a handful of counties that once sought to make themselves into a separate state called Jefferson.
The idea lasted only a few days in 1941 before it was quashed by the attack on Pearl Harbor. But for a few who remember its history, the movement embodies the mindset of this sparsely populated country that still longs for more autonomy.
"We've always fostered an independent streak up here," said Pete LaFortune, executive director of the Chamber of …
Dads can multi-skill as much as mums - no sweat!
Scottish "24-hour man" takes on more than 14 roles each day tojuggle, work, home, family and …
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal indictment has been unsealed that accuses a Latino street gang of conspiring to rid a Southern California city of black people through intimidation, threats and violence.
More than 50 people were charged Tuesday as authorities made morning raids that targeted the gang known as Azusa 13.
Federal prosecutors said the gang engaged in a host of crimes ranging from drug trafficking to hate crimes that has crippled Azusa since the early 1990s.
Six people have been charged with civil rights violations for allegedly harassing, and in some cases attacking, African Americans to drive them out of the city or to prevent them from relocating there.
More than two-thirds of Azusa, located 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, is Hispanic, while roughly 3 percent is black.
People who never drink spend more time in hospitals thandrinkers, according to a study at the Harvard School of PublicHealth. Researchers studied health data on 17,600 people.Respondents were asked about drinking habits and hospitalizationstays the previous year. Men and women who abstained from alcoholall their lives were hospitalized more often and for longer periodsthan people who drink. But this doesn't necessarily mean thatalcohol protects health. The hospitalizations could affect drinkingbehavior, or cause people to recall their drinking historydifferently, the researchers said.
A big piece of pi. A Japanese researcher has calculated pi, theratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, to a record 201million digits. To write out pi to this value would fill more than15,000 magazine pages. The calculation by Yasumasa Kanada of theUniversity of Tokyo took six hours on a supercomputer. He wants toreach 400 million digits next year. "It's like Mt. Everest," he toldScience News. "I do it because it's there." Pi has an infinitenumber of digits. There's little practical use to calculating itbeyond 10 digits. However, Kanada says computing pi is one way totest the speed and accuracy of new computers and to compare differentcomputers.
Declining tooth decay. Americans' teeth are in their best shapeever. A recent study of 21,000 adults found that Americans have moreteeth with fewer cavities than any time in history. Few people inmiddle age lose their teeth any more. A follow-up study by theNational Institude of Dental Health on 39,156 children is expected tobring even better news next month. Previous studies suggest thatnearly 40 percent of children don't get cavities. Fluoridation ofthe water supplies of 130 million people has reduced cavities 50 to70 percent. With less work to do, dental schools are producing fewergraduates.
Cockroach allergy. As many as 75 million Americans may beallergic to cockroaches, according to a University of Floridaresearcher. That includes more than half of the 17 million Americanswho have asthma. Bacteria that roaches crawl over, pick up andspread make people "wheeze and sneeze, cough and sniffle, andbasically feel miserable," said insect scientist Philip Koehler.Some species also emit a noxious secretion that can cause severe skinirritations and vertigo. And in rare cases, a roach can bring onanaphylactic shock, which can cause breathing difficulties, rapidhearbeat, falling blood pressure and sometimes heart failure,Discover magazine reports.
50 years of Teflon. Du Pont Co. is celebrating the 50thanniversary of the discovery of Teflon, the world's slipperiestsubstance. Du Pont chemist Roy Plunkett discovered the material bymistake while doing an unsuccessful experiment on refigeration gases.Teflon was used in making the first atom bomb, and remained amilitary secret until after World War II. Teflon has coated anestimated 500 million pots and pans. But cookware makes up less than5 percent of Teflon's use. Teflon has been used in everything fromclothes and electronics to the Apollo moon shots and the Statue ofLiberty repairs. It even has become a derogatory nickname forPresident Reagan, because criticism doesn't stick to him. But DuPont says Teflon is a registered trademark, and shouldn't be used asan adjective, as in "Teflon president." Commentators instead shouldsay "president made of Teflon."
Cornbread without crumbs. Government researchers have figuredout how to make cornbread that isn't crumbly. Instead ofcoarse-ground corn meal, the new bread from U. S. AgricultureDepartment ovens in Peoria contains a 50-50 blend of fine-ground cornflour and wheat bread flour. It has a delicate flavor and richgolden color, with a texture like that of some coarse-texturedbreads. "It really enhances the taste of a sandwich with turkey,swiss cheese and alfalfa sprouts," said USDA researcher KathleenWarner. "It also makes good toast." The cornbread likely will besold in speciality bakeries, delis and restaurants. Pre-mixes maybecome available some day for home baking, Warner said. -
Reversing a decade-long trend, many of the largest U.S. cities are now growing more quickly than the rest of the nation, yet another sign of an economic crisis that is making it harder for people to move.
Census data released Wednesday highlight a city resurgence in coastal regions and areas of the Midwest and Northeast, due to a housing crunch, recession and higher gas prices that have slowed migration to far-flung suburbs and residential hotspots in the South and West.
The 2008 population figures show New York and Chicago made gains from higher births, while Philadelphia stanched population losses from earlier in the decade. Also showing rebounds were industrial centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., Columbus, Ohio, and Lincoln, Neb., with economies focused on finance, health care, information technology or education. Detroit, with its ailing auto industry, declined.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, all on the West Coast, registered growth, boosted prtly by orig-brn imiratswh mve itoan sayd n atwa ctis. In contrast, former hotspot areas in Nevada and Arizona had significant slowdowns, as well as inland regions in California.
"Cities are showing a continued vitality as hubs of activity even as some suburban and exurban areas go through tough times," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "It emphasizes the buoyancy of large established cities with diverse economies and populations."
Frey and other demographers said many of the population shifts could be longer-lasting. They noted that while the Sunbelt region is still growing, it is unlikely to return to the torrid growth rates of earlier in the decade before the housing bubble burst.
President Barack Obama has pledged to upgrade mass transit and push energy conservation, high-speed rail and other urban priorities. That could create shifts in residential patterns and city life, especially for younger couples and small families more likely to move.
"Suburban sprawl may not be dead, but it's certainly on hiatus," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau. "Even if the economy recovered tomorrow, it might take a while for people to change their behavior. Attitudes just don't change overnight."
Robert E. Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, predicted that upscale, inner suburbs with developed transit systems will see bigger gains in the future. He noted that while far-flung exurbs have been declining in population growth, closer-in suburbs such as Virginia's Arligtn ndAlxadra ousie asinto, .C, umed3 eren and 2.9percent in 2008, respectively, to rank among the 20 fastest-growing cities.
New York continued to be the most populous U.S. city, with 8.4 million residents. Los Angeles ranked second at 3.8 million.
___
Associated Press writer Frank Bass contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
"America exists," says Rodriguez with some exasperation. "I'man American."
Just recently, when he was in Chicago to promote the newpaperback edition of his book, Days of Obligation: An Argument WithMy Mexican Father (Penguin, $11), a woman followed him out ofWaterstone's book store on North Michigan Avenue.
"She trailed me down the street, shouting at me. She keptsaying, `You're not Mexican,' and I said, `No, I'm not. I'm anAmerican,' " he says.
But the 48-year-old Rodriguez does write almost obsessively -and powerfully - about his Mexican heritage.
His musings in two books on life as a gay, Roman Catholic,middle-class Mexican-American have set him on a tangent from hisoriginal path toward a career as a professor of English Renaissanceliterature.
The son of immigrants who met and married here, Rodriguezabandoned his academic trajectory 12 years ago as a newly mintedPh.D. after studying at Stanford and Columbia, the Warburg Institutein London, and Berkeley, when he received "20 or 30 job offers,"while many of his white male fellow graduates got none.
"I thought I knew what that was about," Rodriguez says. "I wasgoing to take the job at Yale, but then I had a crisis. If thetables had been turned, if they had been getting this stack of offersand I had got none, it would have been very offensive to me. So Ileft teaching in a quiet protest against affirmative action, and Iwon't go back as long as affirmative action is in place in theAmerican university."
He worked for a year in an advertising agency, where he realized"that for this little moral principle, I was jeopardizing a greatdeal. I got really scared, and I began to write to keep myselfintellectually alive. That was the birth of the writer."
In his first book, Hunger of Memory, Rodriguez took on thesacred cow of bilingual education, voicing his reflexive horror atthe "ludicrous kind of sentimentality" that leads to what he sees asthe disenfranchisement of minority students from their rightful placeas full participants in American life.
"The classroom has no business teaching you to be proud of beingMexican; that's your grandmother's business," he says.
After the book came out, "People said I was a man who had losthis culture. I'm seen as kind of a traitor (to the Mexican-Americancommunity)," he says. That response persists: Recently, he says,Hispanic teachers in Dallas tried to have Hunger of Memory taken offthe high school reading list.
Says Rodriguez, "I am skeptical about the way we treatminorities in this country. We talk so much about race andmulticulturalism that we lose sight of the importance of class. Weneed to improve the education of the poor - all the poor." Andwhile, he says, "the idea that there is not a white lower class inthis country is grotesque," Rodriguez also notes that the schooldropout rate among Hispanic students is "much higher than for whitesor blacks."
Rodriguez, who spoke only Spanish until he was 5 ("I spokeSpanish the way a white kid in Appalachia speaks English," he says),himself went to Catholic schools in Sacramento, Calif., where theIrish Sisters of Mercy "forced the apple of English against my mouthand made me eat it. They wouldn't let me go until I believed it wasmine. Those Irish nuns forced me to imagine myself as an American,as someone who belonged."
Rodriguez thinks it is a great tragedy when any Americanchildren miss out on that. He talks about reporting a story in EastLos Angeles about some Mexican-American gang members, whose worldview, he found, was confined to the few blocks where they could weartheir gang colors without being shot at.
He asked one if he would like to visit New York, and the youngman replied, "What would I do in New York, man? I'm Mexican."
Says Rodriguez, "How can he be Mexican? He doesn't know hisway to the beaches in the city where he was born" - Los Angeles.
About Days of Obligation, Rodriguez says, "I really wrote thisbook about religion, about what it was like growing up a Catholic,and an Indian Catholic at that, in a Protestant country."
One lovely essay called "India" deals among other subjects withthe appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Indian convert JuanDiego at Guadalupe, and strikes a recurring theme in the book - thatit is not the European sensibility but rather the Indian one that hastriumphed in the meeting of two cultures in Mexico.
Sophisticated readers of the story may assume that the Spanishinvented the event to dupe the Indians into accepting Christianity,which they did, en masse after the miracle, Rodriguez says.
But he writes: "The faith that Europe imposed in the 16thcentury was, by virtue of the Guadalupe, embraced by the Indian.Catholicism has become an Indian religion. By the 21st century, thelocus of the Catholic Church, by virtue of numbers, will be LatinAmerica, by which time Catholicism itself will have assumed theaspect of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Brown skin."
Rodriguez says that in the United States, for American Catholicsof his generation, there has also been a meeting of two cultures, onethat has never been fully resolved.
That coming out of the "16th century classroom" into "an Americain which we were on our own, where we were encouraged to questionauthority, where we could be anything we wanted, where what you dowith your body is your business - all these great Protestant ideas -is a drama that has never been discussed."
Rodriguez spent a couple of years at the Union TheologicalSeminary in New York - not preparing to become a minister, he says,but "looking for America."
That still is his mission, or at least a major part of it, as hesees it. Rodriguez maintains two homes: He writes in San Francisco,but he spends a lot of time in Los Angeles, which he sees as "thecultural capital of America."
He says, "I'm very grateful to the American Protestant culturefor my ambition and my sexual freedom - I would not be `out' inMexico" as a homosexual.
But he still reserves a great portion of his gratitude for theSisters of Mercy.
"I believe I became a writer because of that linguistic changein my life. I have been haunted by it ever since, that leaving onelanguage for another. For me, it was leaving home, moving into thegreat city, realizing myself as a public person."
Says Rodriguez, "Americans like to talk about the importance offamily values. But America isn't a country of family values; Mexicois a country of family values. This is a country of people wholeave home."
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Mike Scott had 27 points and 15 rebounds, and Virginia used a big opening run to roll over Oklahoma 74-56 in the loser's bracket of the Maui Invitational on Tuesday.
Virginia (3-2) bounced back after a lopsided loss to No. 13 Washington in the first round, building a 15-point halftime lead after its hot-shooting start and hitting 11 of 21 shots in the second half to prevent the Sooners from rallying.
Will Sherrill added 11 points for the Cavaliers, who move on to the fifth-place game against Wichita State.
Oklahoma (3-2) had an opposite turnaround from the opening round, struggling at both ends after playing No. 8 Kentucky close. Reserve Tyler Neal had 16 points and Cade Davis finished with 15 for the Sooners, who had 17 turnovers that led to 24 points for Virginia.
The Cavaliers did almost nothing right in their tournament-opening blowout loss to Washington.
They shot poorly, hitting 4 of 16 from 3-point range, were plagued by sloppy turnovers while falling into a big hole early and had no chance of stopping the Huskies' shooters. Washington shot 59 percent and hit a school-record 17 from long range to bury Virginia 106-63, the Cavaliers' second straight lopsided loss.
The Cavaliers looked a lot better against an Oklahoma team that has talent, just not a lot of experience.
The young Sooners — seven of the top eight scorers are underclassmen — held their ground against one of the nation's most talented teams, rallying nearly all the way back from an 18-point deficit before falling 76-64 against No. 8 Kentucky.
Oklahoma's biggest problem was matching up with Wildcats phenom freshman Terrence Jones, who made it look easy at times on his way to 29 points and 13 rebounds.
Virginia doesn't have anyone as dynamic as the 6-foot-8 Jones, but it does have some shooters, as the Sooners quickly found out.
The Cavaliers scored the game's first 12 points and hit six of their first nine shots, opening with a 16-2 lead. They took much better care of the ball, too, turning it over once in the first half — nine total — after 12 in the opening 20 minutes against Kentucky.
Scott had his way inside, scoring 14 by halftime, and hit 13 of 15 free throws overall when the Sooners were forced to foul because they couldn't stop him.
Virginia was better defensively, too, hounding the Sooners into three turnovers and two missed shots their first five possessions, limiting their scoring to Davis and Andrew Fitzgerald — 18 combined points — over the first 17½ minutes.
Neal gave the Sooners a nice lift off the bench, but no one else did much of anything. Fitzgerald, Oklahoma's second-leading scorer, never got into a rhythm, taking just four shots to finish with nine points, while no one else scored more than five.
HIV/AIDS has now shifted to the predominantly African American south suburbs due in part to the displacement of CHA residents, but also to "high risk" behavior problems, county medical officials and civil rights leaders said Monday.
According to Cook County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Stephen Martin, high risk behavior patterns are still a national "state of disaster." He said it has become a nagging problem for the county.
Martin and other officials such as the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., had a clear message on World AIDS Day -- that having sex should not be left up to the roll of the dice, but rather it should be conducted responsibly -- by using protection.
They made their comments during a press conference held at the CORE Center, 2020 W. Harrison, where they were joined by: Cook County Board President John H. Stroger Jr., Commissioner Bobbie Steele, Dr. Robert Weinstein, chief operating officer of the CORE Center, Ruth Rothstein, chief of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services, and Dr. Dave Barker, medical director of the Core Center, 2020 W. Harrison.
AIDS, Jackson said, is a "global" pestilence but one he says can be "largely" prevented through education and early testing and treatment.
Earlier, Jackson visited the Cook County Jail where he was joined by several supporters including his national political director, Bill Walls, and activists Wallace "Gator" Bradley, Aaron Patterson, U.S. Floyd and six inmates who also took a swab test.
Martin said in the 1980s and early 1990s, AIDS was often viewed as a gay white man's disease. But, today he said, it has snatched lives and affected others from all ethnic groups and classes of people including in the south suburbs of Chicago.
"There is a movement of AIDS because of the housing situation in Chicago," Martin told the Chicago Defender, referring to the displacement of CHA residents to the south suburbs.
Quoting Jackson, Martin said, "It's not just an issue of one being poor and Black. Anyone can contract HIV/AIDS, and it happens we're seeing it being concentrated in the South suburbs as well as in the Western suburbs of Cook County.
"One of the reasons why we're seeing significant numbers in the south suburbs is because there is a population shift occurring in the county, and we're also seeing a natural existence of the disease in this area."
"This coupled with the relocation of public housing residents has caused a rise in HIV/AIDS for the south suburban area. "We're beginning to see that this is a very important issue in the south suburbs...."
Martin said the face is "white behind the Black community" with Latinos being the next group being hit hard.
"Just because of the new high tech medicine, it has prolonged life.... No one should be complacent about the disease. Everyone needs to be vigilant about getting tested, knowing their HIV/AIDS status.
"They should know their HIV status as well as if they choose in sexual behavior, they should make sure they are protecting themselves," said Martin.
"It's about protection, prevention, and education. It's not a taboo to be tested. If you choose to place yourself in a high risk behavior, you need to know your HIV status," Martin said. "We definitely need more advocates out there pushing the message to get tested."
At the Core Center, Jackson said AIDS is neither an African nor a gay problem, but that the disease knows no discrimination or class. "The face of AIDS is getting Blacker, and browner, younger and more female. There is a radical rise in women with AIDS" as well as those engaging in "at risk" behavior.
At the Center, Jackson spoke to Diane Garrett, 47, an African American North Side mother of three, who said on April 1, 1999 she came to Cook County Hospital" to see if I had a sexually transmitted disease.
"They asked me if I wanted to take an HIV test. I didn't think I had anything, so I said yeah, sure, and it came back positive," Garrett said, urging everyone to get tested and to take their medication.
"I take my medicine and now I'm undetected," she said.
This, Jackson said, can prolong the lives of those infected with the killer disease. The HIV/AIDS virus knows no boundaries, race, or gender, he stated, challenging the media to "take less than a minute" to publicly take the HIV/AIDS test to "send the signal" that it's OK to take the test.
U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said fighting the scourge of AIDS has become a "war" and one where he says officials must "redouble" their efforts because he believes "we're losing the war."
"This war has more casualties than any other war as we are losing three million people every year," Thompson said.
Article copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.
DETROIT (AP) — A 21-year-old who disappeared for three weeks after returning to Syria from suburban Detroit was released by Syrian authorities Wednesday, his family said.
Obada Mzaik, who has citizenship in the U.S. and Syria, had flown to Damascus from Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Jan. 3 but wasn't seen leaving an immigration checkpoint.
An uncle in Michigan said the Syrian government released Mzaik to his father there on Wednesday.
"We're grateful that he's back with his family, and we're grateful to the community for showing support to the family during difficult days," Dr. Firas Nashef, a dentist from the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, said in a statement.
The State Department said Wednesday night that it did not yet have any information on the release and was working to get details from its representatives in Syria.
Mzaik is a native of Columbus, Ohio, and was planning to study civil engineering at Syria's Al-Yarmouk University. He had been temporarily living in the Detroit area with a younger brother while taking classes at Oakland Community College.
Obaie Mzaik, 19, flew with his older brother but wasn't detained, Nashef said.
The State Department said this week that it was aware of the matter and was working with authorities in Syria. On Jan. 11, the U.S. government urged Americans to get out of Syria and to avoid any travel there.
Nashef said the family returned to Syria in 1994 when his nephew was about 3.
"Most of his life he's been in Syria," Nashef had told The Associated Press on Monday.
Mzaik was detained for 37 days in Syria in early summer 2011, but there were no official charges, his uncle told The Detroit News on Monday. Mzaik's mother suggested he leave Syria for safety, so he traveled with his brother to Farmington Hills in August, Nashef said.
He said the boys' mother wanted them to remain longer in the U.S., but Obada Mzaik wanted to return to register for classes at Al-Yarmouk University.
Voters whose bottom line is taxes can use a new online tool to calculate what their own bottom line would be with the IRS under a Barack Obama or John McCain administration.
The model developed by a business software company and an accounting professor in Maine estimates how individual income taxes would be affected under plans put forth by the two presidential candidates.
The Portland-based company Quantrix says taxpayers who log onto http://www.electiontaxes.com and enter their income can obtain a free estimate of what they would pay in taxes for 2009 through 2012 under each of the two presidential candidates.
"The economy is a key factor in this presidential election, and our interactive tool enables individuals to make an informed choice when casting their vote," said professor Jeffrey Gramlich of the University of Southern Maine. "With just a few keystrokes, this model enables voters to see how these tax plans will impact their personal bottom line."
For example, the model indicates that a couple with two children earning $100,000 with $20,000 in itemized deductions would have a net tax bill for 2009 of $9,555 under McCain and $9,002 under Obama. That compares with a $9,505 tax bill for this couple under current law, the electiontaxes.com site says. In another example, a single taxpayer making $50,000 and using the standard deduction would pay $6,867 under McCain and $6,325 under Obama, compared with $6,827 under current law.
Neither campaign responded to requests for comment on the site or its results.
McCain and Obama both have vowed to reduce the overall tax load, although Obama wants to raise taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year. McCain's proposals include extending President Bush's tax cuts for all incomes, a move Obama opposes for those upper incomes.
"It's easy to become confused by political rhetoric during an election season, and the average citizen would need an accountant to determine the real impact of each plan," Quantrix CEO Chris Houle said. "Professor Gramlich and Quantrix have analyzed both campaign's tax plans and developed a working model that people can use to better understand the impact of each plan on their personal finances."
Individuals who log onto the site may enter only their income or provide more detailed information such as deductions, retirement plan contributions, child care expenses and income subject to capital gains treatment. Users are not required to provide names or other personal information.
MOSCOW Russia's top nuclear research institute acknowledgedTuesday that security there needs improvement, but said no uranium orplutonium is missing.
Western news reports have described lax security at theKurchatov Institute, and there have been suggestions that some of thefour shipments of contraband plutonium seized in Germany since Maycould have come from the institute in northwest Moscow.
The institute has seven nuclear reactors, which now are shutdown, and dozens of smaller research devices that use radioactivematerials.
The institute's security chief, Nikolai Bondarev, said controlsare outdated and inadequate. "Before, we could not expect attacks byinternational terrorists. . . . Now the conditions have changed," hesaid.
The uranium and plutonium are protected by a four-level securitysystem, said Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi, institute vice president.
But he added that the system was designed for Soviet times,when there was "iron discipline and fear" in the nuclearestablishment and little black market for radioactive materials.
NEW YORK - Brett Favre's standout season for the resurgent GreenBay Packers has earned him the title of 2007 Sports IllustratedSportsman of the Year, making him the fourth quarterback to win theaward in its 53-year history.
The 38-year-old Favre joins fellow quarterbacks Terry Bradshaw(1979), Joe Montana (1990) and Tom Brady (2005) as recipients of theaward, given to an athlete who symbolizes the ideals ofsportsmanship.
Favre, a three-time NFL MVP, said in the cover story of themagazine's Dec. 10th issue that leadership is about finding ways toraise his team's level of play.
"You do that by setting an example, by doing things the rightway. I've always shown up, I've always been prepared, I practiceevery day," Favre said. "I practice hard. I study. No matter whathappens on the field, I never point blame at anybody else.Everything I do comes back to leadership, the example I want toset."
Favre has started a quarterback-record 249 consecutive games, andthis year surpassed Dan Marino for career touchdown passes and passattempts. He is 450 yards away from breaking Marino's career recordof 61,361 yards.
Favre has had one of the best seasons of his 17-year career,completing 67.4 percent of his passes for 3,412 yards with 18touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
He's on pace to surpass his career marks in completionpercentage, yards passing and fewest interceptions per attempts.
The magazine also recognized Favre's history of philanthropy,including his Fourward Foundation that's donated more than $4million to charities in Wisconsin and Mississippi and assistedMississippi's Gulf Coast counties after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade won the magazine's award last year.
AP-ES-12-04-07 0005EST
BERKELEY, Calif. - Ernest Gallo, the marketing genius who parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from the Modesto Public Library into the world's largest winemaking empire, died Tuesday at his home in Modesto. He was 97.
"He passed away peacefully this afternoon surrounded by his family," said Susan Hensley, vice president of public relations for E.& J. Gallo Winery.
Gallo, who would have been 98 on March 18, was born near Modesto, a then-sleepy San Joaquin Valley town about 80 miles east of San Francisco.
He and his late brother and business partner grew up working in the vineyard owned by their immigrant father who came to America from Italy's famed winemaking region of Piedmont.
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Cincinnati Bengals receiver Jerome Simpson has pleaded not guilty to marijuana trafficking.
Simpson entered the plea on Monday in Kenton County Circuit Court in Covington. A grand jury indicted the four-year veteran on one count of marijuana trafficking in excess of 8 ounces on Jan. 19.
Simpson has been under investigation since September when agents from California tracked a package shipped to his northern Kentucky home. They said it contained 2 1/2 pounds of marijuana. Authorities said a search of Simpson's home also turned up 6 more pounds of marijuana, smoking pipes and scales.
The 2008 second-round draft pick from Coastal Carolina caught 53 passes for 758 yards and four touchdowns this season. Simpson can become a free agent after completing the final year of his contract.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Authorities in Georgia were looking Friday for a man who may know something about the Thanksgiving killing of two young women from South Carolina.
The bodies of Angela Brooks and Nancy Cushman were found by a passer-by around 2:30 a.m. Thursday in a wooded area of Augusta. Authorities in Richmond County, on the state line with South Carolina, say the 19-year-old Brooks was from Warrenville, S.C., and Cushman was 17 or 18 and also from the area.
The women were last seen alive with an unidentified man around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
Cushman had a 1-year-old daughter and was expected to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, her grandmother told television station WRDW-TV in Augusta.
"She lived way over here (in South Carolina), I couldn't believe or figure out what she was doing way over there," Sarah Cushman said of her granddaughter.
She said she had no idea how this could have happened.
"See if she was one of them raising sand and stirring up trouble, you could expect it, but she didn't," Sarah Cushman said. "She was quiet, nice, sweet little girl."
Reached by telephone, a woman who identified herself as Sarah Cushman declined to speak to The Associated Press.
Authorities want to question 26-year-old Travis Lorenzo Berrian. They say he's not a suspect but they think he might have information about the deaths.
Shawn Johnson, a friend of the two young women, saw them a few hours before they died and couldn't believe they were gone.
"It was really kind of shocking ... at first I didn't believe it," he told Augusta television station WAGT-TV.
Johnson last saw the women in Cushman's car.
"You could see through the front of her Escalade," he said. "You could see the third person in the car. He was sitting behind Nancy. I don't know who it was."
Cushman's 1999 Cadillac Escalade was found about a mile and a half away from where the two were believed to have been shot.
Autopsies were expected to be conducted Friday at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab. GBI spokesman John Bankhead said it would be up to local authorities to release the results. The sheriff's office said the women were shot but declined to say where or how many times.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Advanced Micro Devices says it is cutting 10 percent of its workforce amid weak PC market
ABSTRACT The H3'-C3'-C4'-H4' t^orsional angles of two microcrystalline 2'-deoxynucleosides, thymidine and 2'-- deoxycytidine-HCl, doubly ^sup 13C-labeled at the C3' and C4' positions of the sugar ring, have been measured by solid-state magic-angle-spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). A double-quantum heteronuclear local field experiment with frequency-switched Lee-Goldberg homonuclear decoupling was used. The H3'-C3'-C4'-H4' torsional angles were obtained by comparing the experimental curves with numerical simulations, including the two ^sup 13^C nuclei, the directly bonded ^sup 1^H nuclei, and five remote protons. The H3'-C3'-C4'-H4' angles were converted into sugar pucker angles and compared with crystallographic data. The delta torsional angles determined by solid-state NMR and x-ray crystallography agree within experimental error. Evidence is also obtained that the proton positions may be unreliable in the x-ray structures. This work confirms that double-quantum solid-state NMR is a feasible tool for studying sugar pucker conformations in macromolecular complexes that are unsuitable for solution NMR or crystallography.
INTRODUCTION
The conformations of individual monomers in the polynucleic acids DNA and RNA are decisively important for their biological function. In particular, protein-DNA recognition is thought to involve the detailed local conformation of the DNA molecule through the so-called indirect recognition mechanism (Travers, 1993). Spectroscopic methods that are capable of obtaining information on the individual nucleotide conformations are therefore most important, particularly if they are applicable to large macromolecular assemblies.
A particularly important conformational parameter in nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleic acids is the angle delta, defined as the torsional angle C5'-C4'-C3'-03' of the ribofuranose unit (Fig. 1). Together with the pucker amplitude, which is highly conserved in nucleosides (see Saenger, 1984, page 55), the torsional angle delta defines the pucker of the ribofuranose ring, which affects the entire nucleotide fragment and potentially the conformation of adjacent units. For instance, the sugar pucker changes from C2'-endo to C3'-endo in the transition from the B-form to the A-form of DNA, representing a change in delta from around gauche (60 deg) to around trans (180 deg).
The principal methods for examining nucleotide conformations are x-ray crystallography, solution NMR, and solidstate NMR. High-resolution x-ray crystallography gives direct information on the molecular structure. Solution-state NMR, in contrast, gives indirect information on the torsional angles through chemical shifts (Santos et al., 1989; Gorenstein, 1992; Xu et al., 1998; Rossi and Harbison, 2001), scalar J-couplings (Davies, 1978; Ippel et al., 1996), and cross-correlated relaxation effects (Boisbouvier et al., 2000; Felli et al., 1999). However, as the DNA and RNA molecules grow larger, and for the interesting cases of polynucleotide-protein complexes, both x-ray crystallography and solution-state NMR frequently encounter difficulties, the former due to imperfect crystallization, and the latter because of spectral line broadening due to slow molecular rotation.
Solid-state NMR does not require long-range crystallinity or rapid molecular motion. Several solid-state NMR methods have found application in the structural investigations of nucleic acids (Alam and Drobny, 1991; Lee et al., 2000; van Dam and Levitt, 2000). In particular, the torsional angle delta may be estimated from isotropic ^sup 13^C chemical shift values (Santos et al., 1989; Rossi and Harbison, 2001). However, chemical shift information can be difficult to interpret in structured macromolecules due to nonlocal effects, so a complementary method for estimating delta would be useful.
Torsion angles may also be estimated by solid-state NMR, if experiments are used that are sensitive to the relative orientations of nuclear spin interaction tensors (Feng et al., 1996; Ishii et al., 1996; Schmidt-Rohr, 1996a,b; Tycko et al., 1996; Weliky and Tycko, 1996; Costa et al., 1997; Feng et al., 1997; Fujiwara et al., 1997; Gregory et al., 1997; Hong et al., 1997; Feng et al., 1998; Bower et al., 1999; Feng et al., 2000; Middleton et al., 2000; Ravindranathan et al., 2000; Takegoshi et al., 2000). A particular useful class of experiments is called double-quantum heteronuclear local field (2Q-HLF) spectroscopy. These experiments exploit the evolution of a correlated two-spin state, double-quantum coherence (2QC), under the heteronuclear local fields of neighboring spins. The evolution of the 2QC is sensitive to the correlation of the heteronuclear local fields, and therefore to the relative orientation of the heteronuclear dipolar coupling tensors. In particular, the HCCH-2Q-HLF experiment was designed to measure the torsional angle in an ^sup 1^H-^sup 13^C-^sup 13^C-^sup 1^H molecular fragment by allowing ^sup 13^C 2QC to evolve under the ^sup 13^C-^sup 1^H heteronuclear dipolar couplings (Feng et al., 1996). This experiment has found several applications in biologically relevant molecules. For example, the H-C10-C11-H molecular torsional angle in the isomerization region of the retinal chromophore was determined in the ground state of rhodopsin (Feng et al., 1997) and in the metarhodopsin-I photointer-- mediate (Feng et al., 2000). The HCCH-2Q-HLF experiment has also been applied to mono and disaccharides (Ravindranathan et al., 2000, 2001), the drug compound cimetidine (Middleton et al., 2000) and bacteriorhodopsin (Lansing et al., 2002).
The HCCH-2Q-HLF experiment is an appropriate spectroscopic tool for studying nucleic acid conformations because each of the C4' and C3' sites has one attached proton, and selective ^sup 13^C labeling of the C4' and C3' sites is technically feasible using known synthetic routes (Ouwerkerk et al., 2000, 2002). An attractive feature of the 2Q-HLF experiment is that NMR signals from the natural abundance ^sup 13^C background are effectively suppressed, making the experiment feasible even in large molecular assemblies. The information provided by this experiment is complementary to that provided by chemical shift data. In preparation for experiments on macromolecular nucleic acid complexes, we have first applied the method to two different microcrystalline ^sup 13^C^sub 2^-labeled nucleosides, where a direct comparison with x-ray structures may be made. This comparison is the subject of this paper.
CONCLUSIONS
These investigations have shown that the 2Q-HLF NMR method is a potentially useful method for the investigation of nucleic acid sugar pucker. However, it is necessary to include remote protons in the analysis, at least up to a distance range of 250 pm. Although our results for the sugar pucker angle delta are in good agreement with x-ray studies for both thymidine and 2'-deoxycytidine*HCl, there are significant discrepancies for the H3'-C3'-C4'-H4' torsional angle phi, which could be associated with the difficulties of locating the protons by x-ray diffraction.
The experiment should be feasible on macromolecular systems that are beyond the reach of x-ray diffraction or solution NMR. In its simplest form, the method is restricted to systems with well-defined local conformations, but we anticipate that the method may be extended, in suitable cases, to systems that possess a distribution of torsional angles. This might involve combining the 2Q evolution with the conformational information contained in broadened chemically-shifted lineshapes (Zhang et al., 1998).
The authors thank Dr. Peter J. M. Verdegem for preliminary NMR work and Jasper R. Plaisier for participation in the x-ray diffraction measurements. Dr. Marjan Steenweg is thanked for help with the synthesis of 2'-deoxycytidine*HCl.
This work was sponsored by the Goran Gustafsson foundation for Research in the Natural Sciences and Medicine. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. J. Lugtenburg and Prof. Dr. J. H. van Boom for their participation in this investigation.
[Reference]
REFERENCES
[Reference]
Alam, T., and G. P. Drobny. 1991. Solid-state NMR studies of DNA structure and dynamics. Chem. Rev. 91:1545-1590.
Altona, C. 1982. Conformational analysis of nucleic acids. Determination of backbone geometry of single-helical RNA and DNA in aqueous solution. Recl. Trav. Chim. Pays-Bas. 101:413-433.
Bielecki, A., A. C. Kolbert, and M. H. Levitt. 1989. Frequency-switched pulse-sequences: homonuclear decoupling and dilute spin NMR in solids. Chem. Phys. Lett. 155:341-346.
Boisbouvier, J., B. Brutscher, A. Pardi, D. Marion, and J.-P. Simorre. 2000. NMR determination of sugar puckers in nucleic acids from CSA-dipolar cross-correlated relaxation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 122:6779-6780.
Bower, P. V., N. Oyler, M. A. Metha, J. R. Long, P. S. Stayton, and G. P. Drobny. 1999. Determination of torsion angles in proteins using solid state NMR. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121:8373-8375.
Cambridge Structural Database. The Cambridge Crystallographic Center, www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk.
[Reference]
Chekhlov, A. N. 1995. Intramolecular C-H----O interactions in the main nucleosides from crystallographic data. Refinement of the crystal structure of thymidine. Zh. Strukt. Khim. 36:178-184.
Cheng, V. B., H. H. Suzukawa, and M. Wolfsberg. 1973. Investigations of a nonrandom numerical method for multidimensional integration. J. Chem. Phys. 59:3992-3999.
Costa, P. R., J. D. Gross, M. Hong, and R. G. Griffin. 1997. Solid-state NMR measurement of psi in peptides: a NCCN 2Q-heteronuclear local field experiment. Chem. Phys. Lett. 280:95-103.
Davies, D. B. 1978. Conformations of nucleosides and nucleotides. Prog. Nucl. Magn. Reson. Spectrosc. 12:135-225.
Eden, M., A. Brinkmann, H. Luthman, L. Eriksson, and M. H. Levitt. 2000. Determination of molecular geometry by high-order multiple-quantum evolution in solid-state NMR. J. Magn. Res. 144:266-279.
Evdokimov, A. G., A. J. Kalb, T. F. Koetzle, W. T. Klooster, and J. M. L. Martin. 1999. Structures of furanosides: density functional calculations and high-resolution x-ray and neutron diffraction crystal structures. J. Phys. Chem. A 103:744-753.
Felli, I. C., C. Richter, C. Griesinger, and H. Schwalbe. 1999. Determination of RNA sugar pucker mode from cross-correlated relaxation in solution NMR spectroscopy. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121:1956-1957.
Feng, X., A. Brinkmann, H. Luthman, L. Eriksson, A. Graslund, 0. N. Antzutkin, and M. H. Levitt. 1998. Direct determination of a peptide torsional angle 41 by double-quantum solid-state NMR. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 119:12006-12007.
Feng, X., Y. K. Lee, D. Sandstrom, M. Eden, H. Maisel, A. Sebald, and M. H. Levitt. 1996. Direct determination of a molecular torsional angle by solid-state NMR. Chem. Phys. Lett. 257:314-320.
Feng, X., P. J. E. Verdegem, M. Eden, D. Sandstrom, Y. K. Lee, P. Bovee-Guerts, W. J. de Grip, J. Lugtenburg, H. J. M. de Groot, and M. H. Levitt. 2000. Determination of a molecular torsional angle in the metarhodopsin-I photointermediate of rhodopsin by double-quantum solid-state NMR. J. Biomol. NMR. 16:1-8.
Feng, X., P. J. E. Verdegem, Y. K. Lee, D. Sandstrom, M. Eden, P. Bovee-Guerts, W. J. de Grip, J. Lugtenburg, H. J. M. de Groot, and M. H. Levitt. 1997. Direct determination of a molecular torsional angle in the membrane protein rhodopsin by solid-state NMR. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 119:6853-6857.
[Reference]
Fujiwara, T., T. Shimomura, and H. Akutsu. 1997. Multidimensional solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance for correlating anisotropic interactions under magic-angle spinning conditions. J. Magn. Res. 124: 147-153.
[Reference]
Gorenstein, D. G. 1992. 31p NMR of DNA Methods Enzymol. 211: 254-286.
[Reference]
Gregory, D. M., M. A. Mehta, J. C. Shiels, and G. P. Drobny. 1997. Determination of local structure in solid nucleic acids using double quantum nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. J. Chem. Phys. 107:28-42.
[Reference]
Hohwy, M., H. J. Jakobsen, M. Eden, M. H. Levitt, and N. C. Nielsen. 1998. Broadband dipolar recoupling in the nuclear magnetic resonance of rotating solids: a compensated C7 pulse sequence. J. Chem. Phys. 108:2686-2694.
Hong, M., J. D. Gross, and R. G. Griffin. 1997. Site-resolved determination of peptide torsion angle 0 from the relative orientations of backbone N-H and C-H bonds by solid-state NMR. J. Phys. Chem. B. 101: 5869-5874.
[Reference]
Ippel, J. H., S. S. Wijmenga, R. de Jong, H. A. Hens, C. W. Hilbers, E. de Vroom, G. A. van der Maarel and J. H. van Boom. 1996. Heteronuclear scalar couplings in the bases and sugar rings of nucleic acids: their determination and application in assignment and conformational analysis. Magn. Reson. Chem. 34:156-176.
Ishii, Y., T. Terao, and M. Kainosho. 1996. Relayed anisotropy correlation NMR: determination of dihedral angles in solids. Chem. Phys. Left. 256:133-140.
[Reference]
Klooster, W. T., J. R. Ruble, B. M. Craven, and R. K. McMullan. 1991. Structure and thermal vibrations of adenosine from neutron diffraction data at 123 K. Acta Cryst. 47:376-383.
Lansing, J. C., M. Hohwy, C. P. Jaroniec, A. F. L. Creemers, J. Lugtenburg, J. Herzfeld, and R. G. Griffin. 2002. Chromophore distortions in the bacteriorhodopsin photocycle: evolution of the H-C14-C15-H dihedral angle measured by solid-state NMR. Biochemistry. 41:431-438.
Lee, S. A., H. Grimm, W. Pohle, W. Scheiding, L. van Dam, Z. Song, M. H. Levitt, N. Korolev, A. Szabo, and A. Rupprecht. 2000. The NaDNA.bipyridyl(ethylendiamine)platinum(II) complex: 1. Structure in oriented wet-spun films and fibers. Phys. Rev. E. 62:7044-7058.
Lee, Y. K., N. D. Kurur, M. Helmle, 0. G. Johannessen, N. C. Nielsen, and M. H. Levitt. 1995. Efficient dipolar recoupling in the NMR of rotating solids. A sevenfold symmetric radiofrequency pulse sequence. Chem. Phys. Lett. 242:304-309.
Leupin, W., G. Wagner, W. A. Denny, and K. Wdthrich. 1987. Assignment of the 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum of a short DNA-duplex with 'H-detected two-dimensional heteronuclear correlation spectroscopy. Nucleic Acids Res. 15:267-275.
Lutz, M., A. L. Spek, and J. Raap. 2001. Communication to the Cambridge Structural Database, www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk. (CCDC 172667).
Metz, G., X. Wu, and S. 0. Smith. 1994. Ramped-amplitude cross polarization in magic-angle-spinning NMR. J. Magn. Res. 110:219-227. Middleton, D. A., C. S. Le Duff, X. Peng, and D. G. Reid. 2000. Molecular
conformations of the polymorphic forms of cimetidine from 13C solidstate NMR distance and angle measurements. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 122: 1161-1170.
[Reference]
Ouwerkerk, N., M. Steenweg, M. de Ruijter, J. Brouwer, J. H. van Boom, J. Lugtenburg, and J. Raap. 2002. One-pot two-step enzymatic coupling of pyrimidine bases to 2-deoxy-D-ribose-5-phosphate. A new strategy in the synthesis of stable isotope labeled deoxynucleosides. J. Org. Chem. 67:1480-1489.
[Reference]
Ouwerkerk, N., J. H. van Boom, J. Lugtenburg, and J. Raap. 2000. Chemo-enzymatic synthesis of thymidine ^sup 13^C-labeled in the 2'deoxyribose moiety. Eur. J. Org. Chem. 5:861-866.
[Reference]
Press, W. H., S. A. Teukolsky, W. T. Vetterling, and B. P. Flannery. 1994. Numerical Recipies. The Art of Scientific Computing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 609-655.
Ravindranathan, S., X. Feng, T. Karlsson, G. Widmalm, and M. H. Levitt. 2000. Investigation of carbohydrate conformation in solution and in powders by double-quantum NMR. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 122:1102-1115.
Ravindranathan, S., T. Karlsson, K. Lycknert, G. Widmalm, and M. H. Levitt. 2001. Conformation of the Glycosidic Linkage in a Disaccharide Investigated by Double-Quantum Solid-State NMR. J. Magn. Reson. 151:136-141.
[Reference]
Rossi, P., and G. S. Harbison. 2001. Calculation of 13C chemical shifts in RNA nucleosides: Structure-13C chemical shift relationships. J. Magn. Res. 151:1-8.
[Reference]
Saenger, W. 1984. Principles of Nucleic Acid Structure. Springer-Verlag, New York.
[Reference]
Santos, R. A., P. Tang, and G. S. Harbison. 1989. Determination of the DNA sugar pucker using 13C NMR spectroscopy. Biochemistry. 28: 9372-9377.
[Reference]
Schmidt-Rohr, K. 1996a. A double-quantum solid-state NMR technique for determining torsion angles in polymers. Macromolecules. 29: 3975-3981.
[Reference]
Schmidt-Rohr, K. 1996b. Torsion angle determination in solid ^sup 13^C-labeled amino acids and peptides by separated-local-field double-quantum NMR. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118:7601-7603.
Singh, P., M. Zottola, S. Huang, B. R. Shaw, and L. G. Pedersen. 1996. 2'-deoxycytidine-N(3)-cyanoborane monohydrate. Acta Cryst. C52: 693-696.
[Reference]
Subramanian, E., and D. J. Hunt. 1970. The crystal structure and absolute configuration of 2'-deoxycytidine hydrocloride. Acta Cryst. B26: 303-311.
[Reference]
Takegoshi, K., T. Imaizumi, and T. Terao. 2000. One- and twodimensional "3C-'H/15N-'H dipolar correlation experiments under fast magic-angle spinning for determining the peptide dihedral angle 4). Solid State NMR. 16:271-278.
Takusagawa, F., T. F. Koetzle, T. Srikrishnan, and R. Parthasarathy. 1979. C-H. 0 interactions and stacking of water molecules between pyrimidine bases in 5-nitro-l-(P-D-ribosyluronic acid)-uracil monohydrate il-(5-nitro-2,4-dioxopyfimidinyl)-p-D-ribofuranoic acid monohydrate]: a neutron diffraction study at 80 K. Acta Cryst. B35:1388-1394.
Travers, A. 1993. DNA-Protein Interactions. Chapman and Hall, London. Tycko, R., D. P. Weliky, and A. E. Berger. 1996. Investigation of molecular structure in solids by two-dimensional NMR exchange spectroscopy with magic angle spinning. J. Chem. Phys. 105:7915-7930.
van Dam, L., and M. H. Levitt. 2000. BI nucleotides in the B and C-forms of natural-sequence polymeric DNA: a new model for the C-form of DNA. J. Mol. Biol. 304:541-561.
Weliky, D. P., and R. Tycko. 1996. Determination of peptide conformations by two-dimensional magic angle spinning NMR exchange spectroscopy with rotor synchronization. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118:8487-8488.
Xu, X.-P., W.-L. A. K. Chiu, and S. C. F. Au-Yeung. 1998. Chemical shift and structure relationship in nucleic acids: correlation of backbone torsion angles -y and a with 13C chemical shifts. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120:4230-4231.
[Reference]
Young, D. W., P. Tollin, and H. R. Wilson. 1969. The crystal and molecular structure of thymidine. Acta Cryst. B25:1423-1432.
Zhang, P., A. N. Klymachyov, S. Brown, J. G. Ellington, and P. J. Grandinetti. 1998. Solid-state 13C NMR investigation of the glycosidic linkage in a-a' trehalose. SoL State Nucl. Magn. Reson. 12:221-225.
[Author Affiliation]
Lorens van Dam,* Niels Ouwerkerk,^ Andreas Brinkmann,* Jan Raap,^ and Malcolm H. Levitt*^^
*Physical Chemistry, Arrhenius Laboratory, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden, ^Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands, and ^^Chemistry Department, Southampton University, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
[Author Affiliation]
Submitted March 22, 2002, and accepted for publication July 10, 2002.
[Author Affiliation]
Dr. Brinkmann's present address is Physical Chemistry, Univ. of Nijmegen, 6525ED, The Netherlands.
[Author Affiliation]
Address reprint requests to Malcolm H. Levitt, Chemistry Department, Southampton University, University Rd., Southampton SO17 1BJ, U.K. Tel.: +44-23-80596753; Fax: +44-23-80593781; E-mail: mhl@soton.ac.uk.
| EASTERN CONFERENCE |
| W D L GF GA Pts |
| Kansas City 3 1 2 9 7 10 |
| Chicago 2 3 0 10 7 9 |
| New England 2 2 0 5 3 8 |
| Toronto FC 2 2 2 8 9 8 |
| D.C. 1 3 1 6 6 6 |
| New York 1 2 3 3 6 5 |
| Columbus 0 3 2 5 9 3 |
| WESTERN CONFERENCE |
| W L T GF GA Pts |
| CD Chivas USA 4 1 1 8 3 13 |
| Seattle 3 0 2 7 3 9 |
| Colorado 2 1 2 7 7 7 |
| Real Salt Lake 2 0 2 6 6 6 |
| Houston 1 2 2 4 5 5 |
| San Jose 1 2 2 7 9 5 |
| FC Dallas 1 1 3 6 10 4 |
| Los Angeles 0 3 1 5 6 3 |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. At about 4 p.m. Wednesday, the 1995 Notre Damefootball team piled into a fleet of yellow school buses and rolleddown a 30-mile stretch of rural Indiana highway to a place called"Camp Mea Culpa."
"I've just told myself it's going to be the worst thingI've ever been through in my life," said Irish sophomore linebackerJohn McLaughlin. "I've heard they have a lake down there. I justmight drown myself in it."
"I think it's going to be a very hard week," saidquarterback Ron Powlus grimly. "Difficult, but good for us."
Irish coach Lou Holtz will sequester his team at Camp MeaCulpa for eight days of intense practices. The …
Brendan Morrison scored an early power-play goal and Roberto Luongo did the rest, making 27 saves to lead the Vancouver Canucks to a 2-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night.
With former Canuck Brent Sopel off for clearing the puck over the glass, Chicago goalie Patrick Lalime committed to Sami Salo's point shot. But the Canucks defenseman sent a perfect slap pass to an open Morrison at the right side of the crease instead, leaving Morrison with a wide open net.
Daniel Sedin added an empty-net goal with 31.7 seconds left for Vancouver, which improved to 7-1-2 in the last 10 games.
Luongo made his best save off Dustin Byfuglien on a 3-on-1 …
Allen's craftiness keys success for Eastside
By GREGORY SCHUTTA, STAFF WRITER
Date: 04-13-2007, Friday
Section: SPORTS
Edtion: All Editions
Sharon Allen has had her share of good sprinters in her four years as head coach at Eastside. This year, she simply had to dig a little deeper to find them.
Allen mixed and matched Saturday and came away with a gold in the 4-x-100 and silver in the 4-x-200 at the Passaic County Relays.
"I had to piece together every relay we had," Allen said. "I was very excited at what they did because I have a team that really doesn't come out for …
Allen's craftiness keys success for EastsideGREGORY SCHUTTA, STAFF WRITERAllen's craftiness keys success for Eastside
By GREGORY SCHUTTA, STAFF WRITER
Date: 04-13-2007, Friday
Section: SPORTS
Edtion: All Editions
Sharon Allen has had her share of good sprinters in her four years as head coach at Eastside. This year, she simply had to dig a little deeper to find them.
Allen mixed and matched Saturday and came away with a gold in the 4-x-100 and silver in the 4-x-200 at the Passaic County Relays.
"I had to piece together every relay we had," Allen said. "I was very excited at what they did because I have a team that really doesn't come out for …
Banks that can harness the power of information, then manage, share and use it effectively, are well positioned to create value for everyone involved, especially their customers. So, it's not surprising that item processing and check image software have become essential elements to the growth and profitability of financial institutions across the U.S.
One of those institutions is Klein Data Center in Chaska, Minn., a subsidiary of $1-billion Klein Financial, a holding company in the Minneapolis suburbs that serves a wide variety of customers, ranging from rural agribusinesses and metropolitan corporate customers to suburban individuals and families.
On average, the data …
The stars are beginning to align for the server-based technologies we've been hearing so much about, and they'll be on full view at this month's Global Gaming Expo.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
It's an exciting time for the industry -- "time for the next generation of player interfaces to hit the real world," in the words of Tom Doyle, vice president of systems product management for Bally Technologies.
What is equally important, he adds, "We're seeing some loosening of budgets."
If more casinos are finding the money to take advantage of server-based gaming it is because the technology is becoming more practicable and cost-effective for them to deploy. The ability server-based gaming (SBG) provides casinos to "converse" with their players, immediately and in real time, pretty much wherever they are, but mainly its unprecedented powers to engage and entertain them directly at the gaming machine with an array of marketing and promotional interactions and rich-media content, these always were a given.
"We did a review of our systems portfolio 24 months ago as part of a very extensive process to try to determine where the industry was headed from a technology perspective," said Kelly Shaw, Aristocrat's vice president of North American systems sales and marketing. "We did extensive interviews with our customers. What we learned is that they want tools that are going to get them to server-based and downloadable gaming."
They're getting there, finally, because there are more Ethernet-enabled gaming floors, more collaborative opportunities available to operators and manufacturers alike now that there is an open standard that everyone agrees on for governing communications between different EGMs and back-of-house systems, and as more older …
Byline: Special to Career Opportunities '87
Here's one sure way to land a job - train in a career field that is not popular with your contemporaries.
Putting it another way, a supply shortage of employees in a career field means opportunity for some. Particular career paths tend to fall in and out of favor.
High salaries, prestige, glamour or favorable media publicity will make a particular field attractive to those starting out. At the same time, low salaries and lack of prestige will have the opposite effect.
he result, of course, is increased competition in the popular fields but, on the other hand, increased opportunities for those who remain interested in the careers currently "out of favor."
Locally as well as nationally, three fields in particular have been experiencing a shortage of qualified …
Two men were arrested Monday night after they allegedly stabbed a city man during a fight on Quail Street, police said.
Walter James Cobbs, 34, of 332 Hulett St., Schenectady, and Eric Burdell Williams, 22, of Texas, who was staying with Cobbs, were each charged with second-degree assault, police said. The two were being held in police lockup …
Afghanistan's intelligence service arrested a militant wearing a police uniform who took part in the multipronged attack on Kabul's main luxury hotel that killed eight, officials said Tuesday. A notorious militant leader believed to be based in Pakistan was accused of masterminding the assault.
Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, said three militants stormed the Serena Hotel on Monday evening. A guard shot and killed one attacker at the gate to the hotel's parking lot, which triggered his suicide vest.
A second attacker blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel's lobby, and the third attacker made it inside the hotel and …
Chicago police will get warrants and make arrests faster incases against accused small-time drug dealers under new procedures tobegin next week, authorities said Friday.
"There's going to be an aggressive pursuit of any warrants,"said Howard Patinkin, Chicago police deputy chief of patrol.
Robert Portman, chief executive officer for State's AttorneyCecil Partee, also said that warrants will be issued within a "coupleof days" of when the police take the cases to the state's attorney'soffice.
Currently, it may take between a "few days" and "outside of amonth" to get a warrant to the police after an indictment of analleged drug peddler is issued, Portman …
1 State Farm Group
AMB# 00088
Bloomington, Ill.
www.statefarm.com
Edward B. Rust Jr., chairman and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
2 Allstate Insurance Group
AMB# 00008
Northbrook, Ill.
www.allstate.com
Thomas J. Wilson, chairman, president and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
3 Liberty Mutual Insurance Cos.
AMB# 00060
Boston
www.libertymutual.com
David H. Long, president and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
4 Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group
AMB# 00811
Omaha, Neb, www.berkshirehathaway.com
Warren E. Buffett, CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
5 Travelers Group
AMB# 18674
New York
www.travelers.com
Jay S. Fishman, chairman and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
6 American International Group
AMB# 18540
New York
www.aig.com
Robert H. Benmosche, president and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
7 Nationwide Group
AMB# 05987
Columbus, Ohio
www.nationwide.com
Stephen S. Rasmussen, CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
8 Progressive Insurance Group
AMB# 00780
Mayfield Village, Ohio
www.progressive.com
Glenn M. Renwick, president and CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
9 Farmers Insurance Group
AMB# 00032
Los Angeles
www. farmers.com
Robert (Bob) Woudstra, CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
10 USAA Group
AMB# 04080
San Antonio, Texas
www.usaa.com
Josue Robles Jr., CEO
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Top 200 U.S. Property/Casualty WritersU.S. P/C industry net premiums written increased 0.4%;first increase since 2006.U.S. Property/Casualty WritersRanked by 2010 net premiums written.($ Thousands) NPWRank Company/Group AMB# ($0) Change1 State Farm Group 000088 $50,808,635 2.52 Allstate Ins Group 000008 24,796,656 -1.43 Liberty Mutual Ins Cos 000060 21,483,996 4.14 Berkshire Hathaway Ins 000811 21,358,316 0.05 Travelers Group 018674 20,594,458 1.46 Amer …
Staff
High-performance structural concrete cures to compressive strengths of more than 3,000 psi in less than six hours. Unlike portland cement, RediMax remains in an un-reacted state until water and the RediMax admixture are introduced, providing improved schedule flexibility and eliminating the possibility of material loss due to the standard …
Byline: ALICIA ROSS, with BEVERLY MILLS United Media
Nothing would please my children more than to have pizza several nights a week. I suppose most 8- and 10-year-olds would agree.
Pizza every other night would be easy, but boring. As a compromise, I try to come up with similar dishes to feed this craving without driving the rest of us to tears.
Enter today's recipe for Ham and Cheese Turnovers. It's based on the traditional calzone, which is a stuffed pizza that looks like a turnover. A dipping sauce can be served on the side if you like. Get creative with the fillings -- anything from sauteed mushrooms, broccoli and carrots, or the standard …
Abstract: Two lactoferrampin (LFampin) peptides derived from bovine lactoferrin were compared with respect to their bactericidal activities. LFampin 265-284 killed a set of Gram-positive bacteria that were resistant to LFampin 268-284. The presence of [sup.265]Asp-Leu-[sup.267]Ile did not simply lead to an overall increased potency, since higher concentrations of LFampin 265-284 than LFampin 268-284 were needed to kill the Gram-negative bacteria that were tested. The Asp-Leu-Ile sequence enhances the propensity of LFampin to adopt an [alpha]-helix, as shown by circular dichroism spectroscopy. These results suggest that the helical conformation of the peptide is an important determinant of the susceptibility of Gram-positive bacteria.
Key words: [alpha]-helix, antimicrobial peptides, Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, lactoferrampin, lactoferrin.
Resume : Deux peptides derives de la lactoferrine bovine appeles lactoferrampines (LFampin) ont ete compares quant a leurs activites bactericides respectives. La LFampin 265-284 a tue une variete de bacteries Gram-positives qui etaient resistantes a la LFampin 268-284. La presence des residus [Asp.sup.265]-Leu-[Ile.sup.267] ne resultait pas seulement en l'augmentation generale du potentiel bactericide du peptide, car la LFampin 268-284 tuait de facon plus efficace les bacteries Gram-negatives que la LFampin 265-284. La sequence Asp-Leu-Ile augmente la propension de la LFampin a adopter une structure en helice-[alpha], tel que demontre en spectroscopie par dichroisme circulaire. Ces resultats suggerent que la conformation helicoidale du peptide soit un determinant important dans la susceptibilite des bacteries Gram-positives.
Mots cles : helice-[alpha], peptides anti-microbiens, bacterie Gram-positive, bacterie Gram-negative, lactoferrampine, lactoferrine.
[Traduit par la Redaction]
Introduction
Antimicrobial peptides provide a rapidly expanding source of new antimicrobial compounds (Van 't Hof et al. 2001). They were first discovered in insects and rabbit neutrophils (Selsted et al. 1983; Steiner 1982). Subsequent findings of antimicrobial peptides in human, frogs, pigs, and cattle (Pollock et al. 1984; Lee et al. 1989; Tomita et al. 1991; Zasloff 1987) made it clear that antimicrobial peptides are widespread in nature. Some antimicrobial peptides originate from precursor proteins through proteolytic digestion (Bals and Wilson 2003; Tomita et al. 1991). Lactoferricin B is released from bovine lactoferrin by pepsin digestion and has antibacterial (Bellamy et al. 1992; Yamauchi et al. 1993), antifungal (Wakabayashi et al. 1996), and antiviral activity (Valenti et al. 2000). Related synthetic peptides show broad-spectrum bactericidal activities against a range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, such as several streptococci, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Prevotella intermedia (Tomita et al. 1994; Kang et al. 1996; Groenink et al. 1999; Vorland et al. 1999; Gifford et al. 2005).
We have identified another antimicrobial peptide between residues 268 and 284 in the N1-domain of bovine lactoferrin, designated LFampin (Van der Kraan et al. 2004). This peptide displayed antimicrobial activity against the yeast Candida albicans and a number of bacteria, including E. coli, B. subtilis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Using a series of peptides spanning the LFampin domain, we demonstrated that LFampin 265-284 possessed the highest candidacidal activity (Van der Kraan et al. 2005a). Unexpectedly, since net positive charge is one of the general features of antimicrobial peptides, the presence of the 3 extra amino acids [sup.265]Asp-Leu-[sup.267]Ile, including a negatively charged one, substantially increased the candidacidal activity. A peptide comprising the antimicrobial sequence could be functionally released from bovine lactoferrin by 1-enzyme digestion. The resulting isolated peptide, as well as the total digest, was …
