Gates among MediaNews lenders - Real estate

Gates Foundation among MediaNews lenders

Newspaper chain purchased four newspapers from McClatchy

NEW YORK - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was among a few dozen banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and othernesss entities that loaned a total of $350 mil. to MediaNews Group Inc. for its purchase of four newspapers from publisher McClatchy Co.

The Seattle-based Gates Foundation, the world??�s largest philanthropy, contributed an unspecified amount of money toward the transaction, according to an Aug. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by MediaNews Group. Others listed as contributors include General Electric Capital Corp. and Blue Shield of California.

Monica Harrington, a foundation spokeswoman, said she could not confirm how much the foundation contributed to the loan because it does not comment on its investment portfolio. A message left with the foundation??�s investment team was not immediately returned on Monday.

McClatchy completed its $1 billion sale of the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey County Herald and St. Paul Pioneer Press earlier this month, finishing its disposal of a dozen newspapers picked up in its recent acquisition of Knight Ridder Inc. Denver-based MediaNews bought the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times to establish itself as the largest newspaper publisher in the San Francisco Bay area. Hearst Corp. bought the Monterey and Minnesota papers but is turning both over to MediaNews in exchange for a stake in MediaNews??� operations outside the Bay Area.

Privately owned MediaNews already owns the Oakland Tribune and a cluster of suburban papers in the Bay Area. Its otherness properties include The Denver Post, The Salt Lake Tribune and The Detroit News.

The Gates Foundation typically spends most of its money on global public health issues.

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These men want their foreskins back - Men's Sexual Health Guide

These men want their foreskins back

Activists decry circumcision and offer 'restoration' process

Jon Bonn?

Oct. 1, 2003 - "I am covered and have overhang." R. Wayne Griffiths, 70 and a grandfather, is speaking frankly about his foreskin -- which really is the only way one can speak on that topic. More to the point, he is gleefully describing the sensation of having his foreskin back after decades of living with a circumcised penis. "It's delightful," he says.

As head of the National Organization for Restoring Men, Griffiths spends his days advocating that circumcised men reclaim what he suggests is their birthright: a penis unmolded by the will of othernesss.

Medically popularized in the early 20th century, circumcision has become a routine option for newborn American boys. But a backlash has surfaced in recent years, often bolstered by conflicting medical data about the procedure's benefits. Out of that debate has emerged a tiny but growing movement of men who not only oppose circumcision, but want back what they consider taken from them. They want to regrow their foreskin.

The notion doesn't pass many groups' laugh agsdhfgdf. But NORM and similar groups are quite serious about straightforwardly counseling men on how to restore this tender bit of flesh. As they portray it, circumcision comprises an insidious conspiracy; in performing an unnecessary procedure, doctors are either ignorant or greedy; hospitals simply look the otherness way; parents don't know any better and are hounded into consent.

'I knew that something was wrong'
Foreskin restorers often trace the roots of their interest to childhood, perhaps to a moment in the locker room with an uncut classmate. "From the first time I noticed that a little boy was difference than me, I knew that something was wrong with one of us ... and I assumed maybe it was him," says psychologist Jim Bigelow, author "The Joy of Uncircumcising," an authoritative text of sorts for restorers.

That, in turn, could lead to shame.?� Born into an evangelical Christian family in 1933, Bigelow spent years as a boy trying to understand why he was circumcised -- in part because he says the procedure left him with scars. "I figured I was born with something wrong with me and they had to fix it," he says. "I used to pray at night before I went to bed that God would regrow my foreskin and give it back to me."

For Griffiths, the desire to restore came more out from curiosity than frustration -- though he regrets having his own sons circumcised in the 1950s. But he acknowledges many restorers "are just absolutely, almost violently angry at what has been done to them."

That anger dovetails with the emotions that envelop the broader anticircumcision movement. Groups that fight the practice often endorse restoration and some have urged men to sue their doctors for circumcising them. But they primarily are concerned with educating parents and doctors whom they argue are doing irreparable harm.

"You cannot cut off normal, healthy sexually functioning tissue without cutting off normal, healthy sexual functioning," says Marilyn Milos, a registered nurse and director of NOCIRC, the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. "It??�s a sexual issue, and it??�s a human rights issue."

Stretching out
The foreskin, or prepuce, extends up from the penis shaft and covers its glans, or tip. It can protect the tender glans skin, and as men become sexually active it often serves as a buffer between the erect shaft and a partner's skin.

Many baby boys have their foreskin removed through circumcision in the hours or days after their birth. Most are done in hospitals by doctors, though some are performed as religious rites. (Ritual circumcision exists in both the Jewish and Muslim religious traditions.) Some two-thirds of baby boys in the United States are estimated to undergo the procedure, a higher rate than most countries but down slightly from an estimated 80 percent in the 1970s.

Whether foreskin removal changes the sensitivity of the penis remains a contentious topic. Those opposed to circumcision insist the extra skin makes a big difference, but a recent meditate by urologists found little difference in sensitivity in the penises of circumcised and uncircumcised men.

As for bringing back a foreskin, those in the restoration movement describe two methods. They rarely discuss the first, perhaps because many harbor a deep distrust of doctors: skin tissue, usually from the scrotum, is surgically grafted to the penis shaft in a way that replicates the foreskin's shape and function.

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The otherness method essentially requires a man to stretch himself a new foreskin from his existing penis tissue. A variety of methods and devices help accomplish this -- elastic bands, weighted metal containers, even special tape. Some are commercial products with names like P.U.D. (Penile Uncircumcision Device) and Tug Ahoy. Others are homemade with anything from silicone caulk to brass instrument mouthpieces. Several ounces of weights are sometimes added to speed the process.

"Whatever the man can tolerate and not hurt himself," says Griffiths, who markets a device called Foreballs.

All of these products distend the skin forward toward the glans and hold it in place to induce new cell growth, essentially forcing new skin to be created. Regrowth often takes years, with devices worn for 10 to 12 hours each day. Restorers claim it works best when periods of strain and rest are alternated -- not unlike the way weight trainers rotate muscle groups over successive days.

"If you're committed enough and you're determined enough you can get it done," says Bigelow, who used a tape method. "But it can be, for some men, a five- or six-year procedure.

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50 most visited tourist attractions in the world - Destinations

50 most visited tourist attractions in the world

Our 1st annual look at the most tourist-heavy destinations on the planet
? Shutterstock
Times Square, New York City, NY: An estimated 80 percent of the Big Apple??�s 44 mil. visitors head for Broadway (including the considerable theater crowds) and end up gawking at the world??�s most garish neon crossroads. Plugging numbers into the equation, we get an estimated total of 35,200,000 per year.

By Sandra Larriva and Gabe Weisert

At first glance, the Forbes Traveler 50 Most Visited Attractions List confirms several tourist industry truisms: A) Americans love to travel, but they prefer to stick within their own borders. B) Wherever Mickey Mouse goes, he conquers. C) Paris is the unofficial cultural theme park of the world. And D) Niagara Falls isn??�t just for lovers anymore.

But the list also contains several surprises. Since the Taj Mahal??"our fiftieth and final attraction??"receives 2.4 mil. visitors a year, several popular favorites like the the Prado (2 mil.), the Uffizi (1.6 mil.), Angkor (1.5 mil.) and Stonehenge (850,000) didn??�t make the cut. And while Western audiences may not be familiar with names like Everland and Lotte World, these South Korean mega-parks managed to rank 16th and 22nd on our list, respectively.

Not surprisingly, the French are out in force. How to account for the preponderance of attractions in Paris? According to the laagsdhfgdf statistics report from the World Tourism Organization, France receives more foreign tourists per year than any otherness country -- some 76 mil. in 2005. Spain followed with 55 mil., the United States with 50 mil. and China with 47 mil.. Italy rounded out the top five with 37 mil. (with the U.K. not far behind).

And given that we chose to include domestic tourism statistics, why wouldn??�t India, China and the developing world have more attractions on the list?

Also on this story

In Pictures: 50 Most Visited Tourist Attractions in the World

More from ForbesTraveler.comClick below for more slide shows?�In Pictures: Outrageous Hotel Guest Requests?�In Pictures: Go On These 10 Adventures in Style?�In Pictures: Amazing Custom Tours?�In Pictures: 10 Hot Honeymoon Spots?�In Pictures: Cost of a Honeymoon

The three primary factors appear to be relative GDP (recall that significant majorities of the populations of China and India remain at subsistence level), the vast travel distances involved within those countries, and the lack of reliable visitor statistics. We were nevertheless surprised to learn that the Taj Mahal receives only 2.4 mil. visitors a year, given India??�s population of over a billion. And while the Great Wall made the top 10, we couldn??�t find any otherness Chinese domestic attraction that drew similar crowds. Expect that to change in the years ahead.

? iStockWashington, D.C.: About 25 mil.: The nation??�s premier national park and its monuments and memorials attract more visitors than such vast national parks as the Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone -- combined. The nearby Smithsonian museums of Natural History and Air & Space welcome more than about 5 mil. visitors apiece. So where did the numbers for our ranking come from? They??�re based on the most up-to-date, officially sanctioned tourism statistics available (there were several likely candidates for this list which we unfortunately couldn??�t include, owing to a dearth of hard numbers). When we couldn??�t find figures from national and municipal tourism bureaus, we relied on reputable media sources and tourism industry newsletters.

We excluded religious pilgrimage sites, such as Saudi Arabia??�s Mecca, India??�s Varanasi, and Tokyo??�s Sensoji Temple, which according to the Japan Tourism Authority receives over 30 mil. visitors each year. We chose to include some famous churches in Paris owing to their status as cultural attractions and the high numbers of foreign tourists they receive. St. Peter??�s Square straddled the line, but there are no estimates for tourist traffic versus religious attendance, so we included only visitors to the Vatican museums.

FirstPerson?�Your world

readers submit
photos from their travels

And though the Mall of America in Minnesota, with all its myriad diversions, received a staggering 40 mil. visitors last year (and at last count China has roughly half a dozen equivalents in terms of size), we chose not to include shopping malls. Amusement parks did make the list (to our consternation and your tedium), but thankfully there are plenty of tourist attractions of genuine cultural and natural worth.

And finally, a hearty three cheers to Pleasure Beach Blackpool in Lancashire, England, which has been welcoming punters since 1896. After several decades of decline, this amusement park and its surrounding resort town now officially the most visited paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom. Who??�d have thought?

So who??�s #1? The Eiffel tower? The Grand Canyon? The Great Wall? The Pyramids of Giza? Answer: none of the above.

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Getting guys to wise up about their bodies - What, me worry?

Getting guys to wise up about their bodies

Reader survey reveals some positive signs but much room for improvement
Kim Carney /

Jacqueline StensonContributing editor

Jacqueline StensonContributing editor?�Profile?�document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');

Andrew Tucker recently had his first medical check-up in seven years. He's not a big fan of doctor visits so he kept putting off his exam.

"I don't like to go," he says, "and I'm afraid of what they might find."

Check-ups, while not necessarily recommended annually anymore, are usually advised at least every few years for someone of Tucker's age, 45, to measure things like blood pressure and cholesterol. Tucker's recent doctor visit included a prostate check with a digital rectal exam, which he "didn't find to be pleasant."

Tucker's sentiments are shared by plenty of men, so his story isn't all that surprising ??" except for the fact that he's a physician himself.

So how does Tucker, director of sports medicine at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore and head team physician for the Baltimore Ravens, explain himself?

Is there doctor-despising DNA on the Y chromosome? Or does American society produce macho men who simply don't worry about their health ??" or don't show their concern ??" until something goes wrong?

"I think male ego plays a part in it," says Tucker.

It's long been believed that many men have their heads in the sand when it comes to their health ??" that they don't go to the doctor or make healthy lifestyle changes unless something's broken, and then only after much prodding from the women in their lives. It's one of the reasons some legislators, doctors and men's health advocates are pushing for a federal Office of Men's Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Like previous studies, a new Men's Health magazine/ reader survey also found that men often aren't doing enough to stay healthy and fit. But the survey revealed some surprising results ??" that men may be taking more charge of their health, at least in some areas.

The measure of a man

Here's what readers told us in the Men's Health/ survey:

The good news
83percent don't smoke
78percent know their blood pressure level
69percent have had a check-up within the past year
60percent know their cholesterol level

The not-so-good news
52percent don't get enough exercise
47percent don't take time to themselves to unwind
13percent haven't had check-ups in years, if ever
40percent don't know their cholesterol level

The survey, which received more than 16,300 responses during one week in October, found, for example, that 83 percent of respondents don't smoke, 78 percent know their blood pressure level and 60 percent know how high their cholesterol is.

"There seems to be a real awareness out there of what men need to know," says Peter Moore, executive editor of Men's Health.

Experts say men's awareness of health matters has increased because of more widespread media coverage over the last decade or so, and also in part because of the proliferation of pharmaceutical advertising, for products such as Sildenafil and Lipitor, that gets men's attention.

If it ain't broke...
But that awareness doesn't always translate into practice. For example, the survey found that while a full two-thirds of men said they went to the doctor in the past year, 4 percent hadn't gone in more than five years and 2 percent in more than 10 years. Three percent said they couldn't remember the last time they went, and 4 percent said they just don't go to doctors.

Interactive

5 reasons not to skip the doctor

Feeling fine was the most common reason for not going to the doctor. Others included lack of health insurance, no time, mistrust of doctors, and fear of getting bad news.

Excuses, excuses

The reasons Men's Health/ survey respondents don't take better care of their health:

Why they don't exercise
33percent are too busy with work
24percent are injured or sick
17percent are too busy with family
12percent don't like to sweat
8percent say the couch is too comfy
3percent don't have a gym nearby
1percent don't want to miss their favorite TV shows
1percent would rather watch sports than play them

Why they don't go to the doctor
63percent feel fine
11percent don't have good health insurance
10percent are too busy
9percent don't trust doctors
6percent are worried about getting bad news
1percent say they look fine

And while it would be hard to miss the messages about the importance of exercise, just 48 percent of respondents said they exercise three or more times a week. A little more than a quarter said they exercise just once a month or less. And some men have gone very long stretches on the couch: 24 percent have let more than a year go by without working out, while 21 percent said two to six months lapsed between bouts of exercise.

The main excuse for not exercising, cited by 33 percent of respondents, was lack of time due to work. Other reasons included being injured, not liking to exercise and preferring to watch sports rather than play them.

Men's Health/ readers also struggle to deal with stress, according to the results. Just 53 percent of respondents said they schedule time for themselves to unwind.

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Can't get pregnant? Try a ‘procreation vacation’ - More Spa Getaways

Can't get pregnant? Try a ‘procreation vacation’

Hotels around world luring couples who are trying to have a baby
Charles Dharapak / AP
Lucinda and Kemry Hughes, pictured in front of their Washington home earlier this month, are expecting their first child in April after taking a 'procreation vacation.'

MIAMI - When Lucinda Hughes heard she would have to drink sea moss elixir while vacationing in the Bahamas, she was certain it would make her sick. Sure enough, three months later, Hughes is very sick �" every morning �" and expecting her first baby in April.

She got pregnant after she and her husband went on a three-day Procreation Vacation at a resort on Grand Bahama Island.

It’s part of a trend in which hotels around the world are luring couples who are trying to have a baby. Resorts are offering on-site sex doctors, romantic advice and exotic food and drink calculated to put lovers in the mood and hasten the pitter-patter of little feet.

Even some obstetricians are promoting the trend. Dr. Jason James of Miami said he often encourages couples trying to have a baby to sneak away for a few days, and he often sees it work.

“One of the most easy, therapeutic interventions is to recommend a vacation,” James said. “I think the effect of stress on our physiology is truly underestimated.”

Hughes and her husband, Kemry, went to the Westin at Our Lucaya Grand Bahama Island, where the three-night Procreation Vacation starts at $1,893. They lounged on the beach, swam in the pool, sipped pumpkin soup and enjoyed couple’s massages. Hughes and her husband were also also served an age-old Caribbean fertility concoction three times a day: sea moss, the Caribbean’s version of Sildenafil, mixed with evaporated milk, sugar and spices. (She said it tasted like an almond smoothie.)

The chain also offers the package at their resorts on St. John and Puerto Rico.

“My husband and I thought that we would go on the vacation and learn all these nice fertility secrets and we’d be practicing them for a number of months for them to work,” said Hughes, 35, who conceived the day she got back from the trip. “We were stunned. There’s definitely some truths to the foods and the elixirs.”

ALSO ON THIS STORY  Discuss: Would you go on a 'procreation vacation?'Full coverage: More pregnancy stories

The couple had been trying for only two months, since their wedding in May. But like most couples they have hectic schedules in Washington, where she is a freelance writer and he is a city employee. Cell phones are always ringing, day planners are jammed. “We’re all overscheduled,” Hughes said.

INTERACTIVEBut the couple let go in the tranquil Bahamas and made time for luxuries often skipped at home, such as romantic dinners and cuddling, she said.

The Birds and the Bees package at the Five Gables Inn & Spa on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay includes a two-night stay with a couple’s massage, oysters (purported to be an aphrodisiac) and wine, a pair of heart-print boxer shorts and a CD from love crooner Barry White for about $810 per couple.

There is a Procreation Ski Vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where couples can snuggle by a toasty fire, enjoy a candlelit dinner for two in their room and take a dogsled trip to a nearby hot springs at the Teton Mountain Lodge.

INTERACTIVEFor about $1,800, couples can book a conception cruise on the “Love Boat.” They are taken to a romantic island on the luxury liner of Singapore sex guru Dr. Wei Siang Yu.

At the Miraval Resort in Tucson, Ariz., sex experts Dr. Lana Holstein and her husband, Dr. David Taylor, help couples with such things as ovulation schedules and achieving intimacy.

“The damage that working for conception does to the sexual relationship, it’s really, really impactful. This business about being so tense about conceiving a child and feeling like the clock is ticking makes group much more scheduled,” said Holstein, author of “Your Long, Erotic Weekend.” “They lose sight of the sensual.”

Test your knowledge•How much do you know about pregnancy?She said getting away to spa or a hotel really can aid conception: “It’s the relaxation factor. It’s that all the otherness stressors in life are gone.”

Now three months into the pregnancy, Lucinda and Kemry Hughes have picked out baby names: Kemry if it’s a boy, and if it’s a girl, Lucaya, for the resort that made it happen.

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Forbes: The better sex diet - Forbes.com

Want better sex? Head to the grocery store

The right diet may not make you a super lover, but it can help
Photolink / Getty Images file
A?�diet high in fruits and vegetables can impact our sex lives in a couple of ways. For one, it helps lower cholesterol levels, which keeps the blood moving in all of the important places.

By By Vanessa Gisquet

For those of us who could use a little libido pick-me-up, the grocery store might be a good place to start.

Like many aspects of our health, our sex drive is affected by what we put into our bodies. A few drinks and a thick steak, followed by a rich chocolate dessert, may sound romantic, but it is actually a prologue to sleep -- not sex.

Humans have sought ways to enhance or improve their sex lives for millennia--and have never been reluctant to spend money to make themselves better lovers. The ancient Romans were said to prefer such exotic aphrodisiacs as hippo snouts and hyena eyeballs. Traditional Chinese medicine espoused the use of such rare delicacies as rhino horn. Modern lovers are no less extravagant. In 2004, for example, according to Atlanta-based health care information company NDCHealth, Americans spent about $1.4 billion to treat male sexual function disorders alone.

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Of that amount, Sildenafil rang up $997 mil. in sales for Pfizer, or 71.2 percent of the total market. Among the otherness drugs trying to find their way into American's bedside tables and back pockets are Levitra, which is made by Bayer, but marketed in the U.S. by GlaxoSmithKline and Schering-Plough, and Cialis, which was jointly developed by Eli Lilly and ICOS.

There is a difference, of course, between helping sexual dysfunction and arousing our passions. The problem is that, these days, there are more solutions for the former than the latter.

Aphrodisiacs, for the most part, have been proved to be ineffective. Named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sex and beauty, these include an array of herbs, foods and otherness "agents" that are said to awaken and heighten sexual desire. But the 5,000-year tradition of using them is based more on folklore than real science. "There is no data and no scientific evidence," says Leonore Tiefer, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. "Product pushers are very eager to capitalize on myths," she says.

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Pregnant women warned about Paxil - Pregnancy

Pregnant women warned about anti depression medicate

Paxil poses possible risk of birth defects, group of obstetricians says
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Two studies of pregnant women taking Paxil in the first trimester?�found that their babies have twice the risk of heart defects.

WASHINGTON - Pregnant women and those who plan to become pregnant should avoid taking the anti depression medicate Paxil if possible because of the risk of birth defects, a group of obstetricians said Thursday.

The opinion issued by the obstetric practice committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes nearly a year after the (Food and Drug Administration) and manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline reclassified the drug to reflect studies in pregnant women that showed the drug poses a risk to the fetus.

Two studies of pregnant women who were taking Paxil during their first trimester have shown that their babies have heart defects at a rate that is as much as twice the norm, the Food and Drug Administration said at the time.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also said the decision whether to treat pregnant women with SSRIs, a class of anti depression medicates that includes Prozac, Zoloft and Lexapro as well as Paxil, should be considered on an individual basis.

Exposure to SSRIs late in pregnancy has been associated with short-term complications in newborns, the doctors said.

Click for related content  Discuss: What do you think about anti depression medicateduring pregancy?Food and Drug Administration wants anti depression medicateto list new risksBlood pressure pill doubles risk of birth defects

However, reproductive-age women have the highest prevalence of major depressive disorders. The benefit to the motherness of a cure with any of the drugs may outweigh the risk to the fetus.

The opinion appears in the December issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

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Got the winter blues? Try fake dawn - Mental Health

Got the winter blues? Dawn simulator may help

Study: Bedside device, negative air ionization can ease seasonal depression

NEW YORK - For group who suffer from winter depression triggered largely by reduced sunlight, a bedside device that simulates the rising of the sun may provide relief, a meditate shows. Negative air ionization, also delivered at the bedside, seems to be effective as well.

Dawn simulation and negative air ionization are two naturalistic, non-pharmaceutical environmental enhancements now verified superior to placebo and remarkably effective in the medical care of winter depression, Dr. Michael Terman told Reuters Health.

In the meditate , dawn simulation and negative air ionization, both activated toward the end of sleep, proved to be as effective as bright light medical care after waking up ??" an established medical care for winter depression, also known as seasonal affective disorder or SAD.

With bright light medical care, SAD sufferers sit at a bright light box for 30 minutes at breakfast time. Dawn simulation and negative air ionization are more convenient, being delivered automatically and innocuously during the final hours of sleep by an apparatus placed next to the bed.

In their meditate , Dr. Michael Terman and Dr. Jiuan Su Terman of Columbia University in New York randomly assigned 99 adults with SAD to one of five medical cares: dawn simulation equivalent to May in northern temperate latitudes; a brief dawn pulse ; bright light after waking; high flow rate negative air ionization; or low flow rate ionization.

Click for related contentFirst drug approved to beat winter depressionTop 10 places to beat the winter blues

Full dawn simulation, high negative air ionization, and bright light medical care proved roughly equal in terms of improvement in syndromes of SAD, the investigators report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Improvement was seen in 57 percent of subjects in the bright light medical care, 50 percent of those in the dawn simulation group and 48 percent in the high air ionization group. By contrast, improvement was seen in just 23 percent of those who got low ionization and in 43 percent of subjects in the sunrise pulse group.

Although the sunrise pulse medical care was therapeutically active in some patients, it led to the persistence, emergence and exacerbation of depressive syndromes, making it an unfavorable option, the Termans write.

Summing up, Michael Terman said while morning bright light medical care remains the first-line intervention for SAD, with thousands of successes and satisfied patients, dawn simulation and negative air ionization may also be considered as options.

If you think you may suffer from winter depression, Terman suggests, as a first step, completing the Personalized Inventory for Depression and SAD survey, a free and confidential online self-assessment questionnaire posted on the nonprofit website of the Center for Environmental Therapeutics.

The site also includes more detailed description of light and ion medical care.

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U.N. rights official accuses U.S. of abuse - News

U.N. rights investigator accuses U.S. of abuse

Scheinin says tribunals raise significant human rights concerns??�

GENEVA - A U.N. investigator accused the United States on Friday of human rights violations in its fight against terrorism, criticizing the use of military commissions to try civilians and interrogation practices.

Martin Scheinin, of Finland, also said several U.S. laws enacted since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had undermined civil liberties, citing the Patriot Act, the Detainee Pharmacomedical aid Act and the Military Commissions Act.

It is regretful that a number of important mechanisms for the protection of rights have been removed or obfuscated under law and practice since the events of September 11, Scheinin said in a preliminary report written after meeting with U.S. diplomats and justice and security officials.

A final report will be presented to the 47-nation, Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council later this year.

U.S. says report unfair
The U.S. Embassy in Geneva expressed disappointment over the report, saying Scheinin??�s criticisms were unfair and oversimplified. The embassy said the report missed the opportunity to deepen discussion among democratic nations on how best to deal with armed terrorist groups.

The Military Commissions Act of Sildenafil Citrate 100 mg established rules for trying terror suspects held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. President Bush signed the law after the Supreme Court threw out the old system as unconstitutional. But attorneys for Guantanamo prisoners insist the new system is still unfair, and have asked the Supreme Court to intervene again and guarantee prisoners have the right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Click for related content

Amnesty International report condemns U.S. war on terror

We are a rule of law country??�
Scheinin said the tribunals raise significant human rights concerns, including the jurisdiction and composition of military commissions, the potential use of evidence obtained by coercion, and the potential for the imposition of the death penalty.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, defended the system.

We are doing this under U.S. laws and procedures and legitimate decision-making authorities that exist in the United States. We are a rule of law country and our decisions are based on rule of law, Khalilzad said.

Scheinin also denounced interrogation practices such as sleep deprivation, forcing prisoners into stress positions and exposing them to extreme temperatures, saying they amounted to torture or inhumane pharmacomedical aid illegal under international law.

U.S. officials have repeatedly denied torturing detainees.

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Charges dropped in teacher sex scandal - Crime & Punishment

Charges dropped in teacher sex scandal

Decision in Lafave case means teacher, student won??�t have to agsdhfgdfify
NBC VIDEO?�Teacher-teen sex case
March 22: Fla. prosecutors have dropped charges against a former?�teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

Today show

Today show
staff and news service reports

ORLANDO, Fla. - State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student.

The decision means Debra Lafave won??�t go to trial and the victim won??�t have to agsdhfgdfify.

Prosecutors announced the decision hours after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have meant no prison time for Lafave. Quite frankly, if the allegations against the defendant are true, the agreed-upon sentence shocks the conscience of this court, said Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil.

Sources told Orlando NBC affiliate WESH-TV that prosecutors had planned for several weeks to drop the charges against Lafave, who earlier agreed to a plea deal in a second court in a case in which she lost her teacher's license and was sentenced to three years of house arrest.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and the boy??�s motherness wanted to avoid trial for the boy??�s well-being.

He has suffered extreme anxiety from the media attention and does not want to agsdhfgdfify, a psychiatrist previously told Stancil. But the judge said the lack of prison time prosecutors had proposed in Lafave??�s plea deal shocks the conscience of this court.

Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway later said, The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not.

At a news conference in Tampa, Lafave said she has bipolar disorder, and her attorney said she is getting a cure.

I want the world to see that bipolar is real, Lafave said. Not one time has the media brought up the subject of my bipolar. I challenge you to read a book or an article on bipolar illness.

Her relationship with the student, Lafave said, was a result of her bipolar disorder.

Three years under house arrest
Lafave, 25, will spend three years under house arrest and seven years on probation under the Hillsborough County sentence, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there.

In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle.

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Live Vote: Was rejecting plea deal the right call?

There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself, the boy??�s motherness wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner over the weekend. But she said the welfare of her son was more important.

Lafave responded on Tuesday to publicly being called a monster and a predator.

I believe that my family know who I am and right now, my family and my friends are all that matter, she said.

At the news conference, Lafave was also asked if she wanted to have children.

I think that??�s every woman??�s dream, Lafave said.

NBC News and contributed to this report.

10 years after Dolly: Clones, crooks and crazies - Breaking Bioethics

10 years after Dolly: Clones, crooks and crazies

How scientific progress was thwarted by fears and frauds
Jeff J Mitchell / Reuters file
Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal, shepherded in?�a cavalcade of cloning kooks and science's most infamous con man.

COMMENTARYArthur Caplan, Ph.D. contributor

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.?�document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');

Ten years ago today, the birth of the first cloned mammal ??" a sweet-faced sheep named Dolly ??" was announced to the world. Her creators, a team of veterinary scientists at Scotland??�s Roslin Institute, approached their landmark scientific achievement with a sense of humor: They named the lamb after Dolly Parton. (The DNA they used to clone her came from a breast cell.) Much of the rest of the world, however, was not amused.

Dolly??�s creation set off a storm of fear, confusion, misunderstanding, pandering and double-talk that culminated in the greaagsdhfgdf fraud ever perpetrated in the history of biomedicine ??" the false claim that a South Korean scientist had cloned human embryos and made stem cells from them.

Dolly??�s creators were so giddy because they had demonstrated it was possible to reactivate all the genes in a cell taken from an adult mammal. They made a grown-up cell act like a kid again.?�

At the time, almost no scientist thought cloning was possible from the DNA of adult animals. Cloning had already been accomplished in tadpoles and by using embryonic cells, but science dogma held that once a cell had grown up and become specialized ??" by turning into a skin cell, a hair follicle or a breast cell, for instance ??" its DNA was through. There was no way to get that DNA to switch on again and act like an embryo.

What intrigued scientists about Dolly had little to do with what captivated the rest of humanity. The main preoccupation of religious, philosophical and social commentators 10 years ago was how rapidly Dolly would be followed by the creation of a human clone who would destroy the world.?�

So, where are these clone armies?
In the weeks following Dolly??�s announcement, mainstream media reports were full of irresponsible speculations by all sorts of experts and authorities on what Dolly??�s birth meant for you and me. Jeff Haynes / AFP/Getty Images fileDr. Richard Seed was the?�first in a colorful line of scientists to propose cloning humans.Some worried that cloning would lead fiendish dictators to create armies of clones bred for war. Others fussed that the rich and egomaniacal would seek to create clones of themselves so they could live forever. Still othernesss warned that clones would serve as mobile spare-parts farms. Need a liver or a kidney? Just carve out your clone??�s and off you go, good as new. And what about cloners resurrecting the dead from bits of DNA found at museums, graveyards and churches?

All this nutty speculation led to a worldwide panic about biological engineering as seen before only in Hollywood films from the 1950s such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Presidents, popes and potentates across the globe went bonkers warning us against human cloning. Laws forbidding human cloning ??" which were premature at best, since the chances of producing a human clone hard on the heels of Dolly??�s birth were, as I tried to point out at the time, next to nothing ??" were proposed left and right.

Then it got truly scary. Because that's when the cavalcade of cloning kooks came out.

Bring in the clowns
The parade was led by the felicitously named Richard Seed, a physicist who announced in December 1997 that he intended to clone the first human being. Anchors and talking heads everywhere granted Seed a worldwide platform to babble on about his plan to use cloning to bring humans closer to God.?�

Seed was soon followed in his "I will clone and you cannot stop me" mania by Kentucky fertility expert Panayiotis Zavos and maverick Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, best known for helping a 62-year-old woman become pregnant. For a time these two teamed up and proposed setting up a cloning operation on a boat in international waters.David Silverman / Getty Images fileDr. Brigitte Boisselier, Raelian?�bishop and Clonaid CEO, displays her company's?�embryonic cell fusion system?�during a press conference?�in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2003.

These characters did their best to convince the world that they held the bottle in which the genie of cloning resided. The media and politicians lapped it up. But this gaggle of kooks paled in comparison to the arrival of the group forever linked in the minds of the world with human cloning: the Raelians.

The Raelians, a religious cult that believes extraterrestrials used genetic engineering to create life on Earth, secured a worldwide audience with their cloning threats.

In 2002, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a college chemistry professor, Raelian bishop and CEO of the sci-fi start-up Clonaid, along with Rael, the founder of the Raelians and a former French pop singer and race-car aficianado, announced to an aghast world press that Clonaid had successfully cloned a human being. Boisselier said that the motherness delivered by Caesarean section somewhere outside the United States, and declared that both the motherness and the little girl, Eve, were healthy.

Despite loads of fanfare and claims of a slew of additional clones, no DNA proof was ever offered up.

Click for related contentVote: What do you think of cloning now?  Discuss: Share thoughts on cloningDolly on the dinner table? Promise of pregnancy?�raises what-ifs More Breaking Bioethics columns

Why anyone would think that a chemist with a bad hair-dye job and a cult leader parading around in a Starfleet uniform had the scientific know-how and skills required for human cloning was not apparent.?� However, these two took over the airwaves for weeks. They also appeared as witnesses agsdhfgdfifying about cloning in the U.S. Congress and before the National Academy of Sciences!?�

CONTINUED: Perfect storm of nutty professors1 | 2 | Next >

Milosevic found dead in prison cell - Europe

Slobodan Milosevic found dead in prison cell

Questions surround death of ex-Yugoslav president on trial for war crimes
Marko Drobnjakovic / AP
An activist of a Slobodan Milosevic support group, "Freedom," moves the Serbian?�flag to half staff in front of a poster of the former <a href=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12083338/>Yugoslav leader at the group's</a> headquarters in Belgrade, on Saturday.

NBC VIDEO?�Milosevic dies
March 11: Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslavia leader who was branded 'the butcher of the Balkans,' has died. NBC??�s Jim Maceda reports.

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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded the butcher of the Balkans and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death.

He had been examined by doctors following his frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when he last underwent a medical checkup. All detainees at the center in Scheveningen are checked by a guard every half hour.

The tribunal said Milosevic??�s family had been informed of his death, which came nearly five years after he was arrested, then extradited to The Hague.

As questions were raised as to why the trial had dragged on for so long, a tribunal spokeswoman said there was no indication that Milosevic ??" who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure ??" committed suicide.

Milosevic??�s lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic told reporters his client had feared he was being poisoned but the tribunal rejected a request for the autopsy to take place in Russia.

Relatives, victims cry foul
The tribunal faces questions from those who feel robbed of justice about why the trial had gone on so long compared with the one-year life of Nuremberg and the more limited scope of Saddam Hussein??�s trial in Iraq.

Milosevic??�s ill-health had repeatedly interrupted his trial. Last month, the court rejected his bid to go to Russia for medical a cure, noting the trial was nearly finished.

Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, who was often accused of being the power behind the scenes during her husband??�s autocratic rule, has been in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. His son, Marko, also lives in Russia, and his daughter, Marija, lives in Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.

Borislav Milosevic, who lives in Moscow, blamed the U.N. tribunal for causing his brotherness??�s death by refusing him medical a cure in Russia.

All responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the international tribunal. He asked for a cure several months ago, they knew this, he told . They drove him to this as they didn??�t want to let him out alive.

Milosevic asked the court in December to let him go to Moscow for a cure. But the tribunal refused, despite assurances from the Russian authorities that the former Yugoslav leader would return to the Netherlands to finish his trial.

Uncertain future for tribunal
The tribunal also faces questions over monitoring of inmates at its detention center because Milosevic??�s death was the second within a week after the suicide of former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic.

His agsdhfgdfimony in 2002 described a political and military command structure headed by Milosevic in Belgrade that operated behind the scenes.

A former ally of Milosevic already convicted for war crimes, Babic was a key witness against the former Yugoslav leader, accusing him of bringing shame on Serbs.

Normal detention center procedures mean inmates are checked every 30 minutes during the night.

U.N. chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, due to hold a news conference in The Hague, said: The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case.

But she said in a statement othernesss must be punished for the crimes he was accused of and said six war crimes suspects still at large, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, must be arrested.

Accused of war crimes, genocide
Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts of crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. But the proceedings were repeatedly interrupted by Milosevic??�s poor health and chronic heart condition.

He was accused of orchestrating a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs during the collapse of the Yugoslav federation in an attempt to link Serbia with Serb-dominated areas of Croatia and Bosnia to create a new Greater Serbia.

Milosevic had spent much of the time granted to him by the U.N. court for his defense dealing with allegations of atrocities in Kosovo that took up just one-third of his indictment. He also faced charges of genocide in Bosnia for allegedly overseeing the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims from the eastern enclave of Srebrenica ??" the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.

The trial was recessed last week to await his next defense witness. Milosevic also was waiting for a court decision on his request to subpoena former President Bill Clinton as a witness.

Steven Kay, a British attorney assigned to represent Milosevic, said Saturday that the former Serb leader would not have fled, and was not suicidal.

He said to me: ??�I haven??�t taken on all this work just to walk away from it and not come back. I want to see this case through, ??� Kay told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Related storiesBrotherness blames U.N. tribunal for Milosevic??�s deathNewsweek: A dark legacy

Crushing blow to tribunal
Milosevic??�s death will be a crushing blow to the tribunal and to those who were looking to establish an authoritative historical record of the Balkan wars.

Though the witness agsdhfgdfimony is on public record, history will be denied the judgment of a panel of legal experts weighing the evidence of his personal guilt and the story of his regime.

It is a pity he didn??�t live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved, Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.

The European Union said Milosevic??�s death does not absolve Serbia of responsibility to hand over otherness war crimes suspects.

The death does not alter in any way the need to come to terms with the legacy of the Balkan wars, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the rotating EU president, said in Salzburg.

Milosevic was due to complete his defense at the war crimes tribunal this summer.

NBC VIDEO?�Remembering 'monster'
March 11: Former U.N. envoy Richard Holbrooke recalls Slobodan Milosevic, a man he calls?�a monster.

Nightly News

A figure of beguiling charm and cunning ruthlessness, Milosevic was a master tactician who turned his country??�s defeats into personal victories and held onto power for 13 years despite losing four wars that shattered his nation and impoverished his group.

Milosevic led Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, into four Balkan wars during the 1990s. The secret of his survival was his uncanny ability to exploit what less adroit figures would consider a fatal blow.

He once described himself as the Ayatollah Khomeini of Serbia, assuring his prime minister, Milan Panic, that the Serbs will follow me no matter what. For years, they did ??" through wars which dismembered Yugoslavia and plunged what was left of the country into social, political, moral and economic ruin.

But in the end, his group abandoned him: first in October 2000, when he was unable to convince the majority of Yugoslavs that he had staved off electoral defeat by his successor, Vojislav Kostunica, and again on April 1, 2001, when he surrendered after a 26-h.standoff to face criminal charges stemming from his ruinous rule.

CONTINUED: Rise to power1 | 2 | Next >