The Lede is rounding up online reaction to Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday night in real-time, with additional fact-checking and context provided by Juliet Macur, Sarah Lyall, Brian Stelter, David Carr and Robert Mackey. The broadcast begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and will be streamed live on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Web site.
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Ex-Red Sox pitcher Schilling puts bloody sock up for auction after video game company collapse
Label: TechnologyPROVIDENCE, R.I. – Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling — whose video game company underwent a spectacular collapse into bankruptcy last year — is selling the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series.
Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says online bidding begins around Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place Feb. 23.
The sock previously had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It has been at Heritage’s Dallas headquarters for several weeks and will be displayed at the auction house’s Manhattan office before it is sold, according to Ivy.
He said the sock is expected to fetch at least $ 100,000, though he described that as a conservative estimate.
“I do expect the bidding to be very spirited,” Ivy said.
Schilling’s company, 38 Studios, was lured to Providence, R.I., from Massachusetts with a $ 75 million loan guarantee in 2010. In May, it laid off all its employees and it filed for bankruptcy in June. The state is now likely responsible for some $ 100 million related to the deal, including interest.
Schilling also had personally guaranteed loans to the company and listed the sock as bank collateral in a September filing with the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office.
Messages left for his publicist were not immediately returned.
The bloody sock is one of two that sent Schilling into the annals of baseball lore in 2004.
The other was from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, when Schilling pitched against the New York Yankees with an injured ankle. That sock is said to have been discarded in the trash at Yankees Stadium.
The one being sold is from the second game of the World Series, which the Red Sox won that year for the first time in 86 years.
Schilling has said he invested as much as $ 50 million in 38 Studios and has lost all his baseball earnings. He told WEEI-AM in Boston last year that possibly having to sell the sock was part of “having to pay for your mistakes.”
“I’m obligated to try and make amends and, unfortunately, this is one of the byproducts of that,” he told the station.
Brad Horn, a spokesman for the hall of fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., said the loaned sock was returned in December under the terms of the hall’s agreement with Schilling. The hall had had it since 2004.
The Feb. 23 live bidding will be held at the Fletcher-Sinclair mansion in New York City, now home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. The auction will feature other “five- and six-figure items,” including a jersey and cap worn by New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig, Ivy said.
Heritage last May auctioned off the so-called “Bill Buckner ball,” which rolled through the legs of the Red Sox first baseman in the 1986 World Series. Ivy said that item, like Schilling’s sock, was listed at the time as being expected to bring in “$ 100,000-plus,” but it was sold to an anonymous bidder for $ 418,000.
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
See Personal Pics of Rosie O'Donnell's Daughter Dakota
Label: LifestyleAfter welcoming her fifth child, the comedian gives fans an intimate glimpse into her mommy joy in a series of personal photos
Credit: Courtesy of Rosie O'Donnell
Updated: Thursday Jan 17, 2013 | 12:00 PM EST
By: Shanelle Rein-Olowokere
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Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?
Label: HealthMILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.
That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.
Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.
How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?
Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.
The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."
Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.
"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.
Some unknowns:
—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.
—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.
—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.
—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.
—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.
—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.
"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.
One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."
Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.
"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."
Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.
He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."
"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.
Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.
The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.
Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.
Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."
Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.
"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.
What now?
CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."
Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.
Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.
"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.
"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.
___
Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
World Briefing | Middle East: Jordan: Fire Kills Family at Camp for Syrian Refugees
Label: World
A fire caused by a kerosene heater that flipped over in a center for refugees who had fled the Syrian civil war killed seven members of a family, a civil defense spokesman said Wednesday. The center is a temporary shelter for refugees before they are moved to a camp called Zaatari, which has been battered by a flash flood.
Commentary: Background Checks? Yes, but Leave Video Games Alone
Label: TechnologyCOMMENTARY | I have mixed feelings toward the White House‘s gun violence response. I agree that background checks should be required before people are allowed to buy a firearm and that an assault weapon ban should be reinstated into law. While limiting the number of bullets in a weapon’s magazine will decrease the number of deaths in a mass shooting, the public does not need high-capacity magazines. Therefore any weapon using high-capacity magazines should be banned from public use, not just capping the magazines to 10 bullets.
But violent video games and other media images and scenes real-life violence? These media do not kill people. The shooters kill the people. Those who are mentally unstable may not understand that violent video games are not real life and should not be duplicated in real life. As long as gamers understand the difference between video games and real life, that shouldn’t be touched.
– Edmond, Okla.
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Baby Boy on the Way for Kara DioGuardi
Label: Lifestyle
Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog
01/16/2013 at 08:15 PM ET
Cindy Ord/Getty
Kara DioGuardi is going to be a mom!
The Grammy-nominated songwriter, who also served as a judge on American Idol‘s eighth and ninth seasons, confirms to PEOPLE exclusively that she and husband Mike McCuddy will welcome their first child via gestational surrogate in the coming weeks.
“We are eagerly awaiting the healthy and happy birth of our son Greyson James Carroll McCuddy,” DioGuardi, 42, tells PEOPLE.
After years of struggling with fertility issues and multiple failed IVF attempts, the couple, who wed in 2009, decided to explore other paths to parenthood — including adoption and surrogacy.
In the end, says DioGuardi, “We made a personal decision to try with a surrogate. I asked someone we knew, a friend. And on the first try, it worked.”
“We’re praying for our surrogate, that she gets through this and that it’s as easy on her as it can possibly be, because she’s been a gem throughout the whole process,” says the songwriter and music publisher.
“I’ve got two people on my mind: her and the baby. She’s given us this incredible gift.”
– Marisa Laudadio
Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.
The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.
The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.
But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.
"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.
The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.
The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.
Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.
The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.
U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.
Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The vaccine is safe," she said.
___
Online:
Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org
U.S., others ground Boeing Dreamliner indefinitely
Label: Business(Reuters) - Europe, Japan and India on Thursday joined the United States in grounding Boeing Co's 787, a day after a second incident involving battery failure caused one of the Dreamliner passenger jets to make an emergency landing.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Wednesday it would temporarily ground Boeing's newest commercial airliner and insisted airlines would have to demonstrate the lithium ion batteries were safe before they could resume flying. It gave no details on when that might happen.
It is the first such action against a U.S.-made passenger plane since the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 was grounded in 1979 after a deadly crash in Chicago, analysts said.
Japanese Transport Ministry Vice Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said the grounding was for an indefinite period, and India's aviation regulator said it was unclear when the aircraft would be back in service. A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said the region would follow the U.S. grounding order. Poland's LOT Airlines is the only European airline currently operating the 787.
Boeing said in a statement it was confident the 787 was safe and it stood by the plane's integrity.
"Boeing is committed to supporting the FAA and finding answers as quickly as possible. The company is working around the clock with its customers and the various regulatory and investigative authorities. We will make available the entire resources of The Boeing Company to assist," Chief Executive Jim McNerney said.
Passengers leaving United Airlines Flight 1426 in Houston - which had taken off from Los Angeles moments before the FAA announcement - reported an incident-free trip.
"I fly over 100,000 miles a year," said Brett Boudreaux, a salesman from Lake Charles, Louisiana. "That was one of the most relaxing flights I've ever had. I hope they sort it out. It's a hell of a plane."
POTENTIAL COST
Boeing shares fell 2 percent in after-hours trading to $72.75 after the FAA announcement on Wednesday.
"Ultimately, you can view it as a positive thing if they can resolve what the issues are and give people confidence in the safety of the aircraft. In the near-term, though, it's a negative. It's going to force the company to make significant investments," said Ken Herbert, an analyst at Imperial Capital in San Francisco.
The shares of GS Yuasa Corp, a Japanese firm that makes batteries for the Dreamliner, tumbled 4.7 percent in early Thursday trading in Tokyo. The stock has dropped 18 percent since January 7 when one of its batteries exploded in a parked Japan Airlines 787 at Boston Logan International Airport - one of several recent mishaps that have plagued the new lightweight, fuel-efficient jetliner.
Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia, said the grounding would send jitters through investor circles, but was probably associated with Boeing's decision to build 50 planes before the 787 model entered service, rather than a more serious issue of plane design.
"Most likely it's a very big headache and they're being cautious, but there's still the possibility that it's much worse and much more expensive for Boeing," he said.
"There's clearly a pattern of problems with this aircraft but we don't know yet how many are teething pains and whether or not there's a more serious problem," Aboulafia said. "Most likely we're talking about teething pains based on the haphazard upfront manufacturing process. Building 50-something planes with lots of rework, all completed before certification - that's just a recipe for trouble."
The 787, which has a list price of $207 million, represents a leap in the way planes are designed and built, but the project has been plagued by cost overruns and years of delays. Some have suggested Boeing's rush to get planes built after those delays resulted in the recent problems, a charge the company denies.
BATTERY PROBLEMS
In Wednesday's incident, All Nippon Airways Co Ltd said instruments aboard a domestic flight indicated a battery error, triggering emergency warnings. The incident was described by a transport ministry official as "highly serious" - language used in international safety circles as indicating there could have been an accident. Both ANA and Japan Airlines then grounded their 24 Dreamliners pending checks.
The use of new battery technology is among the cost-saving features of the 787, which Boeing says burns 20 percent less fuel than rival jetliners using older technology.
Lithium ion batteries can catch fire if they are overcharged and, once alight, they are difficult to put out as the chemicals produce oxygen, Boeing's chief engineer for the 787, Mike Sinnett, told reporters last week. He said lithium ion was not the only battery choice, but "it was the right choice".
In Asia, only the Japanese and Air India have the Dreamliner in service, but other airlines are among those globally to have ordered around 850 of the new aircraft. Chile-based LAN also grounded its three 787s in compliance with the FAA warning.
Boeing has said it will at least break even on the cost of building the 1,100 new 787s it expects to deliver over the next decade. Some analysts, however, say Boeing may never make money from the aircraft, given its enormous development cost. Any additional cost from fixing problems discovered by the string of recent incidents would affect those forecasts and could hit Boeing's bottom line more quickly if it has to stop delivering planes, analysts said.
FINANCIAL PRESSURE
Moody's Investors Service said the 787 grounding was a negative credit development for Boeing, but ratings were not expected to be impacted for now. "This could pose new operating and financial pressures for Boeing, including further delay in delivery schedules and future order flow, as well as ongoing reputational risk," noted Russell Solomon, Moody's Senior Vice President and lead analyst for the company.
Barring a prolonged grounding or a severe and uncontained crisis, aircraft industry sources say there is no immediate threat of plane cancellations. Among other reasons, they cite the heavy costs of retraining and investing in new infrastructure, as well as a shortage of alternatives in an industry dominated by just two large jet suppliers.
The Dreamliner's problems could sharpen competition between Boeing and its European rival Airbus, which itself experienced a dip in sales for its A380 superjumbo following problems with wing cracks a year ago. The A380 crisis has since eased and most airlines report the aircraft are flying full.
(Reporting by U.S. and Tokyo bureaux, with additional contributions from other Reuters bureaux; Writing by Ian Geoghegan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Op-Ed Contributor: How Turkey Can Make Peace With the Kurds
Label: World
THE assassination of three Kurdish activists in Paris last week has raised fears that the true target was peace talks between Turkey and the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K. But the so-called peace process was already in shambles before the killings, which have not been solved.
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claims that he wants a deal to end nearly 30 years of war between the state and the P.K.K. rebels. But he has yet to take the decisive action needed for a credible peace process. Until he understands that the Kurdish problem in Turkey is about politics and identity, and not just about getting the guerrillas to withdraw from Turkey and give up their weapons, there will be no hope for peace.
The head of Turkish intelligence, Hakan Fidan, has recently been holding talks with the imprisoned P.K.K. leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Turkey’s intelligence services have had discussions with Mr. Ocalan since he was captured in February 1999, but to no avail.
The problem is that Mr. Ocalan may not be the right partner to negotiate with. He is held in extreme isolation on an island prison, with all communication vetted by his jailers. He received a television in his cell for the first time just a few days ago. Visits must be approved, and rarely are. This means that Mr. Ocalan has limited knowledge of developments in the Kurdish region of Turkey. And while he remains the head of the P.K.K., he has no practical control over the rebels’ day-to-day operations.
Even if he were in control, the highly authoritarian Mr. Ocalan is not necessarily the man to ensure democracy for Turkey’s Kurds. During the nearly two decades he was based in Syria, Mr. Ocalan consolidated power by killing or isolating challengers.
A viable peace deal must answer Kurdish demands for human rights in a manner that protects the views of all Kurds, not just those of Mr. Ocalan and the P.K.K. And the best way to do this is through the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, known as the B.D.P., which won seats in Turkey’s parliament in 2011 and can genuinely claim to represent Kurdish aspirations.
Mr. Erdogan needs to recognize that the way to peace is through politics. Instead of engaging solely with Mr. Ocalan, as if the P.K.K. rebellion were purely a security problem, he must craft a political process that addresses Kurds’ grievances about cultural rights and autonomy, giving the rebels a reason to lay down their weapons.
To end the conflict, which has killed more than 40,000 people and hampered Turkey’s ability to exert its clout in the Middle East, Turkey needs to do three things.
First, Mr. Erdogan must unequivocally commit to a negotiated process that includes compromises by both sides. While Turkey’s territorial integrity should not be up for debate, everything else should be. Mr. Erdogan has generally been dismissive of Kurdish grievances. In a recent interview, he said there was no need to instruct Kurdish students in their native tongue, because they can already study the language as an elective. Instead of belittling Kurds’ cultural demands, he should demonstrate good faith by pushing through stalled constitutional and legal reforms, including changes to constitutional provisions that restrict the use of the Kurdish language in schools, punish criticism of the Turkish state and define citizenship through the prism of Turkish identity.
Second, Mr. Erdogan needs to understand that disarming the P.K.K. won’t come at the beginning of the peace process, but at the end. He can, and should, ask for a cease-fire agreement, but it cannot be a one-sided call for Kurdish surrender. To silence the P.K.K.’s guns while talks are under way, Turkey will also have to suspend its military operations against rebels in the southeast and in northern Iraq.
Third, Turkey shouldn’t limit itself to negotiating with an imprisoned authoritarian figurehead; it should also negotiate with the B.D.P. Unlike the P.K.K., the B.D.P. has legal recognition. But it also has legitimacy among Kurds due to its close ties to the P.K.K.; its members share the P.K.K.’s political goals of Kurdish autonomy and recognize Mr. Ocalan as a leader of the Kurds. This is what makes the B.D.P. a serious negotiating partner; the party can be an effective conduit for P.K.K. demands and help devise a viable democratic reform package in Parliament.
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