A new Nature Genetics report says that scientists may be closer to understanding how genes can influence serious heart conditions.
The failure to turn off a specific gene at the right time in an embryo’s development could mean illness later in life.
Mice in which the gene was left active were born apparently healthy, but suffered heart muscle problems later.
A heart charity said it might one day be possible to fix the genetic switch.
The science of “epigenetics”, which places importance not just on the genes you carry, but also how well they are working, is a relatively new area.
The scientists from the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco focused on two genes, and their role in cardiomyopathy, a enlarging and weakening of the heart muscle which is a feature in life-threatening heart defects in children and adults
There is increasing evidence that suggests that while you carry the same set of genes for life, environmental factors, such as diet or even your mother’s health while you are in the womb, could affect their activity, and your chances of certain illnesses later in life.
The scientists from the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco focused on two genes, and their role in cardiomyopathy, a enlarging and weakening of the heart muscle which is a feature in life-threatening heart defects in children and adults.
One of the genes, called Six1, appears to play an important role in embryonic heart development, while the other, Ezh2, seems to have the job of switching off genes, including Six1, when they are no longer needed.
The scientists tested the precise relationship by stopping Ezh2 from working in the embryo and foetus at various points during pregnancy, thereby allowing Six1 to go on working for longer than usual.
They found that while the mice were born apparently normal and healthy, they then started to develop the signs of cardiomyopathy.
This suggested that although leaving Six1 switched on in humans might produce a seemingly healthy baby, it could be storing up heart problems for later in life.
Analysis of the results revealed that, in a healthy pregnancy, Six1 should only normally be switched on briefly during heart development.
Dr. Paul Delgado-Olguin, one of the team, said: “When Six1 remains active for too long in Ezh2-deficient mice, it boosts the activity of other genes that shouldn’t be activated in heart muscle cells – such as genes that make skeletal muscle.
“The enlargement and thickening of the mice’s hearts over time eventually led to heart failure.”
They are hopeful that further work will reveal more about the roots of congenital heart problems in early life.
Heidi Klum and Seal have released an official joint statement confirming the end of their seven-year marriage.
Reports emerged on Saturday that the pair were to divorce amid claims Heidi Klum was fed up with Seal’s “hard partying”.
In the official statement, the couple blamed their split on “growing apart”.
Heidi Klum and Seal’ statement read: “While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate.
“We have had the deepest respect for one another throughout our relationship and continue to love each other very much, but we have grown apart.
“This is an amicable process and protecting the well-being of our children remains our top priority, especially during this time of transition.
“We thank our family, friends, and fans for their kind words of support. And for our children’s sake, we appreciate you respecting our privacy.”
After marrying at his beachfront home in Mexico in 2005, Seal and Heidi Klum kept their promise to renew their vows every year on their anniversary with their close friends and family.
Heidi Klum and Seal have three children together – Henry, 6, Johan, 5, and Lou, 2 – as well as Heidi’s daughter Leni, 7, from a previous relationship with Italian businessman Flavio Briatore.
The tension in their relationship is believed to have started when the pair holidayed with their three children in Ibiza in August.
A source told the Sunday Mirror: “They were always the couple everybody strived to be but lately it all started to change. Seal seems to have been partying a lot more often than usual.
“When they had their holiday in Ibiza last summer, Seal hit it hard, was out at clubs and with his friends a lot and Heidi was left with their kids trying to enjoy herself. The cracks were appearing and everybody was talking during that trip. He seemed off the rails.”
The source added: “They’ve spent a lot of time apart too on work assignments and that hasn’t helped matters.
“Then when Seal came back to the UK to do promotional work for his next album, he seemed sleepy and not with it on shows like Loose Women, when he was very late for his appearance.”
Another source told The Sun today: “The marriage ended months ago in reality. They rarely saw each other and it wouldn’t be unusual for them to go months without spending any real quality time together. Ships that pass in the night would be an overstatement.”
38-year-old German-born Heidi Klum is reportedly expected to file papers at Los Angeles’ County Superior Court this week citing “irreconcilable differences”.
48-year-old Seal – real name Seal Henry Samuel – left a cryptic message posted on his Twitter page on Friday that read: “The End.”
The message was attached to a picture that appeared to show the star’s forearm bearing an imprint of a set of wings – a possible reference to Heidi Klum’s role as a Victoria’s Secret winged “Angel” model.
On December 26, Heidi Klum posted a picture on Twitter of the couple on the slopes in Aspen
The split paves the way for a multi-million-dollar divorce battle between the golden couple.
Heidi Klum, one of the world’s most in-demand models, is reported to have earned more than $18 million in the past year alone.
Seal, who is best known for his Kiss From A Rose single, has sold more than 20 million albums and won three Brit Awards and three Grammys in a career spanning 20 years.
The couple owns a home in Mexico and an $13 million mansion in Los Angeles. Yesterday there was no sign of them at the LA house, which is set in an exclusive gated community in Mandeville Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills.
Their neighbours include Hollywood actor Ben Affleck and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
On Wednesday, Seal was in London to pre-record a performance of his new single Backstabbers for Jonathan Ross’s ITV chat show, which was broadcast on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, Heidi Klum was alone as she attended the Golden Globes awards in Hollywood last Sunday.
News of the split comes just weeks after the couple posed, apparently happily, for a photo on a skiing holiday in Colorado.
On December 26, Heidi Klum posted a picture on Twitter of the couple on the slopes in Aspen with the caption “Sun and Snow and @Seal”. Heidi Klum divorced her first husband, stylist Ric Pipino after five years together in 2002 and met Seal a year later in 2003.
At the time she had just split from Formula 1 billionaire Flavio Briatore.
Fujifilm is moving into the beauty market by launching its own range of anti-ageing creams, Astalift.
The Japanese photography company has harnessed its expertise with collagen and antioxidants – used to fix emulsion to film and prevent the image fading – to produce a compound that protects the skin from harmful ultra-violet sun rays.
According to Fujifilm, the new Astalift products help to boost skin tone and contain an antioxidant called astaxanthin – a pink pigment found in shellfish and salmon.
Scientists from research groups in Europe, America and Asia have recognized astaxanthin as more effective at reducing the damage caused by ultraviolet rays than CoQ10 – the antioxidant co-enzyme that is commonly used in anti-ageing treatments.
Andrzej Brylak, director of Fujifilm’s European beauty and health division, said: “Collagen only started being used by the cosmetics industry relatively recently.
“It is a key ingredient in film emulsion and we have a very long history of research in this area. Preventing oxidization from light exposure is also a big issue in protecting film and a similarly big issue in preventing skin damage.”
Fujifilm is moving into the beauty market by launching its own range of anti-ageing creams, Astalift
The transition into the beauty market comes when rival, Kodak, is filing for bankruptcy protection in the United States.
The popularity of digital cameras has begun to kill of traditional photographic companies.
Rachel Watson, a senior lecturer in aesthetic dermatology at Manchester University told the Sunday Times: “Proving this Astalift product has a benefit will be the key issue.
“There is now a lot of research on antioxidants and we are making headway with products that make a difference but the question with this new formulation will be whether it really has an effect.”
How Astalift anti-ageing creams work?
Fujifilm says a special collagen call Pico-Collagen can penetrate the skin through gaps between cells. It is believed to work from inside the skin to restore the skin’s youthful suppleness and elasticity.
Collagen is also used in photography to stop old photographic images fading.
The natural ingredient in the product is astaxanthin and is believed to protect the skin from ultraviolet light.
Catherine Mok, a thoroughly modern working mother, decided to give birth during 2012, the Year of the Dragon, which is considered to be one of the most expensive years for having a baby.
Like many ethnic Chinese around the world, Catherine Mok believes the mythical dragon is the most auspicious sign in the traditional 12-year zodiac cycle.
“The dragon is special,” said the Hong Kong native, who works as a makeup artist.
“Of course, I am not willing to wait 12 years for a dragon baby, but I was willing to wait one or two years.”
Catherine Mok is due to deliver her second child, another daughter, in early February.
In part because of greater demand for maternity services, Catherine Mok plans to spend 100,000 Hong Kong dollars ($12,820) for medical care alone.
That is 50% more than the amount spent on the birth of her first child, Ashley, just three years ago during the Year of the Rat, a less auspicious year.
Many couples across Asia are making extra efforts to give birth to so-called “dragon babies” in 2012.
The trend is expected to trigger a temporary fertility boom and place a strain on public services in certain cities, as well as cause some families to go on spending sprees.
In Hong Kong, the government expects 5% more births in 2012, compared with 2011. Doctors and academics believe the figure may be as high 10%.
Companies selling infant formula milk, nappies and prams are expected to cash in, as well as specialist service providers.
Many couples across Asia are making extra efforts to give birth to so-called "dragon babies" in 2012
According to Chinese tradition, a woman’s body is at its most vulnerable after birth.
If possible, she should enter a period of confinement at home for one month after birth, to ensure her long-term recovery.
BBcare, a Hong Kong agency that provides pre- and postnatal services, expects 20% growth in revenues in 2012, compared with 2011, due to the dragon baby trend.
The largest part of its business is referring postnatal care nurses to expectant families.
Average hourly rates have already risen 15%, according to Wendy Lam, an experienced nurse at BBcare.
The agency says enquiries have jumped 25%, and it is forecasting more successful referrals than in previous years.
With so many mothers giving birth in Hong Kong, the company believes there will be a shortage of postnatal care workers.
The dragon baby boom is also expected to give a boost to property markets in some Asian cities.
In a recent research note, analysts at Citi investment bank argued there would be more births and marriages in the new lunar year, leading to an increase in property transactions in Hong Kong.
It explains that the Western calendar has 365 days, whilst the lunar year has 354 days.
The extra days add up to one month every three years, creating a “leap year” in the Year of Dragon.
Citi property analyst Ken Yeung cites data showing the number of marriages grew by 12% in good years, compared to just 1% in other years.
“These new marriages provide a good source of potential home buyers,” he writes. “This should drive structural demand for homes in 2012, while new supply will remain tight in the near term.”
Property prices in mainland China and Hong Kong have fallen because of Beijing’s efforts to cool economic growth.
The fact that the Year of the Dragon is a lucky time to give birth is widely accepted in the Chinese-speaking world, from Taiwan to Indonesia.
But giving birth this year is especially expensive, compared with other times, and not everyone is jumping into the fray.
Charlie Chen, China consumer analyst at BNP Paribas, says other factors are at work when it comes to deciding when to have a baby.
Like others in the financial industry, his salary and bonus are, in part, determined by the performance of global markets.
With so much uncertainty in Europe and the US, Charlie Chen says he has no choice but to pass on the dragon.
“I am married,” he says.
“Personally, I would like to have a baby in the Year of the Dragon, but I’ve got to postpone it because of market turmoil.”
The death toll of Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster is raised to 13 after divers have found the body of a woman in the wreck of vessel.
Italian fire service divers found the woman’s body on deck seven of the vessel, about 10 m below the water line, Italy’s Civil Protection Authority said.
Rescue workers are still looking for 20 people who are believed to be missing.
The ship sank on 13 January after hitting rocks near the island of Giglio, off Tuscany.
The death toll of Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster is raised to 13 after divers have found the body of a woman in the wreck of vessel
The woman who has now been found was wearing a life-jacket, officials say. Her body is being removed from the ship.
Only eight of the 13 bodies discovered have so far been identified.
Four of the victims were French, one was Italian, one Hungarian, one Spanish and one German, officials say.
The identity of a woman whose body was found on Saturday has yet to be established, along with those of three men discovered previously.
The head of the Civil Protection Agency, Franco Gabrielli, said the woman may be a Hungarian who was reported missing but was not on the ship’s embarkation list.
There could have been more “illegals” on board, he said, referring to people who were not registered to be on the vessel.
There were known to be 4,200 people on the cruise ship when it got into trouble.
Costa Concordia captain, Francesco Schettino, is being detained under house arrest while his actions are investigated.
Francesco Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated. He denies the allegations.
Prosecutors say Francesco Schettino was sailing too close to Giglio on an unauthorised course in order to perform a “salute” – a greeting to islanders.
The Italian media have released a new recording in which Captain Francesco Schettino appears to say he will be the last to leave the ship.
In a previously released tape an official is heard repeatedly ordering him back on board.
Coastguard and navy divers have been blasting their way into submerged areas of the vessel using explosives in an effort to find those unaccounted for.
Emergency officials said on Saturday they would not end the search until the whole ship had been examined.
Work has been suspended several times due to poor weather.
On Saturday rescuers halted their search of the submerged parts of the ship due to rough sea conditions, but they were allowed back in on Sunday.
More than 600 members of the Italian emergency services are working on the search operation.
One official said swift action was needed to remove the fuel. An Italian naval vessel is on standby as a precaution should there be an oil leak.
Although there has been no leak so far, the civil protection agency says there is pollution in the water from solvents and disinfectants which were on board the vessel.
Andy Atkins, his wife Jenny and their four-year-old son Logan miraculously escaped unscathed after their plane plunged into the sea – and doctors passing by in a boat jumped in to save them.
The Texas family was on a sightseeing flight along the coast of Roatan, off Honduras, when the plane’s engine cut out and the craft plummeted into the sea.
There was panic as the plane was sucked under the surface, with Andy Atkins and the pilot desperately scrambling to save his wife and child.
“I dove back under looking for them, came back, got air, went immediately back down,” Andy Atkins, an attorney from Dallas, told NBCDFW.com.
“I came up and I had Logan in my arms and, by the time I got to the surface, Jenny was also at the surface with the pilot holding her.”
But he added: “We were all still in shock at that point.
“We knew that we had survived the initial crash but we didn’t know where it was going to go from there.”
The Texas family was on a sightseeing flight along the coast of Roatan, off Honduras, when the plane's engine cut out and the craft plummeted into the sea
Miraculously, a boat happened to be passing and several people jumped into the water to save them.
Several people on a nearby boat jumped in to save them.
Among the divers were a U.S. Navy doctor and another physician who immediately started treating Jenny Atkins and the boy, NBCDPW reported.
“They screamed that there’s two doctors on board,” Andy Atkins said.
“They got both of them on the back of that boat to give them oxygen and treated them with all their skill.”
The family members were later treated at hospital.
The Atkins family is planning another trip to Roatan this summer – and said the accident brought them closer to the island and the people there.
”It reaffirms your faith in people and humanity that so many people stepped in to help that didn’t have to,” Andy Atkins said.
“We appreciate that we feel like we’ve been given a second chance.”
An unnamed researcher secretly filmed more than 100 young single women from behind using a camera in his buttonhole when he examined the alluring sway of women’s hips when they walk.
The covert footage was viewed by two other men – who were asked to judge each wiggle on an attractiveness scale of one to five.
Their research revealed that women at the peak of their fertility cycles walk more slowly and seductively than those who are not.
This subtle change in behaviour is subconscious but has clear evolutionary benefits – as it makes a woman appear more attractive just at the time when she is most likely to fall pregnant, the research showed.
The women were unaware of the nature of the study and were asked for a saliva sample to test for the presence of a hormone.
Levels of the hormone indicated whether they were approaching the most fertile time of the month.
The secret of the wiggle, well known for leaving men smitten when demonstrated by attractive women such as the singer Beyonce, was confirmed when the researcher compared the hormone test with the ratings from the judging panel.
Professor Nicolas Gueguen led the study at the behavioural sciences unit of the University of Bretagne-Sud in France.
And it is not the first time Prof. Nicolas Gueguen has studied the female form. His previous research has examined whether a woman’s bust size affects her ability to hitchhike and whether a woman’s hair colour affects her success as a charity worker.
The secret of the wiggle, well known for leaving men smitten when demonstrated by attractive women such as the singer Beyonce, was confirmed when the researcher compared the hormone test with the ratings from the judging panel
He is currently studying whether women wear shoes with higher heels when they are fertile.
For the “wiggle test”, Prof. Nicolas Gueguen recruited 103 young women who were undergraduate business and social science students at his university – telling them he was conducting an experiment to test their word choices.
All were single, heterosexual and aged between 18 and 22.
Prof. Nicolas Gueguen had already ruled out any who were using the contraceptive pill in case the hormones affected the experiment.
Each woman was individually asked to sit in a room and wait. After a short time, an attractive man entered and sat with them. The man was asked to smile at them and engage them in friendly conversation.
Unknown to the women, the man had been pre-selected for his attractiveness by a separate group of 31 women who had awarded him an average of 7.28 on a scale of 1 to 9.
The man then accompanied the women down a corridor to the laboratory, where they were told the study would take place. But without their knowledge, the man deliberately walked behind to film them. Once they reached the room, the women’s saliva was tested.
They were also then told the purpose of the experiment and asked for their permission to use the video footage. All gave their consent.
The results showed women at the peak of their fertility cycles were rated an average of 2.96 on the scale for sexiness, compared with 2.31 for those at the least fertile point.
The most fertile women also took about three seconds longer on average to complete the same short walk. Prof. Nicolas Gueguen and his researchers concluded: “We found that women near ovulation spent more time walking down a long hallway and their gaits were perceived to be sexier by males.
“Such results confirm that subtle behavioural cues are influenced by menstrual cycle.”
In his research Prof. Nicolas Gueguen is keen to point out other studies that have observed female behaviour, including one which involved watching women while they were seated in university cafeterias, bars or nightclubs.
“The women used subtle nonverbal behaviours such as nodding, leaning forward, self-touching, hair-flipping and hair-tossing in courtship and flirting relationships”, it says.
A study at speed-dating events found women who mimicked the behaviour of the men they were talking to were deemed more attractive than the other participants. And another found women with slightly enlarged pupils were considered more feminine.
Joe Paterno, the legendary former football coach of Penn State University, has died aged 85, reports say.
Joe Paterno led Penn State University to more wins than any other top division college football coach in US history.
The legendary football coach was sacked in November 2011 after 46 years in the post, amid accusations that he failed to act over child abuse claims against an assistant coach.
Joe Paterno, the legendary former football coach of Penn State University, has died aged 85
Joe Paterno was suffering from lung cancer. He fell and broke his pelvis at his home in December.
His family said on Sunday that “he died as he lived”.
“He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been,” they said in a statement.
Joe Paterno was a hero to many for winning more games than anyone else in major college football – 409 victories at Penn State.
But his reputation became tarnished when, in November, his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, 63, was arrested for allegedly abusing eight boys between 1994 and 2009.
Joe Paterno was forced to resign after it emerged he had been told that jerry Sandusky had been seen abusing a boy as young as 10 in a locker room shower in 2002, but failed to alert the police.
Joe Paterno said he had alerted the university’s athletic director about the allegation, but regretted not taking it further.
Police have said that Joe Paterno fulfilled his minimum legal requirement but have suggested the coach had a moral responsibility to do more.
“This is a tragedy,” Joe Paterno coach told the Washington Post.
“It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more”.
About 150 people have been killed during the co-ordinated attacks by Islamist militants in the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday, witnesses and reports say.
Hospitals are struggling to deal with the numbers of killed and injured.
A series of explosions ripped apart police buildings, passport offices and immigration centres on the city, which is now under a 24-hour curfew.
Boko Haram militants said they carried out the attacks, which would be their bloodiest assault to date.
The group has said it wants to overthrow the national government and install an Islamic state.
Its members have frequently attacked police stations and other symbols of state power, but the group has also bombed churches and killed hundreds of people – including many Muslim and Christian civilians.
President Goodluck Jonathan promised that the perpetrators would “face the full wrath of the law”.
“As a responsible government, we will not fold our hands and watch enemies of democracy, for that is what these mindless killers are, perpetrate unprecedented evil in our land,” Goodluck Jonathan said.
About 150 people have been killed during the co-ordinated attacks by Islamist militants in the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday, witnesses and reports say
On Saturday in Kano, a city of nine million people, most of them Muslims, Red Cross teams have been collecting bodies from the streets and taking them to mortuaries.
A medical official told the AP news agency that 143 people had been killed, and another official told AFP that 162 bodies had been counted.
Boko Haram, which loosely translates from the local Hausa language as “Western education is forbidden”, has been behind a string of attacks in recent years.
The group wants Islamic law across Nigeria, whose population is split between the largely Muslim north, and the south where Christianity and traditional beliefs predominate.
It first hit the headlines in 2009 when a spate of attacks by its followers on police and government buildings in the city of Maiduguri led to a crackdown in which hundreds died.
More recently, the group has launched bomb attacks on churches, drive-by shootings on government targets and other attacks across northern Nigeria, killing scores and forcing many more to flee.
But the Kano attacks appear to be the group’s most deadly co-ordinated assault.
The police said in a statement that four police stations around the city, the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS), as well as passport and immigration offices had been targeted.
There was also a shoot-out at the headquarters of the state police in the city’s eastern district of Bompai, reports said.
A local man, Andrew Samuel, described the scene of one blast: “I was on the roadside and I just heard a ‘boom’. As I came back, I saw the building of the police headquarters crashing down and I ran for my life.”
Witnesses said the bomber who attacked one of the police stations pulled up outside the building on a motorbike, dismounted and ran inside holding a bag.
Some unconfirmed reports have claimed suicide bombers carried out some of the attacks.
Nigeria’s Channels TV said in a statement that one of its reporters, Enenche Akogwu, had been killed in the attacks.
It said he had been “shot by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect”, outside the state government house.
The wounded were reported to include foreigners from an area near the SSS headquarters, which is home to many expatriates, particularly Lebanese and Indians.
A Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, told journalists that it had carried out the attacks because the authorities had refused to release group members arrested in Kano.
An amazing picture of the aurora borealis – the Northern Lights – shows how the phenomenon can light up the sky near the North Pole.
This weekend was set to be a bumper time for viewing the extraordinary apparition, thanks to unusual solar activity.
This picture was taken above Yellowknife, a city in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
The image was published as part of the AuroraMAX project, an initiative by the Canadian Space Agency which aims to help the public experience the wonder of the Northern Lights.
AuroraMAX project has been timed to coincide with the next solar maximum, the period when solar activity reaches an 11-year high, forecast to come in February 2013.
An amazing picture of the aurora borealis - the Northern Lights - shows how the phenomenon can light up the sky near the North Pole
The solar maximum causes an increase in the number of sunspots and in the geomagnetic activity which causes the aurora borealis and its South Pole equivalent, the aurora australis.
A short-term version of the same effect is set to occur on Sunday afternoon, when a blast of solar activity reaches the earth.
On Thursday astronomers noticed a coronal mass ejection, a burst of electrically charged particles thrown out by the sun.
Three days later, the storm will pass close to the earth, causing an upturn in the prevalence and extent of the aurorae.
In the past, similar incidents have caused the Northern Lights to be visible as far south as Virginia and Arkansas.
Co-pilot Segei Golev, who was onboard the UTair Boeing 757 flying from Bangkok to Novosibirsk in western Siberia, died from a heart attack, transportation prosecutors said Friday.
Sergei Golev, 44, suffered the attack in the cockpit and died despite all attempts at resuscitation – even a cardiologist, who was among passengers on the flight, failed to revive him.
Fortunately the 239 passengers onboard the UTair Boeing 757 landed safely in Novosibirsk despite Sergei Golev’s death.
The captain attempted an emergency landing in the Chinese city of Chengdu, but abandoned it because Sergei Golev died before the jet touched down.
Senior investigator Anastasia Utochkina told Life News: “The co-pilot died at 12:25 a.m., Novosibirsk Time (5:25 p.m. GMT), three hours after takeoff.
“The captain made a decision to descend, while the crew called over the tannoy for a female physician who happened to be among the passengers.
“However, her attempts to revive the man, who was lying on the cockpit floor, failed.”
Co-pilot Segei Golev, who was onboard the UTair Boeing 757 flying from Bangkok to Novosibirsk in western Siberia, died from a heart attack
Airport officials insist that the co-pilot was merely traveling as a passenger and in no way and at no point was in control of the aircraft.
Irina Levit, a press officer at Novosibirsk airport: “The deceased pilot was traveling as an ordinary passenger.
“The aircraft belongs to UTair airline, where Sergey Golev was employed. There was no threat to passengers.”
Sergei Golev was a crew member – a reserve pilot, tasked, ironically, with replacing a crew member in case they fall ill.
The Investigation Department of Russia’s transport authority has launched an inquiry into the case in an effort to uncover the cause of the incident.
The former Penn State coach Joe Paterno’s condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days, say his doctors.
Joe Paterno, 85, was diagnosed shortly after Penn State’s Board of Trustees ousted him on November 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky.
Joe Paterno is been getting treatment since, and his health problems were worsened when he broke his pelvis – an injury that first cropped up when he was accidentally hit in pre-season practice last year.
The former Penn State coach Joe Paterno's condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days, say his doctors
Family spokesman, Dan McGinn, says former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, who has lung cancer, is in serious condition after experiencing health complications.
“Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications,” spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement to the Associated Press.
“His doctors have now characterised his status as serious.
“His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time,” he said.
Joe Paterno has been in the hospital since January 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from his cancer treatments.
According to reports, Joe Paterno was read his last rites at the hospital.
The death toll of Costa Concordia disaster is raised to twelve after the body of a woman has been found on board of the Italian cruise ship.
The woman, who was wearing a life jacket, was found by divers on the fourth deck of the Costa Concordia.
Twenty people are still missing after the ship, with 4,200 people on board, struck a rock in shallow waters on 13 January off Tuscany’s Giglio island.
Costa Concordia captain, Francesco Schettino, is being investigated for manslaughter, which he denies.
The death toll of Costa Concordia disaster is raised to twelve after the body of a woman has been found on board of the Italian cruise ship
An unnamed police official said the woman’s body was found at around 13:30 local time (12:30 GMT) and was taken to the mainland.
“They will have to rely on DNA tests now to identify the victim after a week in the water,” he told AFP news agency.
Coastguard and navy divers resumed their search on Saturday, blasting their way into submerged areas of the vessel using explosives in an effort to find those unaccounted for.
Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said the body was found during a particularly risky search of an evacuation meeting point near the rear of the ship.
“The corridor was very narrow, and the divers’ lines risked snagging” on objects in the passageway, Cosimo Nicastro said.
Rescue officials on Saturday said they would not end the search until the whole ship had been examined.
One official says swift action needs to be taken to remove the fuel that is on board. An Italian naval vessel is on standby as a precaution should there be an oil leak.
The operator of the Costa Concordia is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US, it emerged on Friday.
Italy’s consumer association Codacons and two US law firms said they would file the suit against Costa Cruises on behalf of the passengers.
They want at least $160,000 for each passenger on the ship.
Captain Francesco Schettino is under house arrest, accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated.
Prosecutors say Francesco Schettino was sailing too close to Giglio on an unauthorized course in order to perform a “salute” – a greeting to islanders.
Sasha, a five-year-old boy from UK, has been raised by his parents, who kept his gender secret, as a “gender neutral” child.
From the moment Sasha was born, Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper have been at pains not to lumber their son with the stereotyping they fear that gender brings.
The parents simply called him “the infant” and kept his gender a secret from all but a few close friends and relatives.
As Sasha grew older, he was encouraged to play with dolls as much as Lego, slept in a neutral yellow room and was allowed to wear both boys’ and girls’ clothes.
Now, Sasha is five and at school Beck Laxton, 46, and Kieran Cooper, 44, believe it will be almost impossible to keep it up.
Last year parents in Canada who refused to say whether their child was a boy or girl stirred up outrage and accusations they were turning their child into a freak.
Sasha’s parents, who have faced their own share of raised eyebrows, are thought to be among the first British parents to speak about this far-from-traditional method of raising a child. They are keen to highlight the issue publicly and get other parents talking about it.
“I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,” Beck Laxton explained.
“Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?
“Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become. I start to get cross with it if it skews their potential.”
As Sasha grew older, he was encouraged to play with dolls as much as Lego, slept in a neutral yellow room and was allowed to wear both boys’ and girls’ clothes
The process began even before Sasha was born, with his parents choosing not to be told their baby’s sex after scans during the pregnancy. It wasn’t because they wanted to be a surprise, they just wanted to avoid the inevitable expectations of what having a boy or girl meant.
After Sasha was born, they waited 30 minutes before asking midwives his sex because they “did not want to prejudice his life with gender”. They gave him a name that suited both boys and girls and referred to him as “the infant” rather than a son or daughter.
It is only now that Sasha has started primary school that the secret has become impossible to keep and they have started telling the wider world that the child is a boy.
Beck Laxton, a web designer from Sawston, Cambridgeshire, admitted that keeping her child’s gender under wraps for so long had not been easy. At her mother and baby group, she said she was regarded as “that loony woman who doesn’t know whether her baby is a boy or a girl”.
“I could never persuade anyone in the group to come round for coffee,” she said.
“They just thought I was mental.”
At school, Sasha sometimes wears a ruched-sleeved and scalloped-collared shirt from the girl’s uniform list. But he has yet to encounter any teasing or bullying. “Nobody’s ever mentioned it and I would hope that if they actually said something to Sasha, he’d be confident enough to make a good response,” his mother said.
Sasha’s father, a computer software designer, said the child is aware he is a boy and has been allowed to grow up taking an interest in whatever he wants.
“If Sasha wants to dress up in girls’ clothes then so be it,” Kieran Cooper said. “But we’re not forcing it.
“The girl’s clothes and fancy dress are for fun at home. We don’t make Sasha go out in girl’s clothes.”
Beck Laxton said her own background had influenced her view about gender stereotypes.
“My mother’s very sporty and my dad was very emotional. We’d watch The Wizard of Oz and always start crying, whereas my mum would think we were really soppy,” she said.
“So it’s always seemed obvious to me that stereotypes didn’t fit the people I knew.”
Dr. Daragh McDermott, a psychology lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, said it was difficult to predict any long-term effects of Sasha’s unconventional upbringing.
“It’s hard to say whether being raised gender-neutral will have any immediate or long-term psychological consequences for a child, purely because to date there is little research examining this topic,” Dr. Daragh McDermott said.
“That being said, the family setting is only one source of gender-specific information and as children grow, their self-identity as male, female or gender-neutral will be influenced by school, socialization with other children and adults, as well as mass media.
“As a child grows they develop their own independent sense of self that will include their own individual gender identification.”
Last year, Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker insisted that they would raise their baby Storm as a gender-neutral child.
Of that case, Dr. Harold Koplewicz, a U.S. child psychiatrist, said he was “disturbed” that well-meaning parents could be so misguided.
“When children are born, they’re not a blank slate,” he said.
“We do have male brains and female brains. There’s a reason why boys do more rough and tumble play; there’s a reason why girls have better language development skills.”
Costa Cruises, the company operating Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off Italy is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US.
Italy’s consumer association Codacons and two US law firms said would file the suit against Costa Cruises on behalf of the passengers.
They want at least $160,000 for each passenger on the ship.
Meanwhile Italian officials say the search for 21 people still missing after the disaster will continue until the whole ship has been searched.
The rescue operation continued overnight in dry parts of the Costa Concordia.
Divers are now going into submerged parts at depths of up to 14 m with explosives to open up previously unsearched areas.
Reports say the grounded vessel is shifting at a rate of a few millimetres per hour.
If the ship slips into deeper water, fuel tanks could rupture threatening one of the most unspoilt parts of the Mediterranean.
Costa Cruises, the company operating Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off Italy is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US
Costa Cruises, owned by US-based Carnival Group, has blamed the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino for last week’s crash, in which at least 11 people were killed.
The Costa Concordia hit rocks off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio with more than 4,200 people on board a week ago. Hundreds were injured.
Relatives of victims are expected to come to Giglio, which is being visited by Senate President Renato Schifani, the number two in the Italian government.
Mitchell Proner, a lawyer with Proner & Proner, said: “Along with Codacons, we have formed an association and our firms are collectively going to be filing a suit in Miami, by Wednesday next week, on behalf of all the victims of the Costa Concordia disaster.”
He said claimants would be seeking compensation for continued medical care, loss of earnings as well as the psychological impact they had suffered while trying to get off the ship.
Mitchell Proner said that some of the claimants – currently 110 – would seek two or three times the minimum claim, while the worse cases could seek as much as 1million euros.
Costa Cruises said it was open to the concerns of all consumer associations and individual passengers.
“The company understands those concerns and will respond in due course, but for now, it wants to concentrate on dealing with the immediate tragedy,” said a spokesman for Costa.
“As an initial gesture, it has already sent letters to all those passengers on board asking them to detail their expenses and any costs they might have incurred so reimbursements can be made.”
Costa Cruises has blamed Captain Francesco Schettino for committing “grave errors of judgement” by steering the ship too close to Giglio on an “unauthorized manoeuvre”.
Captain Francesco Schettino is currently under house arrest suspected of manslaughter, which he denies.
Costa Cruises has begun the process of launching a civil claim against Francesco Schettino in Italy. But Mitchell Proner said that the firm could not pin all responsibility for the disaster on a “rogue captain”.
“It’s easy to say this captain acted alone,” Mitchell Proner said.
“There are indications that there have been regular route deviations in the past. There should have been safeguards on board, where were the alarms?
“At the time of the Titanic it might have been easy to say that radars didn’t exist. Nowadays, with all the technology, it isn’t. There had to be a failure in the system that allowed this to happen.”
The president of Codacons, Marco Ramadori, said Costa Cruises’ offer was insufficient.
“They are offering to refund the cost of the ticket as if you had missed a plane and lost your luggage. You cannot compare the two,” Marco Ramadori said.
Costa passengers are reported to have signed a contract when buying their cruise tickets that any litigation would have to be pursued under Italian law.
But Mitchell Proner said that he thought it likely that the US courts would accept the case.
“The US has a long tradition of protecting rights and not only is Costa owned by an American company but they have brought themselves into our stream of commerce,” Mitchell Proner said.
“There were 120 Americans on board and they will demand access to their rights,” he said.
Scientists claim that tall men are 24% less at risk of heart problems, besides other advantages.
Harvard researchers have found that those who are more than 6ft are 24% less likely to suffer from heart failure than men just a few inches smaller.
Scientists looked at the records of 22,000 male doctors in their mid-fifties who were subsequently followed over a 22-year period.
They each filled in an initial questionnaire on their height, weight and general health and then every year subsequently filled in surveys about any new medical diagnoses.
The study, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, found that 1,444 men developed heart failure which was about 7% of the total.
Men who were 6 ft (1.8 meters) or over were 24% less likely to report having heart failure than those who were 5ft 8 (1.72 meters) or smaller.
This was after their age and weight, as well as whether they had high blood pressure and diabetes, had all been taken into account.
The scientists think that one reason is that shorter men may have had childhood diseases that stunted their growth. In adulthood this could have led to the build-up of plaque in their arteries and higher blood pressure.
But they also think that the biology of taller men may put them at less risk.
Men who were 6 ft (1.8 meters) or over were 24 per cent less likely to report having heart failure than those who were 5ft 8 (1.72 meters) or smaller
Scientists say that there is greater distance between certain points in tall men’s arteries and their hearts which puts the heart under less strain.
Jeffrey Teuteberg, a cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who was not involved in the study said: “As much as we know about the development of very common diseases like heart failure, there’s still a lot we don’t know.
“There’s still a lot more that impacts the development of those diseases beyond those things.
“The message certainly shouldn’t be: <<If you’re tall, don’t worry about these sorts of things, or if you’re short, you’re doomed.>>”
Heart failure affects occurs when the heart are too weak to properly pump blood around the body and can be caused by heart attacks, which cause the organ to weaken.
At least 11 people have died in north-west Syria after a police van carrying prisoners was blown up on the Idlib-Ariha highway, reports say.
Sana, the official Syrian news agency, said the police van was attacked by an “armed group” on the Idlib-Ariha highway. An opposition group confirmed the incident but did not say who carried it out.
The news came as the Arab League hears a report by monitors observing implementation of its peace plan.
The league is due to decide whether to extend its mission in the coming days.
The 165-strong mission expired on Thursday with no sign of a halt to the government’s crackdown on protesters.
Analysts say the league is expected to renew the mission for another month.
The reports said Saturday’s attack happened in the Mastoumeh area in Idlib province.
Sana initially said 14 people had died, and 26 prisoners and six police were injured.
An ambulance which came to the aid of victims was also attacked, the agency added.
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number of dead at 11. It said the van had been hit by several roadside bombs.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Violence across Syria on Friday resulted in seven people being killed by security forces, opposition groups said.
The UN Security Council was told earlier this month that 400 people had been killed during the monitors’ first 10 days in Syria.
The UN had previously said that more than 5,000 had died since protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted last March.
The government in Damascus says that some 2,000 members of the security forces have also been killed combating “armed gangs and terrorists”.
In a separate development, the US says it is considering closing its embassy in Damascus because of increasing safety concerns.
Officials in Washington say they are talking to the Syrian authorities, as well as to the British and Chinese governments, who have embassies nearby. But no final decision had been taken.
The conclusions reached by the Arab League mission’s head, Sudanese Gen Mohammed al-Dabi, had been due to be discussed by a committee of ministers on Saturday, but unconfirmed reports say ministerial talks will not now be held earlier than Sunday.
The panel is chaired by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad al-Thani, whose country has previously suggested sending Arab peacekeepers to Syria.
Damascus has firmly rejected the idea.
It appears that there is no clearly thought out alternative to the monitoring mission, and no appetite – as yet – for a radical change of course.
League officials have already hinted that the most likely outcome will be to renew the mission for another month, possibly doubling the number of observers on the ground.
Last week, the head of the Arab League’s Cairo operations room, Adnan al-Khudeir, said the observers would remain in 17 difference places around Syria until the final decision is made.
Although the mandate of the observer mission came to an end formally on Thursday, the agreement covering it provides for an extension for a second month if both sides agree.
So far there has been no suggestion from Damascus that the monitors should be withdrawn.
German supermodel Heidi Klum and London-born crooner Seal are to file for divorce after six years of marriage, according to reports.
Heidi Klum, 38, and Seal, 48, will apparently file divorce papers in the LA County Superior Court early next week, TMZ reported.
According to TMZ, Heidi Klum will cite “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split.
The reports have shocked fans of the couple who often make public displays of affection at red carpet events, and are a picture of happiness with their four children.
Heidi Klum, Seal or their management are yet to comment on the reports.
German supermodel Heidi Klum and London-born crooner Seal are to file for divorce after six years of marriage, according to reports
They were last seen together on December 27, with Heidi Klum tweeting a picture of her and her husband smiling against the backdrop of mountains in Aspen, Colorado.
Heidi Klum and Seal met in 2004 while she was pregnant with her daughter Leni, now seven, with Italian businessman Flavio Briatore.
Seal was present for Leni’s birth and later adopted her.
He proposed on December 23, 2004, in an igloo he had built on a glacier in Whistler, British Columbia.
Seal and Heidi Klum married on the beach on May 10, 2005 in Mexico, near Seal’s home on Mexico’s Costa Careyes.
They have three children, Henry, six, Johan, five, and Lou, two.
Heidi Klum and seal are famous for renewing their vows every year on their anniversary in a lavish ceremony.
In 2010, Seal gushed about the tradition.
“Each year, Heidi and I get remarried,” Seal said.
“It’s a great party, but for about an hour, we go off on our own down to a private beach. We sit there with the kids and read vows to each other as the sun sets. It’s a very special moment to us.”
Splitting up their assets may prove to be a lengthy process.
According to Forbes, Heidi Klum raked in $20 million last year. It’s unclear how much Seal made.
Heidi Klum was previously married to stylist Ric Pipino in 1997, but the couple divorced in 2002.
Seal was spotted arriving at LAX yesterday morning, after promoting his new album in London.
Heidi Klum attended the Golden Globes alone on Sunday.
Around 100 left-wing activists have protested by burning Union flags outside the British embassy in Buenos Aires on Friday to demand Argentina break off diplomatic relations with the UK over the Falkland Islands dispute.
Tension has been increasing ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War in April.
Argentina is demanding talks on its claim to sovereignty over the territory, which it calls Las Malvinas.
But the UK has reaffirmed that the Falklands will remain British for as long as its inhabitants want.
Around 100 left-wing activists have protested by burning Union flags outside the British embassy in Buenos Aires on Friday to demand Argentina break off diplomatic relations with the UK over the Falkland Islands dispute
The protest in Buenos Aires was organized by the Socialist Workers’ Movement (MST).
Activists carried banners reading “Government break off relations now,” and “English out of the Malvinas”.
“It is unacceptable that they send reinforcements and that the little prince (William) should come on manoeuvres,” said protest leader Wilma Ripoll of the MST.
Willma Ripoll added that her group was planning further protests before Prince William – who is the second in line to the British throne – arrives in the Falklands next month for a tour of duty as a helicopter rescue pilot.
The protest comes amid an escalating war of words between London and Buenos Aires over the Falklands.
Argentine leaders were particularly angered by comments made by the British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday, when he said Argentina’s demand for sovereignty was “like colonialism” because it ignored the islanders’ right to self-determination.
He also said he had reviewed the Falklands’ military defenses and was prepared to send reinforcements if necessary.
Tension over the remote South Atlantic archipelago has been growing since 2010, when British companies began drilling for oil in waters off the Falklands.
Argentina has been rallying support for its claim from other Latin American nations, and President Cristina Fernandez has accused Britain of “arrogance” and “taking Argentine resources”.
Britain has held the islands since the 1830s, but Argentina insists it has a prior claim and in 1982 launched an invasion.
A British task force recaptured the islands in a short but bloody war in which 649 Argentine and 255 British servicemen were killed.
The US has called for dialogue between London and Buenos Aires to resolve the dispute.
“We recognize de facto UK administration of the islands, but take no position regarding sovereignty,” the State Department said.
Wearing an underwired bra is not always the most comfortable experience, but the non-underwired types just don’t offer the same uplift.
A new bra from UItimo claims to have come up with a third option. Ultimo’s Dreamwire bra is said to provide all the lift of an underwire, with none of the discomfort.
Ultimo, a company based in Glasgow, UK, run by entrepreneur Michelle Mone, spent two years devising the bra which it claims is the most comfortable in the world.
Made from a single piece of sculpted foam, and covered in a light-weight synthetic material, the Dreamwire bra has virtually no stitching or joins, making it much less likely to rub the skin.
Inside the cup is a type of foam padding that incorporates a soft plastic underwire that gives extra support to the bust. This foam also helps cushion the skin from any digging from the wire.
Made from a single piece of sculpted foam, and covered in a light-weight synthetic material, the Dreamwire bra has virtually no stitching or joins, making it much less likely to rub the skin
The Dreamwire bra, which will cost £24 ($37), is due to go on sale in UK at the end of this month.
The new bra has been trialed by 100 women over the past 14 months and is due to go on sale online and in Debenhams stores.
Michelle Mone, creator of Ultimo, was inspired to create the Dreamwire after years of wearing painful underwired bras. She tried and tested the Dreamwire herself and has never looked back.
She said: “I wear the Dreamwire every day – after you have worn it once you will never want to wear another bra, trust me.
“It has absolutely no gel yet it still creates the shape you want, with a comfort factor women have always dreamed of.”
A spokesman for Ultimo said the Dreamwire aimed to provide “pure comfort without losing any cleavage”.
“It is an everyday bra designed for comfort but without sacrificing any support or shape,” the spokeswoman said.
“It can be worn for 24 hours a day, for work, exercise and sleep, without the woman feeling any discomfort.”
Dante Autullo, a suburban Chicago man accidentally shot a 3.25 in (8.25 cm) nail into his skull but is recovering after doctors successfully removed it from the centre of his brain.
Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head.
The man had no idea the nail had entered his brain until the next day, when he began feeling nauseous.
Doctors told Dante Autullo that the nail came within millimetres of the area used for motor function.
Dante Autullo’s fiancee, Gail Glaenzer, told the Associated Press on Friday that he was in good spirits after the two-hour surgery to remove the nail at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois.
“He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he’s talking normal, he remembers everything,” she said.
“It’s amazing, a miracle.”
Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head
Gail Glaenzer said she had no idea the nail had entered his skull when she cleaned a cut on his forehead.
The woman convinced him to go to the hospital after he felt nauseous for much of Wednesday.
Dante Autullo thought that the nail gun had simply hit his forehead, but realized later that when the gun came in contact with his head, the sensor recognized a flat surface and fired.
While there are pain-sensitive nerves on a person’s skull, there are none within the brain itself.
Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said the part of the skull that was removed for surgery had to be replaced with a titanium mesh amid worries that it might have been contaminated by the nail.
Scientists who created a mutant bird flu, a potentially more deadly strain, have temporarily stopped their research amid fears of bioterrorism.
In a letter published in Science and Nature, the scientists call for an “international forum” to debate the risks and value of the studies.
US authorities last month asked the authors of the research to redact key details in forthcoming publications.
A government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.
Biosecurity experts fear a mutant form of the virus could spark a pandemic deadlier than the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak that killed up to 40 million people.
The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recommended key details to be omitted from publication of the research, which sparked international furor.
“I would have preferred if this hadn’t caused so much controversy, but it has happened and we can’t change that,” Ron Fouchier, a researcher from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, told Science Insider.
“So I think it’s the right step to make.”
While bird flu is deadly, its reach has been limited because it is not transmissible between humans.
However, the H5N1 flu virus was altered to be passed easily between ferrets, during the joint research by Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.
Two scientific journals want to publish the research – albeit in redacted form – and are trying to work out with the US government how to make the data accessible to “responsible scientists”.
H5N1 flu virus was altered to be passed easily between ferrets, during the joint research by Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US
The World Health Organization said in a December statement that limiting access to the research would harm an agreement between its members.
The NSABB is made up of scientists and public health experts, 23 from outside the government, and 18 from within.
It cannot stop publication but makes recommendations to researchers.
The scientists’ letter published on Friday argues that knowledge of more infectious strains before they mutate in nature is valuable for public health.
“More research is needed to determine how influenza viruses in nature become human pandemic threats,” the statement says, “so that they can be contained before they acquire the ability to transmit from human to human, or so that appropriate countermeasures can be deployed if adaptation to humans occurs.”
But some said the pause on research was not enough.
One critic of the studies, Richard Ebright, a biologist at Rutgers University, told Science Insider that the letter “includes flatly false statements” making assurances about the safety of H1N1 research labs.
Reports say that a meeting debating the research and steps forward could come during a World Health Organization meeting in February.
Etta James, the US soul singer best known for the tracks At Last and for I’d Rather Go Blind, has died aged 73.
It was announced last year that Etta James had been diagnosed with leukaemia and was undergoing treatment.
Etta James began singing in a group aged 14, before she embarked upon a solo career where she signed to the legendary Chess Records label.
The singer went on to win six Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Legendary producer Jerry Wexler once called her “the greatest of all modern blues singers”.
Etta James’ manager said she died at Riverside Community Hospital in California with her husband and sons at her side.
“It’s a tremendous loss for her fans around the world,” Lupe De Leon said.
“She’ll be missed. A great American singer. Her music defied category.”
Etta James began singing in a group aged 14, before she embarked upon a solo career where she signed to the legendary Chess Records label
Born Jamesetta Hawkins in 1938, her mother was only 14 years old, and she never knew her father.
Raised mainly by friends and relatives, Etta James began singing when her grandparents took her to a Baptist Church, where she joined the choir as a soloist.
Later, in San Francisco, she formed a singing group called the Creolettes, who were discovered by bandleader Johnny Otis, who coincidentally also died this week.
The band recorded together for a number of years but it was not until 1960, when Etta James signed to the legendary Chess Records as a solo artist, that she began to achieve musical recognition.
It was for this label that Etta James released her two most acclaimed albums, At Last and The Second Time Around.
The former included her impassioned cover of Muddy Waters’ I Just Want To Make Love To You, which is considered the predominant interpretation of the song – and gave Etta James her biggest chart hit in the UK, landing at number five in 1996 after it was featured in an advert for Diet Coke.
However, her success in the 1960s was hindered by an addiction to heroin, and she was forced to rebuild her career after quitting the drug in 1974.
Although Etta James was popular on the R&B and blues scene throughout her career, mainstream success eluded her for many years.
Etta James did not receive her first Grammy Award until 1994, for the album Mystery Lady, which consisted of covers of Billie Holiday songs. In 2003, Etta James was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sundance Film Festival 2012 started on Thursday night, January 19, in Park City ski resort, Utah. It will run until January 29, and it will have shows in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden.
This 28th edition will introduce 117 feature films from 30 countries, including 45 first-timers (24 in competition) and 91 world premieres. Featured in four different competition categories are 58 individual films.
The snow fell over the city when the festival started and made Mayor Dana Williams to mention a last year bill that officially disavowed the idea of climate change. Since then it has not snowed in Park City until this week.
Sundance Film Festival 2012 is taking place from January 19 until January 29.
On Thursday, the opening press conference of the Sundance Film Festival was held at the David Eccles Conference Center and Peery’s Egyptian Theater.
Robert Redford, wearing jeans and a black sweater, said about the films they were products of “dark and grim” times and the “suffering from a government that’s in paralysis.” However, “they’re breathing life into fresh, new stories.”
“In terms of what’s going on there… in terms of Mitt Romney, I mean, I’m not going to get into politics. The fact is you can see the (Republican) debates going on, this mushroom cloud of ego hovering over everybody... It’s kind of silly and stupid and I’m sorry about it… Mitt Romney can go and see what he wants to see. If he likes ‘Transformers,’ great, it’s there for him, but that’s not where we are… For years and years and years, you’ve all experienced what we had to live with, the fact that other countries are far more supportive of their artists than we are… But when you have congressional narrow-minded people, people who are afraid of change when change is the only thing that succeeds, the only thing we know is going to happen is that things are going to change,” Redford said.
Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival 2012 in the press conference held at the Egyptian Theater. (Photo by Calvin Knight)
Robert Redford then talked about the state of independent film.
“It’s true that independent films now are healthy. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It’s never been easy…What I’m seeing now is that… independent film is growing. You have people who used to work more exclusively in the mainstream that are now coming into the independent world…The reason I think this community is growing, I think, is because it’s offering more possibilities and more freedom and control for the artists themselves,” he said.
Robert Redford, 75, is the founder and the president of the Sundance Institute, that was created to promote the production of independent US and non-American cinema. He played with Paul Newman in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969).
“Independent film is the theme,” said festival director John Cooper.
One of the opening-night films was “The Queen of Versailles” by Lauren Greenfield, a chronicle of a couple that tried to build a palatial 90,000-square-foot mansion inspired by Versailles, “a movie about dreams, both collective and individual, and what happens when things go wrong,” as Greenfield described it. David Siegel and his wife, Jackie, lived a life of incredible luxury even before they decided to build the biggest single-family house in the United States. Siegel sued Greenfield and Sundance over a press-release description that said his house was foreclosed; the suit is ongoing.
“Hello I Must Be Going,” by Todd Louiso is about a love story between a 19-year-old man and a 35-year-old divorcee, and stars Melanie Lynskey. “Wish You Were Here,” by Kieran Darcy-Smith is a dark story of a vacation gone wrong that stars Joel Edgerton and Teresa Palmer; “Searching for Sugar Man,” by Malik Bendjelloul’s is a documentary about promising 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez and his fade into obscurity.
“All the film press in North America is at Sundance to discover films,” said Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. He is showing “Where Do We Go Now?” by Nadine Labaki and “The Raid” by Gareth Huw Evans at the festival.
Others works at the festival are “Red Hook Summer” by Spike Lee; “Lay the Favorite” by Stephen Frears starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rebecca Hall; “Under African Skies” by Joe Berlinger, a documentary on Paul Simon portrait; Julie Delpy with her relationship comedy “2 Days in New York,” in which she stars with Chris Rock.
The Sundance Film Festival has put nine of its short films online. They can be watched at www.sundance.yahoo.com. The films can be voted, and the winner will receive the Yahoo! Audience Award.
Sean Penn, Kate Bosworth, Peter Jackson, Bradley Cooper, Bruce Willis, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Richard Gere will be present this year at the Sundance Film Festival.
