WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Construction spending rebounded in February as both public and private outlays increased, bolstering views of faster economic growth in the first quarter.
Construction spending advanced 1.2 percent to an annual rate of $885.1 billion, the Commerce Department said on Monday. Spending had declined 2.1 percent in January.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected construction spending to rise 1 percent in February.
The construction report added to a series of other data that have suggested economic growth accelerated in the first quarter from the fourth quarter's anemic 0.4 percent annual pace.
Despite tighter fiscal policy, data on employment, consumer spending and factory activity have been relatively strong, leaving economists scrambling to raise their forecast.
First-quarter GDP growth estimates currently range as high as a 3.5 percent annual rate.
Construction spending in February was boosted by a 1.3 percent rise in private construction projects. Spending on private residential projects increased 2.2 percent to the highest level since November 2008.
Part of the increase reflected renovations. The housing market is no longer a drag on the economy and residential construction contributed to growth last year for the first time since 2005. It is expected to do so again this year.
Spending on private nonresidential structures rose 0.4 percent after declining 5.9 percent.
Public sector construction spending increased 0.9 percent, rising for a second straight month. Outlays on federal government projects fell 1.1 percent. However, state and local spending, which is far larger than federal projects, rose 1.1 percent. It was the second straight month of gain in state and local government outlays.
(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? Authorities say the three people aboard an Alaska State Trooper helicopter that crashed as it returned are feared dead.
Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters says the aircraft was carrying a state trooper, a pilot for the troopers and a rescued snowmobiler when it went down Saturday night.
She says the crash site was spotted Sunday and no survivors have been found. She says that though the three are feared dead, their deaths haven't been confirmed.
Wreckage of the helicopter burned, but Peters said it was not known how the fire started or how long it lasted.
The trooper helicopter was on a mission to pick up a snowmobiler stranded near Larson Lake 7 miles east of Talkeetna in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Newly approved blood thinner may increase susceptibility to some viral infectionsPublic release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Les Lang llang@med.unc.edu 919-966-9366 University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina indicates that a newly approved blood thinner that blocks a key component of the human blood clotting system may increase the risk and severity of certain viral infections, including flu and myocarditis, a viral infection of the heart and a significant cause of sudden death in children and young adults.
For the past 50 years, people with the heartbeat irregularity, atrial fibrillation, and others at increased risk for forming potentially life-threatening blood clots have been given the anticoagulant drug warfarin. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the blood-thinner Dabigatran etexilate (called Pradaxa) for atrial fibrillation patients. The drug inhibits thrombin, the body's central coagulation activator of the blood clotting system.
In blocking thrombin activity, the drug disturbs the protease cascade of molecular events that normally occurs in coagulation. While clot formation is reduced, the new study shows it may also cause an unintended consequence. "Our findings show that blocking thrombin reduces the innate immune response to viral infection," says study senior author Nigel Mackman, PhD, the John C. Parker Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the division of hematology and director of the UNC McAllister Heart Institute. "The use of the new generation of blood thinners might increase the risk and severity of flu and myocarditis."
A report of the research appears in the March 2013 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Mackman points out that viral infections such as dengue fever trigger activation of the coagulation system but it was considered a bad thing. He says studies on bacterial infections have found that the last product of the "clotting cascade" (the process that occurs in blood clot formation) fibrin helps activate immune cell macrophages that boosts the immune system.
"But it seems that the antiviral mechanism of the clotting system is not via fibrin but rather via thrombin; namely, its activation of protease activated receptor proteins such as PAR-1," says Mackman. "The new study was aimed at finding out if PAR-1 plays any role in virus infections, a question of importance to the use of Pradaxa and the development of antithrombotic drugs that target PAR-1 on platelets."
To find the answer, Mackman and colleagues used mice in which the PAR-1 gene is deleted and subjected then to infection with a virus that causes myocarditis. They found that loss of PAR-1 mediated signaling after infection with the cardiotrophic virus resulted in increased viral buildup in the heart, cardiac injury and, later, increased impairment of heart function.
Moreover, the absence of PAR-1 signaling was associated with a slower response to the virus of the innate immune soon after viral infection. The innate immune system provides early defense against disease causing organisms. The defense is almost immediate.
The researchers treated normal mice with Pradaxa. They showed that thrombin inhibition increased cardiac virus load and cardiac injury after viral infection in a similar manner to a deficiency of PAR-1. In addition, they infected the PAR-1 deficient mice with influenza A and found that PAR-1 signaling was important in controlling the virus load in the lung in the early phase after infection. These results suggest that thrombin and PAR-1 mediate important early antiviral signals after infection.
"Pradaxa inhibits clot formation by reducing fibrin deposition and platelet aggregation." said Mackman. "Importantly, Pradaxa might not only facilitate significant lifesaving effects in reducing cardiac death but may also interfere with other processes in the body.
"The results we generated were completely unexpected and in fact our hypothesis was that PAR-1 deficient mice would be protected from viral myocarditis because they would have reduced inflammation," Mackman added. "We are now determining if the traditional long term anticoagulant warfarin has the same effect on viral infection or is this specific to the new blood thinner."
###
The majority of the study was a collaboration between the Mackman group at UNC and the Charit Universittsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, and other groups at UNC, including at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and across the USA.
The first-author is Silvio Antoniak, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Mackman's lab. Other co-authors from Mackman's lab were A. Phillip Owens III, PhD; Martin Baumnacke, MD; and Julie C. Williams, PhD.
The study was supported by the Myocarditis Foundation through a research grant to Silvio Antoniak. Additional funds were provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a component of the National Institutes of Health.
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Newly approved blood thinner may increase susceptibility to some viral infectionsPublic release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Les Lang llang@med.unc.edu 919-966-9366 University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina indicates that a newly approved blood thinner that blocks a key component of the human blood clotting system may increase the risk and severity of certain viral infections, including flu and myocarditis, a viral infection of the heart and a significant cause of sudden death in children and young adults.
For the past 50 years, people with the heartbeat irregularity, atrial fibrillation, and others at increased risk for forming potentially life-threatening blood clots have been given the anticoagulant drug warfarin. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the blood-thinner Dabigatran etexilate (called Pradaxa) for atrial fibrillation patients. The drug inhibits thrombin, the body's central coagulation activator of the blood clotting system.
In blocking thrombin activity, the drug disturbs the protease cascade of molecular events that normally occurs in coagulation. While clot formation is reduced, the new study shows it may also cause an unintended consequence. "Our findings show that blocking thrombin reduces the innate immune response to viral infection," says study senior author Nigel Mackman, PhD, the John C. Parker Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the division of hematology and director of the UNC McAllister Heart Institute. "The use of the new generation of blood thinners might increase the risk and severity of flu and myocarditis."
A report of the research appears in the March 2013 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Mackman points out that viral infections such as dengue fever trigger activation of the coagulation system but it was considered a bad thing. He says studies on bacterial infections have found that the last product of the "clotting cascade" (the process that occurs in blood clot formation) fibrin helps activate immune cell macrophages that boosts the immune system.
"But it seems that the antiviral mechanism of the clotting system is not via fibrin but rather via thrombin; namely, its activation of protease activated receptor proteins such as PAR-1," says Mackman. "The new study was aimed at finding out if PAR-1 plays any role in virus infections, a question of importance to the use of Pradaxa and the development of antithrombotic drugs that target PAR-1 on platelets."
To find the answer, Mackman and colleagues used mice in which the PAR-1 gene is deleted and subjected then to infection with a virus that causes myocarditis. They found that loss of PAR-1 mediated signaling after infection with the cardiotrophic virus resulted in increased viral buildup in the heart, cardiac injury and, later, increased impairment of heart function.
Moreover, the absence of PAR-1 signaling was associated with a slower response to the virus of the innate immune soon after viral infection. The innate immune system provides early defense against disease causing organisms. The defense is almost immediate.
The researchers treated normal mice with Pradaxa. They showed that thrombin inhibition increased cardiac virus load and cardiac injury after viral infection in a similar manner to a deficiency of PAR-1. In addition, they infected the PAR-1 deficient mice with influenza A and found that PAR-1 signaling was important in controlling the virus load in the lung in the early phase after infection. These results suggest that thrombin and PAR-1 mediate important early antiviral signals after infection.
"Pradaxa inhibits clot formation by reducing fibrin deposition and platelet aggregation." said Mackman. "Importantly, Pradaxa might not only facilitate significant lifesaving effects in reducing cardiac death but may also interfere with other processes in the body.
"The results we generated were completely unexpected and in fact our hypothesis was that PAR-1 deficient mice would be protected from viral myocarditis because they would have reduced inflammation," Mackman added. "We are now determining if the traditional long term anticoagulant warfarin has the same effect on viral infection or is this specific to the new blood thinner."
###
The majority of the study was a collaboration between the Mackman group at UNC and the Charit Universittsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, and other groups at UNC, including at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and across the USA.
The first-author is Silvio Antoniak, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Mackman's lab. Other co-authors from Mackman's lab were A. Phillip Owens III, PhD; Martin Baumnacke, MD; and Julie C. Williams, PhD.
The study was supported by the Myocarditis Foundation through a research grant to Silvio Antoniak. Additional funds were provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a component of the National Institutes of Health.
[ | 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.
US jets to South Korea: The US sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea to join military exercises as North Korea threatens war. The US has also sent B-2 bomber jets to South Korea.
By Paul Eckert,?Reuters / April 1, 2013
The United States sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea on Sunday to join military drills aimed at underscoring the U.S. commitment to defend Seoul in the face of an intensifying campaign of threats from North Korea.
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The advanced, radar-evading F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base, the main U.S. Air Force base in South Korea, from Japan to support ongoing bilateral exercises, the U.S. military command in South Korea said in a statement that urged North Korea to restrain itself.
"(North Korea) will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia," the statement said.
This is not the first time that the US has sent F-22s to South Korea. The F-22s were deployed in 2010, too.
Sabre-rattling on the Korean peninsula drew a plea for peace from Pope Francis, who in his first Easter Sunday address called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
"Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean peninsula: may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow," he said, speaking in Italian.
Tensions have been high since the North's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered a nuclear weapons test in February, breaching U.N. sanctions and ignoring warnings from North Korea's closest ally, China, not to do so.
That test, North Korea's third since 2006, drew further U.N. and bilateral sanctions designed to pressure the impoverished North to stop its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang responded to the new steps by ratcheting up warnings and threats of war.
North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea, but Seoul and its ally the United States played down the statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.
In a rare U.S. show of force aimed at North Korea, the United States on Thursday flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea.
On Friday, Kim signed an order putting the North's missile units on standby to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the stealth bomber flights.
The F-22 jets will take part in the annual U.S.-South Korea Foal Eagle military drills, which are designed to sharpen the allies' readiness to defend the South from an attack by North Korea, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. military did not say how many of the planes were flown to South Korea from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The statement described Sunday's deployment as part of routine shifts of air power among bases in the Western Pacific that U.S. forces have been conducting since 2004.
Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted the top Japanese government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, as condemning Pyongyang for "aggressive provocation" after Kim's ruling party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, identified U.S. military bases in Japan as targets for attack.
The two Koreas have been technically in a state of war since a truce that ended their 1950-53 conflict. Despite its threats, few people see any indication Pyongyang will risk a near-certain defeat by re-starting full-scale war. ( Editing by Eric Beech)
Religion plays a big role in individual and institutional decisions about same-sex marriage. Senior Roman Catholic clerics spoke out Sunday on TV news shows ??expressing love and compassion but holding to the church's opposition to gay marriage.
By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / March 31, 2013
Kevin Coyne of Washington holds flags in front of the US Supreme Court Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The high court is considering two major cases involving same-sex marriage.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
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As the US Supreme Court ponders same-sex marriage ? and politicians look anxiously for public opinion clues on today?s hottest social issue ? church leaders play an important role that may in fact be diminishing.
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Increasingly, it seems, church doctrine holds less sway on what many see as a moral issue.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll, for example, finds that Roman Catholics support gay marriage 54-38 percent ? slightly higher than the general population, according to several recent polls.
Among those who describe themselves as ?born-again, evangelical, or fundamentalist" Christians, opposition to gay marriage remains high. Still, half of those say ?the legalization of same-sex marriage is inevitable,? according to a survey by LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, says polls showing increasing support for same-sex marriage should not be taken as political gospel ? especially for Republicans wavering in the direction of approval.
?History ? and most statistical data ? shows that young people tend to become more conservative and more religious as they grow up, get married, and start families of their own,? Mr. Perkins writes on the CNS.com website (founded as the Conservative News Service).
?In fact, in Frank Newport's new book,??God Is Alive and Well,? the editor-in-chief of?Gallup explains that most people are at their spiritually lowest point at age 23,? Perkins writes. ?After that, people become?increasingly religious ? meaning that a hasty retreat on marriage may score cheap points now, but it would actually alienate the same people later on.??
On several TV news shows Sunday morning, senior Roman Catholic clerics weighed in on the debate over gay marriage.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, says his church needs to be more welcoming of gay and lesbian Catholics.?
This undated photo provided by the Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday March 30, 2013 shows Tobias Dustin Summers who was identified as a "child-kidnapping suspect," Los Angeles police said. Summers is a suspect in connection with the abduction of a 10-year-old girl who vanished from her San Fernando Valley home last week and was abandoned hours later in front of a hospital. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Police Department)
This undated photo provided by the Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday March 30, 2013 shows Tobias Dustin Summers who was identified as a "child-kidnapping suspect," Los Angeles police said. Summers is a suspect in connection with the abduction of a 10-year-old girl who vanished from her San Fernando Valley home last week and was abandoned hours later in front of a hospital. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Police Department)
Lieutenant Walter Teague of the Los Angeles Police Department walks away from a poster board at the Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 30, 2013. The police (and the poster board) are asking for the public's help in locating 30 year old Tobias Dustin Summers who is being sought by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Robbery Homicide Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl from the Northridge area. He is described as a white male, 160 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes. Summers is a transient with a lengthy criminal history. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Gary Friedman) MANDATORY CREDIT
A vehicle is dusted for prints in the driveway of a home on the 8800 block of Oakdale Avenue near Nordhoff Street Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in Northridge, Calif., where 10-year-old Nicole Ryan disappeared during the night. Los Angeles police say the girl has been located. Sgt. Rudy Lopez says Ryan was apparently spotted by someone who recognized her from information that had been publicized and contacted the Police Department. She was found at midafternoon outside a Starbucks store about six miles from her home. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Mel Melcon)
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) released this mug shot of Tobias Dustin Summers at the Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 30, 2013. Summers is being sought by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Robbery Homicide Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl from the Northridge area. He is described as a white male, 160 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes. Summers is a transient with a lengthy criminal history.(AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Gary Friedman) MANDATORY CREDIT
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Investigators are seeking a transient who has a long criminal record in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old who was snatched from her San Fernando Valley home before dawn last week and abandoned hours later in front of a hospital, police said.
Tobias Dustin Summers, 30, was identified by police Saturday as a suspect in the case but they couldn't elaborate on the motive or what led them to him. Police don't know if the girl was targeted but said they don't believe Summers had a connection to her family.
"We have no information that the family knew this individual or that the individual knew any members of the family," Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said.
About 40 detectives have been working around the clock looking for clues since the girl was abducted from her home Wednesday. She was found hours later, wandering near a Starbucks several miles away.
The girl was barefoot, had bruises and scratches, and wasn't wearing the same clothes she had on when she vanished. She told the police two men she didn't recognize had taken her from her home.
Police initially said they were looking for two suspects, but now are focusing their efforts on locating Summers.
"This is the only person we are looking for right now," Albanese said Saturday.
Investigators have said they believe the girl was driven around the San Fernando Valley in a couple of cars and taken to at least two locations, including a storage facility, before she was released.
A passer-by who recognized her picture from media reports saw her outside the Starbucks and called police. The girl had wandered there from the hospital where she had been dropped.
Summers, who has a distinctive tattoo of a ghoulish face on his right arm, has arrests dating back to 2002, police said. Among them are robbery, grand theft auto, possession of explosives and kidnapping, authorities said.
Police said they had no details on the prior kidnapping case.
Summers was released from prison in July on a petty theft conviction as part of a California law designed to ease crowding in state prisons. He also spent six days behind bars in January on a probation violation.
Summers last checked in with his probation officer at some point earlier this month and had been complying with his release terms, police said. He is known to frequent the area where the kidnapping took place.
The Los Angeles Times reported that law enforcement sources said the girl was sexually assaulted. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault. Summers isn't a registered sex offender, police said.
Albanese said Summers had been arrested four years ago for investigation of battery that involved child annoyance. Court records show Summers was convicted of battery in September 2009 but the child annoyance charge was either dismissed or not prosecuted.
Summers has family in Southern California, according to police, and the FBI said it will obtain a warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, if the agency determines he has fled the state.
Scientists at the University of Padua in Italy have used infrared light and spectroscopy (the study of a physical object's interaction with electromagnetic radiation) to examine the shroud and found that it's actually much older than a previous study found.
By Marc Lallanilla,?LiveScience Assistant editor / March 29, 2013
Williams Jones, Shenadoah, Pa., shows some of the points of interest in the Shroud of Turin replica on display in front of the altar after the Divine Liturgy during the Shroud of Turin exhibit at St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Shenandoah, Pa., in Feb.
Jacqueline Dormer/The Republican-Herald/AP
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The Shroud of Turin, an icon of faith and controversy among Christians, is back in the news.
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The Shroud of Turin - the cloth that some have claimed was used to wrap the body of Jesus after his crucifixion - is the subject of a new book that claims it is 2,300 years old. Gayle King reports.
The linen cloth, allegedly the burial shroud of Jesus, was closely examined in 1988 in laboratories in Switzerland, England and the United States using carbon-14 dating techniques, the?Telegraph?reports.
Those examinations of the shroud ? which bears the image of a man's face and torso ? dated the cloth from 1260 to 1390, supporting claims that it's merely an elaborate medieval hoax, as Jesus' life is thought to have come to an end in A.D. 33.
Some believers, however, insisted that the linen fibers used in the 1988 examinations were not from the original shroud, but rather from a portion of the cloth that had been repaired after suffering fire damage in the Middle Ages.
Now, scientists at the University of Padua in Italy have used infrared light and spectroscopy (the study of a physical object's interaction with electromagnetic radiation) to examine the shroud and found that it's actually much older, the Telegraph reports.?
In his recent book, "Il Mistero della Sindone," translated as "The Mystery of the Shroud," (Rizzoli, 2013), Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical engineering at Padua University, said his analysis proves the shroud dates from 280 B.C. to A.D. 220 ? meaning it existed during Jesus' lifetime, the?Guardian?reports. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]
The Shroud of Turin is said to be the cloth that covered Jesus' body after the crucifiction. Previous examinations that dated the shroud to the Middle Ages mesh with historical records, which don't start mentioning the cloth until that time. But some researchers believe the shroud is older. Thomas de Wesselow, author of "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection" (Dutton Adult, 2012), argues that medieval artists did not paint in photorealistic style, and that a forged shroud created in the Middle Ages would be an anachronism.?
That doesn't mean the shroud is evidence of a miracle, however, de Wesselow told LiveScience last year. He believes natural chemical reactions caused by a decomposing body and annoiting oils could have created the body imprint on the shroud, which may have then been?used as evidence of Christ's resurrection.?
For the first time in 30 years, the shroud will be shown on television this Saturday (March 30), the Guardian reports. Before leaving the papacy,?Benedict XVI?approved a special broadcast of the shroud to be held at the Turin Cathedral, where the cloth is preserved in a climate-controlled case.
And for those who want an even more intimate examination of the cloth, a new mobile app, Shroud 2.0, was just released on Good Friday (March 29),?Zenit.org?reports.
Designed in collaboration with the Museum of the Holy Shroud and the Archdiocese of Turin, Shroud 2.0 synthesizes 1,649 high-definition photographs into a single 12-billion-pixel image. An Android version is also being developed, Zenit reports.
Follow Marc Lallanilla on?Twitter?and?Google+. Follow us?@livescience,?Facebook?&?Google+. Original article onLiveScience.com.
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