 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Published July 16, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| Recent Local News | |||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Quick Links | |||||||||||||||||||||
Best viewed with Firefox  |
Source: http://www.sunad.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=28671
Honey Boo Boo Johnny Manziel Rachel Jeantel Matt Harvey Behati Prinsloo Talia Castellano Whose Line Is It Anyway
14 hours ago
Steve Marcus / Reuters
Carpenters work on new homes at a residential construction site in the west side of the Las Vegas Valley in Las Vegas in April. Housing starts have fallen to a 10-month low.
WASHINGTON - Housing starts and permits for future home construction unexpectedly fell in June, but the decline in activity was likely to be short-lived against the backdrop of bullish sentiment among home builders.
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that housing starts dropped 9.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 836,000 units. That was the lowest level since August last year.
Economists, who had expected groundbreaking to rise to a 959,000-unit rate, shrugged off the decline and said wet weather in many parts of the country had dampened activity. They noted that much of the drop was in the volatile multifamily segment.
"It looks like it's weather-related," said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C. "On the surface it doesn't look good, but we are confident that starts activity is still going to climb higher in the months to come."
Permits to build homes fell 7.5 percent last month to a 911,000-unit pace. Economist had expected permits to rise to a 1-million unit pace.
Though it was the second straight month of declines in permits, they remained ahead of starts. Economists said this, together with upbeat homebuilder confidence, suggested groundbreaking activity will bounce back in July and through the remainder of this year.
Sentiment among single-family home builders hit a 7-1/2 year high in July, a report showed on Monday, amid optimism over current and future home sales.
Mortgage rates still low
There was little to suggest that a recent spike in mortgage rates was restraining home building activity, economists said, pointing to the improving builder confidence.
"New home supply and housing completions remain low, home prices are rising and, despite the recent rise, mortgage rates remain low," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York. "To us, this all points to housing activity adding to growth in the second half of the year."
Housing's recovery is being aided by still-low mortgage rates engineered by the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary policy and steady employment gains.
Mortgage rates increased in recent weeks after the Fed expressed its desire to start cutting back on its bond purchases later this year. The monthly $85 billion in bond purchases have been holding down interest rates.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the central bank still expected to start scaling back its massive asset purchase program later this year, but left open the option of changing that plan in either direction if the economic outlook shifted.
The U.S. stock market rose as Bernanke's comments led markets to believe the central bank's plans to pull its monetary stimulus were not set in stone. The U.S. dollar gained ground while Treasury securities prices slipped.
Bernanke offered an upbeat assessment of the housing market's prospects.
"Housing activity and prices seem likely to continue to recover, notwithstanding the recent increases in mortgage rates, but it will be important to monitor developments in this sector carefully," Bernanke told lawmakers.
Last month, groundbreaking for single-family homes, the largest segment of the market, slipped 0.8 percent to its lowest level since last November 2012. Starts for multi-family homes declined 26.2 percent to a 245,000-unit rate.
Starts were down in all four regions in June, with big declines in the Northeast, South and the Midwest.
Weak groundbreaking suggested a smaller boost to both second and third quarter gross domestic product from residential construction. Second-quarter GDP estimates are ranging between 0.5 percent and 1 percent.
The economy grew at a 1.8 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year.
Permits for multi-family homes fell 21.4 percent last month. But permits for single-family homes rose 0.6 percent to a their highest since May 2008.
More business news:
Follow NBCNews.com business onTwitter and Facebook
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.
fisker karma super tuesday states shepard fairey is snooki pregnant snooki pregnant gbc hedy lamarr
BALTIMORE -- A reliance on industry to provide information about facilities that handle dangerous chemicals might have contributed to the Homeland Security Department?s failure to regulate the site of a major explosion in Texas earlier this year, a DHS official suggested Wednesday.
?It is absolutely a shared responsibility,? David Wulf, director of the department?s infrastructure security compliance division, told Global Security Newswire. ?Facilities that are in the business of dealing with ? high-risk chemicals ? have an obligation to do that reporting, just as I have an obligation to file our taxes with the IRS.
?The IRS doesn?t necessarily come out and look for us,? he added. ?At the same time, we?re committed to doing all we can to get word out? that these reporting requirements exist, he said.
During formal remarks at a chemical-sector security conference, Wulf said DHS officials have ?a pretty high degree of certainty that we have reached facilities that are members of the national trade associations? and informed them of their responsibility to comply with federal Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, which require companies to submit site security plans if they handle a significant amount of dangerous chemicals.
He noted, however, that it appears that the West, Texas, fertilizer plant that exploded in April -- killing 14 and leveling nearby homes and businesses ?--was not a member of such a trade group.
Since the incident, Wulf said, the department has ?doubled down? on its efforts to reach facilities that qualify for regulation. It recently exchanged lists of known facilities with state agencies in Texas in an effort to identify sites known to the state but not to the federal department and vice versa. DHS officials have also renewed efforts to compare notes about relevant facilities with other federal agencies involved with chemical-safety regulation, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Wulf said.
The Homeland Security Department had previously attempted such information sharing with the EPA Risk Management Program several years ago when the CFATS program was just getting under way, according to Wulf. The initial effort was largely unsuccessful due to technical differences between the two agencies? databases. However, this time around, the department has launched a more advanced information-technology program aimed making the exchange more useful.
The move appears aimed at addressing concerns that the Texas facility was not on the Homeland Security Department?s radar, even though other regulatory agencies were aware the facility had been handling significant quantities of dangerous chemicals.
A risk-management plan filed with the Environmental Protection Agency said the facility possessed up to 54,000 pounds of toxic anhydrous ammonia -- more than five times the CFATS threshold of 10,000 pounds. In addition, the plant last year reported to the Texas State Health Services Department that it possessed 270 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate -- more than 1,000 times the CFATS reporting threshold of 400 pounds.
On Thursday, Joan O'Hara, deputy chief counsel to the House Homeland Security Committee, told conference attendees the panel would host a hearing to further examine why the DHS program has not reached certain "outlier" facilities such as the Texas plant.
The West, Texas, incident has been the focus of the latest criticism directed at the DHS program. Prior to the incident, the initiative had faced more than a year?s worth of congressional scrutiny pertaining to a leaked internal memo that revealed a litany of management problems, including a failure to conduct onsite inspections and approve facility security plans.
On Wednesday, Wulf, who co-authored the memo, sought to portray the CFATS program as one that had ?turned a corner.? He noted that as of last July, the program had given preliminary approval to only 50 site-security plans, conducted only 10 inspections and had not granted final approval to a single site-security plan since it was first authorized by Congress in 2007. One year later, the department has provided preliminary approval for ?upwards of 500? site-security plans, has conducted more than 50 inspections and has granted final approval for 160 site-security plans.
The program has also completed 90 of 95 ?action items? that the internal memo had identified as needed to get the program back on track, Wulf said.
Labor and environmental groups argue, however, that even if it runs smoothly, the DHS program lacks the legal teeth needed to ensure that domestic chemical security is adequate. They note that the law authorizing the program does not allow the department to require any specific security improvements and argue that the Environmental Protection Agency should use its own authorities under the Clean Air Act to craft more stringent rules.
In recent weeks, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has also pushed for stronger EPA action on chemical security. Boxer, who has oversight authority over the agency as chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has offered harsh criticism over what she says is an inadequate response to the Texas tragedy.
Republicans and major industry groups have long opposed further EPA involvement in the chemical security arena, arguing that the agency?s existing regulations -- along with those of the Homeland Security Department, Occupational Health and Safety Administration and various state agencies -- are sufficient.
Source: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/dhs-official-reliance-industry-may-have-led-texas-oversight-lapse/
steven tyler tropic thunder carnie wilson missing reese witherspoon pregnant billy joel bent
NASHVILLE ? Randy Travis has suffered a stroke Wednesday evening and is in surgery at an unidentified Texas hospital, his publicist said.
The 54-year-old suffered the stroke while being treated for congestive heart failure for a viral illness.
Travis was undergoing surgery Wednesday night to relieve pressure on his brain, the Associated Press said.
He was also listed in critical condition.
Doctors said Travis had been in good health until three weeks before he was put in the hospital, which happened Sunday.
Source: http://grandview.fox4kc.com/news/news/251003-randy-travis-suffers-stroke-texas-hospital
Ncaa Basketball Tournament 2013 Robert Ebert chelsea handler hannibal Lena Headey roger ebert north korea
May 30, 2013 ? Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that a naturally occurring protein secreted only in discrete areas of the mammalian brain may act as a Valium-like brake on certain types of epileptic seizures.
The protein is known as diazepam binding inhibitor, or DBI. It calms the rhythms of a key brain circuit and so could prove valuable in developing novel, less side-effect-prone therapies not only for epilepsy but possibly for anxiety and sleep disorders, too. The researchers' discoveries will be published May 30 in Neuron.
"This is one of the most exciting findings we have had in many years," said John Huguenard, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences and the study's senior author. "Our results show for the first time that a nucleus deep in the middle of the brain generates a small protein product, or peptide, that acts just like benzodiazepines." This drug class includes not only the anti-anxiety compound Valium (generic name diazepam), first marketed in 1965, but its predecessor Librium, discovered in 1955, and the more recently developed sleep aid Halcyon.
Valium, which is notoriously addictive, prone to abuse and dangerous at high doses, was an early drug treatment for epilepsy, but it has fallen out of use for this purpose because its efficacy quickly wears off and because newer, better anti-epileptic drugs have come along.
For decades, DBI has also been known to researchers under a different name: ACBP. In fact, it is found in every cell of the body, where it is an intracellular transporter of a metabolite called acyl-CoA. "But in a very specific and very important brain circuit that we've been studying for many years, DBI not only leaves the cells that made it but is -- or undergoes further processing to become -- a natural anti-epileptic compound," Huguenard said. "In this circuit, DBI or one of its peptide fragments acts just like Valium biochemically and produces the same neurological effect."
Other endogenous (internally produced) substances have been shown to cause effects similar to psychoactive drugs. In 1974, endogenous proteins called endorphins, with biochemical activity and painkilling properties similar to that of opiates, were isolated. A more recently identified set of substances, the endocannabinoids, mimic the memory-, appetite- and analgesia-regulating actions of the psychoactive components of cannabis, or marijuana.
DBI binds to receptors that sit on nerve-cell surfaces and are responsive to a tiny but important chemical messenger, or neurotransmitter, called GABA. The roughly one-fifth of all nerve cells in the brain that are inhibitory mainly do their job by secreting GABA, which binds to receptors on nearby nerve cells, rendering those cells temporarily unable to fire any electrical signals of their own.
Benzodiazepine drugs enhance GABA-induced inhibition by binding to a different site on GABA receptors from the one GABA binds to. That changes the receptor's shape, making it hyper-responsive to GABA. These receptors come in many different types and subtypes, not all of which are responsive to benzodiazepines. DBI binds to the same spot to which benzodiazepines bind on benzodiazepine-responsive GABA receptors. But until now, exactly what this means has remained unclear.
Huguenard, along with postdoctoral scholar and lead author Catherine Christian, PhD, and several Stanford colleagues zeroed in on DBI's function in the thalamus, a deep-brain structure that serves as a relay station for sensory information, and which previous studies in the Huguenard lab have implicated on the initiation of seizures. The researchers used single-nerve-cell-recording techniques to show that within a GABA-secreting nerve-cell cluster called the thalamic reticular nucleus, DBI has the same inhibition-boosting effect on benzodiazepine-responsive GABA receptors as do benzodiazepines. Using bioengineered mice in which those receptors' benzodiazepine-binding site was defective, they showed that DBI lost its effect, which Huguenard and Christian suggested makes these mice seizure-prone.
In another seizure-prone mouse strain in which that site is intact but the gene for DBI is missing, the scientists saw diminished inhibitory activity on the part of benzodiazepine-responsive GABA receptors. Re-introducing the DBI gene to the brains of these mice via a sophisticated laboratory technique restored the strength of the GABA-induced inhibition. In normal mice, a compound known to block the benzodiazepine-binding site weakened these same receptors' inhibitory activity in the thalamic reticular nucleus, even in the absence of any administered benzodiazepines. This suggested that some naturally occurring benzodiazepine-like substance was being displaced from the benzodiazepine-binding site by the drug. In DBI-gene-lacking mice, the blocking agent had no effect at all.
Huguenard's team also showed that DBI has the same inhibition-enhancing effect on nerve cells in an adjacent thalamic region -- but also that, importantly, no DBI is naturally generated in or near this region; in the corticothalamic circuit, at least, DBI appears to be released only in the thalamic reticular nucleus. So, the actions of DBI on GABA receptors appear to be tightly controlled to occur only in specific brain areas.
Huguenard doesn't know yet whether it is DBI per se, or one of its peptide fragments (and if so which one), that is exerting the active inhibitory role. But, he said, by finding out exactly which cells are releasing DBI under what biochemical circumstances, it may someday be possible to develop agents that could jump-start and boost its activity in epileptic patients at the very onset of seizures, effectively nipping them in the bud.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/TIX0jA6geHw/130530132429.htm
grammy awards whitney houston autopsy dobie gray bruce springsteen grammy nominations lil boosie bobbi kristina brown
By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More babies born via cesarean section grow up to be heavy kids and teens than those delivered vaginally, according to a new study of more than 10,000 UK infants. Eleven-year-olds delivered by C-section, for example, were 83 percent more likely to be overweight or obese than??
Source: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/weightloss
yom hashoah yolo liquidmetal gsa scandal kelis dick clark dies ibogaine
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/DwNe_gXxSbE/
giuliana and bill bill rancic nflx giuliana rancic giuliana rancic elie wiesel temptations
?FULL STORY
