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Article updated: 7/4/2012 9:04 PM
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The crowd stands and applauds as the American Flag passes Wednesday at the Elgin Fourth of July parade. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
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Dan Morgan, a senior at Burlington Central High School, stretches Wednesday before the start of The Great Western Freedom 4 road race at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in St. Charles. He said his goal was only to have fun. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
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Base drummer Alex Miller can hardly see the crowd around his drum Wednesday at the South Elgin Fourth of July parade. He plays with the South Elgin High School marching band. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
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The South Elgin marching band performs Wednesday at Elgin Fourth of July parade. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
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John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com The American flag starts the festivities Wednesday at Elgin Fourth of July parade. ? |
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Runners begin The Great Western Freedom 4 road race at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in St. Charles Wednesday morning. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
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The South Elgin High School cheerleaders march over the Fox River bridge Wednesday at the South Elgin Fourth of July parade. ?John Starks | Staff Photographer |
Bryan McMhan has never missed Elgin's Fourth of July parade in the more than two decades he's lived there. This year, he learned something new, thanks to an American Legion Post 57 float carrying Lao veterans who fought with the U.S. Army in Vietnam. ?I think it's excellent. I don't think anybody knew about it ? at least I didn't.?
Others were first-time spectators, like Alvaro and Maribel Rodriguez of Elgin. The Mexican natives said they have always been aware of the significance of the Fourth of July, and decided it was time to take part in the festivities. ?Our two daughters were born here, and this country has given us freedom,? Alvaro Rodriguez said.
Ten-year-old Ezekiel Hare, of Elgin, knew exactly why he was at the parade ? to get loads of candy. He and his brothers and cousins, ranging in age from 5 to 11, were at the ready with plastic bags, eager to scoop up candy tossed along Douglas Avenue. Besides the candy, Ezekiel said his favorite part was meeting Captain Jack Sparrow from the movie ?Pirates of the Caribbean.?
Just down the road from Elgin, organizers hope the inaugural Northwest Fourth-Fest, a joint effort between Elgin, Hanover Park, Hanover Township and Hoffman Estates, could draw as many as 20,000 people in its first year.
Despite a lack of foliage, the festival, which runs through July 8 outside the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, has plenty of tents for patrons to get out of the sun. There's also a Cool Zone inside the arena, complete with air conditioning, free water and restrooms.
Hoffman Estates Mayor Bill McLeod said he was impressed by the expansive spread of carnival rides, entertainment, food vendors and activities.
?I think this is the wave of the future,? McLeod said of the combo festival. ?Towns always manage to work together in an emergency, so it's nice to be able to work together on something fun.?
Source: http://dailyherald.com/article/20120704/news/707049866/
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Staff writer Peter Ford questions a Chinese stallholder about why knockoffs went missing from a market in Beijing, when a man barrels up to him to aggressively video his interview.
Intrigued by reports from my sons that the Silk Street Market, an Aladdin?s cave of cheap counterfeit clothing that they frequent, had suddenly been stripped of everything bearing a false brand name, I went to have a look at the place last week.
Skip to next paragraph Peter FordBeijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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Sure enough the stalls were almost bare, staffed by sales girls who did not want to talk about why they had nothing but unknown Chinese brands to offer.
On closer inspection, some of the shirts turned out to have Chinese labels hastily and inexpertly sewn over existing (fake) Ralph Lauren labels, which remained legible. I was questioning a stallholder about this when a man barreled up to me holding a camera phone in front of him and stuck it in my face as he video-recorded my interview.
He refused to identify himself, other than as ?a passerby,? and continued to hold the camera close to my face. The stallholder said she did not know who he was, he ignored my requests to stop interfering, and eventually I ignored him.
Ending my interview, I made my way to the top floor, where I had arranged to meet the market?s general manager, Hu Wenli. The walls of her office corridor were covered with photos of local and foreign celebrities (including George Bush Sr.) in the company of ? none else but the man who had just been harassing me.
He turned out to be Zhang Yongping, the owner and president of the company that has owned the Silk Street Market since it was moved off the streets and into its current premises seven years ago. He insisted on being interviewed himself (though he spent two hours simply evading my questions), but did not once apologize for his behavior downstairs.
He said he had suspected that I was an undercover investigator attending a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that was taking place in Beijing at the time (see accompanying article) and had been curious to hear what I was talking about.
I left the market none the wiser about why the normal counterfeit goods had disappeared, (although I thought the WIPO conference probably had something to do with it) and spent a couple of days puzzling about what I was going to write.
And then, on Sunday, one of my sons went on a reconnaissance trip to the Silk Market, and found that everything had miraculously returned to normal. On Monday I went down there to see for myself, and sure enough, it offered the same cornucopia of counterfeits as it had always done.
There was an added benefit: Who should I bump into as I walked down a corridor lined with stalls selling fake luxury watches but Mr. Zhang and his general manager Ms. Hu. They looked surprised to see me, and Ms. Hu looked a little shamefaced, as well she might have done considering that it was now obvious that she and her boss had spent Wednesday morning being more than economical with the truth. But Zhang was just as adept at not answering my questions as he had been a few days earlier.
He walked away from my questions. Too late, I thought of taking out my iPhone and filming him walking among all the counterfeits he had told me did not exist any more in his market. Then, perhaps, we would have been even.
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Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/07/04/my-android-apps-makes-app-management-easier/
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ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) ? Stem cells found in amniotic fluid can be transformed into a more versatile state similar to embryonic stem cells, according to a study published July 3 in the journal Molecular Therapy. Scientists from Imperial College London and the UCL Institute of Child Health succeeded in reprogramming amniotic fluid cells without having to introduce extra genes. The findings raise the possibility that stem cells derived from donated amniotic fluid could be stored in banks and used for therapies and in research, providing a viable alternative to the limited embryonic stem cells currently available.
Amniotic fluid surrounds and nourishes the fetus in the womb. It can be extracted through the mother's abdomen using a needle in a process called amniocentesis, which is sometimes used to test for genetic diseases. The fluid contains stem cells that come from the fetus. These cells have a more limited capacity to develop into different cell types than stem cells in the embryo.
The researchers used stem cells from amniotic fluid donated by mothers undergoing amniocentesis for other purposes during the first trimester of pregnancy. The cells were grown on a gelatinous protein mixture in the lab and reprogrammed into a more primitive state by adding a drug called valproic acid to the culture medium. An extensive set of tests found that these reprogrammed cells have characteristics very similar to embryonic stem cells, which are capable of developing into any cell type in the body -- a property known as pluripotency.
Even after growing in culture for some time, the reprogrammed cells were able to develop into functioning cells of many different types, including liver, bone and nerve cells. They also maintained their pluripotency even after being frozen and rethawed.
The results suggest that stem cells derived from amniotic fluid could be used in treatments for a wide range of diseases. Donated cells could be stored in banks and used in treatments, as well as in disease research and drug screening. A previous study estimated that cells from 150 donors would provide a match for 38% of the population.
Alternatives to embryonic stem cells are keenly sought because of ethical concerns and limited availability of donor embryos. Previous research has shown that it is possible to make adult cells become pluripotent by introducing extra genes into the cells, often using viruses. However, the efficiency of the reprogramming is very low and there is a risk of problems such as tumours caused by disrupting the DNA. The new study is the first to induce pluripotency in human cells without using foreign genetic material. The pluripotent cells derived from amniotic fluid also showed some traits associated with embryonic stem cells that have not been found in induced pluripotent stem cells from other sources.
Amniocentesis is associated with a small risk of causing a miscarriage, estimated to be about one in 100.
Dr Pascale Guillot, from the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial, said: "Amniotic fluid stem cells are intermediate between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. They have some potential to develop into different cell types but they are not pluripotent. We've shown that they can revert to being pluripotent just by adding a chemical reagent that modifies the configuration of the DNA so that genes that are expressed in the embryo get switched back on.
"These cells have a wide range of potential applications in treatments and in research. We are particularly interested in exploring their use in genetic diseases diagnosed early in life or other diseases such as cerebral palsy."
Dr Paolo De Coppi, from the UCL Institute of Child Health, who jointly led the study with Dr Guillot, said: "This study confirms that amniotic fluid is a good source of stem cells. The advantages of generating pluripotent cells without any genetic manipulation make them more likely to be used for therapy.
"At GOSH we have focused on building organs and tissues for the repair of congenital malformations, which are usually diagnosed during pregnancy. Finding the way of generating pluripotent cells from the fluid that surround the fetus in the womb move us one step further in the this direction."
The study was funded by the Genesis Research Trust, the Henry Smith Charity and Action Medical Research.
The children's charity Action Medical Research are funding the researchers to explore the therapeutic benefits of transplanting donated placental stem cells from healthy babies to babies with brittle bone disease.
Dr Caroline Johnston, Research Evaluation Manager with children's charity Action Medical Research said: "These new findings could be a step forward for treatments of a wide range of diseases that affect babies and children. We are proud of our history of funding medical breakthroughs and of our support for these researchers in their move towards life changing therapies."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/aAxQy-P5e70/120703133741.htm
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The world wide web has changed the world as we know it. ?It?s made the world a smaller place, led to amazing discoveries, and even sparked revolution.
Google wants us to celebrate our freedom this Independence Day and support a free and open internet.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
Get Blippitt via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
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FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the State Department in Washington. The Obama administration says Pakistan is reopening supply lines into Afghanistan after the U.S. issued an apology for the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATO airstrike. Clinton says she told Pakistan?s foreign minister in a telephone conversation that the U.S. is ?sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military.? She says both sides acknowledged mistakes that resulted in deaths. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the State Department in Washington. The Obama administration says Pakistan is reopening supply lines into Afghanistan after the U.S. issued an apology for the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATO airstrike. Clinton says she told Pakistan?s foreign minister in a telephone conversation that the U.S. is ?sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military.? She says both sides acknowledged mistakes that resulted in deaths. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
Oil tankers, which were used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, are parked, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, July 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
Pakistani mechanics yield the body of an oil tanker, which was used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, parked with other tankers in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, July 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
Shows the recently opened supplied routes from Pakistan to Afghanistan
A Pakistani mechanic works on an oil tanker, which was used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, while parked with other tankers in Karachi, Pakistan, Tuesday, July 3, 2012. The Obama administration said Tuesday that Pakistan was reopening its supply lines into Afghanistan, after the U.S. belatedly issued an apology for the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATO airstrike. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Ending a bitter seven-month standoff, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized to Pakistan on Thursday for the killing of 24 Pakistani troops last fall and won in return the reopening of critical NATO supply lines into Afghanistan. The agreement could save the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in war costs.
Resolution of the dispute also bandages a relationship with Pakistan that will be crucial in stabilizing the region. The ties have been torn in the past year and a half by everything from a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis to the unilateral U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound.
But the accord carries risks for both governments ? threatening to make Pakistan's already fragile civilian leadership look weak and subservient to the United States while offering fodder to Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who contend that President Barack Obama says "sorry" too easily.
The first trucks carrying NATO goods should move across the border on Wednesday, U.S. officials said. It could take days to ramp up supplies to pre-attack levels, but around two dozen impatient truck drivers celebrated the news in a parking lot in the southern city of Karachi by singing, dancing and drumming on empty fuel cans.
"We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military," Clinton said, recounting a telephone conversation she had with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar concerning the deaths that led Pakistan to close the supply routes. "I offered our sincere condolences to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives. Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives."
"I am pleased that Foreign Minister Khar has informed me that the ground supply lines into Afghanistan are opening," Clinton added in her statement.
It marked the first time any U.S. official formally apologized for the deaths, a step hotly debated within the Obama administration and one demanded by Pakistan before it would reopen the supply routes. Pakistani lawmakers also wanted Washington to halt all air strikes in the country and stop shipping weapons and ammunition to Afghanistan through Pakistani airspace, demands the U.S. has ignored. Negotiations stumbled at one point over transit fees Pakistan sought to charge.
The November incident was the deadliest among the allies in the decade-long fight against al-Qaida and other extremist groups along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier.
An American investigation found that Pakistani forces fired first and U.S. soldiers responded in self-defense. It blamed bad maps, poor coordination and Islamabad's failure to provide the locations of its borders for the failure to determine if Pakistani forces were in the area. Pakistan argued that its troops shot at militants who were nowhere near coalition soldiers, and accused the U.S. of launching a deliberate attack.
The breakdown of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership arrived at an awful time, only weeks after Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus went to Islamabad to patch up the relationship and secure a Pakistani commitment to snuff out support given by its intelligence services to the Taliban ? support that Washington sees as a threat to the Afghan war effort.
The Obama administration, in an election year, expressed regret for the deaths but dug in its heels over the word "sorry," fearful it might open the president to criticism from Republicans already critical of Pakistan's links with militants fighting in Afghanistan.
It is also unclear what the apology will mean for the U.S. call for Pakistan to crack down on the militant Haqqani network, which is believed to use Pakistan as a rear base for attacks on American troops in Afghanistan.
Having titled his campaign book, "No Apology," Romney accuses Obama of having gone "around the world and apologized for America." The accusation refers to Obama's trip to Cairo early in his presidency, when he sought to repair U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Clinton's remarks made no reference to an "apology," though she did use the word "sorry."
Obama made no comments about Pakistan on Tuesday, leaving Clinton's statement as the only official U.S. explanation of the agreement. It was released just as Pakistani civilian and military leaders were meeting to discuss whether to reopen the routes, and there was no confirmation from Islamabad of a decision for more than two hours.
"The main thing is that a superpower has acknowledged our principled stance, and they have shown flexibility," said Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, speaking in Urdu. "It was not the issue of money. It was the issue of our sovereignty," he said, adding that American authorities assured Pakistan there would be no repeat of the incident.
The prime minister's office said the government reopened the supply lines in and out of Afghanistan to help its northern neighbor's "transformation process" more than a decade after bin Laden used the country to launch the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the U.S. responded by helping overthrow the Taliban.
It stressed that reopening the supply lines would help the U.S. pull out of Afghanistan sooner, saying the transition was in "Pakistan's interest." The statement sought to head off the inevitable political backlash in a country where anti-American sentiment is rife and the United States is often blamed for internal problems.
Still, Pakistan's more conservative political groups rejected the decision. Amirul Azim, a top leader of Pakistan's radical Jamaat-e-Islami party, said, "The main thing is that we should not reopen the NATO supply route, and we should isolate ourselves from this so-called war against terrorism."
And the fallout could hurt Pakistan's civilian government, which was re-established four years ago after a history of military coups. It has struggled to assert itself against the powerful Pakistani army and hardline Islamist religious leaders and politicians, who will likely point to the several parliamentary demands the U.S. ignored, including the call for an "unconditional apology" for the attack. Washington mentioned mistakes on both sides.
Clinton said Pakistan wouldn't charge any new transit fee and the reopening would help the U.S. draw down its forces in Afghanistan "at a much lower cost."
The U.S. government has never paid transit fees directly. Pakistan charges companies $250 per truck for transit, and the U.S. accounts for those fees in its contracts with those companies, so it pays indirectly. During negotiations Pakistan had asked for a flat fee of up to $5,000, but Washington offered extensive road construction projects to sweeten the deal.
With the supply lines closed, the U.S. has been forced to use more costly transportation routes through Russia and Central Asia. Panetta had estimated the cost at an extra $100 million a month, warning that it could get more expensive as the U.S. started to withdraw equipment in advance of the 2014 troop drawdown in Afghanistan.
Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said that once the backlog of materiel clears the re-opened supply routes, "we expect to be able to save between $70 million and $100 million per month."
The $100 million a month estimate would mean the lengthy standoff cost U.S. taxpayers some $700 million, and denied Pakistan's revenue-starved government millions of dollars in transit fees.
The total could be more.
The Pentagon asked Congress last week for approval to transfer $2.1 billion from other funds to cover costs largely resulting from the closure of the Pakistan supply routes.
Three separate transfers totaling $1.7 billion covered increased fuel and transportation costs for the Army resulting from the closed routes. A fourth transfer of about $370 million was for the Air Force, which had to increase the transportation of supplies by air in part to compensate for the shutdown of the ground routes through Pakistan. The budget request did not specify how much of the $370 million was related to the Pakistan problems and how much was just additional support for the war.
Much of those added costs already have been incurred, but the Pentagon plans to do a review of the transfers to see whether any of the money can be saved, although no major changes are expected.
Panetta said Tuesday he welcomed Pakistan's decision.
"We remain committed to improving our partnership with Pakistan and to working closely together as our two nations confront common security challenges in the region," he said.
According to a senior defense official, the agreement also could cost the U.S. as much as $1.1 billion. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details were not final, said the Pentagon intends to submit $1.1 billion in approved requests for reimbursement of money the Pakistan government has spent on counterterrorism operations that were incurred largely along the border.
The requests for aid are approved by the defense secretary and then Congress is notified. Lawmakers can vote to reject them.
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Rebecca Santana reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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