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."
Now the guitar is being offered for sale Dec. 6, Christie's said. 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.'"
___
Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
Asa Butterfield is being recruited to save the planet in Ender's Game, Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson are traveling back in time to the first Thanksgiving in Free Birds and Morgan Freeman & Co. are hitting the strip (clubs) in Last Vegas. These are the movies to check out -- will you be grabbing your popcorn and seeing one of them this weekend?
When writers die, it's hard to know if their work will live on. I'm always amazed at what does or doesn't last –– what seems fresh as time passes, or what takes on that dreaded sepia tint even just a year or two later.
When Nora Ephron died in June of 2012, she left behind a big, diverse body of work that spanned decades and genres. At various points in her life she was a reporter, a journalist, an essayist, a screenwriter, a novelist, a playwright, and even, briefly, a blogger. As her editor Robert Gottlieb writes in the introduction, this massive book was meant "to celebrate the richness of her work, the amazing arc of her career, and the place she had come to hold in the hearts of countless readers." Gottlieb and Ephron started to work on the book together, but somehow it didn't get done, and he wonders if it was because Ephron, knowing she was ill but telling very few people, began to see the book as "a memorial," which made her uncomfortable.
The Most of Nora Ephron gives you a close-up and thorough view of the writer, which seems a particularly important thing to do, because her death was met with such an emotional response. In New York Magazine, Frank Rich wrote eloquently of her generosity to younger writers who were just starting out, and of how good she was to him in all ways. "She continued to give me invaluable advice about everything," he wrote, "from career to restaurants, from what to read to what to think." Rich concludes that, in making her decision to keep her illness private, "For all the instructions she gave us and everyone else about life, she was teaching us something about dying, and we had no idea at the time she was doing so."
Many of Ephron's friends and fans were left to reminisce intensely about her, or to try and figure her out and sort of open her up like a Chinese puzzle box. This omnibus goes far in clarifying who Ephron was, not just as a sentimental favorite, but as a writer and thinker.
In her early days, she was a reporter at The New York Post, where "everyone smoked, but there were no ashtrays... The doors leading into the city room had insets of frosted glass, and they were so dusty that someone had written the word "Philthy" on them with a finger. I couldn't have cared less. I had spent almost half my life wanting to be a newspaper reporter, and now I had a shot at it." The Post actually published six editions a day back then. As Ephron writes, "I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking Scotch and playing dollar poker ... I loved the speed. I loved the deadlines." According to her, "The greatest of the rewrite men at the Post was a woman named Helen Dudar. Hello, sweetheart, get me rewrite."
Near the end of her life, when Ephron wrote "Lucky Guy," a play that starred Tom Hanks as the reporter Mike McAlary, who broke the Abner Louima police brutality case, she retained and re-created the potent, inky tang of newsroom life 50 years after her own stint there. McAlary is a driven figure, like Ephron eventually terminally ill, living for "the wood," which "is slang for the front-page headline. The type was so big they had to make the letters out of wood."
As intrepid as Ephron was, and happy to jump into the rumpled, guy's scrum of the newsroom, and, later on, the slicker's guy's world of magazine journalism, one thing you can't miss, reading this book, is the fact that she was very interested in women's lives. And sometimes that included her own.
In her 1972 essay, "A Few Words About Breasts," she writes, "I started with a 28 AA bra... An actual fitter took me into the dressing room and stood over me while I took off my blouse and tried the first one on. The little puffs stood out on my chest. 'Lean over,' said the fitter. (To this day, I am not sure what fitters in bra departments do except to tell you to lean over.)"
In our age of confession and the perpetual selfie, this essay seems funny, charming and knowing, but maybe not revolutionary. At the time it was published, however, during the Our Bodies, Ourselves 1970s, writers rarely wrote with such deep wit about their imperfections, their bodies, their sexual selves.
Her one novel, Heartburn, the painful and blisteringly funny account of the end of a marriage — based on Ephron's split from Carl Bernstein — retains its spine, rage and hilarity 30 years after it was published. A huge hit, it was seen as the perfect revenge delivery-system for having been publicly humiliated by her husband while she was pregnant with their second child. Though Heartburn is delectable as a roman a clef, part of its interest for readers is that you really sense you're getting a big dose of Ephron's actual life and thoughts and feelings. As she herself writes, "...it's a very funny book, but it wasn't funny at the time. I was insane with grief. My heart was broken. I was terrified about what was going to happen to my children and me."
Later, when she adapted Heartburn for the screen, Meryl Streep played the part of Rachel Samstat, food writer and Ephron doppelganger.
Nora Ephron let her women characters be vulnerable, but never destroyed. As she advised the graduating class of Wellesley College in 1996, "be the heroine of your own life, not the victim. Because you don't have the alibi my class had — this is one of the great achievements and mixed blessings you inherit: unlike us, you can't say nobody told you there were other options ... You won't be able to blame the deans, or the culture, or anyone else: you will have no one to blame but yourselves. Whoa!"
In her brilliant 1972 essay on the early years of feminism, she writes about a particularly vivid heroine: "Every so often, someone suggests that Gloria Steinem is only into the women's movement because it is currently the chic place to be; it always makes me smile, because she is about the only remotely chic thing connected with the movement."
Other sides of Ephron show up in this book as well, notably the foodie. Heartburn includes various recipes for dishes like bacon hash, potatoes Anna and Lillian Hellman's pot roast. And there are essays about "The Egg-White Omelette," and about a paragon of pastrami sandwiches, and Teflon. Everyone who really knew Nora Ephron was cooked for by her; and everyone else wished they had been.
I met Nora over 20 years ago, because the first film she directed, This Is My Life, starring Julie Kavner as a stand-up comedian trying to balance motherhood and career, was based on my novel. I was very pregnant with my first child, and Nora and her sister Delia, who co-wrote the script, invited me to join them to check out some female stand-up comics appearing at clubs around the city. I said I couldn't go; I had childbirth class that night. Nora said, "Here, I'll show you what they were going to teach you. (PANTING NOISES.)" Of course, I went with the Sisters Ephron to the comedy clubs, and later on to the set of the movie.
This Is My Life was not a commercial success, but it was loved by a lot of people who saw it, particularly women and girls, and I lucked out in that I got a long friendship out of it. Once, a long time ago, I went out to dinner with a group of people, including Nora, and there was a salad on the menu with candied walnuts in it. This was back when candied walnuts were a new phenomenon, and the only reason people wanted that salad was because of the walnuts. The waiter went around the table, and everyone ordered it. And then he got to Nora, and she asked for the salad too, with double walnuts.
It wouldn't have occurred to the rest of us to do that: to ask for a little more from life.
Nora was constantly handing out her own version of double walnuts. To her friends, to the writers she encouraged, and even to her readers and audiences, who wanted just a little more of her, though of course there was so much. It's staggering to think how much work she did, in all those mediums.
In order to get all of that done, you have to be fierce. According to her sister and frequent collaborator, Delia Ephron, whose new collection, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc. includes two powerful essays about her sister: "Working with Nora in Hollywood was like traveling in an armored vehicle. Once she left a studio meeting and everyone fell on me, giving me all the script notes they didn't have the nerve to tell her."
That fierceness is in evidence in The Most of Nora Ephron, but it's tempered by some wistful moments. There's a short 2010 piece in the form of a list, called "What I will Miss," which includes items like "Shakespeare in the Park," and "Reading in bed," and "Dinner at home just the two of us," and "dinner with friends," and "Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives," and "Coming over the bridge to Manhattan," and "Pie."
Anyone who knows of Ephron's virtuosic career and reads that list will remember that she wasn't just this intrepid reporter and filmmaker and opinion-sayer and personage who was played onscreen by no less than Meryl Streep. She was also someone who lived, and who people who never met her felt like they knew. And that, I think, gives a clue as to why she will last. Because in the great rushing loneliness of the world, when a writer's voice makes you feel befriended, you want more of it even after the person is gone.
FILE - This July 28, 2013 file photo shows singer Katy Perry at the world premiere of "The Smurfs 2" in Los Angeles. Perry says though she’s “older and wiser,” she still plans to have fun on her new album. During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Mick Jagger’s 2004 song, “Old Habits Die Hard.” Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that “he hit on me when I was 18.” In a statement Thursday, Oct. 31, a representative for Jagger says he “categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry.” (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — In her teenage dream? Mick Jagger says he never hit on Katy Perry when she was 18.
During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Jagger's 2004 song "Old Habits Die Hard." Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that "he hit on me when I was 18."
In a statement Thursday, a representative for Jagger says he "categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry." The rep adds: "Perhaps she is confusing him with someone else."
Perry was one of the singers to make a guest appearance on the Rolling Stones' tour this year. The 29-year-old singer also said in the interview that the 70-year-old Jagger has been "very kind" to her.
Successful enterprise cloud deployments demand compatibility, scalability and flexibility-elements that cannot simply be added as an afterthought. CloudPlatform incorporates all these architectural features and more. more
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's ruling that found the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy discriminated against minorities, and it took the unusual step of removing her from the case, saying interviews she gave during the trial called her impartiality into question.
The city applauded the appeals court's decision. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was shouted down over the tactic by students during a speech at Brown University this week, said he was pleased by it.
"This is indeed an important decision for all New Yorkers and for the men and women of the New York City police department who work very hard day in and day out to keep this city safe," he said.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin will be on hold pending the outcome of an appeal by the city. But it may be a nonissue after next week's mayoral election: Democrat Bill de Blasio, who's leading in polls, has said he would drop objections to the ruling, which calls for major changes to the police tactic.
The judge decided in August the city violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics by disproportionally stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking them. She assigned a monitor to help the police department change its policy and training programs on the tactic.
The three-judge panel heard arguments Tuesday on whether to put the ruling on temporary hold while the city appeals the judge's decision. It did not change the deadline for the appeal and said it expected arguments in March, well after the new mayor takes office.
The panel said Scheindlin needed to be removed because she ran afoul of the code of conduct for U.S. judges by misapplying a ruling that allowed her to take the case and by giving media interviews during the trial.
Scheindlin said in a statement later Thursday she consented to the interviews under the condition she wouldn't comment on the ongoing case.
"And I did not," she said.
She said some reporters used quotes from written opinions that gave the appearance she had commented on the case but "a careful reading of each interview will reveal that no such comments were made."
She defended her decision to direct the plaintiffs to bring the case to her, saying she took the most recent case because it was related to a previous case she heard.
The 2nd Circuit said a new judge would be assigned randomly and will deal with any further rulings. It's possible the new judge could order a fresh set of reforms or review the trial testimony and decide the city didn't violate people's civil rights, but it would be highly unusual.
Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades, but recorded stops increased dramatically under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men. A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four minority men, who said they were targeted because of their races, and it became a class action case.
To make a stop, police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur or has occurred, a standard lower than the probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 10 percent of the stops result in arrests or summonses, and weapons are found about 2 percent of the time.
Scheindlin heard a bench trial that ended in the spring and coincided with a groundswell of backlash against the stop-and-frisk tactic, which became a mayoral race flashpoint. She noted in her ruling this summer that she wasn't putting an end to the practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the four men who sued, said it was dismayed that the appeals court delayed "the long-overdue process to remedy" the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices and was shocked that it "cast aspersions" on the judge's professional conduct and reassigned the case.
De Blasio, the city's public advocate, said he was "extremely disappointed" in Thursday's decision.
"We have to end the overuse of stop and frisk — and any delay only means a continued and unnecessary rift between our police and the people they protect," he said in a statement.
His Republican challenger, Joe Lhota, a deputy under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, praised it.
"The next mayor absolutely must continue this appeal," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.
Last year, Google unveiled a new wireless charging pad alongside the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, and the company has taken advantage of 2013 to come up with another one. This new charging pad has been announced in tandem with the Nexus 5, and will include support for it and the Nexus 7. It's supposed to ...
What was supposed to be a nice, heartwarming picture of four Chinese government officials visiting an elderly woman in a sign of respect and caring for the people and giving back and all that ended up being another Photoshop nightmare for China where three giant men plus a floating disappearing half man creepily hover over a miniature-sized old woman. Man, someone needs to teach China how to use Photoshop.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California woman cited for wearing Internet-connected eyeglasses while driving plans to contest the citation.
Cecilia Abadie was pulled over for speeding Tuesday evening in San Diego, when a California Highway Patrol officer noticed she was wearing Google Glass and tacked on a citation usually given to drivers who may be distracted by a video or TV screen.
The lightweight eyeglasses, which are not yet widely available to the public, feature a hidden computer and a thumbnail-size transparent display screen above the right eye. Users can scan maps for directions — as well as receive web search results, read email and engage in video chats — without reaching for a smartphone.
Abadie, a software developer, said in an interview that she was not using her Google Glass when she was pulled over for allegedly going about 80 mph in a 65 mph zone on the drive home to Temecula after visiting a friend.
"The Glass was on, but I wasn't actively using it" to conserve the battery, she said.
Abadie expressed surprise that wearing the glasses while driving would be illegal and said she's "pretty sure" she will fight the ticket. First, she said, she needs to seek legal counsel. In the flurry of online commentary her traffic stop has generated, several people saying they are attorneys offered their services.
"The law is not clear, the laws are very outdated," Abadie said, suggesting that navigating with the device could be less distracting than with a GPS unit or phone.
"Maybe Glass is more a solution to the cellphone problem than a problem," she said.
It's unclear whether a citation for Google Glass has been issued before. The CHP said it is not sure whether an officer within its own ranks has written one, and an agency spokesman pointed out hundreds of law enforcement agencies in California alone can write traffic tickets.
Legislators in at least two states, Delaware and West Virginia, have introduced bills that would specifically ban driving with Google Glass. Authorities in the United Kingdom are mulling a similar ban.
About 10,000 units have been distributed so far in the United States to "pioneers," and this week Google announced another 30,000 would be available for $1,500 apiece. Abadie said she got hers in May and has become an "evangelist" for the technology.
A spokesman for Google did not reply to a request for comment. On its website, Google says this about using the headgear while driving: "Read up and follow the law. Above all, even when you're following the law, don't hurt yourself or others by failing to pay attention to the road."
___
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Justin Pritchard at https://twitter.com/lalanewsman
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Thousands of protesters clogged the Greek capital's streets Thursday to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part in demonstrations.
Parliament is due to vote next week on proposals to replace an emergency property tax included on electricity bills with a permanent levy, breaking a pledge made last year by the conservative-led coalition government to abolish the tax. More than 50 conservative lawmakers are demanding changes to proposals, arguing they unfairly burden their rural constituents.
The government is also planning new cuts to state benefits and the public workforce, triggering another general strike planned by unions for Nov. 6.
Outside the Labor Ministry, more than a thousand disabled demonstrators who traveled from around Greece blocked traffic outside the building, before filing through the city center in wheelchairs, on crutches and using white canes for the blind.
Deaf protesters responded to speeches by shaking both hands in the air, sign language for applause.
Yannis Vardakastanis, a blind Greek who heads the European Disability Forum, said the protest was called after disabled people were denied an exemption from the new property tax.
"We are the poorest of the poor but we must not let them turn us into victims," he said. "The financial crisis is turning into a humanitarian crisis for us."
Michalis Kouklos, a 35-year-old blind and unemployed man, took a six-hour bus ride from the northern city of Thessaloniki to attend the demonstration.
"We're here to defend the obvious things that everyone needs to live in dignity," he told the AP.
"People with serious illnesses are losing their health insurance and have to go from hospital to hospital to try and get treated. I wish there had been more of us here today because things are getting really bad."
The government has promised a six-year recession will end in 2014, but unemployment has continued to rise. By the latest measure, it was near 28 percent, with 31 percent of the country living in poverty or at risk of poverty, according to the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.
Supreme Court's Obamacare decision established new limits on federal authority, IU paper says
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31-Oct-2013
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Contact: George Vlahakis vlahakis@iu.edu 812-855-0846 Indiana University
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new paper by an Indiana University professor sheds new light on the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, which many critics said threatens state sovereignty and individual liberties.
The paper comes at a time when problems with the act's implementation, particularly the creation of state health care exchanges, highlight the limits of federal capabilities and the importance of state cooperation in the success of domestic government programs.
In an article in Business Horizons, a journal published by IU's Kelley School of Business, Tim Lemper argues that the court's decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius actually established new limits on the power of the federal government.
"The court was heavily criticized for betraying the principles of federalism and limited government in the U.S. Constitution," Lemper said. "In reality, the court's decision placed groundbreaking limits on Congress' power to regulate commerce and use federal funds to pressure states into doing its bidding.
"These aspects of the court's decision received less attention in the popular media but may actually prove to have a more significant impact on the scope of federal power in the future," said Lemper, a clinical professor of business law at Kelley.
In his research, Lemper often takes a more critical approach to overlooked details in legislation and jurisprudence. Earlier research brought to light a drafting error in the federal trademark dilution statute, which led Congress to amend the law last fall.
In his paper, "The Supreme Struggle: 'Obamacare' and the New Limits on Federal Regulation," Lemper bases his arguments on two points raised in the court's opinion: new limits on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce and to coerce states with the threat of losing federal funding.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the limits on Congress' power in the Constitution, and the reservation of powers to the states, were intended to protect individual liberty.
Details overlooked in media reports about the decision include what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, called "a novel constraint" on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, a sweeping and seemingly unlimited power that has been used to uphold a broad range of federal regulations on activity far beyond traditional commercial transactions, Lemper said.
"Set in historical context, the court's decision is significant because it establishes a new limit on Congress' expansive power under the Commerce Clause," he wrote. "Five of the nine justices concluded that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate existing commercial activity, but does not allow Congress to compel individuals to become active in commerce.
"In other words, Congress can regulate activity under the Commerce Clause, but it cannot regulate inactivity."
Applying this rationale to the Affordable Care Act, the majority on the court concluded that the individual mandate (requiring individuals to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty) exceeded Congress' power to regulate commerce because it compelled people to engage in commerce by buying health insurance.
"That the court still upheld the individual mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' more limited power to lay and collect taxes does not diminish the significance of the limit that it placed on Congress' more expansive power to regulate interstate commerce," Lemper said. "Congress' power to lay and collect taxes is more limited and less coercive than its power to regulate interstate commerce, which -- before this decision -- increasingly appeared to have no limit."
"The court's decision precludes Congress from venturing into new regulatory territory under the guise of regulating commerce," he said. "At the very least, it forecloses future governmental regulation that uses a person's inaction as a basis to compel them to act."
Lemper said the court's decision also broke new ground in restricting Congress' power under the Spending Clause. Seven of the justices -- "a majority of rare size for this court" -- held that the Affordable Care Act wrongly coerced states into accepting the Medicare expansion by threatening them with the loss of all Medicare funding (a significant portion of states' budgets) if they refused to do so.
"The court's decision is remarkable because it is the first time that the court has ever struck down a federal law under the Spending Clause on the ground that it runs counter to the system of federalism in the Constitution," he added. "For decades, the court has recognized the possibility that the federalism principles could limit Congress' power under the Spending Clause, but it had never actually done so until its decision on the Affordable Care Act.
"Its landmark holding gives real teeth to limits on Congress' power that had previously only existed in theory."
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Supreme Court's Obamacare decision established new limits on federal authority, IU paper says
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31-Oct-2013
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Contact: George Vlahakis vlahakis@iu.edu 812-855-0846 Indiana University
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new paper by an Indiana University professor sheds new light on the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, which many critics said threatens state sovereignty and individual liberties.
The paper comes at a time when problems with the act's implementation, particularly the creation of state health care exchanges, highlight the limits of federal capabilities and the importance of state cooperation in the success of domestic government programs.
In an article in Business Horizons, a journal published by IU's Kelley School of Business, Tim Lemper argues that the court's decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius actually established new limits on the power of the federal government.
"The court was heavily criticized for betraying the principles of federalism and limited government in the U.S. Constitution," Lemper said. "In reality, the court's decision placed groundbreaking limits on Congress' power to regulate commerce and use federal funds to pressure states into doing its bidding.
"These aspects of the court's decision received less attention in the popular media but may actually prove to have a more significant impact on the scope of federal power in the future," said Lemper, a clinical professor of business law at Kelley.
In his research, Lemper often takes a more critical approach to overlooked details in legislation and jurisprudence. Earlier research brought to light a drafting error in the federal trademark dilution statute, which led Congress to amend the law last fall.
In his paper, "The Supreme Struggle: 'Obamacare' and the New Limits on Federal Regulation," Lemper bases his arguments on two points raised in the court's opinion: new limits on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce and to coerce states with the threat of losing federal funding.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the limits on Congress' power in the Constitution, and the reservation of powers to the states, were intended to protect individual liberty.
Details overlooked in media reports about the decision include what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, called "a novel constraint" on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, a sweeping and seemingly unlimited power that has been used to uphold a broad range of federal regulations on activity far beyond traditional commercial transactions, Lemper said.
"Set in historical context, the court's decision is significant because it establishes a new limit on Congress' expansive power under the Commerce Clause," he wrote. "Five of the nine justices concluded that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate existing commercial activity, but does not allow Congress to compel individuals to become active in commerce.
"In other words, Congress can regulate activity under the Commerce Clause, but it cannot regulate inactivity."
Applying this rationale to the Affordable Care Act, the majority on the court concluded that the individual mandate (requiring individuals to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty) exceeded Congress' power to regulate commerce because it compelled people to engage in commerce by buying health insurance.
"That the court still upheld the individual mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' more limited power to lay and collect taxes does not diminish the significance of the limit that it placed on Congress' more expansive power to regulate interstate commerce," Lemper said. "Congress' power to lay and collect taxes is more limited and less coercive than its power to regulate interstate commerce, which -- before this decision -- increasingly appeared to have no limit."
"The court's decision precludes Congress from venturing into new regulatory territory under the guise of regulating commerce," he said. "At the very least, it forecloses future governmental regulation that uses a person's inaction as a basis to compel them to act."
Lemper said the court's decision also broke new ground in restricting Congress' power under the Spending Clause. Seven of the justices -- "a majority of rare size for this court" -- held that the Affordable Care Act wrongly coerced states into accepting the Medicare expansion by threatening them with the loss of all Medicare funding (a significant portion of states' budgets) if they refused to do so.
"The court's decision is remarkable because it is the first time that the court has ever struck down a federal law under the Spending Clause on the ground that it runs counter to the system of federalism in the Constitution," he added. "For decades, the court has recognized the possibility that the federalism principles could limit Congress' power under the Spending Clause, but it had never actually done so until its decision on the Affordable Care Act.
"Its landmark holding gives real teeth to limits on Congress' power that had previously only existed in theory."
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Women under 60 with diabetes at much greater risk for heart disease
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31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Patrick Smith psmith88@jhmi.edu 410-955-8242 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Results of a Johns Hopkins study published today in the journal Diabetes Care found that young and middle-aged women with type 2 diabetes are at much greater risk of coronary artery disease than previously believed.
Generally, women under 60 are at far less risk for coronary artery disease than men of the same age. But among women of that age who have diabetes, their risk of heart disease increases by up to four times, making it roughly equal to men's risk of this same form of heart disease.
"Our findings suggest that we need to work harder to prevent heart disease in women under 60 who have diabetes," says Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S., endocrinologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead study author. "This study tells us that women of any age who have diabetes are at a high risk for coronary artery disease."
While men generally have a higher incidence of heart disease than women, the study found that diabetes had little or no effect on men's heart disease risk.
Kalyani said the new study is believed to be the first to focus specifically on gender differences in coronary artery disease among younger and middle-aged people with diabetes.
For the research, she and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 participants in three widely regarded studies: the GeneSTAR Research Program, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III. None of the participants had a history of heart disease. All three studies yielded similar gender differences in rates of diabetes and the risk of developing heart disease.
"Our study adds to growing evidence that gender differences exist in the risk of coronary artery disease brought on by diabetes," Kalyani says.
Interestingly, in both women and men, these findings were unrelated to differences in obesity and other traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking.
Kalyani and her colleagues offer several possible explanations for the increased risk. There may be distinct genetic and hormonal factors related to the development of heart disease by gender. Differences in adherence to heart-healthy lifestyle behaviors, compliance and treatment of cardiovascular treatments between genders are also possible but need to be further investigated, Kalyani says. Also, the relationship of diabetes duration and glucose control to risk of heart disease remains unclear.
###
In addition to Kalyani, the study's authors are Mario Lazo, M.D.; Pamelo Ouyang, M.B.B.S.; Karinne Chevalier, M.S.; Frederick Brancati, M.D., M.H.S.; Diane Becker, Sc.D., M.P.H.; and Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Evrim Turkbey, M.D., of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
About Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading academic health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 35 Johns Hopkins Community Physicians sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report. For more information about Johns Hopkins Medicine, its research, education and clinical programs, and for the latest health, science and research news, visit http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org.
Media Contacts: Patrick Smith
410-955-8242; psmith88@jhmi.edu or
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
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Women under 60 with diabetes at much greater risk for heart disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Patrick Smith psmith88@jhmi.edu 410-955-8242 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Results of a Johns Hopkins study published today in the journal Diabetes Care found that young and middle-aged women with type 2 diabetes are at much greater risk of coronary artery disease than previously believed.
Generally, women under 60 are at far less risk for coronary artery disease than men of the same age. But among women of that age who have diabetes, their risk of heart disease increases by up to four times, making it roughly equal to men's risk of this same form of heart disease.
"Our findings suggest that we need to work harder to prevent heart disease in women under 60 who have diabetes," says Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S., endocrinologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead study author. "This study tells us that women of any age who have diabetes are at a high risk for coronary artery disease."
While men generally have a higher incidence of heart disease than women, the study found that diabetes had little or no effect on men's heart disease risk.
Kalyani said the new study is believed to be the first to focus specifically on gender differences in coronary artery disease among younger and middle-aged people with diabetes.
For the research, she and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 participants in three widely regarded studies: the GeneSTAR Research Program, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III. None of the participants had a history of heart disease. All three studies yielded similar gender differences in rates of diabetes and the risk of developing heart disease.
"Our study adds to growing evidence that gender differences exist in the risk of coronary artery disease brought on by diabetes," Kalyani says.
Interestingly, in both women and men, these findings were unrelated to differences in obesity and other traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking.
Kalyani and her colleagues offer several possible explanations for the increased risk. There may be distinct genetic and hormonal factors related to the development of heart disease by gender. Differences in adherence to heart-healthy lifestyle behaviors, compliance and treatment of cardiovascular treatments between genders are also possible but need to be further investigated, Kalyani says. Also, the relationship of diabetes duration and glucose control to risk of heart disease remains unclear.
###
In addition to Kalyani, the study's authors are Mario Lazo, M.D.; Pamelo Ouyang, M.B.B.S.; Karinne Chevalier, M.S.; Frederick Brancati, M.D., M.H.S.; Diane Becker, Sc.D., M.P.H.; and Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Evrim Turkbey, M.D., of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
About Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading academic health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 35 Johns Hopkins Community Physicians sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report. For more information about Johns Hopkins Medicine, its research, education and clinical programs, and for the latest health, science and research news, visit http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org.
Media Contacts: Patrick Smith
410-955-8242; psmith88@jhmi.edu or
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
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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.
Google showed off its new Android version 4.4 (or KitKat) operating system, running on a new flagship phone, the Nexus 5. Google uses its Nexus line to show off its new operating systems, and the device and OS are reflections ...
Researchers discover how retinal neurons claim the best brain connections
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Paula Byron pbyron@vt.edu 540-526-2027 Virginia Tech
Discovery may shed light on brain disease, development of regenerative therapies
Real estate agents emphasize location, location, and once more for good measure location. It's the same in a developing brain, where billions of neurons vie for premium property to make connections. Neurons that stake out early claims often land the best value, even if they don't develop the property until later.
Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the University of Louisville have discovered that during neurodevelopment, neurons from the brain's cerebral cortex extend axons to the edge of the part of the brain dedicated to processing visual signals but then stop. Instead of immediately making connections, the cortical neurons wait for two weeks while neurons from the retina connect to the brain.
Now, in a study to be published in the Nov. 14 issue of the journal Cell Reports, the scientists have discovered how. The retinal neurons stop their cortical cousins from grabbing prime real estate by controlling the abundance of a protein called aggrecan.
Understanding how aggrecan controls the formation of brain circuits could help scientists understand how to repair the injured brain or spinal cord after injury or disease.
"Usually when neuroscientists talk about repairing injured brains, they're thinking about putting neurons, axons, and synapses back in the right place," said Michael Fox, an associate professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and lead author of the study. "It may be that the most important synapses the ones that drive excitation need to get there first. By stalling out the other neurons, they can get the best spots. This study shows that when we think about repairing damaged neural networks, we need to consider more than just where connections need to be made. We also need to think about the timing of reinnervation."
The researchers genetically removed the retinal neurons, which allowed the cortical axons to move into the brain earlier than they normally would.
"We were interested in what environmental molecular cues allow the retinal neurons to control the growth of cortical neurons," said Fox, who is also an associate professor of biological sciences in Virginia Tech's College of Science. "After years of screening potential mechanisms, we found aggrecan."
Aggrecan is a protein that has been well studied in cartilage, bones, and the spinal cord, where it is abundant after injuries. According to Fox, aggrecan may be able to isolate damaged areas of the spinal cord to stop inflammation and prevent further destruction. The downside, however, is that aggrecan inhibits axonal growth, which prevents further repair from taking place.
"Axons see this environment and either stop growing or turn around and grow in the opposite direction," said Fox.
Although it is less studied in the developing brain, aggrecan appears in abundance there. In the new study, the researchers found that retinal neurons control aggrecan in a region that receives ascending signals from retinal cells as well as descending signals from the cerebral cortex.
Once the retinal neurons have made connections, they cause the release of enzymes that break down the aggrecan, allowing cortical neurons to move in.
Fox said it is interesting that the retinal axons can grow in this region of the developing brain, despite the high levels of aggrecan. He suspects that it may be because retinal neurons express a receptor integrin that cortical axons do not express.
###
The study, "A molecular mechanism regulating the timing of corticogeniculate innervation," is by Fox, Jianmin Su, a research assistant professor, and Carl Levy, an undergraduate from Suffolk, Va., all with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute; graduate student Justin Brooks and undergraduate Jessica Wang from Virginia Commonwealth University; and Tania Seabrook, a postdoctoral associate, and William Guido, a professor and the chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology, both with the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
Written by Ken Kingery
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Researchers discover how retinal neurons claim the best brain connections
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Paula Byron pbyron@vt.edu 540-526-2027 Virginia Tech
Discovery may shed light on brain disease, development of regenerative therapies
Real estate agents emphasize location, location, and once more for good measure location. It's the same in a developing brain, where billions of neurons vie for premium property to make connections. Neurons that stake out early claims often land the best value, even if they don't develop the property until later.
Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the University of Louisville have discovered that during neurodevelopment, neurons from the brain's cerebral cortex extend axons to the edge of the part of the brain dedicated to processing visual signals but then stop. Instead of immediately making connections, the cortical neurons wait for two weeks while neurons from the retina connect to the brain.
Now, in a study to be published in the Nov. 14 issue of the journal Cell Reports, the scientists have discovered how. The retinal neurons stop their cortical cousins from grabbing prime real estate by controlling the abundance of a protein called aggrecan.
Understanding how aggrecan controls the formation of brain circuits could help scientists understand how to repair the injured brain or spinal cord after injury or disease.
"Usually when neuroscientists talk about repairing injured brains, they're thinking about putting neurons, axons, and synapses back in the right place," said Michael Fox, an associate professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and lead author of the study. "It may be that the most important synapses the ones that drive excitation need to get there first. By stalling out the other neurons, they can get the best spots. This study shows that when we think about repairing damaged neural networks, we need to consider more than just where connections need to be made. We also need to think about the timing of reinnervation."
The researchers genetically removed the retinal neurons, which allowed the cortical axons to move into the brain earlier than they normally would.
"We were interested in what environmental molecular cues allow the retinal neurons to control the growth of cortical neurons," said Fox, who is also an associate professor of biological sciences in Virginia Tech's College of Science. "After years of screening potential mechanisms, we found aggrecan."
Aggrecan is a protein that has been well studied in cartilage, bones, and the spinal cord, where it is abundant after injuries. According to Fox, aggrecan may be able to isolate damaged areas of the spinal cord to stop inflammation and prevent further destruction. The downside, however, is that aggrecan inhibits axonal growth, which prevents further repair from taking place.
"Axons see this environment and either stop growing or turn around and grow in the opposite direction," said Fox.
Although it is less studied in the developing brain, aggrecan appears in abundance there. In the new study, the researchers found that retinal neurons control aggrecan in a region that receives ascending signals from retinal cells as well as descending signals from the cerebral cortex.
Once the retinal neurons have made connections, they cause the release of enzymes that break down the aggrecan, allowing cortical neurons to move in.
Fox said it is interesting that the retinal axons can grow in this region of the developing brain, despite the high levels of aggrecan. He suspects that it may be because retinal neurons express a receptor integrin that cortical axons do not express.
###
The study, "A molecular mechanism regulating the timing of corticogeniculate innervation," is by Fox, Jianmin Su, a research assistant professor, and Carl Levy, an undergraduate from Suffolk, Va., all with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute; graduate student Justin Brooks and undergraduate Jessica Wang from Virginia Commonwealth University; and Tania Seabrook, a postdoctoral associate, and William Guido, a professor and the chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology, both with the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
Written by Ken Kingery
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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.
Forgiving parents are strict with their first born because they hope to establish a perception that will influence the behavior of their younger children as well.
Photo by Thinkstock
Time and again, research has shown that first-born children are better at a lot of things than their younger siblings. First-borns do better on IQ tests and are more likely to become president of the United States than their kid brothers or sisters. And, at the other end of the spectrum, first-borns are less likely to do drugs and get pregnant as teenagers.
So it probably won’t surprise anyone that first-borns do better in school than their younger siblings, a finding documented in a recent study I wrote with Juan Pantano, an assistant professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis.
But why birth order appears to matter so much for school achievement level is much less clear.
Many theories have been posited, ranging from genetics to the stability of family life to the teaching dynamics among siblings. Pantano and I offer a different explanation: It comes down to parents’ reputations for maintaining discipline with their kids. Reputations matter for politicians, teachers, and even used car salesmen. Less obvious, but still important, is a parent’s reputation in their children’s eyes.
The basic idea is this: There are two types of parents—those who in our study we call “unforgiving” in that they will punish poor school performance, regardless of the child’s birth order, and those who are “forgiving,” meaning they don’t like to punish any of their children, regardless of birth. The latter type of parent faces a dilemma. If they don’t punish their oldest child’s poor behavior, all of their children will know that mom and dad are pushovers who don’t punish for poor grades. As a result, all the children of forgiving parents will tend to not work hard in school. To avoid this situation, forgiving parents are strict with their first born, hoping to establish a perception that will influence the behavior of their younger children as well. The younger children, seeing their big brother or sister punished, will be less likely to slack off in school because they can’t be sure that mom and dad aren’t really unforgiving types. Call it “trickle down” discipline—you put the most energy into the first-born, trying to set the tone for all. (As Slate’s Matthew Yglesias put it, it’s a cost/benefit calculation. The cost is the disciplining, which most parents don’t enjoy doling out.)
Call it “trickle down” discipline—you put the most energy into the first-born, trying to set the tone for all.
It is only later that these forgiving parents, who really don’t like to punish any of their children, start slacking off in their parenting. So the outcome of this strategic parenting is that while all children benefit from the first born’s punishments, the impact is greatest on the eldest child.
In our study, Pantano and I looked at data from the children of female respondents who themselves were members in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth begun in 1979. We focused on families with more than one child. The survey included detailed information on parenting, and we were able to look at parenting rules as reported by mothers and by their children.
While the data does not contain complete information on grades, it does include information on mothers’ perceptions of their children. In some cases we were able to link mothers’ perceptions to actual performance, and found their perceptions to be accurate. For the purposes of this study, however, the mothers' perceptions still gave us a clear picture of birth-order trends.
Mothers were asked, “Is your child one of the best students in class, above the middle, in the middle, below the middle, or near the bottom of the class?” Based on these mothers’ responses, we found a clear association exists between birth-order and school performance. While 34 percent of first-born children were considered “one of the best in the class,” only 27 percent of those who were fourth in the birth order received such recognition. On the other end of the spectrum, only 7.3 percent of first-borns were considered “below the middle or at the bottom of the class,” while mothers classified 11.7 percent of fourth-borns this way.
After establishing the existence of birth-order effects, we then used the data to explore whether differing parental treatment based on birth order affected how children performed at school. We found that first-borns were more likely to face daily homework monitoring than younger siblings. Again, the reputation model is at play here. The eldest children get the most monitoring in the hopes that younger siblings will observe that poor school performance leads to closer monitoring or loss of privileges, and will then have additional incentives to do well in school.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the data we use is that mothers were asked hypothetical questions about their children’s performance in school and how they would react.
For each of their children, mothers were asked, “If [your child] brought home a report card with grades lower than expected, how likely would you be to keep a closer eye on [his/her] activities?”
This question lets us look directly at parenting strategy. We found that the more younger siblings a child has, the greater the likelihood that parents will closely supervise the oldest child after that child performs lower than expected on a report card. In fact, with each additional younger sibling, the chances of increased supervision rose by 2.2 percentage points.
So what’s the takeaway? While it is often thought that different levels of attainment across birth order are determined at birth and thus unavoidable, our results suggest otherwise. Rather, our findings show that it matters how parents establish discipline and priorities for their children when they are young. Our evidence strongly suggests that the better performance in school by first-borns and the poorer performance by later-borns is the result of differential parenting.
So, the next time you first-borns complain that mom and dad never let you get away with what your younger siblings did, you can be assured that you’re right. And you’re better off because of it.
Source: 
Last year, Google unveiled a new wireless charging pad alongside the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, and the company has taken advantage of 2013 to come up with another one. This new charging pad has been announced in tandem with the Nexus 5, and will include support for it and the Nexus 7. It's supposed to ...
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