Obama to meet with Republican senators over budget

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama plans to meet with several Republican senators for dinner on Wednesday as part of his effort to revive talks to tackle the nation's long-term deficit, the White House said.

The Democratic president is trying to cobble together what he calls a "common sense caucus" among lawmakers to help resolve U.S. budget woes and push his legislative agenda.

He also is scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill next week, when he will address Senate Republicans at a lunch on March 14.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the lunch will be an opportunity to discuss budget and economic issues.

A source, who asked not to be identified, said Obama also plans to meet with House of Representatives Democrats next week, although the date has not yet been set.

Wednesday's dinner meeting, to be held at a hotel near the White House, could be postponed, the White House said, as Washington faced heavy snow forecasts that already had closed most federal agencies.

In recent days, Obama has searched for common ground with senators who in the past have indicated a willingness to compromise on budget issues. The White House on Sunday suggested talks could center around a broad budget deal that includes new tax revenues as well as reforms to entitlement programs. These include the Medicare health care program for the elderly and disabled and Social Security retirement benefits - programs that are rapidly growing in cost as the population ages.

The Republican U.S. senators Obama has contacted recently include Bob Corker of Tennessee, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, according to the senators or congressional aides. The White House declined to confirm the names.

Coburn will attend Wednesday's dinner, as will Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, their aides said. Senator John McCain of Arizona, who ran unsuccessfully for president against Obama in 2008, also will attend, according to an aide. The New York Times said about 12 senators would attend.

At the heart of the U.S. fiscal crisis is disagreement over how to rein in the $16.7 trillion debt. Obama wants to narrow the fiscal gap with spending cuts and tax hikes. Republicans do not want to concede again on taxes after doing so in negotiations over the "fiscal cliff" at the New Year.

Last Friday marked the start of $85 billion in across-the-board budget cuts that are to be carried out by September 30. It was not clear whether Obama, in his new contacts with Republican senators, was still trying to negotiate a substitute for those cuts.

Republican leaders rejected higher taxes as part of a budget deal that would have avoided the cuts contained in the so-called sequester that kicked in Friday.

Lawmakers are working short-term to avoid a government shutdown when the current U.S. federal budget expires at the end of March. Bills moving through the House and Senate will incorporate the $85 billion in lower spending.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-meet-republican-senators-over-budget-140818497--business.html

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What Antarctica looked like before the ice

Stuart N. Thomson / UA Department of Geosciences

This 3-D reconstruction of the topography hidden under Antarctica's two-mile-thick coating of ice was made using data from radar surveys. The continent was relatively flat before glaciers started carving deep valleys 34 million years ago, a new study finds.

By Becky Oskin
LiveScience

Like Alaska's mighty Yukon, a broad river once flowed across Antarctica, following a gentle valley shaped by tectonic forces at a time before the continent became encased in ice. Understanding what happened when rivers of ice later filled the valley could solve certain climate and geologic puzzles about the southernmost continent.

The valley is Lambert Graben in East Antarctica, now home to the world's largest glacier. Trapped beneath the ice, the graben (which is German for ditch or trench) is a stunning, deep gorge. But before Antarctica's deep freeze?34 million years ago, the valley was relatively flat and filled by a lazy river, leaving a riddle for geologists to decode: How did Lambert Graben get so steep, and when was it carved?

The key to Lambert Graben's history was found in layers of sediments just offshore, in Prydz Bay. In a new study, Stuart Thomson, a geologist at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, looked into the past by decoding sands deposited by the river, and the messy piles left behind by the glacier. The river sands are topped with a thick layer of coarser sediment that signals the onset of glacial erosion in the valley, the researchers found. The erosion rate more than doubled when the glaciers moved in, Thomson said.

"The only way that could happen is from glaciers," he said. "They started grinding and forming deep valleys."

WHOI

Antarctica and the Gondwana supercontinent, 150 million years ago.

Understanding when glaciers first wove their way across Antarctica will help scientists better model the ice sheet's response to Earth's climate shifts, the researchers said.

"There's a big effort to model how glaciers flow in Antarctica, and these models need a landscape over which glaciers can flow," Thomson told OurAmazingPlanet. "Once these models can predict past changes, they can more accurately predict what will happen with future climate changes."

The sediments also hold clues to the tectonic evolution of East Antarctica, and a mountain range buried beneath the vast, thick ice sheet. [Album: Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]

The findings are detailed in the March 2013 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

History of the ice
Lambert Graben formed during the breakup of Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent, a process that happened in stages. Antarctica, India and Africa tore apart in the Late Cretaceous (about 80 million years ago). The split created long, linear valleys oriented perpendicular to the continental coastlines. At the time, Earth's climate was warmer than it is today, and as Antarctica moved southward, settling into its home over the South Pole, the continent teemed with plants and animals.

Scientists can partially reconstruct this past environment with fossils and through radar that peers beneath the ice to map the shapes of the rock below. A 3-D map of Antarctica today shows chasms carved by glaciers, rugged mountains and other remnants of its warmer existence.

But the surveys tell nothing about how the landscape looked before the ice carved out all those features. "People have speculated when the big fjords formed under the ice," Thomson said. "But no one knows for sure until you sample the rocks or the sediments."

Thomson and his colleagues analyzed sediments drilled from the ocean floor just offshore of Lambert Glacier, as well as from onshore moraines, the rock piles pushed up by glaciers. Tests on minerals in the sands and muds helped them figure out when and how fast the surface eroded.

Here's what the sediments say: From about 250 million to 34 million years ago, the region around Lambert Glacier was relatively flat, and drained by slow-moving rivers, Thomson said. About 34 million years ago, which coincides with a cooling of Earth's climate, big glaciers appeared, shaping the spectacular valley now hidden under thick ice.

"It seemed like it occurred very early on, 34 (million) to 24 million years ago," Thomson said. Erosion slowed dramatically as the ice sheet stabilized about 15 million years ago, he said.

Some 5,250 to 8,200 feet (1.6 to 2.5 kilometers) of rock have since disappeared, ground down by glaciers and carried away by the ice, according to the study.

"Glaciers can carve deep valleys quickly ? and did so on Antarctica?before it got so cold that the most of it got covered by 1 or 2 miles (1.6 to 3.2 km) of thick, stationary ice," Peter Reiners, a UA geologist and study co-author, said in a statement.

Clues to buried mountain range
Lambert Graben extends about 375 miles (600 km) inland, ending at one of Antarctica's most enigmatic features ? an entombed mountain range called the Gamburtsev Mountains. Buried under the ice, the mountains rose during Gondwana's rifting. Geologic evidence suggests two pulses of uplift from rifting events about 250 million years ago and 100 million years ago pushed up the jagged peaks.

But Thomson and his colleagues did not find evidence in the sediments for a second uplift phase 100 million years ago. The river sands contain minerals from the Gamburtsev Mountains, and the tiny grains suggest the mountains got their height with one tectonic push.

"This underscores both the mountain range's remarkable age and the extraordinary degree of subglacial landscape preservation," writes Darrel Swift in an accompanying article in Nature Geoscience. Swift, a geologist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, was not involved in the study.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/07/17227358-what-antarctica-looked-like-before-the-ice?lite

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Ark. Senate overrides veto of 12-week abortion ban

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, right, greets Sen. Bobby J. Pierce, D-Sheridan, on the floor of the senate chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Pierce voted against an override of Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of Rapert's legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, right, greets Sen. Bobby J. Pierce, D-Sheridan, on the floor of the senate chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Pierce voted against an override of Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of Rapert's legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, waits to be interviewed near the senate chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of Rapert's legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, speaks in the senate chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The Arkansas Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe?s veto of Rapert's legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward and would give the state the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, appears for an interview near the senate chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The Arkansas Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe?s veto of Rapert's legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward and would give the state the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? The Arkansas Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward and give the state the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

There was no debate before the 20-14 vote. Beebe told legislators in his letter explaining his veto Monday that he believes the proposal is unconstitutional and conflicts with the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. But the bill's sponsor said after Tuesday's vote that he thinks the Democratic governor is wrong.

"That's not valid. The U.S. Constitution says nothing whatsoever about abortion. This is governed by case law," said Sen. Jason Rapert, a Republican from Conway.

The House sponsor of Rapert's bill said she'll ask that chamber to vote on an override Wednesday. Only a simple majority is needed in each chamber to trump a governor's veto. If the House overrides Beebe's veto, the 12-week ban would take effect later this year.

Last week, the Republican-controlled Legislature overrode Beebe's veto of a separate bill outlawing most abortions beginning in the 20th week of pregnancy. That bill, which immediately became law, is based on the disputed notion that a fetus can feel pain by then and thus, deserves protection from abortion.

So-called fetal pain laws enacted in other states are being challenged in court, and abortion rights proponents have said they would sue to block Arkansas' 12-week ban if it's approved. The 12-week standard is based on when a fetus' heartbeat can typically be detected through an abdominal ultrasound.

"Just like we said last time, the Legislature has the final say," Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said after Tuesday's vote. "So we'll see what the House decides to do.

"We don't purport to guess what either house of the Legislature will do on any issue, so we just, at this point, (there's) nothing for us to do but watch and see what happens. The governor's already stated his position pretty strongly," DeCample said.

All 14 Senate Democrats voted against the override, including five who supported the ban last week.

"I still agree with it. It's the thing to do," said Sen. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan. He said he voted against the override as a courtesy to the governor.

Beebe contends that both measures are unconstitutional and contradict Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion until a fetus can viably survive outside the womb, generally around 22 to 24 weeks. Beebe says the state would have to waste money defending the bans in court, and noted that Arkansas paid nearly $148,000 to attorneys for plaintiffs who successfully challenged a 1997 late-term abortion ban.

The 12-week ban would prohibit abortions when a heartbeat is detected using an abdominal ultrasound. It includes exemptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and highly lethal fetal disorders. The 20-week prohibition includes all of the same exemptions except for fetal disorders.

The measure is among several abortion restrictions lawmakers have backed since Republicans won control of the House and Senate in the November election. Republicans hold 21 of the 35 Senate seats, and 51 of the 100 seats in the House.

Beebe has signed into law one of those measures ? a prohibition on most abortion coverage by insurers participating in the exchange created under the federal health care overhaul.

If ultimately approved, the 12-week restriction wouldn't take effect until 90 days after the House and Senate adjourn. Lawmakers aren't expected to wrap up this year's session until later this month or April.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas has vowed to sue if the state enacts the 12-week ban ? and the group said it was considering legal action over the 20-week restriction as well. Planned Parenthood has called the 12-week ban the nation's most restrictive anti-abortion law.

"I think we're one step closer to the most intrusive abortion law in the country and it sets Arkansas back decades in public perception in the minds of other people: potential employers, businesses and people who might want to move here," said Rita Sklar, the ACLU of Arkansas' executive director.

The original version of Rapert's bill would have banned abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, but he changed the measure after facing resistance from some lawmakers worried that it would require a vaginal probe.

Women who have abortions would not face prosecution under Rapert's bill, but doctors who perform abortions in violation of the 12-week ban could have their medical licenses revoked.

___

Andrew DeMillo can be reached at www.twitter.com/ademillo

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-03-05-Arkansas%20Legislature-Abortion/id-f7e628cea8d745409209fe1da330a184

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Anti-AIDS pill, vaginal gel unsuitable for Africa: study

By Jon Herskovitz

JOHANNESBURG | Mon Mar 4, 2013 3:04pm EST

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Trying to prevent HIV infection through vaginal gels or daily tablets has proven ineffective in the southern African region ravaged by the disease because people did not use the medicines properly, a study released on Monday said.

A ground-breaking study issued in 2010 indicated a vaginal gel containing an HIV drug can sharply reduce infections in women who use it before and after sex.

However, a test of the gel and two types of anti-HIV pills among more than 5,000 women in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda showed that, based on blood tests, more than 70 percent did not use the medication as instructed.

"We are obviously disappointed in the results. We were very hopeful that these products, which we know have been effective in other studies and clearly have a lot of promise, would work," Jeanne Marrazzo, a researcher on the project for the University of Washington, told reporters in a teleconference.

"Women did not use consistently any of the products. Adherence was very low," said Marrazzo, part of the project known as the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE).

HIV/AIDS experts said the results showed how important a factor human behavior is when devising ways to prevent HIV.

"HIV prevention is never just biomedical - behavior is key. What we've learned from VOICE and other trials is that adherence to the prescribed dose - the behavioral component - is the variable that determines effectiveness," said Mitchell Warren, director of the HIV prevention advocacy group AVAC.

East and southern Africa are the areas most heavily affected by the HIV epidemic. Out of the total number of people worldwide in 2009 living with HIV, 34 percent were in 10 countries of southern Africa, according to the U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Experts have been searching for years for inexpensive, safe and simple medications to decrease the risk of transmission among a population that is largely destitute and with little access to quality health care.

The study also found the group most likely to contract HIV - unmarried women under 25 - was also the most likely not to use any of the medicines. The results were presented at a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.

The three-year study that started in September 2009 tested a daily tablet called Truvada, which was approved for HIV prevention in July 2012 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after it was shown to significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection when used as a preventative measure.

The gel with a drug called tenofovir, which a previous study showed reduced HIV infections in women by 39 percent over two and a half years, and an oral tenofovir tablet were also tested.

Researchers have been trying for years to formulate a microbicide - a gel, cream, ring or tablet inserted into the vagina or rectum before sex to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

"We need to rethink the design of these intervention trials ... in healthy people because it is difficult for anybody to take a pill or anything every day, particularly when you are healthy and do not feel that you need a drug," said Marrazzo.

Truvada is made by Gilead Sciences, which also developed tenofovir. In 2006, Gilead assigned a royalty-free license for tenofovir gel to CONRAD.

Jonathan Mermin, an HIV/AIDS prevention expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said these trial results underscored the complexities of getting healthy people to use preventative measures against HIV.

"Clinicians and public health professionals will have to further assess and better understand how to promote and support the high levels of adherence necessary," he said.

(Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Louise Ireland and Michael Roddy)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/GQQgxYkSJf0/us-hiv-gel-study-idUSBRE9230UI20130304

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Samsung Galaxy S III passes FCC with support for T-Mobile LTE

Ever since T-Mobile promised to introduce a Galaxy S III that supports LTE over Band 4 (1700MHz AWS), we've been scouring FCC docs for signs of its rumored March 27th arrival. Well folks, that day's now come, as Samsung SGH-T999L has just cleared the regulatory body, complete with readiness for LTE Band 4. The phone's model number pegs it as a natural successor for T-Mobile's original Galaxy S III (SGH-T999), and it also carries telltale support for HSPA+ over the 1900, 1700 and 850MHz bands. Curiously, the handset also supports LTE Band 17, which is common amongst phones for AT&T -- at the very least, this should add value for those willing to skirt those silly unlocking laws. Now, the only question that remains is how quickly this phone will become yesterday's news.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, T-Mobile

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Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/04/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-t-mobile-lte-fcc/

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NATO expects decision on post-2014 Afghan force by mid-year

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO expects a decision by the middle of this year on the size of a training force to be kept in Afghanistan once most foreign troops leave in 2014, alliance Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday.

The Pentagon has said a NATO-led training force of between 8,000 and 12,000 was under consideration.

Questions remain over how well Afghan security forces being built up by NATO will be able to tackle Islamist Taliban insurgents in the face of intensifying violence and how Western states can justify financial support for a force that has been saddled with accusations of torture by the United Nations.

"It takes some time to stand up a new training mission, of course, and we will need the clarification within the next few months," Rasmussen told Reuters after talks with President Hamid Karzai in the Afghan capital Kabul.

"I would expect it (the size of the force) to be finalized very soon because we also need to start planning," he said.

Many Afghans eagerly await a firm decision on the number of foreign troops who will stay in their country once NATO's military operation officially ends at the end of next year.

"President Karzai assured me today that Afghanistan wants a NATO-led training mission to stay, to train, to give advice, to assist the Afghan security forces after 2014," Rasmussen said of the training mission, which is called "Resolute Support".

An earlier suggestion of a "zero option" by White House officials - a complete U.S. withdrawal after 2014 - spooked some Afghan lawmakers, who warned this could lead to full civil war.

But troop numbers are also politically sensitive in many NATO countries where voters have tired of the increasingly unpopular and costly 12-year war against Taliban insurgents.

U.S. President Barack Obama said last month that 34,000 troops, about half of the U.S. force now in Afghanistan, would withdraw by early 2014. At its peak, there were around 130,000 foreign troops in the country, most of them American.

The United States and its NATO allies are helping increase the size of the Afghan security forces to a targeted 352,000, a number they are fast approaching. Rasmussen said they now provide security for about 87 percent of the population.

NATO and its allies, which fund Afghan security forces, had planned to trim their number to 230,000 after 2015, but Rasmussen said the Western alliance is now considering "keeping the high level a bit longer than expected".

When Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade-long war, financial aid dried up and the Afghan government collapsed, leading to fighting between warlords and a civil war paving the way to the 1996 rise to power of the radical Taliban.

Western military intervention toppled the Taliban in 2001 following al Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the United States.

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nato-expects-decision-post-2014-afghan-force-mid-142559658.html

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Smart Sunglasses You Can Buy Right Now

Price: $450

The inspiration came from an ultimate-Frisbee game. Don McPherson, who has a Ph.D. in glass science, lent a pair of laser-operator safety goggles to a friend who had forgotten his sunglasses. The friend, who happened to be color-blind, found that the lenses made the landscape uncannily vivid.

It turns out that these lenses block a narrow part of the visual spectrum, which allows people with color-deficient vision to separate, for example, reds and greens, which will generally look blurred into a brown. "The narrow-band lens-filter design takes out only those specific shades most responsible for color confusion," McPherson says.

The UV450, a sunglass variant of the original design, applies the same idea. While regular sunglasses dull the transmission of all light reaching your eyeball, the EnChroma's coating isolates wavelengths of colors that end up looking mixed together to our naked eye. What remains is specific sections of the visual spectrum that relay true colors to your peepers.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/smart-sunglasses-you-can-buy-right-now?src=rss

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