Bodies Found in Hunt for Missing Iowa Cousins













Nearly five months after Iowa cousins Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins disappeared, the girls' families have been told two bodies were found by hunters in a wooded area, though the identities of the bodies have not been confirmed, authorities said.


Capt. Rick Abben of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office said at a press conference this afternoon that the bodies are being transported to the state's medical office in Ankeny, Iowa, for positive identification.


"It's definitely not the outcome that we wanted, obviously," Abben said. "This is a difficult thing for us to go through."


Lyric, 11, and Elizabeth , 9, vanished shortly after noon on July 13 while on a bike ride in the small town of Evansdale, Iowa, triggering a massive search that brought the town to a standstill. The girls' bicycles and a purse were quickly found near Meyers Lake, but there was no sign of the girls.


PHOTOS From ABC News Affiliate KCRG: The Search for Lyric & Elizabeth






Black Hawk County Police/AP Photo











Missing Iowa Girls Seen Riding Bikes on Surveillance Video Watch Video









Missing Iowa Girls: One Mother Takes 2nd Polygraph Watch Video







On the two-month anniversary of the girls' disappearance, local residents held a prayer vigil and authorities urged members of the public to provide any new information that might help them solve the case.


Authorities said the girls left Elizabeth's house in Evansdale around 12:15 p.m., were spotted at approximately 12:23 p.m. at a nearby intersection and then were seen between 12:30 and 1 p.m. on a road by the lake.


During the following week, authorities canvassed the area and drained the town's lake. Lyric's estranged parents, Misty and Dan Morrissey, at one point became the subject of intense police scrutiny because of their criminal pasts and their lack of cooperation.


Over the summer, the families received a boost when Elizabeth Smart, one of the country's most famous kidnapping survivors, offered some words of encouragement. Police found Smart after a nine-month search in Utah a decade ago.


"For as many bad things that we hear about that happen, for as many kidnappings and terrible stories about finding the remains of children, why can't these girls be the exception?" Smart told the Des Moines Register.


Elizabeth's mother, Heather Collins, told ABC News' Alex Perez in July that the wait for the girls to reappear was an agonizing one.


"A day doesn't seem like a normal day," Collins said. "It's just like it doesn't stop. It keeps dragging and dragging. You're just waiting for a time to go up to your room. You're just waiting, waiting, waiting."


"Whoever's out there, we're just begging you to bring our girls back home," she said.


A $50,000 reward had been offered for information that led to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the girls' disappearance.



Read More..

Obama’s top speechwriter has his eyes on the White House exit signs



We hear he’s mulling various options but hasn’t made a decision about his second-term plans.

Read More..

Australian economy grows 0.5% in Sep quarter






SYDNEY: Australia's economy grew 0.5 per cent in the three months to September and 3.1 per cent from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday, with China's slowdown dampening growth.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said gross domestic product (GDP) grew a seasonally adjusted 0.5 per cent in the quarter, in line with expectations, driven by the mining and manufacturing sectors.

It compares with growth of 0.6 per cent in the three months to June and year-on-year growth of 3.7 per cent last quarter, lending weight to the central bank's decision to lower interest rates on Tuesday to stimulate the economy.

Mining contributed 0.4 per cent to quarterly GDP growth, despite a plunge in commodity prices due to a cooling in China's economy that saw a 4.0 per cent drop in Australia's terms of trade -- the value of its exports against its imports.

Private business investment accounted for 0.5 per cent of GDP growth and consumer spending added 0.2 per cent. Falling government spending detracted 0.5 per cent.

The Reserve Bank of Australia slashed the official interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.0 per cent this week -- their equal lowest since RBA independence in the early 1990s.

- AFP/ck



Read More..

FDI in retail will not help farmers: V K Singh

NEW DELHI: Former Army chief Gen V K Singh slammed the government's decision to bring in FDI in multi-brand retail saying the move would not benefit farmers as procurement would be outsourced from other countries at cheaper prices.

Joining in a Parliament gherao by farmers under the banner of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (RKMS) on Tuesday, Singh demanded that the Rangarajan committee report on freeing the sugar sector be junked.

On FDI, he said even when Pepsico came to India, it was said that it would help farmers but that was never the case. "In India, we have an excellent model in terms of Amul to empower farmers. We can bring about the same change what people are trying to bring through FDI by making suitable modifications to the Amul model," he said.

Singh said farmers would not be benefited because the multi-brand retailers would import cheap items from other countries and not procure them from within India.

On the Rangarajan committee report, Singh said, "No politician has worked for farmers. They get votes from you people by promising many things, but they forget that there is a community called farmers after the elections. Next time, when you go to the polling booth, think who will fight for you and then vote only for that person.''

However, the former Army chief said he was not supporting any particular party but was only asking farmers to keep their "betterment in mind" before pressing the EVM button.

The protesters gathered near Parliament Street police station, less than a kilometre from Parliament House, and raised slogans demanding that the report be rejected.

RKMS's V M Singh said there was a need to raise a 'Kisan Sena' in the country that would fight for farmers' rights. He added that if the government did not pay heed to the farmers' demands, they would go on indefinite dharna at Boat Club.

Dubbing as "anti-farmer" the Rangarajan committee report which has recommended phased decontrol of the highly regulated Rs 80,000-crore sugar industry, he said the prime minister and Parliament should not accept the report.

Read More..

North Star Closer to Earth Than Thought


The North Star has been a guiding light for countless generations of navigators. But a new study reveals that its distance to Earth may have been grossly overestimated.

In fact, the North Star—also called Polaris—is 30 percent closer to our solar system than previously thought, at about 323 light-years away, according to an international team who studied the star's light output.

Using Russia's 6-Meter Telescope, the researchers were able to calculate the North Star's distance from our solar system by analyzing its spectrum of light and obtaining data on its temperature and changes in intrinsic brightness over time.

That significantly revises the previously accepted value of 434 light-years, which was obtained by the European star-mapping satellite Hipparcos in the 1990s. (Take a solar system quiz.)

The new discovery of a closer North Star is "most unexpected for what is considered to be one of the Hipparcos satellite's most solid results," said study leader David Turner, an astronomer at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

(Also see "New Supernova Found 'Next Door'—Getting Brighter.")

North Star a Celestial Beacon

The North Star's claim to fame is due to its fixed position in the sky for Northern Hemisphere observers—aligned with Earth's northern axis—while other stars appear to wheel around it.

Known to fade and brighten over a four-day period, this celestial beacon of true north is considered the closest and brightest member of a class of stars called Cepheids that change in brightness over time. (See star pictures.)

The star is also a type of cosmological yardstick used by researchers to measure great cosmic distances out to billions of light-years.

For this reason, it's vital for our understanding of the cosmos that scientists get a reliable grip on the North Star's true distance, emphasized Turner, whose study will appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

For instance, research on dark energy—the mysterious force thought to be causing the universe to fly apart faster over time—is dependent on stars such as the North Star.

(See "New Galaxy Maps to Help Find Dark Energy Proof?")

Unseen Object Orbiting North Star?

The new results also located nearly a half dozen stars that appear to be surrounding the North Star and show signs that they have all once belonged to the same star cluster, which has now dispersed.

"This system is known to contain two other stars in addition to the Cepheid stars, but there may be yet another unseen object orbiting Polaris ... a massive orbiting planet for example," he added.

"There definitely remain a few oddities to keep Polaris an object of study for many years to come."


Read More..

Tasting DNA-Altered Salmon That May Hit US Plates













Deep in the rain forests of Panama, in a secret location behind padlocked gates, barbed-wire fences and over a rickety wooden bridge, grows what could be the most debated food product of our time.


It may look like the 1993 hit movie "Jurassic Park," but at this real-life freshwater farm scientists are altering the genes not of dinosaurs -- but of fish.


They are growing a new DNA-altered saltwater fish in the mountains, far from the sea -- a salmon that could be the first genetically altered animal protein approved for the world to eat. If it is approved, this would be a landmark change for human food.


But it is one critics call "Frankenfish."


"The idea of changing an animal form, I think, is really creepy," said Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy farm. "When you move the DNA from a species into another species ... you create a new life form that's so new and so unique that you can get a patent for it."


And until now, AquaBounty, the multinational biotech company that for 20 years has been developing this giant fish, has kept it under close wraps.


The press has never been invited to its Prince Edward Island laboratory on the Canadian maritime coast, and its fish farm location in Panama has been kept secret out of fear of sabotage.


The Food and Drug Administration has seen it, but few from the outside. In fact, the last public tour of any kind was four years ago.










AquaBounty Creates 'Fort Knox for Fish'


ABC News was given exclusive access to see the facilities up close and an opportunity to taste this mysterious fish that FDA scientists say "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon," although have yet to officially approve it for public sale.


Ron Stotish, the president and CEO of AquaBounty Technologies, the company that created and hopes to market the eggs of this salmon to independent fish farms around the world, told ABC News it has employed bio-security measures, creating a "Fort Knox for fish," to ensure safety for the fish and prevent cross-contamination with the wild.


Entry to both facilities begins with body suits and iodine baths for shoes, which serves to keep the fish safe from germs.


Inside these protected tanks, America gets the first up-close look at the final product, the fish that has the food police up in arms.


"These are very healthy, beautiful Atlantic salmon," Stotish said.


With one big difference -- the growth rate of a regular salmon compared to that of an AquaBounty genetically modified fish.


While the AquaBounty fish do not grow to a size larger than normal salmon, they get to full size much faster, cutting costs for producers.


A normal-size 1-year-old Atlantic salmon averages 10 inches long, while the genetically modified fish at the same age is more than two times larger, coming in at 24 inches.


Salmon is the second most popular seafood in America. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average size of an Atlantic salmon is 28 inches to 30 inches and 8 pounds to 12 pounds after two years at sea.


How do they accomplish the accelerated growth?


"They differ by a single gene," Stotish said.


But, it's that single gene change that makes the DNA-altered salmon grow much faster than a normal Atlantic salmon, because it's really three fish in one.


AquaBounty scientists have taken a growth gene from the Chinook salmon and inserted it into the DNA of the Atlantic salmon because Chinooks grow fast from birth, while Atlantics do not.


"Salmon in their first two years of life grow very slowly," Stotish said.






Read More..

Boehner, House GOP leaders offer ‘fiscal cliff’ counterproposal



In making a counteroffer to President Obama, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other senior Republicans suggested that a framework laid out by Democrat Erskine Bowles last year could serve as a starting point for talks aimed at averting the year-end “fiscal cliff.”

Read More..

Police raid highway operator over Japan tunnel collapse






TOKYO: Japanese police on Tuesday raided offices belonging to a highway operator over a weekend tunnel collapse that killed nine people.

More than eight officers from the Yamanashi Police Department entered the office of NEXCO in Hachioji, western Tokyo, a spokesman for the highway operator said.

"We are fully cooperating with the authorities over the accident," the spokesman told AFP.

Police also plan to raid more of the company's offices in connection with the tragedy at the Sasago tunnel, which passes through hills near Mount Fuji, Japanese broadcaster NHK said.

On Monday, the Japanese government ordered inspections of ageing highway tunnels following the accident as suspicion over the cause of the accident centred on decaying ceiling supports.

- AFP/fa/ck



Read More..

Patels clearly hold the key

AHMEDABAD: Ever since former Congress chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki formulated KHAM - a political axis comprising kshatriyas, harijans, adivasis and Muslims - that helped Congress a record 149 seats in 1985 - Patels have steadily gravitated towards the BJP. The Congress has not tasted power in Gujarat after 1990 thanks to rising Patel power.

In all, there are 148 Patel candidates in fray representing the three main players - BJP, Congress and GPP. Leuvas, a Patel sub-caste which Keshubhai Patel represents, dominate at least 40 out of the total 182 seats in Gujarat, mostly in Saurashtra, south and central Gujarat. Leuva Patels constitute anything between 20% to 50% votes in these 40 seats. Kadva Patels are in large numbers in north Gujarat. With Keshubhai threatening to make a dent into BJP's vote share, mainly due to the clout he enjoys in his community, BJP has also fielded a large number of Patels. But BJP's Patel leaders like Purshottam Rupala, Anandiben Patel and RC Faldu are no match to Keshubhai.

Modi tried his best to rope in Naresh Patel, a community leader who has become a rallying point for the economically powerful community, which now wants to re-gain its lost political glory by helping both the GPP and Congress.

Besides, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, which has a large following among Patel farmers, is aggressively campaigning against Modi. VHP leader Pravin Togadia, himself a Leuva Patel, is likely to make matters worse for the Gujarat CM.

Read More..

Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds


NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected several simple carbon-based organic compounds on Mars, but it remains unclear whether they were formed via Earthly contamination or whether they contain only elements indigenous to the planet.

Speaking at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, Curiosity mission leaders also said that the compound perchlorate—identified previously in polar Mars—appeared to also be present in Gale Crater, the site of Curiosity's exploration.

The possible discovery of organics—or carbon-based compounds bonded to hydrogen, also called hydrocarbons—could have major implications for the mission's search for more complex organic material.

It would not necessarily mean that life exists now or ever existed on Mars, but it makes the possibility of Martian life—especially long ago when the planet was wetter and warmer—somewhat greater, since available carbon is considered to be so important to all known biology.

(See "Mars Curiosity Rover Finds Proof of Flowing Water—A First.")

The announcements came after several weeks of frenzied speculation about a "major discovery" by Curiosity on Mars. But project scientist John Grotzinger said that it remains too early to know whether Martian organics have been definitely discovered or if they're byproducts of contamination brought from Earth.

"When this data first came in, and then was confirmed in a second sample, we did have a hooting and hollering moment," he said.

"The enthusiasm we had was perhaps misunderstood. We're doing science at the pace of science, but news travels at a different speed."

Organics Detected Before on Mars

The organic compounds discovered—different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine—are the same or similar to chlorinated organics detected in the mid-1970s by the Viking landers.

(Related: "Life on Mars Found by NASA's Viking Mission?")

At the time, the substances were written off as contamination brought from Earth, but now scientists know more about how the compounds could be formed on Mars. The big question remains whether the carbon found in the compounds is of Martian or Earthly origin.

Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator of the instrument that may have found the simple organics—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)—said that while the findings were not "definitive," they were significant and would require a great deal of further study.

Mahaffy also said the discovery came as a surprise, since the soil sample involved was hardly a prime target in the organics search. In fact, the soil was scooped primarily to clean out the rover's mobile laboratory and soil-delivery systems.

Called Rocknest, the site is a collection of rocks with rippled sand around them—an environment not considered particularly promising for discovery. The Curiosity team has always thought it had a much better chance of finding the organics in clays and sulfate minerals known to be present at the base of Mount Sharp, located in the Gale Crater, where the rover will head early next year.

(See the Mars rover Curiosity's first color pictures.)

The rover has been at Rocknest for a month and has scooped sand and soil five times. It was the first site where virtually all the instruments on Curiosity were used, Grotzinger said, and all of them proved to be working well.

They also worked well in unison—with one instrument giving the surprising signal that the minerals in the soil were not all crystalline, which led to the intensive examination of the non-crystalline portion to see if it contained any organics.

Rover Team "Very Confident"

The simple organics detected by SAM were in the chloromethane family, which contains compounds that are sometimes used to clean electronic equipment. Because it was plausible that Viking could have brought the compounds to Mars as contamination, that conclusion was broadly accepted.

But in 2010, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center and Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico published an influential paper describing how dichloromethane can be a byproduct of the heating of other organic material in the presence of the compound perchlorate.

They conducted the experiment because NASA's Phoenix mission had discovered large amounts of perchlorate in the northern polar soil of Mars, and it seems plausible that it would exist elsewhere on the planet.

"In terms of the SAM results, there are two important conclusions," said McKay, a scientist on the SAM team.

"The first is confirming the perchlorate story—that it's most likely there and seems to react at high temperatures with organic material to form the dichloromethane and other simple organics."

"The second is that we'll have to either find organics without perchlorates nearby, or find a way to get around that perchlorate wall that keeps us from identifying organics," he said.

Another SAM researcher, Danny Glavin of Goddard, said his team is "very confident" about the reported detection of the hydrocarbons, and that they were produced in the rover's ovens. He said it is clear that the chlorine in the compounds is from Mars, but less clear about the carbon.

"We will figure out what's going on here," he said. "We have the instruments and we have the people. And whatever the final conclusions, we will have learned important things about Mars that we can use in the months ahead."

Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.


Read More..