Source: Business, labor get deal on worker program

FILE - In this May 17, 2012 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Big business and major labor unions appeared ready Friday, March 29, 2013 to end a fight over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to upend negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants already in the U.S. Schumer, who's been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiators are "very close, closer than we have ever been, and we are very optimistic." He said there were still a few issues remaining. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this May 17, 2012 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Big business and major labor unions appeared ready Friday, March 29, 2013 to end a fight over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to upend negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants already in the U.S. Schumer, who's been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiators are "very close, closer than we have ever been, and we are very optimistic." He said there were still a few issues remaining. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Several southwest Michigan pastors along with immigrant families and members of the general public take part in a pray-in for immigration reform event outside of Representative Fred Upton's office in downtown Kalamazoo on Friday, March 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group, Matt Gade ) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

Several southwest Michigan pastors along with immigrant families and members of the general public take part in a pray-in for immigration reform event outside of Representative Fred Upton's office in downtown Kalamazoo on Friday, March 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group, Matt Gade ) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Big business and labor have resolved a dispute over a low-skilled worker program that threatened to hold up agreement on a sweeping immigration bill, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

The deal was struck in a phone call late Friday night with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who's been mediating the dispute.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement, said the deal resolves disagreements over wages for the new workers and which industries would be included. That had led talks to break down a week ago.

The deal must still be signed off on by the seven other senators working with Schumer to negotiate a bipartisan immigration bill ? but that's expected to happen. The agreement between business and labor removes the biggest hurdle to completion of the immigration bill to secure the border, crack down on employers, improve legal immigration and create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants already here.

The bipartisan senate group is expected to introduce the bill the week of April 8 after Congress returns from a two-week recess.

The AFL-CIO and the Chamber had been fighting over wages for tens of thousands of low-skilled workers who would be brought in under the new program to fill jobs in construction, hotels and resorts, nursing homes and restaurants, and other industries.

On Friday, officials from both sides said there was basic agreement on the wage issue, and Schumer said a final deal on the worker dispute was very close.

"We're feeling very optimistic on immigration: Aspiring Americans will receive the road map to citizenship they deserve and we can modernize 'future flow' without reducing wages for any local workers, regardless of what papers they carry," AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser said in a statement earlier this week. "Future flow" refers to future arrivals of legal immigrants.

Under the emerging agreement between business and labor, a new "W'' visa program would bring tens of thousands of lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The program would be capped at 200,000 a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by a new federal bureau pushed by the labor movement as an objective monitor of the market.

The workers would be able to change jobs and could seek permanent residency. Under current temporary worker programs, personnel can't move from employer to employer and have no path to permanent U.S. residence and citizenship. And currently there's no good way for employers to bring many low-skilled workers to the U.S. An existing visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers is capped at 66,000 per year and is supposed to apply only to seasonal or temporary jobs.

The Chamber of Commerce said workers would earn actual wages paid to American workers or the prevailing wages for the industry they're working in, whichever is higher. The Labor Department determines prevailing wage based on customary rates in specific localities, so that it varies from city to city.

The low-skilled worker issue had loomed for weeks as perhaps the toughest matter to settle in monthslong closed-door talks on immigration among the senators, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida. The issue helped sink the last major attempt at immigration overhaul in 2007, when the legislation foundered on the Senate floor after an amendment was added to end a temporary worker program after five years, threatening a key priority of the business community.

The amendment passed by just one vote, 49-48. President Barack Obama, a senator at the time, joined in the narrow majority voting to end the program after five years.

___

Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-30-Immigration/id-30320c0905d34d69a1308fc43e282dd1

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Sicily revokes permission for U.S. military satellite station

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - The Sicilian regional government in Italy has revoked permission for the United States to build a military satellite station on the island, its governor said on Friday, after protests by residents who said it could pose a health risk.

The planned ground station was part of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), an ultra high-frequency satellite network aimed at significantly boosting communications capacity for the U.S. military and its allies.

Concerns about the effect the station's electromagnetic waves could have on the health of residents around the town of Niscemi, including fears that the waves could cause cancer, had provoked protests on the island.

The regional government of the semi-autonomous island last month delayed construction and called for an independent study into its health and environmental impact.

The Italian government said this month the demonstrations risked compromising operations at Sigonella, a U.S. naval base in Sicily.

"Through the relevant department, permission for the construction of MUOS has been definitively withdrawn," Sicilian Governor Rosario Crocetta told reporters in the island's capital of Palermo on Friday.

He did not say whether the decision to revoke permission for the site was related to the study or to health concerns.

His remarks came a day before a planned protest expected to draw several thousand in Niscemi, which local groups of the governor's own Democratic Party were due to attend.

In a visit to Italy in January, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he understood the concerns of residents but that U.S. studies had concluded there would be no health risk.

The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The satellite network also has stations in the United States and Australia.

(Reporting by Vladimiro Pantaleone and Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sicily-revokes-permission-u-military-satellite-station-180433298--finance.html

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Jelly Bean update now available for the Sprint Epic 4G Touch

Update only available over KIES

The Epic 4G Touch is getting its Jelly Bean today, courtesy of Sprint. Don't bother looking in system settings for a notification, as this one is only available through Kies due to its large size. Sprint is not listing any specific changes on its update page, but this update to build GB27 should bring with it the usual Jelly Bean goodies like Google Now and Project Butter. 

Hit the forums for more discussion about what's new and improved, or for help updating using the Kies method.

Source: Sprint; Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/vZDJv6ugQjU/story01.htm

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Is Fuel From Carbon Dioxide Too Good to Be True?

It?s almost as impressive as pulling a rabbit out of a hat?except this presto chango trick is for real and has the potential to help combat the effects of global warming.

Researchers at the University of Georgia have come up with a way to transform carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere into useful industrial products. Science Daily?reports that the discovery could lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from the carbon dioxide.

The work was supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Electrofuels program of the Department of Energy.??The goal of the project is to use hydrogen gas to directly convert carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel,? Professor Michael Adams of UGA?s Bioenergy Systems Research Institute told TakePart.

?

?

Adams, whose work was part of a collaborative project with the research group of Professor Bob Kelly at North Carolina State University, explains that the technology is similar to the process of photosynthesis in plants, but focuses on a microorganism called Pyrococcus furiosus.

?Pyrococcus grows optimally in boiling water (100?C) but does not use carbon dioxide,? says Adams.??We genetically engineered it to use carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas but to do so very efficiently at much lower temperatures (near 70?C) where the organism itself has little activity?it is in a cold shock?and should not interfere with the process.?

?In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences we demonstrated proof of principle and showed that Pyroccocus would use hydrogen gas and incorporate carbon dioxide into an important industrial chemical used to make plastics and other materials. We are now genetically engineering Pyrococcus to generate fuels solely from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.?

The fuel created by the bacteria releases the same amount of carbon dioxide used to create it, essentially rendering it carbon neutral.

Adams and his team are hoping to refine the process and begin testing it on larger scales. ?All of this work is on the laboratory scale,? he says. ?We are now optimizing the ability of genetically engineered Pyrococcus to use hydrogen and carbon dioxide for fuel production and will then begin to go to larger scales for demonstration purposes.?

If they?re successful, they will have come up with what?s known as a formula for turning a negative into a positive.

Related Stories on TakePart:

? Who Needs Superheroes? These Streetlights Fight Crime

? You'll Never Guess Which U.S. State Will Be Fossil-Fuel-Free by 2050

? Is Arctic Drilling Just One Mistake From Disaster?

Lawrence Karol is a writer and editor who lives with his dog, Mike. He is a former Gourmet staffer and enjoys writing about design, food, travel and lots of other stuff. @WriteEditDream | Email Lawrence | TakePart.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fuel-carbon-dioxide-too-good-true-210825552.html

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Klout Users Can Now Add Bing To Their Account And Include Instagram In Their Score

Klout, the service for measuring online influence, is boosting its integration with both Bing and Instagram today. On the Bing side, the news follows last fall's announcement of a strategic investment from and partnership with Microsoft. That announcement included the unveiling of a feature in Bing that would show Klout scores for select people. (And Bing continues to surface more data on that front.)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kj1u3pWIeSQ/

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Simulations uncover obstacle to harnessing laser-driven fusion: Under realistic conditions, hollow cones fail to guide energetic electrons to fuel

Mar. 26, 2013 ? A once-promising approach for using next-generation, ultra-intense lasers to help deliver commercially viable fusion energy has been brought into serious question by new experimental results and first-of-a-kind simulations of laser-plasma interaction.

Researchers at The Ohio State University are evaluating a two-stage process in which a pellet of fusion fuel is first crushed by lasers on all sides, shrinking the pellet to dozens of times its original size, followed by an ultra-intense burst of laser light to ignite a chain reaction. This two-stage approach is called Fast Ignition, and there are a few variants on the theme.

In a recent paper, the Ohio State research group considered the long-discussed possibility of using a hollow cone to maintain a channel for the ultra-intense "ignitor pulse" to focus laser energy on the compressed pellet core. Drawing on both experimental results from studies at the Titan Laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and massively-parallel computer simulations of the laser-target interaction performed at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) in Columbus, Ohio, the research team found compelling evidence that the cone-guided approach to Fast Ignition has a serious flaw.

"In the history of fusion research, two-steps-forward and one-step-back stories are a common theme," said Chris Orban, Ph.D., a researcher of the High Energy Density Physics research group at Ohio State and the lead theorist on the project. "But sometimes progress is about seeing what's not going to work, just as much as it is looking forward to the next big idea."

Since the ultra-intense pulse delivers energy to the fuel through relativistic electrons accelerated by the laser interaction, the Ohio State study focused on the coupling of the laser light to electrons and the propagation of those electrons through the cone target. Rather than investigating how the interaction would work on a high-demand, high-cost facility like the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is also based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one of the largest scientific operations in the world, the researchers considered experiments just across from NIF at the Titan laser, which is much smaller and easily accessible.

These images from their simulations highlight the trajectories of randomly-selected electrons for a thin cone (left) and thick cone (right), each attached to a copper wire. Background colors show the strength of the electric fields pointing away from the cone and wire. For thin cones, the electric fields act to guide energetic electrons forward into the wire while for thick cones -- a more realistic case -- these fields are too distant to be effective. An animation of the simulation is available online at: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~orban/cone_wire_final5mJ_4_5ps.avi.

Despite its size and despite having lower total energy, for a brief moment the Titan laser is many thousands of times more intense than NIF, which makes it a decent stand-in as a second-stage ignitor pulse. The OSU-led experimental team focused the Titan pulse on hollow cone targets attached at the tip to copper wires and observed the burst of X-ray photons coming from the copper as a measure of the laser energy to relativistic electron conversion efficiency.

The X-ray signal was much lower from the hollow cones with thicker cone walls. "This was strong evidence to the experimental team that the typical approach to cone-guided Fast Ignition wouldn't work, since thicker cones should be more realistic than thin cones," said Orban. "This is because electrons are free to move around in a dense plasma, much like they do in a normal metal, so the thicker cone target is like a thin cone embedded in a dense plasma."

These intuitions were tested in simulations performed at OSC. Whereas earlier efforts to simulate the laser-target interaction were forced to simplify or shrink the target size in order to make the calculations more feasible, Orban used the LSP code to perform the first-ever, full-scale 2D Particle-In-Cell simulations of the entire laser-target interaction using fully realistic laser fields.

These simulations also included a sophisticated model for the pre-heating of the target from stray laser light ahead of the ultra-intense pulse developed by collaborators at the Flash Center for Computational Science at the University of Chicago.

"We were delighted to help Chris use the FLASH code to provide realistic initial conditions for his Particle-In-Cell simulations," said Don Lamb, director of the Flash Center. "This is an outstanding example of how two groups can collaborate to achieve a scientific result that neither could have achieved alone."

To conduct the simulations, the Ohio State researchers accessed OSC's flagship Oakley Cluster supercomputer system. The HP-built system features 8,300+ Intel Xeon cores and 128 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Oakley can achieve 88 teraflops, tech-speak for performing 88 trillion calculations per second, or, with acceleration from the NVIDIA GPUs, a total peak performance of 154 teraflops.

"The simulations pointed to the electric fields building up on the edge of the cone as the key to everything," said Orban. "The thicker the cone is, the further away the cone edge is from the laser, and as a result fewer energetic electrons are deflected forward, which is the crucial issue in making cone-guided Fast Ignition a viable approach."

With both the experiment and the simulations telling the same story, the evidence is compelling that the cone-guided route to Fast Ignition is an unlikely one. While other studies have come to similar conclusions, the group was the first to identify the plasma surrounding the cone as a severe hindrance. Thankfully, there are still many other ideas for successfully igniting the fusion pellet with current or soon-to-be-constructed laser facilities. Any future efforts to spark fusion reactions with these lasers using a two-stage fast-ignition approach must be mindful to consider the neutralizing effect of the free electrons in the dense plasma.

"We could not have completed this project without the Oakley Cluster," Orban noted. "It was the perfect combination of speed and RAM and availability for us. And thanks to the profiling I was able to do, the compute time for our production runs went from two weeks in November 2011 to three or four days as of February 2012."

"Energy and the environment is one of the primary focus areas of the center, and this research fits perfectly into that domain," said Brian Guilfoos, the client and technology support manager for OSC. "Many of our systems were designed and software packages selected to best support the type of computing required by investigators working in fields related to our focus areas."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio Supercomputer Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. K. U. Akli, C. Orban, D. Schumacher, M. Storm, M. Fatenejad, D. Lamb, R. R. Freeman. Coupling of high-intensity laser light to fast electrons in cone-guided fast ignition. Physical Review E, 2012; 86 (6) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.86.065402

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/2LmJkrdgNbo/130326162340.htm

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Question around putting rental back on the ... - Zillow Real Estate ...

There are several factors to consider here.

You state you will sell if you "can get a decent price." ?What is he current value of the home? ?It's current market value will indicate what you may be able to sell the home for.

You also state, "I would like to see if I can get more rent this time around." ?What is the current market rent of the home? ?As with market value discussed above, the market rent will give you an idea of how much you will be able to rent the home for.

The properties for sale around the corner, if they're still for sale, may be your competition, assuming they are similar to your home. If so, you will need to price your home better than those competing homes, have your home be in better condition, and be more available.
If these neighboring homes have sold by the time your home is put on the market, then it is possible that their sales will dictate your home's current value.

It is often difficult to show tenant-occupied properties. ?Tenants may make scheduling showing appointments difficult, and often they do now keep the home in showing condition.
Have you inquired with your current tenant to see if they wish to extend their lease? Or perhaps they may be interested in buying the home.

Source: http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Question-around-putting-rental-back-on-the-market/484896/

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Nominate Best 2013 Mobile Ad Campaign - Business Insider

We want to know: What is the best mobile advertising campaign that you've seen so far in 2013? ?

Business Insider is prepping for our upcoming Mobile?Advertising Conference, scheduled for June 13, 2013, in New York. This must-attend conference brings together the who's who in mobile advertising and covers how big brands are using technology to effectively engage mobile consumers.?

We want to include the best of the best at the conference ? and need your help. Whether it's in-content ads, branded apps, mobile video, casual games, or something entirely new, we want you to tell us which big brands are impressing you the most with their mobile efforts. The most interesting nominees will be invited to speak at the conference.

To nominate an ad campaign, simply email us at events@businessinsider.com with the following information:

• Name of brand/product.
• Three-sentence description of where you saw the campaign and why it impressed you.
• Bonus: please include visuals plus name/contact info of the brains behind the ad campaign.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/nominate-best-2013-mobile-ad-campaign-2013-3

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SD Sen. Johnson to retire, cites health and age

S.D. Senator Tim Johnson announces Tuesday, March 26, 2013 his retirement from the U.S. Senate after his term ends in early 2015 at the Al Neuharth Media Center in Vermillion, S.D. (AP Photo/Argus Leader, Jay Pickthorn)

S.D. Senator Tim Johnson announces Tuesday, March 26, 2013 his retirement from the U.S. Senate after his term ends in early 2015 at the Al Neuharth Media Center in Vermillion, S.D. (AP Photo/Argus Leader, Jay Pickthorn)

S.D. Senator Tim Johnson is greeted by well wishers after announcing Tuesday, March 26, 2013 his retirement from the U.S. Senate after his term ends in early 2015 at the Al Neuharth Media Center in Vermillion, S.D. (AP Photo/Argus Leader, Jay Pickthorn)

FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2009 file photo, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. Democratic officials say Johnson intends to announce his retirement on Tuesday, March 26, 2013, a decision that gives Republicans a prime opportunity to pick up a seat in 2014. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)

VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) ? Entering the auditorium on a motorized scooter and delivering remarks in halting speech, South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson announced Tuesday that he would retire next year at the end of his term and acknowledged he remains limited by a 2006 health crisis that nearly killed him.

Smiling and joking at times as he made the announcement at a press conference in his hometown of Vermillion, the 66-year-old said the effects of his life-threatening brain hemorrhage had made speech and mobility increasingly difficult.

"I feel great, but I must be honest ... I appreciate my right arm and right leg aren't what they used to be, and my speech is not entirely there," Johnson said, his delivery slurred at times.

Johnson, who until recently relied on a cane to get around, has become dependent on the motorized scooter he used to enter the auditorium at the University of South Dakota where he made his remarks. He also said he hoped to spend more time with his five grandchildren and that "I think mostly it's time to go."

Johnson's departure helps solidify GOP prospects of claiming the state's first open Senate seat since 1978. Republican former Gov. Mike Rounds had announced plans last year to challenge Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and has rallied much of the state and national party establishment behind him.

In a sign Republicans are not yet lock-step behind Rounds, a Washington-based political action committee released a statement Tuesday criticizing Rounds' spending during two terms as governor, and calling for a more conservative candidate to run for Johnson's seat. The same fractures between tea party-aligned and more moderate Republicans cost the GOP seats that were seen as winnable in 2010 and 2012.

On the Democratic side, long-rumored possible successors including Johnson's son, South Dakota's U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, and former U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

"I've talked to Brendan now and then, but I'm not leaning on him to run or not run," Johnson told The Associated Press after the event. "I gather he is undecided."

Brendan Johnson declined to comment on his political plans Tuesday. He has avoided public statements about the race, but has had conversations with party activists in the state, and advisers and potential donors outside South Dakota.

Herseth Sandlin, 42, is general counsel for Raven Industries, Corp., a position she began last year after returning to South Dakota from Washington, D.C. She had worked as a lawyer in Washington after losing re-election to a fourth U.S. House term in 2010.

"While I appreciate the encouragement I've received I haven't focused on the future political opportunities," she told The AP.

Although both prospects have political networks to tap, both also face potential liabilities.

The younger Johnson, 37, has never held political office and would face questions about his father's involvement in the confirmation process to his federal post. Herseth Sandlin has taken some positions at odds with some South Dakota Democratic activists, including opposing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which could hurt in a potential Democratic primary.

Republicans too could face ideological tension. U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem, elected in 2010, has been courted to challenge Rounds by South Dakota conservatives. While Noem has shown little movement toward investigating a 2014 Senate campaign, aides said Tuesday: "She hasn't ruled anything in or out."

Nationally, Republicans said by stepping aside, the politically resilient Johnson, who also retains a $1.2 million campaign war chest, gives the GOP its best chance to gain a seat in its quest for the majority.

"I believe South Dakota moves into the top slot as the most likely Republican pickup," said Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster and past consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Johnson, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, joins Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey as seasoned and influential Democrats departing the chamber, where Republicans need to gain six seats to take control. Two Republican senators have announced their retirements, both in Republican-performing states Georgia and Nebraska.

South Dakota was carried by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last year, adding urgency for Democrats hoping to keep their majority. Republicans must gain six seats to retake the chamber in 2014.

With his wife Barbara at his side, Sen. Johnson remained standing, leaning on his stronger left hand at the podium, taking questions from reporters then posing for pictures and shaking hands with supporters ? reaching out with his left ? for an hour.

"I look forward to serving the remaining two years as the country is facing difficult times on many fronts and I will work every day to find a bipartisan solution to these challenges," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-26-US-South-Dakota-Senate/id-d049bf8b15f942ef94c6966ab25eb2b8

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Could that cold sore increase your risk of memory problems?

Mar. 25, 2013 ? The virus that causes cold sores, along with other viral or bacterial infections, may be associated with cognitive problems, according to a new study published in the March 26, 2013, print issue of Neurology?, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study found that people who have had higher levels of infection in their blood (measured by antibody levels), meaning they had been exposed over the years to various pathogens such as the herpes simplex type 1 virus that causes cold sores, were more likely to have cognitive problems than people with lower levels of infection in the blood.

"We found the link was greater among women, those with lower levels of education and Medicaid or no health insurance, and most prominently, in people who do not exercise," said author Mira Katan, MD, with the Northern Manhattan Study at Columbia University Medical Center in New York and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The study was performed in collaboration with the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami in Miami, FL.

For the study, researchers tested thinking and memory in 1,625 people with an average age of 69 from northern Manhattan in New York. Participants gave blood samples that were tested for five common low grade infections: three viruses (herpes simplex type 1 (oral) and type 2 (genital), and cytomegalovirus), chlamydia pneumoniae (a common respiratory infection) and Helicobacter pylori (a bacteria found in the stomach).

The results showed that the people who had higher levels of infection had a 25 percent increase in the risk of a low score on a common test of cognition called the Mini-Mental State Examination.

The memory and thinking skills were tested every year for an average of eight years. But infection was not associated with changes in memory and thinking abilities over time.

"While this association needs to be further studied, the results could lead to ways to identify people at risk of cognitive impairment and eventually lower that risk," said Katan. "For example, exercise and childhood vaccinations against viruses could decrease the risk for memory problems later in life."

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Leducq Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. M. Katan, Y. P. Moon, M. C. Paik, R. L. Sacco, C. B. Wright, M. S. V. Elkind. Infectious burden and cognitive function: The Northern Manhattan Study. Neurology, 2013; 80 (13): 1209 DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182896e79

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/kVuFu0Oj-hQ/130325183813.htm

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A diplomatic star is born in Chinese first lady

BEIJING (AP) ? Glamorous new first lady Peng Liyuan has emerged as a Chinese diplomatic star, charming audiences and cutting a distinct profile from her all-but-invisible predecessors on her debut official trip abroad.

Peng was featured prominently in Sunday's Chinese media coverage of her husband President Xi Jinping in Russia on his first state visit since he assumed the presidency earlier this month.

A celebrated performer on state television, Peng watched song-and-dance routines at a performing arts school on Saturday, but did not join in as some media reports had suggested she might. The couple arrived in Tanzania later Sunday, and their trip also includes stops in South Africa and Congo.

An internationally popular first lady could help soften China's sometimes abrasive international image and mark a victory in its so-far unsuccessful struggle to win over global public opinion.

At the same time, she could boost the popularity of the country's new leadership at a time when citizens are feeling increasingly alienated and are fed up with the ruling class's corruption and regal airs.

In recent years, the wives of China's top officials have traditionally gone almost unseen at home and attracted little attention while accompanying their husbands on state visits.

That was in part a negative reaction to Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, who was widely despised and later imprisoned for her role as leader of the radical Gang of Four, which mercilessly persecuted political opponents during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Recently retired Premier Wen Jiabao's wife, Zhang Peili, became known for her role in the country's gem trade and was never seen in public with her husband. Meanwhile, Bo Xilai, one of China's most ambitious politicians, was brought down in spectacular style last year following his wife's involvement in the murder of a British businessman, setting off the country's nastiest political scandal in years.

Women in general wield relatively little power at the top of the Chinese power structure, with just two sitting on the ruling Communist Party's 25-member decision-making Politburo.

Peng's emerging high profile appears to be an extension of Xi's own confidence as he consolidates his control on power and presses a more assertive role for China in global affairs, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Policy Institute at Britain's University of Nottingham. Her training as a singer and stage performer offers the perfect preparation for such a role, he said.

"Peng is projecting a certain poise and confidence that Xi himself is carrying and he doesn't need to worry about what other (politicians) might think of her," Tsang said.

Peng's image was splashed across Chinese newspapers over the weekend, shown descending arm-in-arm with Xi as they descended from their aircraft after arriving in Moscow on Friday. Her visit to the arts school was carried by state broadcaster CCTV on its main Sunday news broadcast and reported in national newspapers.

The popular Beijing News tabloid ran a full page of items on Peng's appearances on Sunday, alongside a photo of her arriving at a speech Xi gave Saturday, dressed in an elegant Chinese-style silk tunic and skirt.

"In her role as first lady on this visit abroad, Peng Liyuan is exhibiting China's soft power," the paper quoted Wang Fan, head the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, as saying. "As a singer and artist and a long-term advocate for poverty relief and other causes, Peng has an excellent public image."

Much of the coverage focused on her personal style, with a report on the mass-market sina.com website noting with satisfaction that the black leather clutch she paired with the outfit was made to order by a Chinese firm in the southwestern city of Chengdu, a flattering contrast with prominent Chinese female politicians scorned publicly for appearing decked head to toe in foreign designer brands.

"In practical terms, this is an important show of support for China's domestic industries, but in the larger sense, it should raise national self-respect and confidence," read a posting on China's popular Weibo microblogging service left by Lin Zhibo, Gansu provincial bureau chief of the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily.

Chen Li, a real estate agent from the central city of Changsha, said Peng was well-known for her modest ways and calm, dignified manner.

"She's known to be elegant and fashionable, but she's also very low-key and doesn't seem arrogant in the way that you usually associate with the wives of top leaders," Chen said.

Peng, 50, largely retired from public life after Xi was made China's leader-in-waiting in 2007, but in recent years has won new acclaim as an ambassador for the World Health Organization. Among the issues she has worked on are tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS ? diseases that still carry considerable social stigma in China.

She also made headlines last year by appearing alongside Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as part of a campaign to discourage smoking, a high-profile cause in a country where about two-thirds of men smoke.

Peng is Xi's second wife, and the two are separated in age by almost a decade. While Xi's father was a leading revolutionary and former vice-premier, making his son a member of the "red aristocracy," Peng comes from relatively humble origins and joined the People's Liberation Army when she was 18. The couple has one daughter, a student at Harvard who remains out of the limelight.

While sometimes described as a folk singer, Peng holds the rank of PLA major general and is best known for her stirring renditions of patriotic odes, often while wearing full dress uniform.

Although her rank is largely honorary, her military status could lead to awkward questions, said University of Nottingham's Tsang.

"Sooner or later, someone is going to ask whether that's completely normal, even if she doesn't have any real military or political ambitions," Tsang said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/diplomatic-star-born-chinese-first-lady-082435770.html

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How Obama pressured Israel into bowing before pro-Hamas Prime Minister Erdogan.

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Kyocera Torque review: a rugged phone delivering superior sound

More Info

• Kyocera Torque coming to Sprint's Direct Connect lineup in March, we go hands-on (video)
• Kyocera Torque hitting Sprint March 8th, carrying $100 price tag
• Kyocera teases tissue conduction audio technology for mobile phones at CTIA

Sacrificing a smartphone's thin and sleek form factor with a case is tantamount to sacrilege in some circles. Others feel little comfort venturing outdoors without having their phone wrapped safely in one sleeve or another. Sprint's Kyocera Torque, though, is for people who demand more than just a sheath of silicone to keep their device safe. Instead of relying on a case for its protection, it's durable in its own right, with an IP67 rating and Military Standard 810G certification to help it withstand everything from water to salt fog.

In addition, the handset carries the distinction of being the very first phone released in the US with Kyocera's Smart Sonic Receiver tissue-conduction tech, which does away with the traditional earpiece. We put the Now Network's first LTE push-to-talk phone through our review gauntlet not only to gauge how tough it is, but also to find out how well it performs. Head past the break to see how it fared.

Gallery: Kyocera Torque Review: Hardware

Filed under: Software, Mobile

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UK "snoopers charter" pits privacy against security

By Michael Holden and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - At the height of an investigation into a group of Islamists plotting al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain in 2004, British spies analyzed more than 4,000 telephone contacts to build up a picture of what they were planning and with whom.

The security services say the information was crucial in helping to thwart what could have been one of the deadliest attacks on Britain and to bring the cell to justice.

But a decade on, the police and intelligence agencies warn they have fallen behind those they are trying to track, as advances in technology and the growth of services like Skype and Facebook, increasingly put criminals beyond their reach.

In response, Britain is seeking to bring in what critics say are the West's most far-reaching surveillance laws that could change the international landscape in this area. The proposals would force communications firms to collect and store vast reams of data about almost every click of British online activity.

By doing so, ministers have provoked the wrath of human rights campaigners, sown division within the coalition government and alarmed major corporations such as Google and Microsoft.

"Nobody wants to live in a tyranny. I certainly don't and I don't want people snooping on what I do," said Gary Beautridge, the lead chief British police officer on the issue.

"This is about maintaining capability. It's not increasing capability, it's maintaining it in the face of change in technology," he said, rejecting talk of an Orwellian scheme.

Beautridge and all those involved in law enforcement say they are now unable to see about 25 percent of all communications data, hindering the secret war against bomb plotters, drug lords and pedophiles.

SECRET WAR

Almost everyone, from lawmakers to privacy campaigners, accepts something needs to be done. But trying to find a solution that is technically possible, will not cost billions and is not overly intrusive is proving a challenge.

Politicians across the world are grappling with the same problem but privacy campaigners say Britain is going further than any other democratic state.

Some countries such as France and Denmark are interested in new laws but campaigners said most other states had so far steered clear.

"The UK is the first mover in this. If the UK is successful, they will have changed the landscape for the rest of the world," said Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International.

Currently, if British authorities want to find out details about who has been talking to who they make a request to a senior police or intelligence officer who can approve the application without the need for a warrant.

British mobile and landline telephone providers must retain records for 12 months, in line with an EU directive, and figures for 2011 show some 494,078 applications were made.

Now Britain's Home Office, or interior ministry, plans to expand these powers to include online activities, such as which web sites were looked at and who was talking to who on social networks.

The new law would force British Internet service providers (ISP) and mobile operators to store data they would not normally keep for billing purposes and could even require them to keep data generated by internet groups based outside Britain.

The government insists it does not want to look at the content of the exchanges, but merely the details of the contact.

"NO FISHING EXPEDITIONS"

"All we're talking about is keeping the communications log of actually who owns that account, when a call was made and to whom or from whom and that is it," Beautridge said.

"It's not the content, it's never the content. Fishing expeditions should not happen. The processes have been designed to ensure that."

However, last December a draft version of the bill was heavily criticized by a parliamentary committee, which said it was too sweeping in its remit, would give ministers too much power and was likely to be too expensive.

The government is now expected to outline an amended bill in weeks with many of the same powers, according to sources familiar with discussions, having made it clear it cannot wait.

"Technical experts are clear that everything in the bill is feasible and we are continuing to consult with communications service providers on our proposals," said a Home Office spokeswoman, adding the aim was to bring a law forward "at the earliest opportunity" along with its cost implications.

Unlike the original plans which placed huge powers in the hands of the home secretary, the new proposals are likely to give parliament a greater say in what is permissible.

But privacy campaigners warn that might just put a gloss on something still unpalatable, putting in place a system which could be extended at a later date.

"If the police want to investigate me, they should be able to ask any company that has data on me to disclose that information. That's generally not a problem," said Hosein from Privacy International.

"The problem is the Home Office want much more than that. They want these companies to record these activities just in case at some point in the future I may become a suspect. That's not the way things work in a democratic society."

Among the concerns are proposals that service providers keep weblogs - records of websites people have visited - and a "filter" system which would ask them complex questions and filter data accordingly, something Hosein describes as mass surveillance.

"Having a list for 12 months of every single website you go to, that's quite a lot of information about yourself, very personal information," said Julien Huppert, who speaks on the issue for the Liberal Democrats, the junior members of Britain's coalition government.

But it's not just the rights or wrongs of the system at stake, there are also concerns it will not work in a world of mass communications provided by firms located across the globe.

One of the main sticking points will be how the authorities get information from so-called third party service providers based outside British jurisdiction, such as Google's Gmail, Facebook and Microsoft's Skype.

British-based mobile operators have told Reuters they are happy to cooperate with the government, but they insist that the same rules must apply to the likes of Facebook.

"From a security point of view, you need to be able to have access to the full pool of communication otherwise you're fishing in a sub-set of a sub-set," said Ronan Dunne, the chief executive of O2 UK.

DEEP-PACKET INSPECTION

If internet groups based outside Britain do not comply, the Home Office envisages forcing the British Internet Service Providers who carry their services to access the data instead, through a process known as deep-packet inspection.

But, it is not clear if this will be technically possible. Google has said it would not allow another service provider to decrypt its information on its Gmail service, and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has said he would not cooperate.

"If we find that UK ISPs are mandated to keep track of every web page that someone reads on Wikipedia, I am almost certain ... that we would immediately move to a default of encrypting all the connections to the UK," Wales said.

The government, which has already spent 400 million pounds so far on the scheme without it getting off the ground, has estimated that it would cost 1.8 billion pounds over the 10 years until 2020-1, a figure that has been disputed. The Treasury has also said the funds have not been approved.

"We got widely divergent estimates of the cost and none of them were lower than the Home Office suggestion," said lawmaker Stephen Mosley, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative Party who sat on the parliamentary committee which scrutinized the draft bill.

Polls indicate that the majority of Britons do not like the plans, think they are a waste of money and do not have faith that the information will be secure.

Mosley, co-chairman of the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum, warned it was vital that any law could not give succor to draconian regimes which sought to censor their citizens activities.

"We as a country do want to be a beacon for freedom and liberty. We've got to make sure that legislation we introduce can't be misused elsewhere," he said.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Anna Willard)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-snoopers-charter-pits-privacy-against-security-105141016--finance.html

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Mar 23, 2013 10:00 AM: Careers: Resumes and Cover Letters at ...

?

This program assists participants to understand, and be able to apply, the components of a cover letter and resume. Participants will be provided with electronic and hard copies of their cover letter and resume within two business days following the program. Activities will include: Purpose of a Resume/Cover Letter: This is an introduction and discussion about the concepts for creating resumes and cover letters to effectively represent participants? skills, experiences, and interests to potential employers. Identifying the major components of a Resume/Cover Letter: Participants will receive and review handouts that outline step-by-step how to master all of the components of a resume and cover letter. Different types of Resume/Cover Letter formats: The three types of resumes; chronological, Functional and Combination will be shown visually and discussed with participants. The DATA (Desire, Ability, Temperament, Assets) concept will be introduced and used when writing cover letters and the importance of formatting will be discussed. Electronic Resumes will also be discussed, covering such items as e-resumes and e-mail etiquette. What are my skills: ?Writing Effective Resumes? booklet will be reviewed when discussing how to identify transferable skills, technical skills, personal attributes, leisure activities, community work and volunteer work for a resume. Cover letter principles will be discussed, so proper formatting and style will be utilized. Tips and Techniques: Hands-on techniques such as, utilizing the www.alis.gov.ab.ca website with tips and going through exercises that result in a final draft of their own personal resume and a cover letter will be discussed

View original content here:
Mar 23, 2013 10:00 AM: Careers: Resumes and Cover Letters at Lois Hole Library

Source: http://www.edmontonlife.ca/mar-23-2013-1000-am-careers-resumes-and-cover-letters-at-lois-hole-library/

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Obama's Israeli dinner plans include a beauty queen (Washington Bureau)

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Breaking: Andy Rubin Is Out at Android

Google has announced that Android chief Andy Rubin is stepping down, and will be replaced by Sundar Pichai. Pichai is currently VP of Chrome and Apps. This is a pretty monumental shakeup. More »

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Crushpath Raises $6M From The Social+Capital Partnership, CRV To Give Salespeople A Better Way To Pitch

Crushpath, a startup founded by former executives from Jive Software and Socialcast that aims to disrupt the sales space, $6 million in Series A funding led by The Social+Capital Partnership with participation from Charles River Ventures. The company previously raised seed funding from Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez, Jive CEO Dave Hersh and Box's CEO Aaron Levie. This brings Crushpath's total funding to $8 million.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/a8VmLxK-KcA/

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Day 2 of conclave: Black smoke, still no pope

The 115 cardinals were back behind closed doors this morning for two more unsuccessful secret votes to select who among them will be the new leader of the Catholic church. NBC's Lester Holt and Keir Simmons report.

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

VATICAN CITY ? The world was watching the skyline above the Vatican on Wednesday after black smoke signaled for a second time that cardinals had been unable to choose a pope.

On the second day of deliberations, black smoke billowed from the chimney over the Sistine Chapel at about 11:45 a.m. local time (6:45 a.m. ET) Wednesday.?

The ?princes of the church?, who began their papal conclave late Tuesday, will now continue their discussions on Wednesday afternoon.

A fourth ballot was expected at about 5:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) Wednesday. If that is also inconclusive, it is expected cardinals will hold another at about 7 p.m. (2 p.m. ET).

Voting in silence, the cardinals are believed to have now held three inconclusive ballots.

Shut off from the outside world without access to phones or television, the cardinals spent Tuesday night in their accommodation at Casa Santa Marta before returning to to the Sistine Chapel Wednesday.?

Despite sometimes torrential rain, hundreds of tourists were milled around in St. Peter's Square with an eye on the chimney. A television screen showing the chimney was also on show.

?We feel the world watching at this exciting time for the church,? said Father Peter Verity, English priest and spiritual director of Rome?s Beda College, in his homily at Mass at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Wall early Wednesday.

'Hairs standing on end'
Among the dawn worshippers in the congregation were visiting pilgrims Julie Knight, 50, from Indianapolis, and her husband Karl.

?There?s a real sense of occasion in the city,? she said. ?I can feel my hairs standing on end, it?s an incredible feeling.?

NBC's Keir Simmons takes a look at the nerve center of TODAY in Vatican City as Catholics around the world wait with bated breath to see the white smoke signaling a new pope has been selected.

The smoke?is created by the burning of ballot papers used by the cardinals in their deciding vote, with chemical cartridges being added to ensure the smoke appears either black or white ? in the latter case, a sign that a decision has been reached.?

None of the 115 cardinals will be seen or heard, nor will they have any contact with the outside world, until they have chosen a successor to Benedict XVI,?who abdicated on Feb. 28.

"They're on their own now," said NBC News Vatican expert George Weigel, referring to the total isolation demanded by church rules.

Shortly after Tuesday?s conclave began there was a brief drama in St Peter?s Square when semi-naked Ukrainian feminists with the words "pope no more" written on their chests and backs staged a protest before being tackled by police and detained.

Also Tuesday, anti-mafia investigators carried out a string of raids in the diocese of one of the front-runners, Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan and dean of the College of Cardinals.

Police raided homes, offices and hospitals in Lombardy, the region around Milan, and elsewhere, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The U.K.?s Guardian newspaper said healthcare in Lombardy is the principal responsibility of the regional administration, which for the past 18 years has been run by Roberto Formigoni, a childhood friend of Scola and the leading political representative of the Communion and Liberation (CL) fellowship.

On purpose and by chance, Americans join crowd in St. Peter's Square to watch for signs of a newly elected pope.

However, Alessandro Cardinale, Vatican correspondent for Religion New Service, said Scola has for many years distance himself from CL, once joking that being affiliated with it in the past ?was like having two original sins?.

The word "conclave" comes from the Latin meaning "with key". It is a church tradition that began in 1268 when local officials became so fed up with the lack of a decision among cardinals ? they had deliberated for more than two years ? that they locked them away with limited food and water to enco

Such is the importance of secrecy that Vatican officials have installed jamming devices to prevent the use of cellphones by cardinals or hidden microphones by anyone wanting to hear their deliberations.

No conclave has lasted more than five days in the past century, with most finishing within two or three days. Pope Benedict XVI was elected within barely 24 hours in 2005 after just four rounds of voting.

Andrew Medichini / AP

Cardinals from around the world gather in the Vatican to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Related:?

First question for new popes: 'By which name do you wish to be called?'

Is it time for the first African pope?

Full coverage of the papal abdication from NBC News

?

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:14 AM EDT

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/13/17290508-second-day-of-conclave-world-watches-as-black-smoke-ends-morning-session?lite

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Blue bursts of hot young stars captured by Hubble

Mar. 11, 2013 ? A new Hubble image, speckled with blue, white and yellow light, shows part of the spiral galaxy IC 5052. Surrounded in the image by foreground stars in our own galaxy, and distant galaxies beyond, it emits a bright blue-white glow which highlights its narrow, intricate structure. It is viewed side-on in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock), in the southern sky.

When spiral galaxies are viewed from this angle, it is very difficult to fully understand their properties and how they are arranged. IC 5052 is actually a barred spiral galaxy: Its pinwheeling arms do not begin from the center point but are instead attached to either end of a straight "bar" of stars that cuts through the galaxy's middle. Approximately two-thirds of all spirals are barred, including the Milky Way.

Bursts of pale blue light are visible across the galaxy's length, partially blocked out by weaving lanes of darker gas and dust. These are pockets of extremely hot newborn stars. The bars present in spirals like IC 5052 are thought to help these formation processes by effectively funneling material from the swirling arms inwards towards these hot stellar nurseries.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/LiCIpKtmK-w/130311144521.htm

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Raw live results: March 11, 2013

All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2012 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2012 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-03-11/wwe-raw-results

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Long to-do list awaits the next pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The moment Cardinal Albino Luciani learned his colleagues had elected him pope, he responded: "May God forgive you for what you've done." The remark, by the man who became Pope John Paul I, was seen as an expression of humility ? but also a commentary on the mammoth task ahead.

There is no job like that of pope. He is the CEO of a global enterprise, head of state, a moral voice in the world and, in the eyes of Roman Catholics, Christ's representative on earth.

And the man who emerges as pontiff from the conclave starting Tuesday has a particularly crushing to-do list.

Here are some of the challenges awaiting the next pope:

___

REFORM: The next pope will have to restore discipline to the scandal-plagued central administration of the church. Benedict XVI, the former pope, commissioned a report on the Vatican bureaucracy, or Curia, that will be shown only to his successor. Benedict's butler had leaked the pope's private papers revealing feuding, corruption and cronyism at the highest levels of administration. The secretive Vatican bank recently ousted a president for incompetence and is under pressure for greater financial transparency. Bishops in several countries say nonresponsive Vatican officials are hampering local churches. The Curia decides everything from bishop appointments and liturgy, to parish closings and discipline for abusive priests.

___

SEX ABUSE: The Vatican remains under pressure to reveal more about its past role in the church's failures to protect children worldwide. The issue erupted ahead of the conclave, when victims from the U.S., Chile and Mexico pressured cardinals to recuse themselves because they had shielded priests from prosecution. Benedict instructed bishops around the world to craft policies to keep abusers from the priesthood, but church leaders in some nations haven't yet complied. "There's still the victims," Chicago Cardinal Francis George said in a news conference last week. "The wound is still deep in their hearts, and as long as it's with them it will be with us. The pope has to keep this in mind."

___

EMPTY PEWS: Secularism has already taken a toll on churches in Europe and the U.S., where a growing number of people don't identify with a faith. The move away from organized religion is also hurting parishes in Latin America. Churches in Brazil and other predominantly Catholic countries in South America already had been losing members to the spirited worship found in independent Pentecostal movements. As the church loses members, it also loses influence in public life in many countries. Church opposition to same-sex marriage has been largely ineffective in the West. The next pope must be a missionary-in-chief, with the gravitas, charisma and personal holiness to bring Catholics back to church.

___

EMPTY PULPITS: Europe and North America need more priests. Clergy in developing countries need more resources. And everywhere, priests are struggling with the outsized burdens of the modern-day pastor. The job requires fundraising, personal counseling and an ability to uphold doctrine, often to Catholics who don't want to listen. The abuse crisis, meanwhile, casts a shadow on today's clergy, even though most known molestation cases occurred decades ago. In recent years, some priests have made their own proposals to strengthen their ranks. Clergy in heavily Catholic Austria in 2011 called for ordaining women and relaxing the celibacy requirement. Benedict rebuked them.

___

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION: Catholics and other Christians live as religious minorities in many countries, including Syria, India and China, where they face discrimination, government interference and, in many cases, violence as they try to practice their faith. The issue is a rare one that unites religious leaders across faiths. The pope is considered a key voice in the fight. Some of the tougher conditions are in Muslim nations, which often ban and punish Christian evangelizing. Addressing the issue requires utmost diplomacy; a misstep can cost lives.

___

GLOBALIZATION: While the church is shrinking in the West, it's booming in Africa and Asia. The new pope will have to shift much of his attention to the challenges for these relatively new dioceses: a life-and-death fight against poverty; threats from radical Muslim movements; and maintaining Catholic orthodoxy while leaving room for local styles of worship.

___

OTHER FAITHS: The new pope will have to keep up friendships with a long list of other Christian groups and other religions, including Orthodox Christians, Anglicans and Jews. But his most pressing task will be navigating relations with Islam. The importance of the issue was made starkly clear in the fallout from Benedict's 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman." Benedict made many efforts to mend fences, including praying beside an imam that same year at the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

___

UNITY: The next pontiff inherits a church divided over the role of lay people and women, on doctrine and social justice teaching ? even on what is required to be considered Catholic. In Benedict's final audience with cardinals, he urged them to work "like an orchestra" where "agreement and harmony" can be reached despite diversity. He could have been talking to the whole church.

_____

Follow Rachel Zoll at www.twitter.com/rzollAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-workload-awaits-next-pope-church-turmoil-164626575.html

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