WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of a Senate panel that oversees U.S. intelligence issues said Thursday it has approved a plan to scale back how many American telephone records the National Security Agency can sweep up. But critics of U.S. surveillance programs and privacy rights experts said the bill does little, if anything, to end the daily collection of millions of records that has spurred widespread demands for reform.
Legislation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was approved by an 11-4 vote, would increase congressional and judicial oversight of intelligence activities. It also would create 10-year prison sentences for people who access the classified material without authorization, according to a statement released by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the panel's top Republican.
Just how far it would scale back the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records was unclear.
The statement said the plan would ban bulk collection of records "under specific procedures and restrictions." Chambliss spokeswoman Lauren Claffey said some of the telephone metadata collection would continue, so long as intelligence officials followed rules for how it can be used.
Only certain people would have access to the phone data, according to the bill. It also would bar the NSA from obtaining the content of the phone calls. The current program only allows the NSA to collect phone numbers and times of calls and cannot listen in on phone calls without a warrant from a secret court.
"The threats we face — from terrorism, proliferation and cyberattack, among others — are real, and they will continue," Feinstein said in the statement. "Intelligence is necessary to protect our national and economic security, as well as to stop attacks against our friends and allies around the world."
She said "more can and should be done" to increase transparency of the surveillance and build public support for privacy protections.
But Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the legislation allows the bulk collection to continue under certain safeguards. He called the safeguards a positive first step but said the NSA should stop sweeping up Americans' phone records and only obtain those that are connected to a specific terror plot.
Privacy advocates who have long called for the end of broad government snooping bristled at the bill, which they said would merely legalize the surveillance that the NSA has quietly undertaken since 2006.
"It's fitting that Senator Feinstein took Halloween to remind us why she's the favorite senator of the NSA's spooks," said David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress. "Using squishy public relations language, she is striving to leave the impression that her bill reins in the NSA's mass surveillance programs — but it does nothing of the sort. ... Lawmakers must immediately recognize this legislation for the sham that it is — and reject it outright."
The Senate intelligence bill rivals one put forward earlier this week, by House and Senate judiciary committees, that would eliminate the phone data collection program that was revealed earlier this year in classified documents that were released to the media by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
The dueling legislation means that Congress ultimately will have to decide how broadly the U.S. government can conduct surveillance on its own citizens in the name of protecting Americans from terror threats.
Polls indicate that Americans widely oppose the surveillance program.
___
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Results of the FREEDOM sub study reported at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
Study examines the impact of insulin treatment status in diabetic patients with multivessel coronary artery disease
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a recent study of diabetic patients who underwent revascularization for multi-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD), patients treated with insulin experienced more major adverse cardiovascular events after revascularization than those not treated with insulin.
The findings of a sub group analysis of the FREEDOM trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
The global prevalence of adult diabetes mellitus currently exceeds 6.4 percent (285 million) and is projected to increase to 7.7 percent (439 million) by 2030. In the United States, 26 percent of diabetics are treated with insulin; these patients comprise both patients with Type I diabetes as well as more advanced Type II diabetes. Insulin-treated patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular events after PCI and also have a higher risk of wound infection and mortality after coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG).
Results of the overall FREEDOM trial, which were first reported last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) reduces mortality and myocardial infarction rates compared to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), though it increases the chance of stroke. This FREEDOM sub group analysis examined the association of clinical outcomes after revascularization by insulin-treated diabetes mellitus (ITDM) status and the respective effect of CABG vs. PCI using first generation drug-eluting stents (PCI/DES). The primary endpoint was a composite of major adverse cardiac events including death, stroke and myocardial infarction analyzed using the logrank test and Cox regression to assess the interaction of treatment received and ITDM status.
A total of 1,850 diabetic patients with multi-vessel disease were randomized 1:1 to either CABG (894 patients) or PCI/DES (956 patients). Baseline and procedure characteristics were largely similar among the groups. A total of 602 patients (32.5 percent) had ITDM (PCI n=325, 34 percent; CABG n=277, 31 percent).
The estimated percentage of patients with a major adverse coronary event after five years was higher in the ITDM group compared to the non ITDM group (29 percent vs. 19 percent, respectively). Regardless of insulin treatment status, the estimated percentage of patients with major adverse coronary events after five years was higher among those that underwent PCI/DES (32 percent in the ITDM group and 25 percent in the non-ITDM group) compared to CABG (24 percent in the ITDM group and 16 percent in the non-ITDM group), although stroke rates were higher among CABG patients. In the ITDM group, the stroke rate was 7.5 for those who underwent CABG compared to 3.7 in those who had PCI/DES. In the non ITDM group, the stroke rate was 4.3 vs. 1.7 respectively.
"In patients with diabetes and multi-vessel coronary artery disease there are more major adverse cardiovascular events in patients treated with insulin than in those not treated with insulin," said study investigator George Dangas, MD, PhD. Dr. Dangas is Professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Director of Cardiovascular Innovation at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute of the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
"However, the differences in clinical outcomes between CABG and PCI/DES were maintained regardless of the presence or absence of insulin treatment," Dr. Dangas said.
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The FREEDOM trial was funded by NHLBI, NIH. Dr. Dangas reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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Results of the FREEDOM sub study reported at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
Study examines the impact of insulin treatment status in diabetic patients with multivessel coronary artery disease
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a recent study of diabetic patients who underwent revascularization for multi-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD), patients treated with insulin experienced more major adverse cardiovascular events after revascularization than those not treated with insulin.
The findings of a sub group analysis of the FREEDOM trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
The global prevalence of adult diabetes mellitus currently exceeds 6.4 percent (285 million) and is projected to increase to 7.7 percent (439 million) by 2030. In the United States, 26 percent of diabetics are treated with insulin; these patients comprise both patients with Type I diabetes as well as more advanced Type II diabetes. Insulin-treated patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular events after PCI and also have a higher risk of wound infection and mortality after coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG).
Results of the overall FREEDOM trial, which were first reported last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) reduces mortality and myocardial infarction rates compared to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), though it increases the chance of stroke. This FREEDOM sub group analysis examined the association of clinical outcomes after revascularization by insulin-treated diabetes mellitus (ITDM) status and the respective effect of CABG vs. PCI using first generation drug-eluting stents (PCI/DES). The primary endpoint was a composite of major adverse cardiac events including death, stroke and myocardial infarction analyzed using the logrank test and Cox regression to assess the interaction of treatment received and ITDM status.
A total of 1,850 diabetic patients with multi-vessel disease were randomized 1:1 to either CABG (894 patients) or PCI/DES (956 patients). Baseline and procedure characteristics were largely similar among the groups. A total of 602 patients (32.5 percent) had ITDM (PCI n=325, 34 percent; CABG n=277, 31 percent).
The estimated percentage of patients with a major adverse coronary event after five years was higher in the ITDM group compared to the non ITDM group (29 percent vs. 19 percent, respectively). Regardless of insulin treatment status, the estimated percentage of patients with major adverse coronary events after five years was higher among those that underwent PCI/DES (32 percent in the ITDM group and 25 percent in the non-ITDM group) compared to CABG (24 percent in the ITDM group and 16 percent in the non-ITDM group), although stroke rates were higher among CABG patients. In the ITDM group, the stroke rate was 7.5 for those who underwent CABG compared to 3.7 in those who had PCI/DES. In the non ITDM group, the stroke rate was 4.3 vs. 1.7 respectively.
"In patients with diabetes and multi-vessel coronary artery disease there are more major adverse cardiovascular events in patients treated with insulin than in those not treated with insulin," said study investigator George Dangas, MD, PhD. Dr. Dangas is Professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Director of Cardiovascular Innovation at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute of the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
"However, the differences in clinical outcomes between CABG and PCI/DES were maintained regardless of the presence or absence of insulin treatment," Dr. Dangas said.
###
The FREEDOM trial was funded by NHLBI, NIH. Dr. Dangas reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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Developers will have access to new features and APIs with today's SDK update
As part of today's announcements, Google has made available the Android 4.4 Kit Kat SDK component. Designed primarily for application developers, the SDK allows programs to be written using the newest APIs and features when targeting the devices that will run Kit Kat. Support for all of the features, like Project Svelte to help lower-spec devices, the new immersive screen mode, and host card emulation for NFC payments will be available for the great developers Android is blessed with, and we're plenty excited to see what they can do with it all.
If you're interested in checking things out for yourself, you can update your existing SDK through the normal channels and install it from scratch using the directions detailed here. Well be digging in and playing with any bundled emulator as soon as things settle down and it's available for download. Stay tuned!
LONDON – The phone hacking trial against former News Corp U.K. top executives Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson and six others continued Thursday with the prosecution playing an audio tape and showing emails and other material that it said would prove a hacking conspiracy at the former News of the World tabloid.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis continued his opening statement, telling the 12 jurors about three emails disclosed by the U.K. newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire in 2011 that he said caused police here to launch the probe that led to the trial.
They were from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who – as was revealed Wednesday – has previously pleaded guilty to hacking, to ex-News of the World news editor Ian Edmondson, one of the eight defendants. The latter once again sat in the courtroom's dock Thursday on the far left from the judge's vantage point. Edmondson during wide parts of the morning session used pen and notepad to write notes.
Much of Thursday's morning session focused on Edmondson and what Edis highlighted were regular exchanges between him and Mulcaire, some of which, he argued, showed Mulcaire providing summaries on his own hacking work or info, such a phone number and pin code, for the hacking of certain people's phones. The prosecutor once again argued though that former editors Coulson and Brooks also had to be aware of Mulcaire's work given their responsibility for ensuring that stories in the News of the World were true.
Edis spoke of the competitive "dog-eat-dog" world of Fleet Street, London's former newspaper district, arguing it may have led the defendants to accept the use of phone hacking to get or confirm stories and spy on competitors, such as two reporters from the Mail on Sunday. He also spoke of the industry "frenzy to get the story."
"We know what Mr Mulcaire was doing, he was phone hacking," Edis said about exchanges between the private investigator and Edmondson in the mid-2000s. "Look how much contact there is at this time between Mr. Edmondson and Mr. Mulcaire. Do you think it is likely or even possible that Mr. Edmondson did not know what was being done by Mr Mulcaire?"
He argued that given the importance of the stories - "this was big stuff," as he said - the NOTW editor also had to have asked the question: "How do I know this information is true?"
And he said Mulcaire at one point was paid around $160,000 (160,000 pounds) a year, which all top editors must have been aware of. Stuart Kuttner, a former NOTW managing editor, authorized most payments to Mulcaire, Edis said, citing 221 payments that amounted to $664,140 (413,527 pounds). But "a big contract involves the senior management," he argued. "It was not hidden from anybody that he was being paid all that money."
He said that must have been particularly true given emails from Brooks that showed her pushing for budget cuts, meaning that she was "actively involved" in financial matters at the paper. Despite this pressure of looking for cost savings around the organization, nobody seemed to have questioned Mulcaire's pay, the prosecutor continued. "The question is didn't anybody ever ask 'what are we paying this chap for'," Edis concluded.
He also emphasized that "it wasn't a secret" among NOTW staff that Mulcaire worked for the paper. He cited a profile of the former soccer player in the NOTW itself that mentioned Mulcaire worked for the paper's special investigations team. While Brooks in the past said she had never heard of Mulcaire until he got arrested, "it clearly wasn't a secret" that he did work for the tabloid, Edis said.
Edis summarized that while not all requests from a defendant that Mulcaire help them resulted in a successful hack. But he said various documents of interactions between Mulcaire and News of the World top editors and invoices typically labeled as "assists" were "evidence against all the defendants."
After playing an audio tape of Mulcaire calling a cell phone provider to find out someone's voicemail passcode, Edis focused on the three emails that led to the hacking investigation. One of the three emails from April 2006 referred to member of parliament Tessa Jowell and her husband David Mills, who at the time was accused of being involved in a bribery case linked to Italian media mogul and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The second email referred to Lord Frederick Windsor and mentioned that Edmondson could "press * and pin." Edis said jurors would have to decide whether Mulcaire could have emailed that note to Edmondson for any reason other than to tell him how to hack a phone.
The third email referred to an adviser to a former deputy prime minister who back then was accused of having an affair.
Brooks wore a grey suit and white blouse Thursday. Coulson wore a grey suit and white shirt with a dark red tie. After a 20-minute break during the morning session, Brooks returned to the dock with a mug of water and cups, filling up cups for some of her co-defendants.
Just as on Wednesday, Kuttner, who has health issues, wasn't in the dock Thursday.
One email exchange that Edis cited Thursday also provided a deeper look behind the scenes of the NOTW's hunt for scoops. He said Edmondson emailed Coulson that he had a mobile number for a woman who was at the time reported to have had an affair with a top politician.
"I want to shock her with a [big number]. How are your pockets?" Edmondson wrote to Coulson amid plans to get her to write her story for the paper, the jury heard. Edis said Coulson replied that same minute: "Start at £100,000."
Which countries are emerging superpowers? Which countries are in decline? This excellent infographic of population change, country by country, explains pretty much everything you need to know about what's going to happen geopolitically in the next few decades.
Contact: Sally Corinaldi sally.corinaldi@csiro.au 61-352-275-203 CSIRO Australia
A team of international scientists has isolated a very close relative of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) from horseshoe bats in China, confirming them as the origin of the virus responsible for the 2002-3 pandemic.
The SARS-CoV pandemic killed 774 people of the 8094 people infected, a case fatality ratio of almost 10 per cent. With cases diagnosed across the world, the pandemic had an impact on international travel and trade.
The research team, led by Professor Shi Zhengli from Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and including CSIRO and Duke-NUS scientist Professor Linfa Wang, have just had their breakthrough results published in Nature.
While researchers globally have previously used genetic sequencing to demonstrate that bats are the natural reservoirs of SARS-like CoVs, this is the first time that live virus has been successfully isolated from bats to definitively confirm them as the origin of the virus.
The team successfully isolated a SARS-like CoV, named SL-CoV WIV1, directly from faecal samples of Chinese Horseshoe bats using the world renowned bat virus isolation methodology developed by scientists at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong.
The results will help governments design more effective prevention strategies for SARS and similar epidemics.
Horseshoe bats are found around the world, including Australia and play an important ecological role. Their role in SARS-CoV transmission highlights the importance of protecting the bat's natural environment so they are not forced into highly populated urban areas in search of food.
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Bats confirmed as SARS origin
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sally Corinaldi sally.corinaldi@csiro.au 61-352-275-203 CSIRO Australia
A team of international scientists has isolated a very close relative of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) from horseshoe bats in China, confirming them as the origin of the virus responsible for the 2002-3 pandemic.
The SARS-CoV pandemic killed 774 people of the 8094 people infected, a case fatality ratio of almost 10 per cent. With cases diagnosed across the world, the pandemic had an impact on international travel and trade.
The research team, led by Professor Shi Zhengli from Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and including CSIRO and Duke-NUS scientist Professor Linfa Wang, have just had their breakthrough results published in Nature.
While researchers globally have previously used genetic sequencing to demonstrate that bats are the natural reservoirs of SARS-like CoVs, this is the first time that live virus has been successfully isolated from bats to definitively confirm them as the origin of the virus.
The team successfully isolated a SARS-like CoV, named SL-CoV WIV1, directly from faecal samples of Chinese Horseshoe bats using the world renowned bat virus isolation methodology developed by scientists at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong.
The results will help governments design more effective prevention strategies for SARS and similar epidemics.
Horseshoe bats are found around the world, including Australia and play an important ecological role. Their role in SARS-CoV transmission highlights the importance of protecting the bat's natural environment so they are not forced into highly populated urban areas in search of food.
###
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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.
NEW YORK (AP) — As Nazi Germany grew ever more dangerous in the 1930s and the Japanese threatened China, science fiction author H.G. Wells wrote up some thoughts about real-life horrors and in 1937 submitted them to a magazine with the widest possible audience, Reader's Digest.
"Democracies need not merely freedom to think and talk, but universal information and vigorous mental training," warned the author of "The War of the Worlds," ''The Time Machine" and other classics.
"Consider China today. An ignorant peaceful population has as much chance of survival now as a blind cow in a jungle."
The British author was known worldwide, but his message was apparently too strong for the conservative magazine, which never published the brief essay. Its debut in print comes more than 75 years later, in the holiday edition of The Strand Magazine, which has rediscovered obscure works by Mark Twain, Joseph Heller and many others.
"He had a very good relationship with them," Strand managing editor Andrew Gulli says of Reader's Digest, "and they occasionally even reprinted his stuff. But this article about democracy seemed to have rankled them."
The Strand's latest publication, which comes out Friday, also features a private letter by Wells that he wrote in 1935. Gulli found the materials among thousands of papers at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Wells was a socialist and often a pacifist whose fears for the planet's fate were well developed in his fiction. But Gulli says the Reader's Digest piece was an unusually strong nonfiction work, a direct call for action that anticipated the current debate about "failed states" in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"Wells was progressive in his views. He belonged to a generation of ardent imperialists, yet his belief was that the great powers should grant their colonies self-determination," Gulli says. "His fear, I think, was that many of these Third World countries would fall prey to demagogues and militia and clerics."
In his article for Reader's Digest, Wells finds that too many countries are "half-literate" and "wholly undisciplined." Democracies should build up their militaries, Wells recommends, but he insists that education is the best weapon.
"The choice is a plain one now," he concludes. "Train yourself for freedom or salute and march."
Wells was a prolific writer and tireless thinker, well demonstrated by his 1935 letter. He writes of a day that begins at 4 a.m.; includes revisions of a book about how "human hope and effort are frustrated"; preparations for a radio broadcast about the evolutionist T.H. Huxley; and several hours of work on a dystopian film he was writing, "Things to Come," that eventually starred Ralph Richardson and Raymond Massey.
That night, the 69-year-old author dined with a Russian friend.
"And we argued about freedom of thought and expression," Wells wrote, "with more particular references to Russia, until it was time to go to bed."
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Acclaimed horror writer Michael McDowell couldn't get enough of death.
He collected photographs of people after their demise, whether from natural causes or after crossing paths with someone with a noose, knife or a gun. He gathered ads for burial gowns and pins containing locks of dead people's hair. He even used a coffin housing a skeleton as his coffee table.
Now Northwestern University, which months ago purchased the "Death Collection" McDowell amassed in three decades before his own death in 1999, is preparing to open the vault.
Researchers studying the history of death, its mourning rituals and businesses that profit from it soon will be able to browse artifacts amassed by an enthusiast author Stephen King once heralded as "a writer for the ages."
McDowell's long career included penning more than two dozen novels, screenplays for King's novel "Thinner" and director Tim Burton's movies "Beetlejuice" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." He also wrote episodes for such macabre television shows as "Tales from the Darkside" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
"We are very removed from death today, and a lot of this stuff we see in this collection gives us a snapshot in how people have dealt with death generations ago in ways very different from today," said Benn Joseph, a manuscript librarian at the school. "We look at it nowadays and think this is inappropriate or gory ... but when it was done, it was very much acceptable."
Joseph spent months getting the 76-box collection — one containing a child's coffin — ready to be studied. The archive, which officials said ultimately will go on public display, includes at least one artifact dating to the 16th century: a Spanish painting of a dead boy, his eyes closed, wearing a cloak with a ruffled collar.
The school bought the collection from McDowell's partner for an undisclosed price.
McDowell's younger brother, James, said he didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the extent of the collection.
"He always had kind of a gothic horror side to him," James McDowell said in a telephone interview.
There are photographs and postcards from around the world. One, taken in 1899 in Cuba, shows a pile of skulls and bones. In another, a soldier in the Philippines poses with a man's severed head.
There also are reminders of the infamous. Photographs show the people convicted of conspiracy for Abraham Lincoln's assassination being hanged, with dozens of soldiers looking on and the U.S. Capitol looming in the background.
Some pictures are gruesome, including one of a man whose legs are on one side of the train tracks and the rest of him in the middle. But much of the collection is devoted to the deaths of regular Americans and how they were memorialized in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
There are, for example, dozens of photographs that families had made into postcards of their dead children. Dressed in their finest clothes, many appear to be sleeping, absent any hint of the pain some undoubtedly experienced in their last days. Some have their eyes open, serious looks on their faces.
There's one of a small boy, standing up, with his hands resting on a small stack of books. Joseph said it could be a bit of photographic sleight of hand and that the boy may actually be lying down but made to look like he is standing.
"With the advent of photography, regular folks could have access to that sort of thing (and) families either took the kid's body to the studio or they arranged for a visit from the photographer," said Scott Krafft, the library curator who purchased the collection for Northwestern. "And they may have been the only photograph of the child that existed."
The collection also offers a glimpse into what families did after their loved ones died, at a time when they were preparing their homes to display the remains and getting ready to bring them to the cemetery.
After choosing a burial gown — worn in ads by living models — many families then looked for a headstone. Traveling headstone salesmen in the early 20th century often carried around design samples in a box about the size of one that holds chocolates.
Those paying their respects in the 19th and early 20th centuries frequently selected a tribute song for the dead to play inside the family homes, Joseph said. There were some 100 popular pieces of topical sheet music, with such titles as "She Died On Her Wedding Day."
Weirder still, at least by today's standards, is McDowell's collection of what were called "spirit" photographs that include both the living and a ghostly image purportedly of a dead person hovering nearby.
In one photograph, Georgiana Houghton, a prominent 19th century medium, shakes hands with an apparition of her dead sister. She explains the photograph "is the first manifestation of inner spiritual life."
"I'm sure Michael, when he came across this, was totally excited," Krafft said.
While the collection isn't yet on display, members of the public can see one piece when they enter the library reading room where it is housed. That children's coffin that once belonged to McDowell now holds Halloween candy.
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction at Christie's New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
NEW YORK (AP) — The sunburst Fender Stratocaster that a young Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he famously went electric, perhaps the most historic instrument in rock 'n' roll, is coming up for auction, where it could bring as much as half a million dollars.
Though now viewed as changing American music forever, Dylan's three-song electric set at the Rhode Island festival that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock 'n' roll was met by boos from folk purists in the crowd who viewed him as a traitor. He returned for an acoustic encore with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
The guitar is being offered for sale Dec. 6, Christie's told The Associated Press. Five lots of hand- and typewritten lyric fragments found inside the guitar case — early versions of some of Dylan's legendary songs — also are being sold. The lyrics have a pre-sale estimate ranging from $3,000 to $30,000.
With a classic sunburst finish and original flat-wound strings, the guitar has been in the possession of a New Jersey family for nearly 50 years. Dylan left it on a private plane piloted by the owner's late father, Vic Quinto, who worked for Dylan's manager.
His daughter, Dawn Peterson, of Morris County, N.J., has said her father asked the management company what to do with the guitar but nobody ever got back to him.
Last year, she took it to the PBS show "History Detectives" to try to have it authenticated. The program enlisted the expertise of Andy Babiuk, a consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and owner of an upstate New York vintage instrument shop, and Jeff Gold, a Dylan memorabilia expert. Both men, who appeared on the episode, unequivocally declared the artifacts belonged to Dylan.
Babiuk took the instrument apart and also compared it to close-up color photos of the guitar taken at the 1965 festival.
"I was able to match the wood grain on the body of the guitar ... and the unique grain of the rosewood fingerboard. Wood grains are like fingerprints, no two are exactly alike," Babiuk said in an interview. "Based on the sum of the evidence, I was able to identify that this guitar was the one that Bob Dylan had played in Newport."
Dylan's attorney and his publicist did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. Dylan and Peterson, who declined to be interviewed, recently settled a legal dispute over the items.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed but allowed Peterson to sell the guitar and lyrics, according to Rolling Stone, which wrote in July about Peterson's quest to authenticate the guitar.
"Representatives for Bob Dylan do not contest the sale of the guitar, and are aware of Christie's plan to bring it to auction," a statement issued through Christie's said.
Dylan has generally looked upon his instruments to convey his art, akin to a carpenter's hammer, Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said last year. "I don't think he's dwelled on a guitar he hasn't played for 47 years," he said. "If he cared about it, he would have done something about it."
Festival founder George Wein told the AP that when Dylan finished playing, Wein was backstage and told him to go back out and play an acoustic number because that's what people expected. Dylan said he didn't want to do it and said he couldn't because he only had the electric guitar. Wein called out for a loaner backstage and about 20 musicians raised their acoustic guitars to offer them.
The lyrics for sale include "In the Darkness of Your Room," an early draft of "Absolutely Sweet Marie" from Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album, and three songs from the record's 1965 recording session that were not released until the 1980s: "Medicine Sunday" (the draft is titled "Midnight Train"), "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover."
Dylan's "going electric changed the structure of folk music," the 88-year-old Wein said. "The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, 'Bobby's going electric, we're going electric, too.'"
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Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — Bidding on a painting that British graffiti artist Banksy bought for $50 and altered has climbed to more than $310,000.
Banksy added a Nazi soldier into the pastoral scene after he purchased the painting at a Manhattan thrift shop. He donated it back to the 23rd Street Housing Works store on Tuesday.
The store put it up for auction the same day.
The auction ends Thursday at 8 p.m.
Proceeds will benefit Housing Works' homelessness and AIDS initiatives.
As he does with all his works, the elusive artist posted the image on his website. He titled it, "The banality of the banality of evil."
On Sunday, Banksy posted an essay on his website calling the design of the World Trade Center a "disaster."
Apple's iWork free upgrade has angered longtime Mac power users, who have flooded the company's support forum with complaints about lost features.
One customer called Apple "serial software killers," while others collaborated to list the features Apple dropped in Pages, the word processing application and the most popular of the three that make up the iWork suite. Among the Pages tools that went AWOL in last week's upgrade: endnotes, the outline view, selection of noncontiguous text, facing pages, saving files in RTF format, significant limitations in automating workflow using AppleScript, and more than 100 ready-to-use templates.
"Even the things you can still do are harder to get to now," argued Alistair Cullum. "Having a minimal interface makes sense in iOS, where space is limited, but in OS X I don't see the need to strip away toolbars, sidebars, etc."
Two pertinent threads on Apple's support forum -- here and here -- combined for nearly 900 comments and had been viewed almost 50,000 times, both large numbers by any measure and an illustration of how many have been affected by the update. Few of the customers commenting in the two threads had anything nice to say about Apple's move.
Last week, Apple released new versions of iWork for OS X, and announced that the three applications would be handed free of charge to buyers of new Macs. Users who had previously purchased Pages, Numbers, or Keynote would also receive free upgrades.
Apple last shipped a major upgrade for OS X's iWork in 2009.
The move followed a similar announcement Sept. 10, when Apple said it was giving the iOS iWork apps to customers who bought a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Bloggers and pundits also weighed in on the move, speculating that Apple's prime motivator was to make the iOS and OS X editions file- and feature-compatible, a decision that required it to scale back the desktop applications' feature sets.
"The fact that iWork on the Mac has lost functionality isn't because Apple is blind to power users. It's because they're willing to make a short-term sacrifice in functionality so that they can create a foundation that is equal across the Mac, iOS, and Web versions," said Nigel Warren, a user experience designer.
But that explanation didn't sit well with users.
"One of the problems with never doing consumer research is that Apple has lost touch with how serious users actually use the product," said Luke Christian. "Quite simply, I would never, ever, want to write a Pages document or a Keynote presentation on my phone.... What might seem supercool to Apple dudes on campus in California is not very practical in the real world of making a living in London."
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Barack Obama visited Berlin in June, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a point of showing him a balcony in her office overlooking train tracks that crossed the border of her once-divided country — a symbol of her upbringing on the east side of the divide, where eavesdropping by secret police was rampant during the Cold War.
The private moment between the two leaders underscores the degree to which Merkel's personal history has influenced her outrage over revelations that the National Security Agency was monitoring her communications. The secret spying threatens to damage the close relationship between Obama and Merkel, which, until now, has been defined by candor and trust.
"We are very sensitive to the fact that she comes from the East, and that brings with it a historical perspective on surveillance that is quite powerful," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser. He said while the White House hopes the strength of Obama's relationship with Merkel will allow them to weather the current controversy, "it also clearly makes it more difficult when she is surprised by these types of revelations."
Reports based on leaks from former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden suggest the U.S. has monitored the telephone communications of 35 foreign leaders. The fact that Merkel was among them has been particularly troubling to many in Europe and on Capitol Hill, given her status as a senior stateswoman, the leader of Europe's strongest economy, and a key American ally on global economics, Iranian nuclear negotiations and the Afghanistan war.
Obama, in a phone call to Merkel last week, said the U.S. was not currently monitoring her communications and had no plans to do so in the future. But those assurances appeared to do little to placate the German leader, who said trust with the U.S. "has to be built anew" and there must be no "spying among friends."
A U.S. official said Obama was only made aware that the NSA was monitoring Merkel in recent weeks, after the White House launched a broader review of surveillance programs following Snowden's revelations. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and insisted on anonymity.
German officials were expected to discuss the spying charges with U.S. officials during a meeting at the White House Wednesday. Among the U.S. officials scheduled to attend were Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
The revelations are testing Obama's ties with Merkel, a leader who shares his businesslike, cut-to-the-chase approach to leader-level diplomacy. Both eschew the staged formality of international summits and sometimes can be seen as cold and brusque by some of their counterparts.
"She's got a style and mannerism that feels familiar to him," said Tommy Vietor, who until March was Obama's National Security Council spokesman. "She's no-nonsense, but she's also really effective and gets things done."
First elected chancellor in 2005, Merkel was already a formidable player on the world stage when much of Europe became enthralled by an upstart American politician named Barack Obama. He was particularly popular in Germany and scheduled a stop there during an overseas trip ahead of the 2008 election. He hoped to speak at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, the site of famous speeches by past American presidents.
But Merkel made it clear that she disapproved of plans for a politician to hold a campaign rally at the site, a landmark symbol of the Cold War. For Obama, it was an early lesson in Merkel's firmness. His campaign reversed course and another site was selected for the speech.
Obama finally got his chance to speak at the Brandenburg Gate this summer, and Merkel was there to introduce him. She ended her remarks by referring to Obama with a German word for "you" that is typically reserved for friendly visitors, sparking surprised laughter from the crowd.
In the years between Obama's trips to Berlin, he and Merkel have attempted to inject some warmth into their business relationship. During Merkel's 2011 visit to Washington, the two leaders hit the town for dinner at a high-end restaurant, an unusual overture by Obama. A few days later, he hosted Merkel at the White House for a formal state dinner, where he awarded the chancellor the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. honor bestowed upon civilians.
Despite their strong working relationship, Obama and Merkel have had deep policy differences, particularly over the response to the European debt crisis. During the depths of the crisis in 2011 and 2012, Merkel pushed for fiscal austerity on the continent, while Obama and many European leaders backed American-style stimulus.
Both leaders were driven by domestic concerns: for Obama, his looming re-election campaign, and for Merkel, the German public's unease with bailing out its fiscally irresponsible neighbors.
"During the debt crisis, Merkel just felt like Barack Obama never fully understood what was at stake — which was Europe," said Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And I think the president felt like Angela Merkel didn't quite understand the impact the European economy could have on his re-election efforts."
The NSA surveillance disclosures already had revealed another policy split between Obama and Merkel even before the revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the German leader's phone.
When Obama visited Germany earlier this year, Merkel was under election-year pressure from her privacy-protective constituents to condemn NSA programs that swept up phone and email records, including those of Europeans. She raised the issue with Obama both publicly and privately, casting a shadow over what had been expected to be a tension-free visit.
It's unclear whether the NSA spying disclosures will still cast a pall over Obama and Merkel's relationship when they next meet, likely next year during the international summits both regularly attend. But what is known is that the two leaders are stuck with each other for a while. Last month, Merkel convincingly won a third term as chancellor, meaning she'll still be office after Obama leaves the White House in 2016.
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Associated Press writers Robert Reid and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
On the surface, Cole Miller's unanimous decision win over Andy Ogle at UFC Fight Night 30 was a lifesaver. That's because had things gone the other way, and had Ogle gutted out a victory, it would've marked the fourth time in five UFC bouts that Miller fell short -- at least, officially.
"I knew I had to win," Miller said on Monday's episode of The MMA Hour. "I've kind of been up and down, but I've only been up and down because of what some 50 and 60-year-old judges have said about my fights. If you actually went back and looked at them, as far as I'm concerned, this is four wins in a row."
At face value, it's easy to dismiss Miller's complaints as simple excuses of another disgruntled fighter. But take a closer look at his UFC Fight Night 26 loss against Manny Gamburyan, and Miller actually has a pretty legitimate point.
Forget the fact that Miller outstruck the Armenian and battered Gamburyan from bottom position for three rounds. The real controversy came at the end of the opening frame, when Miller essentially knocked out Gamburyan with a pair of seemingly legal elbow strikes against the cage.
Gamburyan slumped over in Miller's corner holding the back of his head, while Gamburyan's cornermen rushed across the cage to aid their fighter. In the end over two minutes passed before Gamburyan answered the bell for the second round, despite the fact that only one minute is permitted by the commission.
"I thought I won that (fight against Gamburyan) and so did the media. So did everybody, in fact; Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, everybody came back and told me what was up," Miller said. "I read all the play-by-plays from the media. They all said that I won the fight and that I won every round of the fight, so as far as I'm concerned, I had momentum going into this fight.
"These [officials] want to say that I ‘lost,' but I'm the one doing all the damage."
Miller ultimately appealed the Gamburyan loss to the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission and is currently awaiting notice of the outcome. Although Miller does take away a sense of grim satisfaction by the fact that several of the points he brought up are being addressed in the commission's next meeting.
Nonetheless, the obvious error by commission officials, which was even admonished by UFC President Dana White, coupled with what Miller found to be a frustrating scoring criteria -- one skewed towards takedowns and top position instead of activity and damage -- led Miller to his belief that the system in place is beyond broken.
"They're not even qualified to be making the calls they're making," Miller said of MMA judges. "That's kind of disgusting and that's really unfortunate in our sport, because it changes the whole landscape of our sport. When you have unqualified people judging mixed martial arts, it changes the way that mixed martial arts is actually fought, because fighters are now adjusting their styles to please people that don't know anything about our sport.
"Then coaches are training their fighters to please these people that don't know anything about our sport. Right? And people want to think, ‘Oh, he's just bitching. He's just complaining because he hasn't won these fights in a while.' Look, you can keep all these decisions. I'm a martial artist, and I walk out with my head held high. I fight my kind of fight.
"I love this sport," Miller continued. "I really do. And I want to see it make progress. I don't want to see it regress. With the judging in mixed martial arts, and how coaches are coaching the fighters, and how fighters are manipulating and molding their styles to please people that know nothing about MMA, it makes the sport regress. That's really unfortunate, and that's something that I've been seeing for a long time, and it really makes me sad."
It's true, though, that despite however legitimate Miller's gripes may be, the fact remains that he desperately needed to increase his stock at UFC Fight Night 30. And he did just that, not only impressing in victory, but also by playing the promotional game so many fighters, for some reason, avoid.
Instead of answering Joe Rogan's post-fight questions, Miller launched into a tirade against the slew of European fighters that dot his résumé, eventually calling out the UFC's Irish sensation, Conor McGregor.
It was the most unexpected of promos, drawing a rancorous response from the Manchester crowd, and it even caught the attention of McGregor, who wasted little time responding to Miller via Twitter.
"[McGregor] came out and he called everybody else out. Two of those people he called out are my teammates, Nik Lentz and Dustin ‘The Diamond' Poirier. And that offends me," Miller said.
"People are talking about how great he looked. You didn't finish a 21-year-old kid with eight MMA fights. And now people are talking about you get to fight for the belt, and fighting top-10? And you're going to call out two people that train on my team, that are my homies? Na, you don't get to skip all that after not finishing a 21-year-old kid with eight MMA bouts, and then just skip and get to fight Dustin Poirier and Nik Lentz, and talk crap on these guys. Because those guys will murder you."
While Miller was quick to point out that he'd rather stay busy and fight before the end of the year than wait for McGregor to heal from knee injury, the 15-fight UFC veteran made it clear that he'd be ready whenever McGregor was able to return.
"Clearly I think that he's a good fighter," Miller concluded. "But do I think that he deserves to get flown here and there, and get to just skip to the front of the line? No, not at all. I think he needs to be tested.
"I don't know if he's overrated. That's the problem. But I don't think that he gets, after two fights -- [not] even two finishes in the UFC -- to just jump to the front of the line and fight these top name guys. You need to be tested, and be tested by a real seasoned fighter."
I hate Fantastical. And I hate Fantastical 2 even more. Except I kinda love them. And I hate that most of all. Thing is, I don't like calendars. They remind me of everything I have to do, and I have far too many of those things, and I don't want to do most of them. I don't even want to enter them into my calendar. I want them to leave me alone. But I don't have that option. So, since I have to do them, and I need a way to remember to do them, I also need a way to make that as quick and painless as possible. And that brings me right back to Fantastical, the one calendar app that's actually quick and painless enough that I have no excuse not to use it. More precisely, Fantastical 2, and even quicker, more painless, flat out better way than even the original. With an iOS 7 redesign. And Reminders integration. And a landscape week view. Dammit.
Originaly crafted by Flexibits - Michael Simmons and Kent Sutherland - for the Mac, Fantastical came to the iPhone just under a year ago and pretty much reverse-Sherlocked the built-in Calendar app. The basic mechanics of Fantastical haven't changed since then. There's still the buttery smooth day ticker on the top that somehow stays in perfect, perpendicular sync with the events listed below it. It's flatter now, of course, in iOS 7 fashion, but it works just as well. So does the pull down gesture to switch between the day ticker and month ticker. The lone buttons - Settings and Add - blessedly remain glyphs. If you want borderless buttons, you'll need to tap into the New Event screen.
If you do that, you'll also see a new switch control. Toggle it and you're taken from New Event to New Reminder. And yeah, Fantastical is as good for Reminders entry as it is for Calendar. Settings let you enable them, decide if you want to show completed items, and whether or not you want to organize by list, as well which lists you want to make available, and what you want to set as the default list.
Another new addition to the Fantastical repertoire is week view. Simply rotate from portrait to landscape and the ticker will spin around, zoom in, and become the week view. Rotate back to portrait and it'll spin, zoom, and transfer back into the ticker.
Again, I'm not a power calendar user. I'm just a busy person, working crazy hours, with way more stuff to do than I can reliably remember. In other words, I'm a normal person these days. I need tools to make my life easier, which means tools that save me time and don't take even more time away. Fantastical fits that bill, and Fantastical 2 fits it even better. I've been beta testing it for several weeks, and it's worked fantastically well, both for calendaring as usual, and, now, reminders as well.
I know some people who find it hard to use invitations at scale with Fantastical - a dozen a day or more - but I get maybe a few a week and I've been totally fine. Being able to enter appointment and tasks using the even better than before natural language parser - like a human being! - is ridiculously easy, and finding them again using the ticker and list is insanely fast.
Fantastical 2 is a new, iOS 7-only app. It costs $4.99 but is currently on sale for $2.99 for a limited time. For something I use all day, every day, it's worth easily 10 times that (and I wish I could pay 10 times that to help make sure I get a Fantastical 3, but not only does Apple still not provide a mechanism for upgrades, App Store pricing is so depressed, software so devalued, that it costs more these days to pay for an hour of parking than it does something that took months to design and develop). But it is what it is. If you like Fantastical 2, it if provides even the slightest value and joy to you, pay them pittance they're asking and recommend your friends do likewise.
After all, Fantastical 2 will check all your existing Fantastical 1 settings and mirror them, so you're all set up and ready to go right from the start. That alone is more than worth the price of admission.
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