north korea short and sweet

North Korea's top government body proposes high level nuclear and security talks with the US

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea's top government body proposes high level nuclear and security talks with the US.

(the only thing I can say about this article at least it’s short. This seems to me to be yet another ploy by North Korea to try and loosen sanctions while still continuing it’s inhumane policies and practices, nothing like the threat of a saber rattling tyrant to get the big boys at the table. The threat that North Korea will deploy its nuclear arsenal the very moment this becomes feasible is a clear and present threat not only to our allies throughout the Eastern theater but indeed to the world at large. Every effort should be made to turn aside this madness and encourage North Korea to come into the modern age, take better care of its citizens, and give serious thought to the benefits of peace and diplomacy.)

china net?

Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest

BEIJING (AP) — China has built the world's fastest computer for a second time, beating the U.S.'s Titan machine.

The semiannual TOP500 official listing of the world's fastest supercomputers says the Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha city in central China is capable of sustained computing of 33.86 petaflops per second. That's the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second. The list was released Monday.

The Tianhe-2 knocks the U.S. Department of Energy's Titan machine off the no. 1 spot. It achieved 17.59 petaflops per second.

It's the second time China has been named as having built the world's fastest supercomputer. In 2010, predecessor Tianhe-1A gained that honor.

Supercomputers are used for complex work such as modeling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions and designing jetliners.

( so China is making Skynet….figures, first they take up the banner of space exploration, now they race ahead in computer technology, some advice kids, learn mandarin.)

bulgaria

More anti-government protests occur in Bulgaria

VESELIN TOSHKOV, AP

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria's prime minister said Monday that Parliament's appointment of a media mogul as the nation's security chief was a mistake, but that his government will not resign over it.

Several thousand people took to the streets of Sofia, the capital, and other cities on Monday, the fourth day of demonstrations demanding that the government resign over the appointment of Delyan Peevski, who has no experience in security, as the head of Bulgaria's national security agency.

Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski, whose government came to power two weeks ago, said the legislature's appointment, made on Friday after no debate, was a mistake, and that he will consult with the public before a new security chief is appointed.

Citing the protests, Peevski announced Saturday that he will resign. Oresharski said Monday that he has accepted that, but the final decision is Parliament's.

Peevski's mother, Irena Krasteva, owns several dailies, weeklies and television stations in Bulgaria, but he is believed to have a strong influence over their editorial policies.

Street protests in February against high energy bills, poverty and corruption brought down the previous center-right government of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov.

The current government, backed by the Socialists and a smaller ethnic Turkish party, was formed after a May 12 election. Together the two groups have 120 seats in the 240-member Parliament, which makes it difficult for them to reform the country's ailing economy.

On Monday, several thousand people rallied in front of government headquarters in Sofia to demand the government step down. Police stepped-up security, cordoning off the building with metal barriers, but the demonstrations have been peaceful.

Blowing whistles and waving the national flag, the protesters shouted slogans such as "Red Garbage!" ''Mafia!" and "Resignation!" They demanded more transparency from government.

Many of the protesters said they have had enough of the "behind-the-scenes" deals involving politicians and powerful businessmen they accuse of corruption. The demonstrators demanded early elections now.

President Rosen Plevneliev said he will convene the national security council on Thursday and called on all parties to come up with solutions to end the political crisis.

( on the one hand selecting an inexperienced person to be your security chief is a brassy move, on the other hand the link between media and security grows ever closer in the information age, so maybe not so bad a move as It might at first appear.)

captain planet plane a reality

Official: Solar plane to help energy use on ground

BY SETH BORENSTEIN, AP

CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — The nation's energy secretary says a solar-powered plane that landed outside Washington early Sunday will one day offer a payoff for people on the ground.

The spindly one-man craft called Solar Impulse has been flying cross-country in short hops as part of a 13-year privately funded European project. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz praised the effort at a news conference Monday at Dulles International airport where the plane landed.

He said the plane's cutting-edge technology will improve energy use in cars and buildings by leading to better solar cells and batteries, electric motors, lightweight material and general efficiencies.

The plane, which left St. Louis on Friday, will finish its test flight across America later this month when it files to New York

(shades of captain planet!!!! A Solar Powered Airplane!!! We are definitely living in the future.)

el gato

Morris the cat runs for mayor of Mexican city

OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, AP

MEXICO CITY (AP) — This mayoral hopeful in Mexico promises to eat, sleep most of the day and donate his leftover litter to fill potholes.

Morris, a black-and-white kitten with orange eyes, is running for mayor of Xalapa in eastern Mexico with the campaign slogan "Tired of Voting for Rats? Vote for a Cat." And he is attracting tens of thousands of politician-weary, two-legged supporters on social media.

"He sleeps almost all day and does nothing, and that fits the profile of a politician," said 35-year-old office worker Sergio Chamorro, who adopted the 10-month-old feline last year.

Put forth as a candidate by Chamorro and a group of friends after they became disillusioned with the empty promises of politicians, Morris' candidacy has resonated across Mexico, where citizens frustrated with human candidates are nominating their pets and farm animals to run in July 7 elections being held in 14 states.

Also running for mayor are "Chon the Donkey" in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, "Tina the Chicken" in Tepic, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, "Maya the Cat" in the city of Puebla and "Tintan the Dog" in Oaxaca City, though their campaigns are not as well organized as that of Morris.

Politicians repeatedly rank at the bottom of polls about citizens' trust in institutions. A survey last year by Mitofsky polling agency ranking Mexicans' trust in 15 institutions put politicians and government officials among the bottom five. Universities and the Catholic Church were the top two, respectively.

Morris' cuteness, the clever campaign and promises to donate money collected from the sales of campaign stickers and T-shirts to an animal shelter has attracted cat lovers, but Chamorro said most of his supporters are citizens tired of corrupt politicians and fraudulent elections.

"Morris has been a catalyst to show the discontent that exists in our society," Chamorro said. "Our message from the beginning has been 'if none of the candidates represent you, vote for the cat' and it seems people are responding to that."

Xalapa, a university city of 450,000 people, is the capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, where residents have in last two years been beleaguered by drug violence, corruption scandals and the killings of at least nine reporters and photojournalists.

During last year's presidential election, a video posted on social networks showed a massive warehouse in Veracruz stuffed with election give-away groceries. Authorities also seized $1.9 million in wads of cash found when police decided to search passengers of a private plane arriving from Veracruz to Toluca, the capital of the home state of now-President Enrique Pena Nieto. Officials later said they had found no wrongdoing and the money was returned.

Giovanna Mazzotti, a 48-year-old university professor from the city of bright colonial buildings and steep streets, said she supports Morris' campaign and plans to go to a party for him being held Friday. The candidate is not expected to attend.

"In this state there is no rule of law, there is no respect for human rights, there are no institutions," Mazzotti said. "It's great that this campaign is showing the fiction in our elections. Every three years politicians laugh at us, it's good to laugh at them a bit, too."

Morris has a website, a Twitter account and a Facebook page with more than 115,000 'likes,' that makes him more popular in social networks than the five human mayoral contenders. Americo Zuniga, the candidate for the ruling party who is leading in election polls, had 33,000 Facebook 'likes' as of Friday.

His website has a collection of memes that picture Morris yawning while describing his "ample legislative experience," an image that mirrors photographs of lawmakers sleeping during congressional sessions.

Morris' campaign managers are asking supporters to write-in 'Morris' or draw a cat's face on the ballot to send a message to authorities, who are not taking the cat's growing popularity lightly.

Members of the Electoral Institute of Veracruz this week called on voters not to waste their vote on a cat.

"We are asking for people to participate by voting for those citizens registered on the ballots," electoral institute president Carolina Viveros told local media this week. "Everything else is part of expressions happening in social media and I respect that, but you have to vote for the registered candidates, please."

Morris also has international supporters.

On Friday, the animal-welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote Morris congratulating him for his campaign.

Stubbs, a cat that has been the honorary mayor for more than 15 years of the sleepy Alaska town of Talkeetna, has shown support for Morris by posting his fellow feline candidate's spot campaign on its Facebook page.

( I think this sets a fine example, if we traded in our fat cats for actual cats imagine the money we could save, instead of six  figure incomes, endless campaigning, and lies, we could instead have honest uselessness and affordable bipartisan apathy! )

chimp

Conn. chimp victim denied $150M state lawsuit

DAVE COLLINS, AP

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman disfigured in a chimpanzee attack was denied permission Friday to sue the state for $150 million.

The state is immune to lawsuits unless they're allowed by state Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr., who denied permission and announced his decision in a news release.

Nash was blinded, lost both hands and underwent a face transplant after being mauled in Stamford in 2009. She reached a $4 million settlement last year with the estate of chimp owner Sandra Herold, who died in 2010.

Her lawyer said the state should be held responsible for not seizing the animal before the attack, because it was warned the animal was dangerous. State Attorney General George Jepsen said the state shouldn't be held liable for the mauling.

Nash, 59, had gone to Herold's home on the day of the attack to help lure her friend's 200-pound chimpanzee, Travis, back inside. But the chimp went berserk and ripped off Nash's nose, lips, eyelids and hands before being shot to death by a police officer. Nash now lives in a nursing home outside Boston.

Travis had starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola when he was younger and made an appearance on "The Maury Povich Show." The chimpanzee was the constant companion of the widowed Herold and was fed steak, lobster and ice cream. The chimp could eat at the table, drink wine from a stemmed glass, use the toilet, and bathe and dress itself.

Travis had previously bitten another woman's hand and tried to drag her into a car in 1996, bit a man's thumb two years later and roamed downtown Stamford for hours in 2003 before being captured after escaping from Herold's home, according to Nash's lawsuit against Herold.

The $4 million settlement covers a small fraction of Nash's medical costs, according to her lawyers, who have said she requires care and supervision around the clock. She is facing another surgery for hand transplants and will need to be on antibiotics for the rest of her life.

Nash holds the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection responsible for not seizing the animal before the attack despite a state biologist's warning it was dangerous.

"I hope and pray that the commissioner will give me my day in court," Nash told reporters following a hearing last year before Vance. "And I also pray that I hope this never happens to anyone else again. It is not nice."

State Attorney General George Jepsen has said the state should not be held liable for the mauling. He has acknowledged that a state biologist had warned that the chimp was "an accident waiting to happen" before the attack. But Jepsen said state law on the issue was ambiguous and difficult to enforce, and there was no guarantee a court hearing would have led to a seizure order

(people should not own chimps,sure they may look all cute but they are dangerous primates with huge fangs and tremendous strength,in short leave them to the wild to terrorize the countryside or in a zoo where professionals can take all the risks and you can enjoy the antics from a safe distance.)

mad barber on the loose!!!

Barber kicked out of Conn. park granted reprieve

DAVE COLLINS, AP

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — An 82-year-old barber who has been giving free haircuts to the homeless in exchange for hugs for 25 years was granted permission by the mayor Thursday to keep working in a city park, despite orders to leave from police and health officials.

Anthony "Joe the Barber" Cymerys has been a fixture every Wednesday for years at Bushnell Park, where he cuts hair and his friends hand out food to the needy.

But shortly after Cymerys set up shop this week, he said, health officials and police confronted him and his friends and told them they had to leave because they didn't have permits.

"I thought it was a drug raid, honest to God," Cymerys said. "It was the peanut gallery on TV where everyone was watching."

City health officials said they ordered Cymerys out of the park Wednesday after unnamed local residents expressed concerns about the "safety and sanitation" of Cymerys' free haircuts to homeless people and his friends' food distribution. They also noted that Cymerys is not a licensed barber.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Pedro Segarra said later Thursday that he granted Cymerys a special dispensation in light of his years of charitable work. The spokeswoman, Maribel La Luz, said the city will help Cymerys obtain a state barber's license if he likes.

Cymerys, who learned how to cut hair growing up and isn't a licensed barber, said he wasn't completely surprised by officials' actions because they've asked him before to leave the park and other areas.

He said he always takes health precautions including soaking his trimmers in alcohol.

"Twenty-five years I've been giving haircuts, and no one died on me," he said.

His friends questioned the city's actions, saying officials kicked him out of the park only a year after honoring him for his humanitarian work.

"It's kind of ironic that a year ago the mayor was giving him a citation for all the good work he's been doing with the homeless there and they kick us out," said George Pfuetzner, who gives out food at the park while Cymerys cuts hair.

Cymerys, of Windsor, began giving free haircuts to the homeless in the city around 1988, when he was volunteering at a shelter. He said he met a heroin addict named Arnold who needed a haircut, so he offered his services.

"I said, 'Geez, Arnold. Not only are you a bum, you look like a bum. How about I bring in my clippers?'" Cymerys recalled.

Cymerys, a retired businessman, said his father cut his hair as a child, and he took it up.

"It's all about inspiring people to do things for the least of our brothers," he said.

(ah yes the police keeping us safe from the horrors of unlicensed barbering! )

Boston woman pays $560,000 for 2 parking spots

BOSTON (AP) — Parking is such a precious commodity in Boston that one woman was willing to pay $560,000 for two off-street spaces near her home.

Lisa Blumenthal won the spots in the city's Back Bay neighborhood during an on-site auction Thursday held in a steady rain by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS had seized the spots from a man who owed back taxes.

Blumenthal, who lives in a multimillion-dollar home near the parking spaces, tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/13KqntI ) she didn't expect the bidding to go quite so high for the spots she says will come in handy for guests and workers.

The record for a single spot in Boston is $300,000.

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts is $313,000.

 (you read that right Boston Millionaire is paying for the privilege of being allowed to legally park her cars, this is quite possibly one of the biggest scams in history. Paying for a place on your street, not a parking garage, not even a parking lot but on her street! Her public street. This is outrageous. And does strike close to home, where in my small college town parking is at a premium and if you want ot be allowed to park anywhere near the local businesses or schools you will pay. And it is a huge money making industry for the city. At least this lucky woman had access to the kind of cash to pay these outrageous prices, given the neighborhood pretty unlikely any of the common folk would be in on this bidding and it was quite nice of her to think of the help.)

fake booze?

Charlie Trotter accused of selling bogus $46K wine

CHICAGO (AP) — Award-winning chef Charlie Trotter is being sued by two New York wine collectors who say he sold them a bottle of wine for more than $46,000 that wasn't what it said on the label.

The federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Chicago accuses Trotter and one of his wine experts of duping them into buying what they thought was a bottle of 1945 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti magnum in June 2012.

The collectors, Bekim and Ilir Frrokaj (Beh-KEEM' and ih-LEER' FRO'-kuh), say an appraisal firm concluded the bottle was counterfeit.

They are seeking damages of more than $76,000. They accuse Trotter and his company of violating Illinois consumer fraud laws.

An attorney for Trotter, John Riccione, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.

big brother?

Survey: Many Americans say 'Big Brother' is here

BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP

NEW YORK (AP) — There's little wonder why George Orwell's novel "1984" is seeing a resurgence in sales.

More than half of Americans polled in a survey released Thursday said they agreed with the statement "We are really in the era of Big Brother."

The survey from the University of Southern California was conducted last year, before recent revelations of large-scale, secret government surveillance programs. Yet it still found that some 35 percent of respondents agreed that "There is no privacy, get over it."

A growing number of Internet users said they are concerned about the government checking on their online activities, according to the survey. But even more people were worried about businesses doing the same.

The USC Annenberg School's Center for the Digital Future has polled more than 2,000 U.S. households about their Internet and technology use each year, with the exception of 2011, since 1999.

Forty-three percent of Internet users said they are concerned about the government checking what they do online, up from 38 percent in 2010. But 57 percent said they were worried about private companies doing the same thing — up from 48 percent in the earlier study.

A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center found that almost three-quarters of Americans are concerned that businesses are collecting too much information about people like them, while 64 percent had the same worry about the government.

In addition to their views on privacy, the most recent report also found that 86 percent of Americans are online, up from 82 percent in 2010. That's the highest level in the study's history and further evidence of how central the Internet has become in American's lives, especially in the age of mobile devices.

"We find that people almost never lose their mobile phone," said Jeff Cole, author of the study and director of the center. "They can drop it in the gutter, have it stolen but leave it on the table at a restaurant — most of us don't even get through the front door before noticing it."

More than half of the Internet users surveyed said they go online using a mobile device, up from a third who said the same thing in 2010. As expected, texting is becoming increasingly important for people of all ages — 82 percent of mobile phone users text, up from 62 percent in 2010 and 31 percent in 2007.

Among other key findings:

— Thirty percent of parents said they don't monitor what their children do on social networking sites such as Facebook, while 70 percent said that they do.

— Nearly half of parents, 46 percent, said that they have their kids' passwords so they can access their account.

— People spent more time online than in any previous year of the study. On average, they were online 20.4 hours per week, up from 18.3 hours in 2010 and about nine hours in 2000.

— One percent of respondents said they visit websites with sexual content "several times a day," while 69 percent said they never do.

— Dial-up is going the way of the dodo: 83 percent said they access the Internet using a broadband connection, up from 10 percent in 2000.

— The line between work and home life is blurring. Nearly a quarter of Internet users said they "often" use the Internet at home for work-related purposes. Conversely, 18 percent said they "often" go online at work for non-work related activities. The study did not say whether these were the same people.

The 2012 poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. And about that "1984" sales surge — the book has been steadily climbing up Amazon's list of "movers and shakers" books, the online list of the biggest sales gainers over the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday afternoon, the 60th anniversary edition of the classic was No. 6 on the list, with sales up threefold in the previous day.

( big brother is not only here but is more like inlaw in the basement, data mining and cyber spying is everywhere whether it's the NSA and their good buddies at Vcorp, or the fact that the Boston Bombers were found by surveillance cameras, we live in an age of drone strikes and cyber war, artillery strikes being co-ordinated thru twitter posts, the information age is every bit as scarey as the Atomic age that preceded it, instead of Nuclear annihilation,we now tremble in our bunkers about spyware and identity theft.we make movies about it,pay collective billions each year to combat it, I'm not sure how I feel about trading the boogie man of Atomic holocaust for destruction at the push of a button,)

china in spaaaace!

China's Shenzhou 10 ship docks with space lab

Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — China's latest manned space capsule docked with an orbiting space station Thursday, and the three astronauts climbed aboard what will be their home for the next week, state media reported.

Automated controls guided the Shenzhou-10's docking with the space lab, the Xinhua News Agency said. After entering the space lab, the crew exchanged their space gear for blue jumpsuits, Xinhua said.

During their 12-day stay at the lab, the astronauts will perform a manual docking exercise and conduct scientific experiments. They will also deliver a series of science lectures — part of an outreach to increase the space program's popularity among younger Chinese.

The lab, the Tiangong-1, is an experimental space station. In operation for less than two years, it will be taken out of use later this year and replaced by a larger, more durable module by 2020.

The latest Shenzhou flight the fifth manned mission in a decade in a program that has been marked by methodical advances to catch up with the other two manned space powers — Russia and the U.S.-

no clone armies

Court says isolated human genes cannot be patented

JESSE J. HOLLAND, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously threw out attempts to patent human genes, siding with advocates who say the multibillion-dollar biotechnology industry should not have exclusive control over genetic information found inside the human body.

But the high court also approved for the first time the patenting of synthetic DNA, handing a victory to researchers and companies looking to come up with ways to fight — and profit — from medical breakthroughs that could reverse life-threatening diseases such as breast or ovarian cancer.

The decision "sets a fair and level playing field for open and responsible use of genetic information," said Dr. Robert B. Darnell, president and scientific director of the New York Genome Center. "At the same time, it does not preclude the opportunity for innovation in the genetic world, and should be seen as an important clarifying moment for research and the healthcare industry."

The high court's judgment, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, reverses three decades of patent awards by government officials and throws out patents held by Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics Inc. involving a breast cancer test brought into the public eye recently by actress Angelina Jolie's revelation that she had a double mastectomy.

Jolie said she carries a defective BRCA1 gene that puts her at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers, and her doctor said the test that turned up the faulty gene link led Jolie to have both of her healthy breasts removed. Jolie's mother died of ovarian cancer and her maternal grandmother also had the disease.

The high court's ruling immediately prompted one of Myriad's competitors to announce it would offer the same test at a far lower price.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the court's decision, said Myriad's assertion — that the DNA it isolated from the body for its proprietary breast and ovarian cancer tests were patentable — had to be dismissed because it violates patent rules. The court has said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable.

"We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Thomas said.

However, the court gave Myriad a partial victory, ruling that while naturally-occurring DNA was not patentable, synthetically-created DNA, known as cDNA, can be patented "because it is not naturally occurring," as Thomas wrote.

The split decision mitigates potential damage to the multibillion-dollar biomedical and biotechnological industries in the U.S., experts said. It will affect companies like Myriad and others doing similar work, said Courtenay Brinckerhoff, a lawyer at Foley & Lardner.

"The decision is likely to have the greatest impact on diagnostic/genetic screening patents similar to those at issue in Myriad, but the ruling will impact the patent-eligibility of other newly discovered compounds that are 'isolated' from nature, such as medicinal compounds isolated from plants, beneficial proteins isolated from human or animal sources, and beneficial microorganisms isolated from soil or the deep sea," she said.

For the most part, biotech companies already have moved on from trying to patent isolated DNA, instead looking at synthetic options and other ways of protecting their multimillion-dollar investments, said Matthew McFarlane of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.

"On a day-in and day-out basis, I don't see this changing that part of the industry," McFarlane said. "Isolated DNA itself is not something that companies seek to protect anymore."

Patents are the legal protection that gives inventors the right to prevent others from making, using or selling a novel device, process or application.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years, but opponents of Myriad Genetics Inc.'s patents on the two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer say such protection should not be given to something that can be found inside the human body.

The company used its patents to come up with its BRACAnalysis test, which looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene, or BRCA. Women with a faulty gene have a three to seven times greater risk of developing breast cancer and also have a higher risk of ovarian cancer.

Myriad sells the only BRCA gene test, which costs around $3,000. Opponents said the company has used its patents to keep other researchers from working with the BRCA gene to develop other tests. The challenged patents would have expired in 2015.

"Today, the court struck down a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation," said Sandra Park, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union Women's Rights Project. "Myriad did not invent the BRCA genes and should not control them. Because of this ruling, patients will have greater access to genetic testing and scientists can engage in research on these genes without fear of being sued."

American Medical Association President Dr. Jeremy A. Lazarus agreed. "Removing the patents on the building blocks of life ensures that scientific discovery and medical care based on insights into human DNA will remain freely accessible and widely disseminated, not hidden behind a vast thicket of exclusive rights," he said.

Not long after the ruling, DNATraits, part of Houston-based Gene By Gene, Ltd., said it would offer BRCA gene testing in the United States for $995 — less than a third of the current price.

Thomas noted there are still ways for Myriad to make money off its discovery. "Had Myriad created an innovative method of manipulating genes while searching for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, it could possibly have sought a method patent," he said. And he noted that the case before the court did not include patents on the application of knowledge about the two genes.

For its part, Myriad focused on what the ruling left intact.

"We believe the court appropriately upheld our claims on cDNA and underscored the patent eligibility of our method claims, ensuring strong intellectual property protection for our BRACAnalysis test moving forward," said Peter D. Meldrum, Myriad's president and CEO. "More than 250,000 patients rely upon our BRACAnalysis test annually, and we remain focused on saving and improving peoples' lives and lowering overall healthcare costs."

Companies had billions of dollars of investment and years of research on the line in this case. Their advocates argue that without the ability to recoup their investment through the profits that patents bring, breakthrough scientific discoveries to combat all kinds of medical maladies wouldn't happen.

"Some genetic testing companies are going to realize their patent portfolios are not as strong as they thought they were," said Tom Engellenner, a patent lawyer at Pepper Hamilton. "However, for most companies, the court's narrow conclusion that 'isolated DNA' is unpatentable will be comforting because the court also went out of its way to note that some types of DNA can be patented, the so-called cDNA molecules."

The original judge who looked at Myriad's patents after they were challenged by the ACLU in 2009 threw them out. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said he invalidated the patents because DNA's existence in an isolated form does not alter the fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body or the information it encodes. But the federal appeals court reversed him in 2011, saying Myriad's genes can be patented because the isolated DNA has a "markedly different chemical structure" from DNA within the body.

The Supreme Court threw out that decision and sent the case back to the lower courts for rehearing. That came after the high court unanimously threw out patents on a Prometheus Laboratories Inc. test that could help doctors set drug doses for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease. The justices said the laws of nature are unpatentable.

But the federal circuit upheld Myriad's patents again in August, leading to the current case.

The case is 12-398, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.

( a collective sigh of relief,no "repo man" nightmares, no clone armies, but then again why bother,making clones is expensive, labor is cheap, none the less nobody can patent my spleen )

First things first

Actress Johansson sues over French book

PARIS (AP) — Actress Scarlett Johansson is suing a French publishing house over a novel that uses her name and image and explores the challenges of being beautiful.

The JC Lattes publishing house said Friday that a lawsuit was filed last week about Gregoire Delacourt's book "The First Thing We Look At."

JC Lattes spokeswoman Emmanuelle Allibert says the publishing house's lawyers are preparing to respond to the court. Allibert says the book is entirely fiction and is about a character who looks like Johansson, not Johansson herself.

Johansson's French lawyer Vincent Toledano said in a statement to The Associated Press that Johansson is protesting the use of her name and image for "mercantile" purposes, and accuses the book of invading her privacy

( the first title “gee Scarlet is hella pretty and that must be tough” was rejected for the general “first thing we look at,” which was a compromise from the original working title "boobs")

OZZY!!!!

Black Sabbath emerges from the dark with new album

CHRIS TALBOTT, AP

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ozzy Osbourne and the members of Black Sabbath worked hard to create a dark aura around their band in the late 1960s, laying down a proto-metal blueprint for a legion of groups to follow.

As the band's original lineup attempted to reform over the last 10 years to record a long-anticipated new album — the first with Osbourne singing since he was fired in 1979 — there was no need to manufacture that sense of doom. Time and again events conspired to interfere. On its latest attempt, things went more awry than usual. Drummer Bill Ward left the band over a contract dispute. Guitarist Tony Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma. And Osbourne began to drink again.

"Things always get messed up," Osbourne said. "Like Bill had the heart attack on one (in the late 1990s). When Tony got stricken by cancer, we went 'This is ... insane. But he turned up every day. We all thought that if we don't get our march on with this thing we're going to be ... dead, by the next time we could all be ... dead. So we had to really march on with our project. We couldn't wait."

Sabbath releases the Rick Rubin-produced "13" this week after more than two years of writing and recording and it's expected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It's meant to be a return to the band's most powerful period — its defining first three albums "Black Sabbath," ''Paranoid" and "Master of Reality" released in 1970-71 — and mostly succeeds with the help of Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk.

It was Rubin's idea to return to Sabbath's roots, and bassist and principal lyricist Geezer Butler said the producer served as a fifth member of the band, keeping it focused — something the band had been unable to do in a previous attempt. It took longer to record than any other album with the original lineup, but the time was necessary.

"It's like the old saying, you do what you know best," the 63-year-old Butler said. "You sort of forget all the keyboard bits and all the multi-instruments and just get back to the basics like on the first three or four albums, and just keep that live feel. We had the sort of philosophy that if it wasn't done in four takes, then forget it."

Sabbath's early period remains among the most influential series of recordings in rock 'n' roll history. Blending a darker shade of the blues with horror movie and post-apocalyptic imagery, Sabbath was unlike any other band. It belongs in a very small group of 1960s bands that serve as the wellspring for all that was to come in rock along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.

The group's sound was heavier than anything rock has yet produced, reliant on the complex, muscular and surprisingly funky interplay of Ward and Butler with Osbourne and Iommi layering weird vibes over the top. They did not write songs about girls or cars. They wore dark clothes and made music that mirrored society's blacker aspects. They wrote anti-war songs disguised as dystopian nightmares, and songs about space travel, mental illness, creepy children and marijuana.

And they wrapped it in a bottom-heavy musical concoction that was relentlessly grinding yet as insidiously hummable as a sunny pop song.

"When they started there was no such thing as heavy metal and it feels like the whole genre of heavy metal really is based on Black Sabbath," Rubin said. "It may not have always sounded the same and it's gone through a lot of changes and there's a lot of really interesting metal that doesn't sound like Black Sabbath. But it feels like they were probably the first with the idea that this dark, heavy music could be the whole trip."

Their popularity would eventually do them in. The quality of their music declined due mostly to drug abuse, and the band fired Osbourne after eight albums and 11 years together. Osbourne went on to a popular solo career and reality TV fame. And the remaining members of the band continued to play together in some combination over the years with other lead singers, most notably the late Ronnie James Dio. And they've occasionally reformed to tour. But the long-talked-about reunion album had always eluded them, and it seemed this time would be no different.

Ward started writing with the band but soon left, a development Osbourne found sad. Then Iommi's diagnosis came in December 2011.

"You know the thing (that) is the easiest part of getting the reformation of Black Sabbath is just saying, 'Yeah, we'll do it,'" the 64-year-old Osbourne said. "The hard part is getting us in one place all on the same day playing our stuff. If Tony Iommi can be treated for ... cancer and turn up to rehearsal and come up with great riffs, it's not fair that any one of us don't come up to the bench, you know?"

Iommi, who's now in remission, traveled back and forth from Los Angeles to London for treatment. Both Osbourne and Butler expressed admiration for the guitarist.

"Tony, he's my hero because I don't know how he did it," Osbourne said.

Osbourne also had his struggles during the recording. He was fired from the band for substance abuse problems and has worked on changing his lifestyle after meeting and marrying his wife and manager Sharon Osbourne. She expressed anger earlier this year when Osbourne began drinking while making the album. He says it's been four months since he's had a drink and things are well with his family.

"It's just one of them things — I'm an alcoholic," Osbourne said. "And the most unnatural thing for an alcoholic is not to drink. So every now and again I'll just go and have a few drinks. But it catches up with you and bites you in the butt, you know? I mean Sharon has been living with me for 33 years, and it just (messed) the family up again. My son has got 10 years of sobriety. So I'm trying one day at a time, you know?"

Rubin said he saw none of these outside struggles in the studio, beyond the strengthened resolve to finish. When the band finally plugged in, Rubin was delighted to find they still had that Sabbath groove. But Osbourne wasn't immediately taken with Rubin's plan to revisit the band's distant past.

"I kept saying to him, really and truly the first Black Sabbath album was a live album without the audience," Osbourne said. "And he kept going on about these bluesy undertones, and I'm like what the ... is he on about? Because when you're in a band you do things that you like. The first person I want to impress with my work is me. If I don't like it, I don't like it, you know? It took me a long time to get my head around where Rick was going. But he proved me wrong, I tell you, in the end."

S'up dawg

Tunisia rapper gets 2 years prison for police song

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The lawyer of a Tunisian rapper says his client has been convicted of inciting violence against officials and insulting police and been sentenced to two years in prison.

Ghazi Mrabet said Thursday that the sentence pronounced against his client Alaa Yacoub was very severe and he would appeal.

The 24-year-old rapper, known by his stage name Weld El 15, or "Son of 15," was charged after making the song "Bolicia Kleb" (the police are dogs) and releasing it on YouTube.

He was originally convicted in absentia in March and then retried when he turned himself in.

Colleagues and supporters tussled with police outside the courtroom in the Tunis suburb of Ben Arous after the verdict was pronounced. There were four arrests, according to Mrabet.

(obviously American style rap lyrics not popular with Tunisian law enforcement, I’m not sure what is more enraging, trail in absentia or getting arrested for singing. Also I think there may be a translation error here, he might not have been insulting police officers as dogs and may have meant police have dogs)

Chinese dream

Jailed Nobel's wife pens open letter to China's Xi

BEIJING (AP) — The wife of China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner has written an open letter to new Chinese leader Xi Jinping to protest an 11-year prison term given to her brother, the family's lawyer said Friday.

In the letter, Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia said the sentencing was unfair and urged Xi to govern China in a way that respects the rights of individuals and avoids "ruthless suppression based on violence."

The letter was a rare occasion for Liu Xia to express herself at greater length than the few seconds or minutes at a time she has had to speak to reporters and a handful of activists during the past more than two and a half years since she was placed under house arrest in her Beijing apartment.

A Beijing court convicted the brother, Liu Hui, on Sunday of fraud in a real estate dispute in prosecution that the family's supporters have said is meant as further punishment of the Nobel laureate's family and is intended to intimidate other political activists.

Liu Xia said the government's right to rule should be based on its ability to safeguard justice for all. "Any event that denies the rights of the individual can result in tragedy, therefore casting a bleak shadow on the legitimacy of state power," Liu wrote. "I can't imagine that the justice we expect can be achieved if the rights of the accused have been completely ignored."

The letter was handwritten and signed by "citizen Liu Xia." Beijing lawyer Shang Baojun, who represented Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia's brother, confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which he posted online.

Liu Xia, who has been kept under house arrest since her husband won the Nobel prize in 2010, also questioned the legal basis of her own incarceration at home: "Thinking about it over and over again, I realize that in China it's supposed to be some kind of 'crime' to be the wife of Liu Xiaobo."

She also touched on the concept of the "Chinese Dream," a political phrase that Xi has espoused in various situations since he came to power, in an apparent bid to tap into middle class aspirations or drum up nationalism.

"Mr. President, the Chinese Dream you mentioned relies on every single citizen realizing it," Liu Xia wrote. "I hope that for individuals like us, the Chinese Dream won't become a 'Chinese nightmare'

would it have been too much to ask to just write letters and not shoot anyone?

Police: Santa Monica gunman left farewell note

TAMI ABDOLLAH, AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A farewell note left behind by the Santa Monica gunman expressed remorse for the killing of his father and brother but provided no explanation for the rampage that left them and three others dead.

Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said that the three- to four-page handwritten note was found on John Zawahri's body after he was shot and killed June 7 by officers on the campus of Santa Monica College.

The 23-year-old Zawahri also used the note to say goodbye to friends and expressed hope that his mother would be taken care of and receive recompense from his father's estate.

investigators believe mental illness played a role in the killings, Seabrooks said at a news conference Thursday.

"We know his was a troubled life and that he experienced mental health challenges," Seabrooks said. "We believe that his mental health challenges likely played a role in his decisions to shoot and kill both his father and his brother, to set fire to the family home, and to go on a 13-minute shooting spree spanning roughly 1.5 miles and which left five innocent people dead and three people injured."

Zawahri apparently built his own .223-caliber assault rifle, using it to shoot his father and brother before he set fire to their family home, officials said earlier Thursday.

Zawahri's mother was out of the country visiting family in Lebanon during Friday's rampage but cut short her trip and returned home Sunday. She has been interviewed by detectives.

Seabrooks said the semi-automatic weapon appears to have been built with component parts that are legal to obtain, but put together make the rifle illegal in California.

She said he also modified an antique black-powder .44 revolver so that it could hold .45-caliber ammunition; it was loaded during the shooting and he carried it with him in a duffel bag.

Zawahri's rampage ended when police killed him in the Santa Monica College library Friday. To get there, he had carjacked a woman, directing her to the college and having her stop so he could fire at vehicles and strangers. Police still did not know why he chose to go to the college, why he targeted those killed or why he chose that day.

Santa Monica police plan to work with the FBI to understand Zawahri's psychological makeup and motivation, Seabrooks said.

Officials said Thursday that the fire at Zawahri's father's home, which erupted soon after neighbors heard shots fired, was intentionally set.

An official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fires were started in a front living room and atop one of two twin beds in another room. Several boxes of matches were also found in the bedroom.

Firefighters found the bodies of the gunman's father and brother in a back bedroom that was uninvolved in the blaze. The house was found unkempt with files and papers scattered throughout, providing ample kindling.

In Zawahri's bedroom, investigations found illegal zip guns, Seabrooks said. They also found ample evidence of his fascination with weapons, including four replica airsoft pellet guns, knives and gun magazines, said Sgt. Richard Lewis. Investigators also found materials that indicate he likely assembled the weapon.

Police said Zawahri bought a lower receiver that was only 80 percent complete. Because it is not complete and not considered a full weapon, a person isn't required to go through a background check to get one, nor does the part need to have a serial number.

Though Zawahri fired about 100 rounds during the rampage, police said he was carrying 1,300 rounds of ammunition in magazines that were capable of holding 30 rounds each. Such high-capacity magazines are illegal to purchase, sell or transfer in California. Possession is not illegal. He also had a spare upper receiver and the antique revolver with him in a duffel bag.

Zawahri's last reported contact with law enforcement was seven years ago, when bomb-making materials were found at his house during a search prompted by threats to students, teachers and campus police officers at Olympic High, a school for students with academic or disciplinary issues.

The Santa Monica-Malibu school board was briefed at the time by school administrators after police found Zawahri was learning to make explosives by downloading instructions from YouTube, school board member Oscar de la Torre said.

Retired police officer Cristina Coria, who helped serve the search warrant, said Zawahri was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation at the time. She didn't know the outcome of the evaluation.

Police declined to provide further details, saying Zawahri was a minor at the time. But once a person is held for such an exam, they cannot access or possess firearms for five years.

In the case of Zawahri, that prohibition would have expired in 2011.

Police said Thursday that in 2011, Zawahri tried to buy a weapon but was denied by the California Department of Justice, likely because of that 2006 incident.

Despite that denial, Seabrooks said, Zawahri was able to buy the component parts to build his own weapon and obtain an array of magazines.

Santa Monica police said they will work with the ATF to understand how he came to possess these gun components, Seabrooks said.

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Tami Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams

%$^&&* THAT!

Lawsuit: Man allowed to curse on NY ticket payment

LIBERTY, N.Y. (AP) — A 22-year-old Connecticut man who wrote obscenities and "Tyranny" on his speeding ticket payment claims in a federal lawsuit that his free speech rights were violated when he was arrested.

William Barboza is suing two police officers in the Catskill-area village of Liberty over the arrest.

Barboza had replaced the word "Liberty" with "Tyranny" and added an obscenity-laced insult on the payment form accompanying an August 2012 ticket.

The lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the Fairfield County man was ordered to town court, where he was handcuffed and arrested for aggravated harassment. He posted $200 bail that day. The charge was dismissed in March.

The NYCLU argues that offensive language is protected speech.

There was no immediate comment from Liberty police.

(ain’t that just *#@&@! AWESOME!!!)