After welcoming her fifth child, the comedian gives fans an intimate glimpse into her mommy joy in a series of personal photos
Credit: Courtesy of Rosie O'Donnell
Updated: Thursday Jan 17, 2013 | 12:00 PM EST
By: Shanelle Rein-Olowokere
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.
That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.
Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.
How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?
Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.
The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."
Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.
"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.
Some unknowns:
—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.
—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.
—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.
—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.
—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.
—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.
"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.
One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."
Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.
"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."
Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.
He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."
"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.
Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.
The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.
Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.
Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."
Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.
"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.
What now?
CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."
Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.
Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.
"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.
"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.
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Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
For would-be Los Angeles Mayor Jan Perry, it was a bittersweet ground breaking last week for a residential high-rise a block from her apartment near Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Dignitaries hailed Perry as a leading force behind downtown's revival. "She has unbelievable tenacity," Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina told invited guests gathered at the vacant building site for a ceremonial shoveling of dirt.
But there was a poignant, unspoken subtext to the praise. Perry no longer represents the area, or even her own building. Last year, fellow City Council members carved most of downtown out of her district, in the aftermath of a public feud with council President Herb Wesson. Her new district covers a larger expanse of the most impoverished stretches of South L.A.
For Perry, it was a humiliating break with years of linking her political identity to the downtown development boom. The new apartment tower site, like her Bunker Hill home, is now part of Councilman Jose Huizar's domain.
"He's got big shoes to fill, following Jan," Molina told the groundbreaking audience, paying a compliment that highlighted Perry's loss.
In a city with a powerful council that can easily thwart a mayor's will, an important question for Perry is how effectively she could work with former colleagues on her governing agenda.
For nearly all major issues, the mayor must win eight of the council's 15 votes. Given her history of tension with other members, Perry could face a tougher challenge than some of her mayoral rivals in building council support when she needs it, said Jaime Regalado, emeritus professor of political science at Cal State L.A.
"You absolutely need to play nice," he said.
In the campaign, Perry plays up her willingness to speak her mind. She tries to maximize the contrast with her more cautious, top-tier rivals in the March 5 primary, Councilman Eric Garcetti of Silver Lake and City Controller Wendy Greuel of Studio City.
"I don't calculate what I do in terms of what it will mean for me, long term," she said in an interview at a coffee house across from the Music Center.
But even she, in moments of reflection, will acknowledge her plain speaking carries risks. It was her conspicuous refusal to support Wesson's election as council president, she said, that cost her the coveted Central City business district.
"I like to cut to the chase in my words and my deeds," Perry said.
With most of the Los Angeles political establishment split between Greuel and Garcetti, Perry hopes she can project an authenticity that will resonate with voters, and trump her opponents' money and better-known names.
She starts with a base of black voters, mainly in South L.A. But African Americans normally make up only 15% of the city's vote, so Perry must build broader support to secure a spot in the May 21 runoff.
Closest to home, she is competing mostly with Garcetti for Latinos. Perry's district, just south of downtown, is predominantly Latino. Like Garcetti, who is half Mexican, Perry often speaks Spanish, if less fluently, at public events. At a recent house party for women in Boyle Heights, she passed out cheese-and-jalapeno pastries and fielded questions in Spanish.
Perry is also vying for Jewish support. Raised as a Protestant in the suburbs of Cleveland, she converted to Judaism in the 1980s while earning a master's degree in public administration at USC. She studied Judaism under Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, now executive director of Hillel at UCLA.
"I was, like many people at that age, searching for my purpose and a way to make sense of who I was," she recalled.
"She doesn't fit in a box," said Parke Skelton, a campaign consultant who worked on Perry's council races. "African American, Jewish, pro-business Democrat who's had her ups and downs with labor — it's kind of an interesting one-person coalition."
A key target for Perry is conservative white voters, especially in the San Fernando Valley, where Greuel and Republican radio talk-show personality Kevin James are tussling for dominance.
At a Northridge breakfast for business owners last week, Perry took credit for thousands of jobs created by L.A. Live and other downtown projects she has promoted with city tax subsidies. Getting Los Angeles growing again and on a sound fiscal footing is her top priority, she tells such groups.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two days after a charismatic preacher swept into the capital surrounded by thousands of supporters, Pakistan’s government responded by rejecting his political agenda and hinting that an operation to dislodge him was imminent.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Wednesday that there were indications that suicide bombers planned to target the preacher, Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, who is in a bulletproof container near Parliament.
Mr. Qadri and his boisterous supporters, estimated at 25,000 people, could be the subject of a “targeted operation” as early as Thursday, Mr. Malik said. “For the safety of the women and children in the protest, I request you to leave by tomorrow,” he said at a news conference.
Mr. Qadri, 61, who has demanded that the government resign to make way for a caretaker administration, insisted that he was standing firm, but also suggested the standoff could be resolved within a couple of days, although he declined to specify how.
“We are in the victory zone and about to achieve our target,” he told The New York Times, speaking inside the fortified container, mounted on the back of a truck, from which he has delivered several fiery speeches. “The march will be successful in the next one or two days at most.”
Earlier, the information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, mocked Mr. Qadri’s demands at a news conference, and accused him of using the many women and children among his supporters as “human shields.” But Mr. Kaira said, “The people will not stand by him.” The government was showing some teeth after Mr. Qadri managed to lead his supporters into the capital, despite numerous obstacles, leaving officials looking outwitted.
The government’s authority was also challenged on Tuesday by the Supreme Court, which ordered the arrest of the prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, as part of a corruption prosecution. The government has signaled that it intends to challenge the order when the case comes to court on Thursday morning; officials see the move as part of a long-running proxy battle between the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the president, Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistan’s military, meanwhile, has been grappling with its longtime foe India in the disputed province of Kashmir, where at least five soldiers from both sides have died in a series of skirmishes over the past two weeks.
In the latest episode, Pakistan said Wednesday that Indian troops had shot a Pakistani soldier at a position named Kundi, and lodged an official complaint with New Delhi. India denied responsibility. The tensions have raised worries that months of steady diplomatic progress between the rival neighbors could be undone. But hopes for a resolution of the dispute rose late on Wednesday when, after a phone conversation between senior commanders on both sides, India said an agreement to calm the situation had been reached.
Pakistan’s director general of military operations, Maj. Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem, spoke for 10 minutes with his Indian counterpart, Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia, an Indian spokesman told reporters.
The spokesman, Col. Jagdeep Dahiya, told Agence France-Presse that the Pakistani general “said strict instructions have been passed not to violate the cease-fire.”
WATERLOO, Ont. – Call it BlackBerry Town, even if the name isn’t official.
In the lead up to the BlackBerry smartphone unveiling later this month, creator Research In Motion is turning its Waterloo, Ont., home base into a celebration of the device.
The company plans to decorate light poles in areas of Waterloo and neighbouring Kitchener with banners that promote its latest smartphone and thank the community for its support.
City councillors in Kitchener voted earlier this week to make an exception to rules that prevent corporations from using public property to advertise.
RIM says it is making plans for other events as well.
The company will hold skating rink parties at Kitchener City Hall and in Waterloo Town Square on Jan. 30 to coincide with the unveiling of its new BlackBerry devices.
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
01/16/2013 at 08:15 PM ET
Cindy Ord/Getty
Kara DioGuardi is going to be a mom!
The Grammy-nominated songwriter, who also served as a judge on American Idol‘s eighth and ninth seasons, confirms to PEOPLE exclusively that she and husband Mike McCuddy will welcome their first child via gestational surrogate in the coming weeks.
“We are eagerly awaiting the healthy and happy birth of our son Greyson James Carroll McCuddy,” DioGuardi, 42, tells PEOPLE.
After years of struggling with fertility issues and multiple failed IVF attempts, the couple, who wed in 2009, decided to explore other paths to parenthood — including adoption and surrogacy.
In the end, says DioGuardi, “We made a personal decision to try with a surrogate. I asked someone we knew, a friend. And on the first try, it worked.”
“We’re praying for our surrogate, that she gets through this and that it’s as easy on her as it can possibly be, because she’s been a gem throughout the whole process,” says the songwriter and music publisher.
“I’ve got two people on my mind: her and the baby. She’s given us this incredible gift.”
– Marisa Laudadio
NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.
The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.
The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.
But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.
"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.
The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.
The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.
Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.
The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.
U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.
Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The vaccine is safe," she said.
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Online:
Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org
A fungus that has killed roughly 6 million bats in North America and Canada has now been found for the first time in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park, federal authorities announced Wednesday.
White-nose syndrome, discovered in New York in 2006, has been confirmed in nine national parks and 19 states as far west as Missouri.
"I am incredibly sad to report this," Mammoth Cave National Park Supt. Sarah Craighead said at a news conference. "A northern long-eared bat showing symptoms of white-nose syndrome was found in Long Cave in the park. The bat was euthanized on Jan. 4 and sent for laboratory testing. Those tests confirmed white-nose syndrome."
Long Cave, an undeveloped cave about 1.3 miles long, is not connected to 390-mile long Mammoth Cave, a popular historic site visited by about 400,000 each year.
The park service will continue giving tours of Mammoth Cave, which annually generate about $3.9 million in fees from visitors. To prevent spread of the disease, the parks service screens all visitors before they go on a tour and has them walk across decontamination mats as they exit, Craighead said.
The rapidly spreading fungus, which scientists know as Geomyces destructans, hits hardest among the 25 species of hibernating bats.
The disease "could persist in cave environments for decades even in the absence of bats," said Jeremy Coleman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. White-nose syndrome, which can be transmitted between animals through direct contact, gets its name from the powdery, white substance that appears around muzzles, ears and wings of affected bats.
Bats with white-nose syndrome exhibit unusual behavior during cold winter months, including flying outside during the day and clustering near the entrances of caves and mines where they hibernate. Bats have been found sick and dying in unprecedented numbers near these hibernacula during a portion of the year when there are no insects to eat.
In November, U.S. Geological Survey scientists and collaborators at the National Institutes of Health hypothesized that bats recovering from white-nose syndrome show evidence of an inflammatory condition first described in HIV-AIDS patients.
If confirmed, the discovery could prove significant for studies on treatment for AIDS, Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said recently.
louis.sahagun@latimes.com
CAIRO — A White House spokesman on Tuesday condemned anti-Semitic comments made by President Mohamed Morsi before he took office, calling on him to “make clear this kind of rhetoric is not acceptable or productive in a democratic Egypt.”
In a three-year-old video clip that resurfaced recently, Mr. Morsi, then a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, urged Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. In another video clip from 2010 that was recently distributed by a Washington research group, Mr. Morsi referred to “Zionists” as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.”
Asked about Mr. Morsi’s anti-Semitic statements during a briefing at the White House, Jay Carney, the press secretary, said, “We have raised our concerns over these remarks with the government of Egypt.”
He added: “We completely reject these statements, as we do any language that espouses religious hatred. This kind of discourse has been acceptable in the region for far too long and is counter to the goal of peace. President Morsi should make clear that he respects people of all faiths.”
Representatives of Mr. Morsi have declined repeated requests to comment on the remarks, and on Tuesday they again remained silent.
Though inflammatory anti-Semitism is a staple of political discourse of all stripes in Egypt, Mr. Morsi’s vitriolic statements threaten to undermine his efforts to build a reputation as a leader for moderation and stability in the Middle East. And attention to his remarks may embolden critics in Israel and the West who distrust his commitment to peace with Israel because of his background as an Islamist.
What is more, Mr. Morsi already faces attacks from ultraconservative Islamists and the left that he is too close to the United States and, by extension, Israel. Were he to back away from his remarks, he could become more vulnerable to such criticism.
Mr. Carney emphasized that the White House was still ready to work with the Egyptian president. “Since taking office, President Morsi has reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to its peace treaty with Israel in both word and deed and has proved willing to work with us toward shared objectives, including a cease-fire during the crisis in Gaza last year,” he said.
“This is about action,” Mr. Carney added. “It’s about deeds.”
Although as a Brotherhood leader Mr. Morsi was a fiery critic of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, his tone as president has been far more civil. He has done little to reshape Egyptian policy toward the Jewish state, and he has worked to maintain close ties with Washington.
The video clip about “apes and pigs” was unearthed in early January by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington group that monitors Arabic news media for anti-Semitic statements.
The other clip, about nurturing hatred, was broadcast on Friday by an Egyptian television satirist, Bassem Youssef, who models his program on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” He often uses footage of public figures for satire and is building a reputation for finding memorable examples of bigotry or extremism. His clip came from a video of a speech by Mr. Morsi in his hometown in the Nile Delta in early 2010 that was publicly available on a Web site run by the Muslim Brotherhood.
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