An American Chamber of Commerce delegation has begun its first visit to Cuba in 15 years.
Chamber president Thomas Donohue said he was in Cuba to assess the economic changes taking place under President Raul Castro.
The US imposed an embargo on the communist-run island more than 50 years ago following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.
Members of the Cuban community in the US have criticized the visit.
American Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue arrived in Cuba to assess the economic changes taking place under President Raul Castro (photo AP)
They accuse Raul Castro’s government of arresting political opponents and violating basic human rights.
Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez said political opponents continued to be arrested “without justification,” in Cuba.
“Such conditions hardly seem an attractive opportunity for any responsible business leader,” Robert Menendez told the AP news agency.
Members of the trade delegation told AP that they were in Cuba to assess the trade possibilities in a post-embargo scenario.
However, the vast and politically-active Cuban community in the US has been strongly opposed to any change to trade ties with the communist-run island.
Since Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raul in 2006, Cuba’s communist government has introduced a number of economic reforms.
Cubans are now allowed to own small businesses and to buy and sell cars and properties.
“We are very pleased to be here. We are learning a lot about the changes taking place in Cuba,” said Thomas Donohue.
He said that Cuba is now “fundamentally different in terms of the number of people that are operating under the private system”.
In December, President Raul Castro called for “civilized relations” with the US, saying the two countries should respect their differences.
The US should drop its demand for regime change and allow both sides to continue work on improving relations, Raul Castro said.
The US Chamber of Commerce delegation was welcomed to Havana on Tuesday afternoon by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz.
Ukraine’s PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk has called on Russia to control its border to stop “terrorists” from crossing into his territory.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Kiev could solve the crisis quickly if Moscow stopped meddling in the situation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Kiev’s policies were pushing Ukraine into “fratricidal war”.
Ukraine’s PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk has called on Russia to control its border to stop terrorists from crossing into his territory
Earlier this week rebels and government forces were embroiled in some of the worst fighting of the crisis so far.
The separatists say they lost up to 100 fighters as they tried to seize Donetsk airport from pro-Kiev forces.
Ukraine’s interior ministry says the military is now in full control of the airport, although gunfire was reported in Donetsk itself on Wednesday.
Speaking on a visit to Germany, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the situation in the east was deteriorating and Russia’s involvement was causing huge difficulties.
“A number of trucks full of live ammunition, full of Russian-trained guerrillas crossed the Russian border into Ukraine,” he said.
“We ask Russia and Putin to block the border to Ukraine. If Russia is out of this game we can handle this situation in a week.”
Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said it had re-established contact with a monitoring team it reported lost in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, but it continued to refer to the group as “detained” and their fate is unclear.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called newly elected President Petro Poroshenko to congratulate him on receiving a “strong mandate” to govern.
Moscow had criticized the election because many in the east were unable to vote as a result of the unrest.
But analysts say the election has bolstered the confidence of Ukrainian officials in their dealings with Moscow.
On Tuesday, Arseniy Yatsenyuk denied Moscow’s long-standing claim that Ukraine owed billions of dollars in unpaid gas revenues.
The prime minister said that in fact Russia’s state-owed Gazprom owed Ukraine $1 billion in compensation for natural gas seized in the annexation of Crimea.
Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller said on Wednesday that Ukraine had used $1.7 billion worth of gas in May alone, and would owe $5.2 billion by June 7.
Study for a Seated St. Joseph, a rare Botticelli drawing, is to be sold at the Sotheby’s in London in July.
This is the first such drawing by Sandro Botticelli to be sold for a century.
Study for a Seated St. Joseph is believed to be the only drawing which can be clearly linked with one of Sandro Botticelli’s painted compositions (photo Sotheby’s)
The artwork is believed to be the only drawing which can be clearly linked with one of Sandro Botticelli’s painted compositions.
It is also thought to be the only drawing by Sandro Botticelli, created in the 1480s, in private hands.
It is estimated to fetch up to £1.5 million ($2.4 million) at the Sotheby’s auction on July 9.
Aside from an album of illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are only 12 surviving drawings by Botticelli – all but Study for a Seated St. Joseph are in museums.
The artwork comes from the collection of philanthropist Barbara Piasecka Johnson, the wife of the late John Seward Johnson – the co-founder of the Johnson and Johnson medical and pharmaceutical firm.
President of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia Alexander Ankvab is said to have fled the capital Sukhumi after opposition protesters seized his office.
Alexander Ankvab reportedly retreated to his home town Gudauta, 25 miles away, when talks with the opposition broke down.
Many people in the Russian-backed region are unhappy with the ailing economy and lack of reforms.
But Abkhazian nationalist feeling is also fuelling the unrest.
President of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia Alexander Ankvab is said to have fled the capital Sukhumi after opposition protesters seized his office
The protesters are led by Raul Khadzhimba, a former prime minister and vice-president of Abkhazia, who was defeated by Alexander Ankvab in elections in August 2011.
Abkhazia is recognized as a state only by Russia and a few other countries. It broke away from Georgia after a civil war more than 20 years ago and declared formal independence in 2008. Since then, it has relied militarily and financially on Russia.
Russia is reportedly sending two senior officials, presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and deputy security council secretary Rashid Nurgaliyev, to Sukhumi in response to the crisis.
Opinion among the opposition is said to be divided between those who want Abkhazia to rely less on Russia and those who instead want it to become part of Russia.
Alexander Ankvab accused the opposition of attempting a coup on Tuesday and said the security forces remained “loyal to the state” and were “taking measures to stabilize the situation”.
Raul Khadzhimba defended the protests, saying: “Over all the years of his rule the president did not allow anybody in his circle to do their work.
“He took upon himself everybody’s responsibilities on their behalf, whether he should or should not have been doing this. That led to our country in fact becoming an authoritarian regime.”
In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said: “The Russian side is following events closely and with concern… and considers it important that socio-political processes develop exclusively along legal lines.”
Dentists advise us that we should floss our teeth as well as brushing twice a day.
According to specialists, flossing lowers your risk of tooth decay and gum disease by preventing the build-up of plaque.
Plaque is the sticky film of bacteria fuelled by the carbohydrates we eat. If left to breed, these bacteria eventually begin to break down the tooth’s surface, leading to painful cavities that need filling, or even to the removal of the tooth if the decay is too widespread. Plaque begins to reform the minute you remove it, and if not removed it can lead to gingivitis, where gums become inflamed and bleed easily.
In a 26-year longitudinal study of men in Norway, teeth surrounded by inflamed gums were 46 times more likely to be lost by the end of the study than teeth surrounded by healthy gums.
Dentists advise us that we should floss our teeth as well as brushing twice a day
We know a toothbrush cannot address the plaque problem completely, as it’s so hard to reach areas between the teeth. The idea of using flossing to reach the rest is credited to a dentist from New Orleans called Levi Spear Parmly, who recommended using silk for the purpose back in 1815. But it’s not only humans who do it. Long-tailed macaques at the Buddhist shrine of Prang Sam Yot in Thailand take strands of long human hair and wind them round their fingers to get to those hard to reach parts of their mouths.
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that flossing reduces plaque levels, but what evidence is there that flossing can reduce the risk of both tooth decay and gingivitis? When you take a close look at the research, it’s not quite as straightforward as you may think.
A review of flossing in children found it could reduce decay, but in adults it’s not been as easy to demonstrate. A review published by the respected Cochrane Collaboration in 2012 gathered all the existing research on flossing and found just 12 trials, mostly conducted in the US, where adults were randomized either to brush their teeth as usual or to floss in addition.
They weren’t impressed with what they found. Combining the results of the studies and re-analyzing them, they found a possible small reduction in plaque, but the studies’ evidence was graded as weak and very unreliable.
“We are unable to claim or refute a benefit for flossing plus tooth brushing,” they said.
A reduction in plaque would suggest a reduction in tooth decay in the long-term, but not a single long-term randomized controlled trial had been done (the longest was nine months). None had included an assessment of tooth decay because it would be too soon to see any difference.
Flossing does help reduce the risk, if only by 8%. This was at least some positive news for flossing fans, in contrast to an earlier review from 2008 which found it couldn’t demonstrate any benefits for regular flossing.
But the quality of the evidence makes it hard to come to any strong conclusions. Cochrane Reviews not only summarize all the data available, but they rate the research according to how well it was designed and conducted. They judged that many studies didn’t come up to scratch, ranking the quality as “low”.
As poor as the evidence might be deemed to be, it’s still all we have to go on at the moment. So you could argue that if it may be useful for us, what’s the harm in getting everyone to floss anyway? Self-inflicted damage could be the reason, and some studies have investigated this.
One found that three of the 39 people taking part had damaged their gums one month into the study, but by two months, two of these people no longer had problems.
Another found two people had damaged their gums by using a type of automatic flosser, but not in quite the right way.
In the absence of any forthcoming evidence that could strengthen the case either way, if you are going to floss at least make sure it doesn’t do you more harm than good.
Wiz Khalifa opened up about his drug arrest while onstage at the Soundset Festival in Minnesota just hours after he was released from police custody.
Wiz Khalifa spent time in a West Texas jail early on Sunday after being arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession during an airport search.
Wiz Khalifa was on his way to the Soundset Festival in Minnesota when he was detained in Texas
The rapper was on his way to the Soundset Festival in Minnesota when he was detained, and he continued his journey to the music event after he was released on $300 bail.
During his set at the festival on Sunday night, Wiz Khalifa spoke about his arrest and thanked fans for supporting him via Twitter while he was behind bars.
Wiz Khalifa told the crowd: “I’m gonna ride for y’all. The same way y’all ride for me. Same way when y’all heard I was in that cell and y’all went on Twitter and y’all said, <<Free… Wiz>>… y’all better believe I snuck my cell phone in there for that s**t. I wasn’t going to miss out on the people who really care about me, who really want to see me do well and push me to the top. That’s what y’all gotta do for each other, keep that s**t going on.”
The US has announced a $5 billion “terrorism partnership fund” to help other countries tackle extremists.
The cash will help countries in the Middle East, Africa and East Asia.
President Barack Obama announced the plan at the US Military Academy in West Point, as he set out his foreign policy vision.
The end of the combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of the year would free up resources to tackle emerging threats elsewhere, he said.
President Barack Obama has announced a $5 billion terrorism partnership fund at the US Military Academy in West Point (photo The Journal News)
“I am calling on Congress to support a new counter-terrorism partnerships fund of up to $5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines.”
The money would go towards missions such as training security forces in Yemen, supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia, working with European allies to train a functioning security force in Libya, and helping French operations in Mali, Barack Obama said.
Turning to the civil war in Syria, Barack Obama promised to “ramp up support” for those in opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, although he did not give details about what that would mean in practice.
Barack Obama’s speech attempted to recast US foreign policy as one which would use military force when necessary but primarily acts on a platform of international consensus.
“We must broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to international law and – if just, necessary, and effective – multilateral military action.
“We must do so because collective action in these circumstances is more likely to succeed, more likely to be sustained, and less likely to lead to costly mistakes.”
Last week, the US sent about 80 troops to Chad as part of a mission to help locate hundreds of school girls abducted by Islamist group Boko Haram in neighboring Nigeria.
The address marks the start of a series of speeches from the president about foreign policy over the next 10 days, in an attempt to respond to critics who say current US foreign policy is weak.
On a trip to Europe, Barack Obama will give a speech about US commitment to Europe in Warsaw, meet with the G7 leaders in Brussels, and honor US veterans in Normandy at the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Author Maya Angelou, one of America’s leading literary voices of the last 50 years, has died at the age of 86.
Maya Angelou was best-known for her 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Maya Angelou was one of America’s leading literary voices of the last 50 years
It was the first of seven volumes of autobiography that traced her life from a childhood of abuse and oppression in the Deep South in the 1930s.
Raised by her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, Maya Angelou wrote about being raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of eight. After she told her family what had happened, the boyfriend was killed.
“I thought my voice had killed him, so it was better not to speak – so I simply stopped speaking,” she said. She remained mute for five years.
Maya Angelou later became a singer, dancer, cocktail waitress, prostitute and an actress before beginning her writing career.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which dealt with the racism and family trauma of her upbringing, spent two years on the US best-seller list.
Her career also straddled television, theatre, film, children’s books and music.
Maya Angelou’s poetry collections included Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (1971), And Still I Rise (1978), Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987), and I Shall Not Be Moved (1990).
Ben Shepard, a Kanye West fan, has launched a campaign to encourage the rapper to run for mayor of his native Chicago.
Ben Shepard has created the Kanye4Mayor.org website, and lists several reasons why Kanye West, 36, would make an ideal politician for the city.
Kanye West fan Ben Shepard has launched a campaign to encourage the rapper to run for mayor of his native Chicago (photo Getty Images)
In an open letter on the website Ben Shepard wrote: “Right now your home city is ruled over by a Mayor whose allegiances are not with the majority of Chicagoans. I want to invite you to run for mayor of Chicago in 2015 and make it the best city in the world. Doing this would require fixing some big problems. … Not to put any pressure on you but you are the only person in the world who could make this happen. There isn’t anyone else who (1) is wealthy and famous enough (2) is from Chicago, and (3) may actually understand the problems with the city.”
The website also includes quotes and lyrics from Kanye West’s songs and speeches.
Rahm Emanuel, the brother of Hollywood talent agent Ari Emanuel, is the current mayor of Chicago.
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are currently on their honeymoon in Ireland.
French police in the northern city of Calais is removing about 800 migrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa who are occupying camps near the port.
The authorities say the evictions are needed to deal with an outbreak of scabies in the camps, where numbers have swelled in recent months.
French police in Calais is removing about 800 migrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa who are occupying camps near the port (photo Reuters)
The migrants have been trying to get to Britain, and say they have nowhere else to go after the camps are destroyed.
Police moved into the site after a deadline for people to leave expired.
Several busloads of police in riot gear arrived at the camps early on Wednesday.
After a stand-off with local activists, the officers moved in and told migrants to pack their bags.
Local officials say the migrants will be transported to new accommodation somewhere in the region, but initial attempts to persuade them to board buses were unsuccessful.
Most people at the camps believe the UK will be a more welcoming place if only they can get there.
The migrants have been sheltering under plastic bags and sheets, without water, power or even enough food.
The camps are a few hundred metres from a terminal where ferries take passengers and goods back and forth between France and the UK.
The Thai army announces it has now released 124 people, including politicians and activists, who were taken into custody after the coup.
A military spokesman said a total of 253 people had been summoned. Fifty-three did not report and 76 were in custody.
Conditions for the release appear to include agreeing to avoid political activity and informing the army of travel.
Coup leaders, who took power last week, received royal endorsement on Monday.
Thailand’s former PM Yingluck Shinawatra has been released but remains under some restrictions.
Yingluck Shinawatra has been released by Thailand’s army but remains under some restrictions (photo Reuters)
Aside from politicians and activists, academics have also been detained.
Thailand’s army seized power on May 22, saying it wanted to return stability to the country after months of unrest.
Leaders of the anti-government movement have been released from custody but representatives of those who support the government remain in detention.
Correspondents say there is also a degree of skepticism about the total number of people in custody, with reports of more widespread detentions.
Rights groups have expressed alarm over the detentions, as well as the tight restrictions on media.
Television stations on Wednesday aired footage from the military showing five detainees, including pro-government “red-shirt” leader Jatuporn Prompan, at an unidentified location, in an apparent move to show they were being treated well.
Experts have said that the coup is unlikely to heal highly polarized political divisions in the country.
At least twenty patients and a nurse have been killed in a fire at a South Korean hospice in Janseong county.
Six others are in critical condition after the fire at Hyosarang Hospital, about 200 milles south of Seoul.
Most of those who died are thought to have been in their 70s and 80s, and confined to their beds.
At least 20 patients and a nurse have been killed in a fire at the hospital in Janseong county
Officials said most of the people who died suffocated because of toxic fumes. The fire was put out within half an hour.
Police said they had detained an 81-year-old patient suffering from dementia after security video footage showed him entering an area where the fire began, reports said.
The fire broke out shortly after midnight at a three-storey annex.
Agencies report that many patients on an upper floor of the building were unable to evacuate as their rooms were filled with smoke from the fire.
The nurse who died had been trying to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher, according to AFP.
Police said the building had recently undergone safety checks, reported Yonhap news agency.
Hospice director Lee Hyung-seok, apologized and told reporters: “I’ve committed a grave sin… There is no excuse when valuable lives were sacrificed.”
The incident comes at a time of mourning for South Korea after more than 300 people died in a ferry sinking last month.
The hospital incident also comes a day after seven people were killed and 20 others injured in a fire at a bus terminal in Goyang city.
Edward Snowden has described himself as a trained spy specializing in electronic surveillance, dismissing claims he was a mere low-level analyst.
In an interview with NBC, Edward Snowden reiterated that he had worked undercover overseas for the CIA and NSA. This is the first interview with the former NSA employee for an American television. The NBC interview will air next week.
The fugitive intelligence leaker said the US got better intelligence from computers than human agents.
Edward Snowden, 30, fled the US in May 2013 and has been living under temporary asylum in Russia.
In an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Edward Snowden said he had trained as a spy (photo NBC)
Last year, he fed a trove of secret NSA documents to news outlets including the Washington Post and the Guardian.
Among other things, the leaks detailed the NSA’s practice of harvesting data on millions of telephone calls made in the US and around the world, and revealed the agency had snooped on foreign leaders.
The revelations have sparked a debate in the US over the appropriate role of the NSA and the extent to which it should be authorized to conduct such broad surveillance.
President Barack Obama has asked Congress to rein in the program by barring the NSA from storing phone call data on its own and to require it to seek a court order to access telecom companies’ records.
Last week, the US House passed such legislation, sending it to the US Senate.
In excerpts of an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Edward Snowden said he had trained as a spy “in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas – pretending to work in a job that I’m not – and even being assigned a name that was not mine”.
But he described himself as a technical expert who did not recruit agents.
“What I do is I put systems to work for the US,” he said.
“And I’ve done that at all levels from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top. Now, the government might deny these things, they might frame it in certain ways and say, <<Oh well, you know, he’s – he’s a low-level analyst>>.”
Edward Snowden said he had worked for the CIA and NSA undercover, overseas, and lectured at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
When Edward Snowden fled the US, he had been working as a technician for Booz Allen, a giant government contractor for the National Security Agency.
Brazilian riot police fired tear gas at anti-World Cup and indigenous demonstrators in the capital, Brasilia.
Stones were hurled at security forces as hundreds of protesters tried to reach the National Stadium – where the golden tournament cup is on display.
A group of indigenous people who were demanding land rights at Congress eventually joined the protest.
Riot police fired tear gas at anti-World Cup and indigenous demonstrators in Brasilia
This is the latest in a series of demonstrations in Brazil against the cost of staging the tournament.
Authorities say around 1,500 people were taking part in Tuesday’s demonstration, which blocked one of the main roads of the city.
As the crowd tried to walk towards the National Stadium, host to several tournament matches, mounted police blocked their way.
With tensions running high, police fired tear gas several times to break up the demonstration.
The crowd was joined by a group of indigenous people who had climbed onto the roof of the Brazilian Congress building to demand changes in how their land is demarcated.
A policeman was reportedly injured in the leg by an arrow shot during the scuffles.
The demonstrations gridlocked the traffic in Brasilia for hours.
Last year, up to a million people joined demonstrations across the country to demand better public services and highlight corruption and the high cost of staging the World Cup.
Since then several other anti-World Cup protests have been staged in Brazil, with many descending into violence.
The first official photos of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding at Forte di Belvedere in Florence, Italy, on May 24, have been released by E! News.
Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress was a white Givenchy Haute Couture gown.
Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress was a white Givenchy Haute Couture gown (photo E! News)
Kanye West kept it simple in a basic black Givenchy tux.
After a costume change, Kim Kardashian, 33, later joined the reception in a short frock by Balmain.
E!’s photos include one shot of the smiling Kim Kardashian and Kanye West holding hands as they exit the aisle following their exchange of vows. In another, they share a kiss before the massive wall of white flowers that provided a backdrop to the affair. The website also snagged a photo from Kim Kardashian’s final dress fitting with Riccardo Tisci that shows her appropriately over-the-top train flowing out behind her.
After Kim Kardashian and Kanye West slipped rings on one another’s fingers, they enjoyed a musical homage to their union courtesy of John Legend, who performed All of Me.
At the reception, the four-course meal and seven-layer wedding cake were accompanied by some 1,000 bottles of Ace of Spades rose champagne, according to ET.
Ukraine’s army is now in full control of the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk after a day of bloody clashes, the interior ministry announced.
More than 30 pro-Russia separatists were reported killed after an attempt to seize the airport early on Monday.
Ukraine’s army is now in full control of the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk after a day of bloody clashes
Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko vowed to tackle the eastern uprising in hours, not months. Russia has called for an immediate end to military action.
Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) says it has lost contact with a monitoring team.
The OSCE said four of its monitors were on a routine mission east of Donetsk when they were stopped at a checkpoint at about 18:00 on Monday.
The monitors, all male, were Turkish, Swiss, Estonian and Danish. Danish trade minister Mogens Jensen said it was believed they were being held by armed separatists.
In April, seven international military observers linked to the OSCE were held captive in eastern Ukraine for a week.
President Barack Obama had telephoned Petro Poroschenko on Tuesday to congratulate him on his victory in Sunday’s elections and offer him “the full support of the United States”, said the White House.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the airport was “under our full control” but operations were continuing.
Sporadic gun and artillery fire could be heard into the afternoon.
President Barack Obama has announced that the US will keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after it concludes its combat mission at the end of this year.
Under the plan Barack Obama announced at the White House, the US will continue to withdraw troops until only a small residual force remains after 2016.
The remaining troops would guard the US embassy, train Afghan forces and support counter-terrorism operations.
But the plan depends on the Afghans signing a joint security agreement.
President Barack Obama has announced that the US will keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after it concludes its combat mission at the end of this year (photo AP)
While current Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign such an agreement, the Obama administration appears to be confident either of the two candidates seeking to replace him would do so.
“This year, we will bring America’s longest war to its responsible end,” Barack Obama said.
The troop numbers Barack Obama announced are largely in line with what military commanders have been asking for. His announcement indicates the longest war in American history – launched by President George W. Bush following the 11 September 2001 terror attacks – will end by the time he leaves office.
He confirmed the US would seek to have 9,800 troops across Afghanistan at the beginning of 2015, but that number would be reduced by about half by the end of the year and would be concentrated in Kabul and at Bagram Air Force Base.
“We will no longer patrol Afghan cities and towns, mountains or valleys,” Barack Obama said.
“That is a task for the Afghan people.”
By 2016, Barack Obama said, the military will draw down to a “normal embassy presence” with an additional security detail, “just as we’ve done in Iraq”.
“We have to recognize Afghanistan will not be a perfect place – and it is not America’s responsibly to make it one,” Barack Obama said.
However, he added the US would help Afghans secure a “hard-earned peace”.
Afghanistan’s run-off election between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani to replace Hamid Karzai is set for 14 June.
Barack Obama noted on Tuesday that both have said they would sign a security agreement with the US.
According to new figures, the US housing price growth slowed to just 0.2% in 2014 Q1.
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, the slowdown in growth compared with the previous quarter was partly caused by tighter bank lending regulations.
Further compounding the problem is rising student loan debt, which has discouraged first-time buyers.
The US housing price growth slowed to just 0.2 percent in 2014 Q1
Nationally, the US home prices are still up 10.3%, compared with a year earlier.
“The year-over-year changes suggest that prices are rising more slowly,” said index chairman David M. Blitzer in a statement.
“Among those markets seeing substantial slowdowns in price gains were some of the leading boom-bust markets including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco and Tampa,” he added.
An index of the housing prices in 20 US cities showed a 0.9% increase in March compared with February.
Although US mortgage rates are near a seven-month low, the US Federal Reserve recently indicated that tighter bank lending standards might be shutting out potential buyers.
Furthermore, there is a low supply of new homes in the US, as the recession put a halt to new home construction in 2008-09.
Since the recovery, many developers have focused on building rental apartment buildings as opposed to single-family homes, which has also put pressure on prices.
According to US researchers, a defective gene linked to obesity appears to affect impulse control and food choices.
This could explain why people with the gene have so much trouble maintaining a healthy weight as they age.
Middle-aged and older people with obesity-associated variants of the FTO gene tend to gain weight, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health. Moreover, scans detected reduced function in brain regions that govern impulsivity and perception of food texture and taste, the researchers found.
“Sure enough, people who carry one or two copies of the FTO variant show increased intake of high-calorie or fatty food as they age,” said senior author Dr. Madhav Thambisetty, chief of clinical and translational neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging’s Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience.
“There may be a common biological factor underlying both the risk for obesity during aging as well as obesity-related behavior like your ability to resist impulse eating,” Madhav Thambisetty said.
Many studies have tied certain versions of the FTO gene to chronic obesity, but doctors have struggled to determine why the gene affects a person’s risk of obesity, said Ruth Loos, director of the genetics of obesity and related metabolic traits program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Middle-aged and older people with obesity-associated variants of the FTO gene tend to gain weight
“These types of studies are important to disentangle the mechanism of why FTO is associated with obesity, but it’s only one piece of a huge puzzle,” Ruth Loos said.
In the US, more than one-third of adults aged 65 and over are obese, according to background information in the study.
About 45% of people in this study had at least one copy of the pro-obesity FTO variant, Dr. Madhav Thambisetty said, which tracks with the white population in the US. About 16% of people had two copies of the gene, which confers an even greater risk of obesity.
The study focused on nearly 700 participants, including 69 people who agreed to annual PET scans to gather additional information regarding their brain structure and function. At the start of the study, average age was 46. All were participating in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, one of the longest running studies of human aging in North America.
They first confirmed that body mass index increased in those with one or two copies of the FTO gene variant. They then compared brain PET scans of patients with the FTO variant with scans of non-carriers, looking for differences in brain function over time.
They found people with the gene variant had reduced function in their medial prefrontal cortex, a region thought to be important in controlling impulses and response to the taste and texture of food.
In a final step, the team reviewed data gathered on participants’ personality and diet. The group at increased genetic risk for obesity showed a greater tendency to impulsivity as well as a greater intake of fatty foods during aging.
The effect appears to increase with the number of copies.
“We see a dose effect, where these changes in impulsivity or a preference for fatty foods increase with multiple copies of the gene,” Dr. Madhav Thambisetty said.
The findings are published May 27 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
If these results pan out in additional studies, they mean that people who have a greater genetic risk of obesity face an uphill battle to maintain a healthy weight.
However, a genetic predisposition to obesity does not mean one is doomed to obesity.
“You may be genetically susceptible, but by living a healthy lifestyle you can overcome your genetics,” Ruth Loos said.
“You are not destined to be obese.”
Dr. Madhav Thambisetty agreed, noting that previous studies have shown that people can overcome the obesity risk posed by the FTO gene through regular exercise.
Scott Disick turned 31 on May 26, and Khloe and Rob Kardashian took to social media to congratulate him.
Khloe Kardashian shared a split photo of her mugshot and Scott Disick’s for his 31st birthday (photo Khloe Kardashian)
“Happy birthday to my partner in crime @letthelordbewithyou I love you LD!!” Khloe Kardashian captioned a split photo of her mugshot and Scott Disick’s.
Khloe Kardashian was arrested in 2007 for a DUI and spent only three hours in jail due to overcrowding. Scott Disick’s mugshot comes from his 2001 DUI arrest after he crashed his car in Riverhead, New York.
Rob Kardashian also tweeted a photo of him struggling to carry Kourtney Kardashian’s longtime boyfriend in a rickshaw-like cart through the ocean while on vacation.
“Happy Birthday @ScottDisick! Love You Brother!” Rob Kardashian tweeted along with the photo.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag, the Sudanese woman awaiting the death penalty for abandoning her religious faith, has given birth in jail near Khartoum, her lawyer has said.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag married a Christian man and was sentenced to hang for apostasy earlier this month after refusing to renounce Christianity.
The woman is allowed to nurse her baby girl for two years before the sentence is carried out.
Born to a Muslim father, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag was convicted by a Sharia court.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag married a Christian man and was sentenced to hang for apostasy earlier this month after refusing to renounce Christianity
Sudan has a majority Muslim population, which is governed by Islamic law.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag was also convicted of adultery on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan was void under Sudan’s version of Islamic law, which says Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims.
For this the judge sentenced her to 100 lashes, which will reportedly be carried out when she has recovered from giving birth.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother’s religion, because her father, a Muslim, was reportedly absent during her childhood.
According to Amnesty International, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag was arrested and charged with adultery in August 2013, and the court added the charge of apostasy in February 2014 when she said she was a Christian and not a Muslim.
Lawyer Elshareef Ali said his 27-year-old client had given birth to a baby girl in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a hospital wing at the prison.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag also has her 20-month-old son with her as he has been held with her in prison since late February, he said.
Correspondents say death sentences are rarely carried out in Sudan.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag’s legal team lodged an appeal on May 22 as Elshreef Ali says the verdict contravenes the constitution’s enshrining of freedom of faith, the Bloomberg news agency reports.
Western embassies and rights groups have urged Sudan to respect the right of the woman to choose her religion.
Jazz singer and actor Herb Jeffries, who performed in a series of all-black Western movies in the 1930s, has died at the age of 100.
Known to cinema audiences as the Bronze Buckaroo, Herb Jeffries starred in four cowboy films aimed at black audiences from 1937 to 1939.
In 1940, Herb Jeffries scored a big hit with jazz legend Duke Ellington as the vocalist on Flamingo.
Known to cinema audiences as the Bronze Buckaroo, Herb Jeffries starred in four cowboy films aimed at black audiences from 1937 to 1939
Herb Jeffries died of heart failure on Sunday, his biographer Raymond Strait said.
Film director Robert Townsend tweeted: “RIP Herb Jeffries, 1st Black Cowboy on Silver screen, my prayers with his family.”
Born Umberto Valentino in Detroit in 1913, Herb Jeffries said of his mixed parentage: “My mother was Irish, my father was Sicilian and one of my great-grandparents was Ethiopian.
“So I’m an Italian-looking mongrel with a percentage of Ethiopian blood, which enabled me to get work with black orchestras.”
Herb Jeffries’ other songs with Duke Ellington included There Shall Be No Night and You, You Darlin’.
As a Western star, Herb Jeffries appeared as Bob Blake alongside his horse Stardusk and the vocal group the Four Tones.
At a time when mixed race performers tried to lighten their skin, Herb Jeffries wore make-up to darken his.
He said in one interview: “Little children of dark skin – not just negroes, but Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, everybody of color – had no heroes in the movies. I was so glad to give them something to identify with.”
Herb Jeffries continued performing as a singer into his 90s. His last album was The Duke and I, released in 2000.
He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004.
Married five times, including to burlesque star Tempest Storm, Herb Jeffries is survived his fifth wife Savannah, three daughters and two sons.
The Rolling Stones returned to the stage in Oslo for their first show since the death of L’Wren Scott in March.
Playing to a sold-out crowd of 23,000 at Oslo’s Telenor Arena, Mick Jagger did not mention his late girlfriend L’Wren Scott, but said he was happy to be back on the stage.
The Rolling Stones returned to the stage in Oslo for their first show since the death of L’Wren Scott (photo CBS News)
“We first played Oslo in June 1965,” he said.
“We played nine songs – we’ve played more than that already!”
The two-hour set included hits such as Satisfaction and Brown Sugar.
In March, The Rolling Stones interrupted their tour and later rescheduled all their Australia and New Zealand tour dates following the news that L’Wren Scott – Mick Jagger’s partner since 2001 – had committed suicide.
The 14 On Fire tour continues in Portugal on Thursday, where the band headline the Rock In Rio festival.
Concerts in Switzerland, Israel and the Netherlands follow, while the rescheduled Australian and New Zealand dates beginning in Adelaide on October 25.
After skipping Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding on May 24, Rob Kardashian exhibited some strange behavior online.
On May 26, Kim Kardashian’s brother tweeted “good morning from Los Angeles” before deleting all of his tweets, changing his Twitter avatar and starting new.
After skipping Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding in Florence, Rob Kardashian exhibited some strange behavior online
Rob Kardashian, who has close to 5 million followers, then began tweeting out positive messages to members of the service for Memorial Day.
“Happy memorial day,” the sock designer began.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD. Psalm 33:12. Lord Jesus, protect those who protect me- police, firefighters, and those in the military. Teach me to pray for them and to honor them for their service. Amen.”
Rob Kardashian wrapped up his message, writing: “GOD BLESS AMERICA.”
Though he flew to Paris prior to Kim’s wedding, Rob Kardashian kept a low profile throughout the highly-publicized celebrations. He was spotted flying out of Paris on Saturday, May 24, a few hours before Kim Kardashian’s Florence wedding ceremony, and arrived in Los Angeles shortly after the couple exchanged vows at the Forte di Belvedere.
