You set out with a crew from the birthday party, but find you?re a booster short. Do you make sure your own child gets one? Or do you let all the kids use belts only? A new survey found half the parents of 4- to 8-year-olds questioned sometimes let passengers go booster free.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46195825#46195825
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INDIANAPOLIS ? Camilla Williams, believed to be the first African-American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, has died. She was 92.
Williams died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, her attorney, Eric Slotegraaf, said Monday. She died of complications from cancer, said Alain Barker, a spokesman for the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where Williams was a professor emeritus of voice.
Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African-American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African-American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.
In her City Opera debut, Williams sang what would become her signature role, Cio-Cio-San, in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." She displayed "a vividness and subtlety unmatched by any other artist who has assayed the part here in many a year," according to a New York Times review of the performance.
She also appeared with the City Opera that season as Nedda, in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." The following year she performed the role of Mimi, in Puccini's "La Boheme," and in 1948 she sang the title role of Verdi's "Aida."
Williams first appeared overseas in 1950 on a concert tour of Panama, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. She also appeared as Cio-Cio-San with the London Sadler's Wells Opera in 1954 and later that same year as the first black artist to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera.
Williams, the daughter of a chauffeur, was introduced to "Madama Butterfly," Mozart and other classical works at age 12 while growing up in Danville, Va. A Welsh voice teacher came to the segregated city to teach at a school for white girls and taught a few black girls at a private home. By that time she had been singing at Danville's Calvary Baptist Church for four years.
"My grandparents and parents were self-taught musicians; all of them sang, and there was always music in our home," she wrote for her entry in the first edition of "Who's Who in the World."
A graduate of Virginia State College, she was teaching third grade and music in Danville schools in 1942 when she was offered a scholarship from the Philadelphia Alumni Association of her alma mater for vocal training in Philadelphia, where she studied under Marion Szekely-Freschl and worked as an usher in a theater.
A lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she performed in her hometown of Danville in 1963 to raise funds to free jailed civil rights demonstrators and sang at the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C., immediately before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. She also sang at King's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony the following year. The Chicago Defender lauded her in 1951 for bringing democracy to opera.
In 1950 she married Charles Beavers, a fellow Danville native and a defense attorney whose clients included Malcolm X. He died in 1970. The couple did not have children.
Williams retired from opera in 1971 and taught at Brooklyn College, Bronx College and Queens College until becoming the first African American professor of voice at Indiana University. In 1983, as a guest professor at Beijing's Central Conservatory, she became that school's first black professor. She retired from teaching in 1997.
A memorial service has been scheduled at the First United Methodist Church in Bloomington on Feb. 18.
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LUTZ, Fla. ? Facing the possibility of a stinging defeat, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich combined sharp attacks on Mitt Romney with unspoken appeals for support among the state's evangelicals on Sunday, two days before the pivotal Florida primary.
In an unusual commitment of campaign time, the former House speaker attended a pair of Baptist worship services, where he sat in a pew, accompanied by his wife, Callista, and made no remarks.
In between a morning stop at a megachurch in the Tampa area and an evening visit to a church in Jacksonville, Gingrich unleashed an attack on Romney as a "pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase liberal" who could not be trusted to bring conservative values to the White House.
He also drew rousing cheers from a large crowd, numbered in the thousands, at a retirement community, where a Tea Party Express bus rolled slowly behind the platform where he was speaking.
Increasingly, Gingrich has reached out to evangelicals and tea party advocates as the Florida primary approaches, touting an endorsement from campaign dropout Herman Cain as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's recent accusation that the establishment was trying to "crucify" him.
Standing outside the First Jacksonville Baptist church as dusk fell, Kurt Kelly, chairman of Florida Faith Leaders for Newt Gingrich, said the candidate held a midweek conference call with an estimated 1,000 evangelical pastors around the state.
He said the goal of the call was to solidify support as much as possible behind Gingrich, at the expense of rival contender Rick Santorum, who is running a poor third in the pre-primary polls in the state.
In the course of the conversation, Kelly said, Gingrich "shared his faith, shared his vision and shared his past."
Kelly did not expand on his reference to Gingrich's past, although the former speaker has been married three times.
He said one of the other pastors on the call questioned Gingrich further, and the candidate "showed a contrite heart and showed true confession and true repentance."
Gingrich was anything but repentant in his remarks about Romney during the day.
During a pair of Sunday morning television interviews, he said his chief rival had adopted a "basic policy of carpet-bombing his opponent."
One of the ads being run by Romney suggests that Gingrich is exaggerating his ties to Ronald Reagan. Gingrich chafed at that, noting that the former president's son Michael was joining him on the campaign trail Monday "to prove to everybody that I am the heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts."
Cain, a tea party favorite, will also appear with Gingrich on Monday.
At a large rally Sunday at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida, Gingrich accused Democratic President Barack Obama of coddling foreign leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"I believe we need to be stronger than our potential enemies," Gingrich told the crowd. "The president lives in a fantasy world where there are no enemies, there are just misguided people with whom he has not yet had coffee."
He said Chavez "deliberately, cynically and insultingly gave him an anti-American book and Obama didn't have a clue that he'd been insulted."
He said the Obama administration should be focused on Ahmadinejad's "pledge to wipe out Israel and drive America out of the Middle East."
"But if I were a left-wing Harvard law graduate surrounded by really clever left-wing academics I would know that this was really a sign that (Ahmadinejad) probably had a bad childhood," Gingrich said.
He described Obama's approach to Ahmadinejad as, "If only we could unblock him we could be closer to him and we could be friends together."
Gingrich, who served in the House for two decades, also made a populist pitch as a Washington outsider. He said the GOP's "old establishment" is trying to block his path to nomination.
"It's time that someone stood up for hard-working, taxpaying Americans and said, `Enough,'" Gingrich said. "And if that makes the old order uncomfortable, my answer is, `Good.'"
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TEHRAN, Iran ? The head of Iran's state oil company said Sunday that the price of crude will reach $120 to $150 per barrel, as officials in Tehran prepare to discuss a ban on crude sales to European Union countries in retaliation for an EU embargo.
Head of the National Iranian Oil Company Ahmad Qalehbani also said that Tehran would expand its capacity to refine crude domestically, instead of selling it on international markets.
The EU announced an embargo on Iranian oil last week to pressure Tehran on its controversial nuclear program.
The embargo is set to go into effect in the summer, but Iran says that it may cut the flow of crude to Europe early.
Iran says the EU accounts for only 18 percent of its output and that it can find new customers. It says the embargo will hurt the West more than Iran, in part by causing a spike in prices.
"It seems we will witness prices from $120 to $150 in the future," Qalehbani was quoted as saying by IRNA. He did not give a time frame for the prediction, nor any other details.
The price of benchmark U.S. crude on Friday was around $99.56 per barrel.
Qalehbani also said that Iran could find other customers for its crude in the short term, while in the longer term expanding its refining capacity to turn the crude into other petroleum products.
"The sale of some 18 percent of Iranian oil, to a market other than the EU, is quite possible. But our long term idea is to increase refining capacities to produce valuable products," he said.
Qalehbani's statement came as Iranian oil officials prepare to debate a ban on crude sales to European Union countries.
Many Iranian lawmakers and officials have called for an immediate ban on oil exports to the European bloc before the EU's ban fully goes into effect in July. They say this will hurt Europe before it can find alternative suppliers.
It also coincided with a visit by a U.N. nuclear team expected to focus on Iran's alleged attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
The United States and its allies argue that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons technology, while Tehran says the program is for purely peaceful purposes.
With some 3.5 million barrels of crude production, Iran is the second largest OPEC producer.
Some 80 percent of the country's foreign revenue comes from exporting around 2.2 million barrels of oil per day.
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www.tmz.com:
Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry met for hours Friday with representatives from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services
Read the whole story: www.tmz.com
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A barge ferrying two Atlas 5 rockets to their Florida launch site crashed into a Kentucky bridge late Thursday (Jan. 26), but the rockets appear to be undamaged, officials say.
The 312-foot (95-meter) cargo ship Delta Mariner smashed into a bridge over the Tennessee River in southwest Kentucky at 9:15 p.m. EST Thursday (0215 GMT Friday), causing a portion of the span to collapse. Though several cars were crossing the bridge at the time, the accident caused no injuries.
The Delta Mariner was carrying two Atlas 5 rockets from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) factory in Decatur, Ala., to Cape Canaveral, Fla., said Sam Sacco, spokesman for Foss Marine, the company that owns and operates the boat.
"There's no damage to the cargo," Sacco told SPACE.com. "Based on what we know right now, there's no real damage to the vessel itself, either."
ULA officials confirmed that the launch vehicles appear to have survived intact. [The World's Tallest Rockets]
"Initial inspections have shown that the flight hardware being transported was not damaged," officials said in a statement today. "The Coast Guard is conducting an investigation."
Sacco said he wasn't sure when the two rockets are due to lift off from Cape Canaveral. In its statement, ULA referenced an "upcoming" launch, without providing specifics.
According to the ULA's launch schedule, an Atlas 5 rocket is scheduled to blast off from the Cape on Feb. 16, carrying a tactical satellite for the United States Navy. Another one is slated to lift off on April 27 with a new military communications satellite on board.
The Delta Mariner, which was commissioned in 2002, transports flight hardware from ULA's Decatur factory to Cape Canaveral and another launch site, California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. It's capable of carrying up to three common booster cores, which are each as long as a 737 jet's fuselage.
The ship can ply both rivers and the open ocean, and it can navigate waterways as shallow as 9 feet (3 m), according to ULA officials. The trip to Cape Canaveral covers about 2,100 miles (3,380 kilometers) and takes eight to 10 days.
Sacco said the cause of the accident ? which apparently did not result in any fuel spills or other obvious environmental problems ? remains a mystery for now.
"The company's been doing it for over 10 years. Exactly why this happened, I can't tell you," he said. "The Coast Guard will lead an investigation into the cause, and that will be the definitive explanation as to what happened."
The Atlas 5 rocket is an expendable booster that first launched in 2002. Since then, it has logged about two dozen liftoffs, with 100 percent mission success, according to ULA officials. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover blasted off atop an Atlas 5 this past November.
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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?Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, right, with her doubles partner Vera Zvonareva, bottom, serves to Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, right, with her doubles partner Vera Zvonareva, bottom, serves to Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, left, and with her doubles partner Vera Zvonareva plays a shot against Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/John Donegan)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, right, and Vera Zvonareva talk during a break as they play Italy's 'Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
Italy's Sara Errani, right, and Roberta Vinci, celebrate a point win against Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva, in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva of Russia have captured the Australian Open women's doubles title, beating the Italian duo of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 Friday.
Kuznetsova, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, and Zvonareva are both known primarily for their singles play, although each has one previous Grand Slam doubles title with a different partner.
The unseeded duo hadn't played together since the French Open last year.
Errani and Vinci were playing in their first Grand Slam final together. Their previous best result was reaching the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open last year.
Associated Press
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FILE - This is a Tuesday, May 25, 2010 file photo of actress Cynthia Nixon attending the Designing Women Awards in New York. Gay rights activists say actress Cynthia Nixon's insistence she chose to be a lesbian gives fodder to those who argue gays don't deserve marriage rights. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
FILE - This is a Tuesday, May 25, 2010 file photo of actress Cynthia Nixon attending the Designing Women Awards in New York. Gay rights activists say actress Cynthia Nixon's insistence she chose to be a lesbian gives fodder to those who argue gays don't deserve marriage rights. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Cynthia Nixon learned the hard way this week that when it comes to gay civil rights, the personal is always political. Very political.
The actress best known for portraying fiery lawyer Miranda Hobbes on "Sex and the City" is up to her perfectly arched eyebrows in controversy since The New York Times Magazine published a profile in which she was quoted as saying that for her, being gay was a conscious choice. Nixon is engaged to a woman with whom she has been in a relationship for eight years. Before that, she spent 15 years and had two children with a man.
"I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me," Nixon said while recounting some of the flak gay rights activists previously had given her for treading in similar territory. "A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it's a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn't matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not."
To say that a certain segment of the gay community "is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice" is an understatement. Gay rights activists have worked hard to combat the idea that people decide to be physically attracted to same-sex partners any more than they choose to be attracted to opposite-sex ones because the question, so far unanswered by science, is often used by religious conservatives, including GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum and former candidate Michelle Bachman, to argue that homosexuality is immoral behavior, not an inherent trait.
Among the activists most horrified by Nixon's comments was Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen, whose organization monitors and tries to debunk programs that claim to cure people of same-sex attractions with therapy. Besen said he found the actress' analysis irresponsible and flippant, despite her ample caveats.
"Cynthia did not put adequate thought into the ramifications of her words, and it is going to be used when some kid comes out and their parents force them into some ex-gay camp while she's off drinking cocktails at fancy parties," Besen said. "When people say it's a choice, they are green-lighting an enormous amount of abuse because if it's a choice, people will try to influence and guide young people to what they perceive as the right choice."
Nixon's publicist did not respond to an e-mail asking if the actress wished to comment on the criticism.
While the broader gay rights movement recognizes that human sexuality exists on a spectrum, and has found common cause with transgender and bisexual people, Nixon may have unwittingly given aid and comfort to those who want to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, adopt children and secure equal spousal benefits, said Jennifer Pizer, legal director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and the Law, a pro-gay think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles.
One of the factors courts consider in determining if a law is unconstitutional is whether members of the minority group it targets share an unchangeable or "immutable" trait, Pizer noted. Although the definition of how fixed a characteristic has to be to qualify as immutable still is evolving ? religious affiliation, for example, is recognized as grounds for equal protection ? the U.S. Supreme Court still has not included sexual orientation among the traits "so integral to personhood it's not something the government should require people to change," she said.
"If gay people in this country had more confidence that their individual freedom was going to be respected, then the temperature would lower a bit on the immutability question because the idea of it being a choice wouldn't seem to stack the deck against their rights," Pizer said.
Nixon stirred the identity politics pot further when she explained in a follow-up interview with The Daily Beast this week that she purposefully rejected identifying herself as bisexual even though her history suggested it was an accurate term.
"I don't pull out the "bisexual" word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals," she said. "But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met (her fianc?) Christine and I fell in love and lust with her. I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt."
Although science has not identified either a purely biological or sociological basis for sexual orientation, University of California, Davis psychologist Gregory Herek, an expert on anti-gay prejudice, said Nixon's experience is consistent with research showing that women have an easier time moving between opposite and same-sex partners.
A survey Herek conducted of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals of both genders bore this out. Sixteen percent of the lesbians surveyed reported they felt they had had a fair amount of choice in their sexual orientations, while only five percent of the gay men did. Among bisexuals, the figures were 40 percent for men and 45 percent for women.
What remains to be teased out, Herek said, is how a representative national sample of heterosexuals would answer the same question, and what people mean when their sexual orientation was a choice or not. Are they talking about their sexual desires? Acting on those desires? Or simply the identity they choose to show to the world?
"The nature vs. nurture debate really is pass?," he said. "The debate is not really an either/or debate in the vast majority of cases, but how much of each. We don't know how big a role biology plays and how big a role culture plays. A possibility not often discussed is it's not the same for everybody."
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President Obama spoke forcefully on education in his State of the Union last night. I just hope he means what he said and has the political support to follow through. These are the four points that provoked an immediate reaction:
* Promising to give schools the flexibility to teach with creativity and passion instead of teaching to the test is something parents and teachers have long wanted to hear. But how many educators are willing to admit they've been teaching to the test? How are schools going to get them to stop as long as the tests continue to proliferate and as long as merit pay proposals are tied to student performance?
* Having seen too many political manipulations involving threatened teacher layoffs, I have doubts about the President's commitment to give schools the resources to keep teachers on the job and reward the best. When every county employee was subject to furloughs in Montgomery County, Md., teachers demanded a free pass. When Baltimore was cutting back teacher jobs for supposed lack of funds, the city came up with a salary in excess of $200,000 for a new deputy superintendent. Instead of pouring more resources into schools when we already lead the nations in educational spending, we should stop doling out funds and instead work to ensure the money devoted to education is spent wisely.
* Changing the laws so that all students are required to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 is an initiative long overdue. The social and economic costs of dropping out affect not only the dropouts themselves, but society at large. Those costs include 5 percent higher unemployment than the general population, higher rates of imprisonment, and an estimated $26 billion in lost tax revenues, according to a study discussed on Incipit Vita Nova.
* Demanding that colleges keep costs down and refusing to endlessly increase the monies spent on higher education is also a long overdue plan, but likely a hollow one. Profiteers in higher education have overtaken the traditional colleges. For-profit schools graduated an average of 22 percent of their enrollees in 2008-2009, while laying claim to some $24 billion in federal education funds. Congress has not found the strength to shut down this shameful industry and it's not likely to do so in the future thanks to the entrenched education lobby. President Obama's own words- "Higher education can't be a luxury -- it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford"- will be turned against him sooner than he realizes as parties accustomed to raking in big money extend their hands even further.
Carol Bengle Gilbert worked as an education attorney and navigates the public school system with three children of her own.
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PARK CITY, Utah ? Regardless of the outcome of the presidential primaries, Ice-T already has his mind made up about the forthcoming election.
The rapper and actor, who is making his directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with the documentary "Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap," says he expects President Barack Obama to be re-elected. After that, he predicts Hillary Clinton will be the next president.
The 53-year-old entertainer said, "She did the Secretary of State job, she was a G, she held it down, she didn't cry," referring to the former New York Senator with the hip-hop term for gangster (a positive thing).
"Obama will support her," he said, "and she'll be the first woman president."
Ice-T's documentary premiered at the Sundance festival, which continues through Sunday in Park City, Utah.
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General Motors CEO Dan Akerson listens on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, during the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee hearing about the safety of the all-electric car, the Chevy Volt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson listens on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, during the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee hearing about the safety of the all-electric car, the Chevy Volt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, before the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee hearing on the safety of the all-electric car, the Chevy Volt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson, second from left, listens as National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland, right, fields testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, before the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee hearing about the safety of the all-electric car, the Chevy Volt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson, center, flanked by GM staff , listens to opening statements by the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, as it held a hearing on the safety of the all-electric car, the Chevy Volt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, before the House Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending subcommittee hearing entitled, "Volt Vehicle Fire: What did NHTSA Know and When Did They Know It?" (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The government "pulled no punches" in investigating battery fires in the Volt, General Motors' prized electric car, the head of the federal auto safety agency told Congress on Wednesday.
At a combative House hearing, Republicans questioned whether the government's partial ownership in the automaker created a conflict of interest for the Obama administration in the Chevrolet probe, which began after a test car caught fire in June, three weeks after a side-impact test.
The government still owns 26.5 percent of GM's shares.
"We pulled no punches" during the investigation, said David Strickland, who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Then asked if the company got a pass from his agency, he replied, "No, absolutely not."
But Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who led the hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee, said he found it "deeply troubling" that the agency waited until November to notify the public about the fire.
Strickland said he would have gone public immediately if there were an imminent safety risk. He said it would have been irresponsible to tell people that something was wrong with the Volt while experts looked into the cause of the fire.
In response, the committee chairman, Republican Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said, "I hear you, I don't believe you."
Issa added: "The fact is, your administration is not up to speed to maintain safety in an electric age."
Republicans questioned whether the delay was because of new mileage standards that were negotiated last year. Strickland insisted there was no connection and said he had not been pressured by anyone from the administration on the investigation.
After the first fire, two others occurred later related to separate safety tests, and the agency opened an official investigation on Nov. 25. That ended last week, with the government concluding that the Volt and other electric cars don't pose a greater fire risk than gasoline-powered cars. The agency and General Motors know of no fires in real-world crashes.
GM chairman and CEO Daniel F. Akerson said sarcastically that while the company designed the Volt to be a great car, "unfortunately, there is one thing we did not engineer. Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag. And that, sadly, is what the Volt has become.
"For all of the loose talk about fires, we are here today because tests by regulators resulted in battery fires under lab conditions that no driver would experience in the real world."
But the Republicans' aim was on the safety agency, as Issa told Strickland, "You guys screwed up by keeping a secret."
Democrats came to the administration's defense.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said there was no evidence that politics played a role in NHTSA's handling of the case, and he was concerned that the hearing could undermine electric car technology.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee's top Democrat, told Strickland he believed him.
"Your integrity has been questioned, your honesty has been questioned," Cummings said. "And then the question becomes, what is that all about?" He accused Republicans of "swatting" at things to make a political point.
Jordan took exception. "That's not what this hearing's about."
Cummings responded: "This hearing is not about safety. This hearing is about an attack" on the Obama administration's support for GM and the electric car industry.
At first, GM blamed the safety agency for the June fire, saying NHTSA should have drained the battery to prevent any fires after the test. But the company quickly retreated and said it never told the agency to drain the battery. GM executives also said there was no formal procedure in place to drain batteries after crashes involving owners.
Now the company sends out a team to drain the batteries after being notified of a crash by its OnStar safety system.
The Volt has a T-shaped, 400 pound battery pack that can power the car for about 35 miles. After that, a small gasoline generator kicks in to run the electric motor. The car has a base price of about $40,000.
Issa told reporters that the committee will continue its investigation.
"It won't be on General Motors," he said. " It will be primarily on the government that we oversee that has once again been less than as good they should have been in public safety on automobiles."
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Future research is needed to find out the exact causes of pain perception differences, and which ones would be best to target for more effective pain control
?| January 23, 2012?|
When a woman falls ill, her pain may be more intense than a man's, a new study suggests.
Across a number of different diseases, including diabetes, arthritis and certain respiratory infections, women in the study reported feeling more pain than men, the researchers said.
The study is one of the largest to examine sex differences in human pain perception. The results are in line with earlier findings, and reveal that sex differences in pain sensitivity may be present in many more diseases than previously thought.
Because pain is subjective, the researchers can't know for sure whether women, in fact, experience more pain than men. A number of factors, including a person's mood and whether they take pain medication, likely influence how much pain they say they're in.
"Whatever the reason, I think it's important to be aware of this pain discrepancy between men and women and look into it further," said study researcher Linda Liu, a doctoral student in Stanford University Biomedical Informatics program.
Future studies, in both people and animals, should analyze their results to see whether sex differences in pain may be present, Liu said. Many studies in animals do not include females, or fail to report the sex of animals used, Liu said.
The study was published online Jan. 12 in the Journal of Pain.
Sex differences
Most human studies examining gender differences in reported pain have compared the number of women with the number of men with a given condition who say they are in pain. But most haven't looked at how intense the pain is, and many have not included enough people to be able to detect differences between the sexes in pain perception, the researchers said.
The new study included information from more than 11,000 patients whose pain scores were recorded in electronic medical records at Stanford Hospital and Clinics between 2007 and 2010. Patients were asked to rate their pain on a scale of zero (no pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable).
In all, the researchers assessed sex differences in reported pain for more than 250 diseases and conditions.
For almost every diagnosis, women reported higher average pain scores than men. Women's scores were, on average, 20 percent higher than men's scores, according to the study.
Women with lower back pain, and knee and leg strain consistently reported higher scores than men. Women also reported feeling more pain in the neck (for conditions such as torticollis, in which the neck muscles twist or spasm) and sinuses (during sinus infections) than did men, a result not found by previous research.
Pain perception
It could be that women assign different numbers to the level of pain they perceive compared with men, said Roger B. Fillingim, a pain researcher at the University of Florida College of Dentistry, who was not involved with the new study.
But the study was large, and the findings are backed up by previous work, Fillingim said.
"I think the most [simple] explanation is that women are indeed experiencing higher levels of pain than men," Fillingim said.
The reason for this is not known, Fillingim said. Past research suggests a number of factors contribute to perceptions of pain level, including hormones, genetics and psychological factors, which may vary between men and women, Fillingim said. It's also possible the pain systems work differently in men and women, or women experience more severe forms of disease than men, he said.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a4cc6d8ea32ccecd2e453aa04f25720b
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PARK CITY, Utah ? Comedian and "30 Rock" cast member Tracy Morgan says he'll be back at work Tuesday after being hospitalized while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Morgan's publicist, Lewis Kay, says the actor suffered from exhaustion and altitude when he collapsed Sunday in Park City, where the elevation is 7,000 feet.
Morgan posted Monday on Twitter that the high altitude "shook up this kid from Brooklyn."
Kay says hospital officials report no drugs or alcohol were found in Morgan's system.
Morgan attended Sundance in connection with the comedy film "Predisposed," one of the 100 films at the festival, in which he plays a drug dealer named Sprinkles.
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Mere hours after Heidi Klum and Seal confirmed their divorce, interviews between Seal and Ellen DeGeneres (airing today) and PBS' Tavis Smiley (Friday) hit the web.
The topic of his separation was not off the table. Not even close.
About to embark on a new album tour, Seal is more than willing to openly speak about what shocked us - and himself, apparently. "I think we were shocked," he said.
"You go into these things with the greatest intentions when you say 'I do' and you say ''Till death do us part.' Those vows hold value," the singer told Ellen.
"They are not just words. These things happen. We pretty much said how we feel and made it clear in the release statement."
"But, for intents and purposes of this show, you just grow apart after awhile. You try and you work through it and the thing that you quickly realize when you are married and you become a parent is you do the best that you can."
"It makes you actually appreciate your parents a lot more."
"The thing that I'm most proud about this great woman who married - and I really do mean that from the bottom of my heart - is that together she has given me four incredible gifts, four beautiful children.
"She still, in my opinion, the most wonderful woman in the world."
"I think our priority was to remain civil and do this thing with dignity. We still very much love each other. It's not a question of we were never to follow suit of some breakup or separations that you hear about, especially in our industry."
"It's a shame. To say that neither of us were grieving would be an out and out lie, and I don't mind telling you that. We both have a tremendous amount of respect and love and we try and do this with as much dignity as we possibly can."
"And of course, when you have four children, you hope and pray that the rest of the world will respect that we have four children and that their little hearts are at stake, too."
Here's Seal on Tavis Smiley's show as well:
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/seal-shocked-by-heidi-klum-divorce/
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The past year brought us the first AirPlay speaker systems?speaker docks that stream audio wirelessly from Apple iOS products and some computers via a Wi-Fi signal. After the Editors' Choice Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air ($599.95, 4 stars) debuted Apple's integrated streaming audio technology, only a few offerings have actually been released. Joining the Zeppelin Air and the significantly less successful JBL On Air Wireless ($349.95, 2.5 stars) is the Audyssey Audio Dock Air, at $399.99. Deep bass lovers will enjoy the exaggerated low-end response of the Audyssey Dock; audiophiles will want to steer clear. Unfortunately, the dock suffers from some stream interruption issues that no one will enjoy, and this knocks its rating down a bit. However, an update to iOS will reportedly contain a fix for the streaming issue, so we will revisit this review when and if that occurs.
Design
Measuring 8.3 by 4.8 by 8.5 inches (HWD), the Audyssey Audio Dock resembles an upright square. Like most AirPlay docks, it has very few buttons and uses black felt to cover its drivers. It's almost as if Apple has specific design rules for AirPlay docks, so that they will all resemble a family of Apple-esque products. (If you detect sarcasm, it's because, in all likelihood, Apple is very much involved in the streamlined designs of all of these docks). The unadorned black felt speaker panels face in opposite directions, spreading the reach of the audio, for sure, but not necessarily increasing the width of the stereo field much, since both left and right channels originate from essentially the same spot once you're a foot or so away. That said, the opposite directions of the speakers can benefit from reflections off of walls in your room, and that can certainly have an effect on your perception of the stereo image, although it may not be one audio engineers will be pleased with?more on that in a bit. A matte black plastic band separates the two speaker panels. On the back end of the band, there's a connection for the included power supply, as well as a Pairing button (for initial setup) and a 3.5mm Aux input. The band's front side has a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the top panel houses a Volume control dial and two LEDs that indicate when the unit is powered up and when it is connected for AirPlay. The system ships with a 3.5mm audio cable for connecting devices to the Aux input.
Performance
Setting up the Audio Dock Air is not difficult, as the instructions are simple and laid out explicitly in the included manual. You will need a Wi-Fi connection, however, and a bit of patience, as the pairing process between devices, and the connection process to the Wi-Fi signal itself, can take a few minutes. Once complete, you are able to stream from any PC or Mac with a recent version of iTunes (beyond 10.1), and any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).
AirPlay's sound quality is actually pretty impressive, with strong bass performance. The Audio Air Dock only adds to the bass experience; Even at low-to-moderate volumes, one might say it sounds "thunderous." As you boost the volume louder and louder, however, the bass signal becomes more and more compressed. Why does Audyssey do this? Well, first off, it's a process often referred to as Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and Audyssey is not alone in employing it. Bowers & Wilkins has utilized some signal processing on its consumer line as well. The basic goal is to eliminate any distortion or possibility of blowing a speaker. Deep bass frequencies at high volumes are usually the culprit when speakers distort, so the signal processing basically limits the volume of the bass as you raise the system's overall volume. At maximum volume on Bowers & Wilkins' PC speaker set, the MM-1 ($499.95, 4 stars), this ends up sounding like some serious dynamic compression, where the range of transient sounds like drum hits are squashed lower to be roughly the same volume as everything else in the mix. You've heard this before when a loud song comes on the radio and suddenly the overall volume of the song seems to dip as the heavily distorted guitars kick in.
On the Audio Dock Air speakers, however, this processing is quite noticeable, primarily because at lower-to-mid volume settings, the bass is already so boosted, that when you raise the volume high, it sounds like you're listening to a different speaker system because the bass frequencies have been so dramatically cut to prevent distortion. The good news is, this system sounds excellent?for bass enthusiasts, at least?at moderate volumes. Even when it's not really that loud, it feels loud. The bad news is, when you blast it, the signal processing steals some of the bass thunder and squashes the overall signal pretty intensely. Simply put, if you're into deep bass and listening at moderate levels, this system won't disappoint you sonically. It never really distorts, even on deep bass tracks at maximum volume, but the processing is intense enough that it can sound as if it's about to distort?a common characteristic of signal limiting at its most extreme.
Because of the placement of the speakers at opposite sides of the dock, projecting in opposite directions, the stereo image is altered a bit in a way that casual listening may not suffer from, but one channel will often appear louder than the other. Simply put, it definitely helps fill the room with sound, but this is not how records are mixed.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I actually like the audio performance enough that it would have had a higher rating. Not every system needs to be made for audiophiles craving flat response?there's room enough in the world for those of you who really dig thumping bass. The Audio Dock Air is made with these listeners in mind, and it brings an extra bottom end to everything from hip hop and rock to even classical music, making the lower strings in John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" sound downright ominous and intense. But we have a different issue to deal with.
Tested on a home Wi-Fi network that regularly streams audio, via AirPlay, from a iPhone and a laptop to a stereo receiver with an AirPort express connected to it, the Audio Dock Air fared differently than the aforementioned setup. This is possibly because the AirPort Express uses 802.11n wireless signal, while Apple's AirPlay and the docks that have it built-in use 802.11g. Where the AirPort Express only seems to stutter when its sound source gets out of range?say, you take your iPhone too far into the kitchen, away from the router?the Audio Dock Air stutters more often, even, at times, in close proximity to the router and the sound source. Often, the stuttering seems to occur when the Wi-Fi network performs routine tasks at the same time?say, sending an email or loading a webpage while streaming music. Occasionally, the stream would halt altogether, and the system would need to be rebooted or the phone disconnected and reconnected to the network in order to re-pair the device with the speakers. The recent Klipsch Gallery G-17 Air($549.99, 3.5 stars), another AirPlay speaker dock, also suffers from the same streaming issues.
Given that Airplay is still in its infancy, some hiccups are to be expected. When you plug your device into the aux input directly, the Audyssey system offers up a bass lover's dream, but as a streaming system, it's got some issues to iron out. For you bass fiends out there waiting for a wireless system, let's hope this is an issue updates can solve and not a permanent limitation of the system or AirPlay's abilities. If you'd rather go the Bluetooth route, check out the fantastic JBL OnBeat Xtreme ($499.95, 4.5 stars), which appears as an AirPlay device on iOS devices despite using Bluetooth, and the portable Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker ($299.95, 4 stars), Both of them recent Editors' Choice winners for wireless speaker systems.
More Speaker reviews:
??? Audyssey Audio Dock Air
??? Klipsch Gallery G-17 Air
??? Samsung HW-D450
??? Logitech Mini Boombox
??? Audioengine 5+
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/_1OCcY8-Vec/0,2817,2398128,00.asp
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Getty Images49ers quarterback Alex Smith runs in for a touchdown during his team's victory over the Saints in the divisional playoffs last Saturday.
updated 6:06 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2012
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?We want Carr. We want Carr!?
It was the lowest moment of Alex Smith?s seven-year career in San Francisco, Oct. 12, 2010. The winless 49ers hosted the Eagles on Sunday Night Football, and the crowd was looking for blood.
After his fourth-quarter fumble, thunderous boos poured down on Smith. He was hearing it all game from the crowd, but this matched anything I?ve ever heard ? even in Philadelphia. The unmistakable chant that came with the booing was even more depressing.
?We want Carr. We want Carr!?
The home crowd wanted Smith benched in favor of backup quarterback David Carr. The fan base collectively waved the white flag. They were tired of their No. 1 overall pick bust and wanted to try another. It was only Week 5 of a rapidly devolving season.
Coach Mike Singletary tried to remove Smith from the game, but the quarterback barked back. He talked his way into staying in the contest. He wound up throwing for more than 300 yards with three touchdowns in a comeback attempt that fell just short, like so many other 49er games during Smith?s tenure.
The fans got their wish two weeks later when Carr replaced an injured Smith during a loss to the Panthers. Troy Smith wound up starting six games for the 2010 49ers. Alex Smith?s beleaguered run in San Francisco was all but over. If nothing else, that gave the fans something to smile about.
Between rare and extinct
David Carr tells us a lot about Alex Smith. Just like Smith, Carr was a No. 1 overall draft pick viewed as a franchise savior. Like Smith, Carr fell flat on his face.
Carr didn?t face the same injury struggles as Smith. Carr didn?t have two head coaches question his toughness. But after five years in Houston, Carr was beat up mentally and physically. When Carr hit free agency, he wanted to take a break.? He wanted out.
"I need to take a deep breath and be around a good environment and just start enjoying the game again,'' Carr said in 2007. ?I wanted to be on a team that was fun and exciting and whether I had a chance to play right away, it didn't matter to me.''
Smith had his chance to take a deep breath last offseason. His family wanted him to leave San Francisco, toasting to new beginnings after this season. Smith didn?t want to go anywhere.
That desire to finish what he started won over new 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.
"I wanted to get to know him. I had never met him," Harbaugh said last week of his first meeting with Smith in January 2011. "I was just kind of looking in through the keyhole. But I guess the things that I wanted to know, if you boiled it down to one thing, was, did he want to start? Did he want be in the fire? Or did he want to wear the ball cap backward and backup somewhere??
Harbaugh was asking if Alex Smith wanted to be David Carr. (Or Vince Young. Or Matt Leinart. Or JaMarcus Russell.)"I really felt that he had the competitive drive, the (desire) to prove himself, him wanting to do it here. That's the thing that probably intrigued me the most. That character of wanting to come back and do it here in San Francisco, which is pretty rare ? probably somewhere between rare and extinct. That's not just for football players. That's about anybody. ... And I thought we could really work with that character. To me that was special."
Smith?s seven fourth-quarter comeback victories this season are special. His league-leading interception percentage says a lot. But the most impressive part of Smith?s season is that he?s there at all. He survived.
The things Alex carries
Alex Smith carries his six seasons through the professional football meat grinder everywhere he goes. He carries the old playbooks; the losses; the chants; the manipulative coaches; the shoulder surgeries.
Smith has gone through this 14-3 season hesitant to look back. It?s as if he doesn?t want to jinx what?s happening.
Seven offensive coordinators
Smith?s first offensive coordinator was Mike McCarthy, who pushed the team to draft Smith over Aaron Rodgers with the No. 1 pick in 2005.
One touchdown, 11 interceptions by Smith later, McCarthy scored the Packers' head coaching job before his coaching stock sunk any further.
Norv Turner came next and guided Smith to a promising second season. Smith appeared to have turned a corner. It?s a reminder what good teaching can mean for a young quarterback.? Smith wouldn?t learn that lesson again until 2011.? Turner left after ?06 for the Chargers head coaching job.Jim Hostler, Mike Martz, Jimmy Raye, and Mike Johnson followed Turner to disappointing results. Each man had a new idea of how an NFL offense should look and how Smith fit into their system. Some liked Smith more than others. Every spring meant a new playbook.
Smith?s seventh coordinator was the charm. Jim Harbaugh knows the quarterback position as well as any head coach, but he also brought in a terrific staff to help him. It?s one of the most underrated skills a head coach can have. Can he choose the right men to assist him?
Offensive coordinator Greg Roman and quarterbacks coach Geep Chryst have both done a fabulous job with Smith. It was Chryst who took over the play-calling late in the divisional round win over the Saints. Along with Harbaugh, the three men collaborate on one of the smartest offensive attacks in the league.
They create big-play opportunities without taking much risk. They accentuate what Smith does well and limit his weaknesses being exposed. They put Smith in position to succeed. That?s coaching.
2 misguided head coaches
Alex Smith?s rookie season was Mike Nolan?s rookie season as a head coach. Both men looked comfortable in their new role.
Nolan ran the 49ers through fear. He often seemed unnecessarily paranoid and played misguided mental games. When Smith?s shoulder was hurt in 2007, Nolan implied publicly that Smith wasn?t fighting through the injury. Nolan came out told the 49ers team behind closed doors that Smith was using his shoulder injury as an excuse for poor play. Smith fought back by speaking out.
?I felt it was trying to undermine me with my teammates,? Smith said back then.
Smith had shoulder surgery after the season.
The next 49ers head coach was a defensive-minded motivational speaker: Mike Singletary. Singletary said multiple times he didn?t think quarterback was the most important position on the field. He once called Smith ?meek.? After Singletary was fired, he was asked what he learned from the experience.
"You gotta have a quarterback," Singletary said.
These were the men in charge. They never believed in Smith.Harbaugh saw something different in that first meeting with Smith. Most importantly, he saw a quietly improved player on film. Harbaugh?s effusive and immediate praise of Smith almost seemed comical. (He once said Smith had ?armadillo skin .?)
Smith, a free agent, publicly expressed doubt he?d return to San Francisco before Harbaugh started recruiting Smith with regular meetings. No one in San Francisco knew what to make of it. Why would the new hot shot coach stick out his neck for Smith?
?I?ve been studying Alex Smith and watching him and I believe that Alex Smith can be a winning quarterback in the National Football League,? Harbaugh said. ?Very accurate passer. Very athletic. And a guy that has played and been durable.?
This was January 2011. Harbaugh embraced the quarterback no one wanted. The message hasn?t changed since. The love affair has only grown.
The teammates
Smith was benched for the following quarterbacks during his 49ers career: Tim Rattay, Ken Dorsey, Trent Dilfer, Shaun Hill, J.T. O?Sullivan, and Troy Smith.
Guys like Carr and Cody Pickett replaced Smith when he was hurt. Only Hill went on to a modicum of success after leaving San Francisco.
The following wide receivers have started games during Smith?s tenure in San Francisco: ?Brandon Lloyd, Arnaz Battle, Johnnie Morton, Kevin McAddley, Antonio Bryant, Bryan Gilmore, Darrell Jackson, Ashley Lelie, Isaac Bruce, Bryant Johnson, Jason Hill, Josh Morgan, Michael Crabtree, Braylon Edwards, Ted Ginn, Kyle Williams, and Brett Swain.
Change was the only constant in San Francisco?s passing attack. Personnel objectives changed annually with the rotating offensive systems. Players past their prime were brought in like Morton, Jackson, and Bruce. Failed draft picks from other teams were given a second chance like Lelie, Johnson, Edwards, and Ginn. Very little stuck.
Even today, San Francisco?s wide receivers struggle to beat man coverage. It?s a concern this week going against a Giants defense that can get pressure with their front four and played great man coverage last week in Green Bay.
Harbaugh knows all this. He built an offense around the run game, his tight ends, and carefully orchestrated ?shot plays? the wideouts wouldn?t have to win consistently on the outside. He relied on Smith?s accuracy and decision making.
When Harbaugh has asked Smith and his receivers to carry the offense ? against the Giants and Saints ? they have found a way.
Bad habits
Smith deserves his share of blame for struggling until Harbaugh came along. He doesn?t have the big arm you?d expect of a top pick. He?s smart but has struggled to translate those smarts into instinct. He was deliberate making decisions.
Going back through five years of my game notes, the same word came up repeatedly describing Smith: tentative. He took the safe play. He didn?t have enough confidence in himself, his receivers, or perhaps his offense to make the difficult throw.
That slowly started to change this year. The 49ers are not an aggressive passing team, but Smith has played his best with the game on the line.
Back-to-back fourth-quarter comeback wins in Cincinnati and Philadelphia kick-started things. Smith threw a fourth-and-goal game-winner to Delanie Walker in Detroit. An insane 41-yard toss to Michael Crabtree set up the game-winning field goal in Seattle.
In most of those games, the 49ers still coached around Smith. Their wins were more about the defense, running game and short, safe passes. Last Saturday against the Saints, the 49ers coaching staff gave the keys to Smith."The winning touchdown to Vernon Davis ... and I'm taking nothing away from Vernon Davis's catch ... the throw made that play, not the catch," NFL Films guru Greg Cosell said on KNBR this week. ?He threw that ball before Davis even got past the underneath linebacker.?
The 49ers could have played for the tie, but they went for the win because of the confidence they had in Smith. It was the type of instinctive, anticipatory, gutsy throw we haven?t seen from Smith. Smith is starting to mix in aggression with his smarts. That could be a championship combination.
The other side
Alex Smith is Mark Sanchez if Sanchez went through another three years like the one he just had.
Smith took all the abuse we could hurl at him and emerged on the other side. He will never be Joe Montana, but that?s not the point. He?s here. He is one game away from playing in the Super Bowl. After what Smith has been through, he deserves to enjoy this moment.
Perhaps Smith will take a deep breath during the national anthem on Sunday and allow himself a peak at the opposing sideline. Giants backup quarterback David Carr will be standing there, representing the road more traveled.
When the anthem ends, Carr will reach to put on his backward hat. Smith will grab his helmet.
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More news??The Patriots beat the stunned Ravens 23-20 in the AFC championship game Sunday after Baltimore's Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal attempt with 11 seconds remaining that would have tied the score.
Getty Images??Lawrence Tynes kicked a winning 31-yard field goal in sudden-death overtime and New York beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in the NFC championship game Sunday night to reach its second Super Bowl in five seasons.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46067758/ns/sports-nfl/
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PHILADELPHIA ? A Ukrainian hockey coach who allegedly had sexual contact with a teenage boy attending clinics in the United States frequently traveled with teens, transporting them from city to city for camps, according to court documents.
Ivan Pravilov is due in court later Friday for a detention hearing in Philadelphia. Prosecutors want Pravilov kept in custody because they believe he's a risk to flee overseas.
Pravilov was charged Tuesday with committing sex acts with a boy attending hockey clinics with him in the United States.
According to court documents, a 14-year-old boy told investigators he had sexual contact with Pravilov at an apartment in Philadelphia on Jan. 3. A second teen gave an identical account, according to the criminal complaint.
Pravilov was charged with transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity because he allegedly transported the boy from the home of a host family in Wilmington, Del.
The website for the coach's hockey school, Ivan Pravilov's Unique Hockey School, says it held a number of camps up and down the East Coast this summer.
New Jersey Devils forward Dainius Zubrus is one of his most famous proteges. Zubrus left his native Lithuania as a boy to play for Pravilov in Ukraine, and made the NHL by 18, according to his mother, Irene Zubriene. She and her son remain close to Pravilov, and the coach uses her Cherry Hill, N.J., home as a mail drop, she said.
Pravilov brings young hockey players to the U.S. for about a month at a time to train, play in tournaments and perhaps catch a college or NHL scout's eye, Zubriene said Friday. She and other families in the U.S. host the players. She said she has often had a dozen or more players stay in her downstairs living area, while Pravilov slept in an upstairs bedroom.
She does not believe the allegations and suspects they stem from lingering jealousy of Pravilov in the Ukraine.
"It's not true. It's not true," Zubriene, 60, who saw Pravilov last week, told The Associated Press during an interview Friday at her home. "He's a good man."
Pravilov had been holding practices with Ukrainian boys at The Rink at Old York Road in Elkins Park since November, rink general manager and hockey director Justin Adamski Sr. said Thursday.
Pravilov had done practices at rinks throughout the area that would give him free ice time, Adamski said.
Adamski said he never saw anything inappropriate going on between Pravilov and the boys, who were mostly between the ages of 12 and 15.
"We were giving him ice time to skate," Adamski said.
Pravilov's school had about a dozen players practicing at the same rink on Friday. A coach working with the players declined comment, saying he did not speak English.
Two vans bearing the school's logo were parked outside the rink.
Rink officials declined to discuss the matter on Friday, referring questions to a management company.
A woman who helped host families in the United States said she knew Pravilov well, having volunteered her time for the boys.
"It's still very hard to comprehend everything," said Denise Reid, a contact listed on Pravilov's website for another Philadelphia-area ice rink where he held camps. "We're devastated. We're worried for the boys."
A coach at Pravilov's school in Ukraine declined to give his name declined to comment. The Interior Ministry, which oversees the Ukrainian branch of Interpol, had no comment.
An attorney for Pravilov didn't return messages seeking comment.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson contributed to this report
.
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Once again, alien conspiracy theorists have attempted to use publicly available NASA images to prove that the space agency must be engaging in an elaborate UFO cover-up. And, once again, they've been foiled by the laws of physics.
This time, they called attention to peculiar new footage captured by a telescope onboard NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft ? one of a pair of probes parked on either side of the sun which, together, provide a 360-degree view of the inner solar system. The footage shows Venus, Earth and, on the opposite side of the field-of-view, a mysterious triangular object headed our way.
"Comparing it for size to the planetary objects that are seen in this telescope, if my calculations are correct, that thing is enormous," said YouTube user "BeePeeOilDisaster" in his video commentary on the footage, which was captured Dec. 27 -29. Talk of a cover-up quickly followed when, a few days later, NASA scientists updated the STEREO website to display newer images.?
This is not the first time alien hunters have found what they believe to be enormous UFOs in images captured by the STEREO probes. [Mysterious Planet-Size Object Spotted Near Mercury]
But this time, the team of scientists who work with data from the probes decided to address the claim directly. In a post on the STEREO website, the researchers offered up an explanation of the triangular feature in the December footage. The researchers say it's no more than a trick of the light.
"The answer lies on the exact opposite side of the image," the scientists wrote. "At the same time as this strange-looking feature starts being visible, the very bright planet Venus enters the [telescopic camera's] field-of-view from the lower left."
The scientists note that Venus and the triangle, opposite each other across the middle of the camera plane, stay in step as they move. "This is not a coincidence. The strange-looking geometrical 'object' is actually an internal reflection of the planet Venus within the telescope optics. This effect has been seen many times before."
In this optical effect, incoming light reflects back and forth off lenses and mirrors inside the telescope; the shape of artifacts produced by this scattered light ? usually triangles and circles of various sizes ? depends on the relative orientations of those lenses and mirrors.
Another example of internal reflection, this time of light from planet Earth, can be seen in a STEREO-B image from May 2007. More examples of internal reflection and other optical and data-processing artifacts are displayed on the scientists' "Image Artifacts" Web page, along with explanations of the various effects.
This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.
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