Walmart to start offering jobs to any recent veterans

Welcome home, veterans. Global retailing giant Wal-Mart announced Tuesday that, starting Memorial Day, it will offer a job to any honorably discharged veteran in his or her first year off from active duty. The opportunities will be in stores, distribution centers and the chain?s home office.

?Hiring a veteran can be one of the best business decisions you make,? Walmart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon said in a statement. ?Veterans have a record of performance under pressure. They?re quick learners and team players. They are leaders with discipline, training, and a passion for service. There is a seriousness and sense of purpose that the military instills, and we need it today more than ever.?

The retailer forecasts that it will hire more than 100,000 veterans over the next five years.

First lady Michelle Obama, who has made the welfare of returning veterans and military families a personal priority through her ?Joining Forces? initiative, immediately hailed the news.

?This is exactly the kind of act we hoped would be possible when we started Joining Forces?a concrete example of our nation's love and support that our troops, veterans, and their families can feel in their lives every day,? she said in the statement released by Wal-Mart. ?Today, my challenge is simple: for every business in America to follow Wal-Mart's lead."

The first lady?s office said that the White House would call Wal-Mart and other big American companies together ?in the next several weeks? to discuss the plan and seek more commitments.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/walmart-vows-hire-recent-veterans-155120013--politics.html

abc news msnbc meteor shower 121212 Concert Columbine shooting News Ryan Lanza Facebook

xanis: Nina Dobrev in Femina China (Jan 2013)

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://lionquinn.tumblr.com/post/40437952335

steelers scarlett johansson tim tebow survivor homeland homeland snl

'We are millions': Victims of organized crime in Mexico seek justice in new law

In a country where fewer than 4 percent of crimes are ever solved, the so-called 'victims law' will provide financial reparations and additional legal protection.

By Lauren Villagran,?Correspondent / January 11, 2013

People hold up images of alleged crime victims as they demonstrate during an event in which Mexico's President Enrique Pe?a Nieto enacted a general law on victims of crime at Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City, Wednesday.

Eduardo Verdugo/AP

Enlarge

Roc?o Uribe Ruiz stood at the back of?a conference room in the Mexican presidential residence, silently holding a picture of her missing daughter, as President Enrique Pe?a Nieto touted a new law to protect victims of the country's devastating organized crime epidemic.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

With more than 60,000 people killed in drug violence in the past six years, and tens of thousands more disappeared, Mexico now faces the monumental task of addressing the needs of the growing group of those affected.?The new legislation, signed into law this week, promises to do just that.?For the first time, Mexico will specifically?address victims' rights with additional legal protection and financial reparations, among other benefits.?

Dozens of relatives whose loved ones have disappeared without a trace ? and whose cases have gone nowhere in a country where fewer than 4 percent of crimes are ever solved ? squeezed into the packed?Los Pinos?hall as Mr. Pe?a Nieto announced that with the law, only the second of its kind in Latin America, ?the Mexican state aspires to return hope and comfort to victims and their families.??

?It gives me hope,? says Ms. Uribe Ruiz, whose 14-year-old daughter, Maria Fernanda Tlapanco Uribe, went missing nine months ago. ?But really, will it be applicable to us, and not just to whoever they want? The laws aren?t for us. They are for the ?big? people.?

The law, officially called the General Law of Victims, is the joint work of academics, advocates, and victims themselves. Proposed and promoted by the Movement for Peace?with?Justice?and?Dignity ? which is led by the poet Javier Sicilia, whose son, Juan Francisco, was killed in March 2011 ? the law received nearly unanimous support in Congress last year before hitting a wall with former President Felipe Calder?n.

Mr. Calder?n declared the law unviable and unconstitutional. However, Mr. Pe?a Nieto promised to revive it.

To start, the law makes ?victim? a legally recognized entity. It provides for a victim?s right to respectful treatment, a full investigation of the crime, and the awarding of damages whenever possible.

The law also demands the creation of a new National System of Attention to Victims to aid victims in various capacities, a national victims? registry, and a fund to dole out reparations ? ostensibly?to be?paid for with cash and property seized from criminals.

Critics, including other victims' groups, say the law is flawed. In a statement, the victims? advocate group Mexico S.O.S. highlighted what it sees as the law?s failings. For one thing, the group says, it only covers victims of federal crimes, not state and local crimes. And it creates a scheme in which the state must pay out damages caused by a criminal. What's more, they argue that the law defines ?victim? in terms that are unnecessarily sweeping and vague.?

Pe?a Nieto conceded the law ?still needs to be improved? and has asked lawmakers to work up reforms.

Colombia was the first nation in Latin America to enact legislation protecting victims. That country's June 2011 Victims and Land Restitution Law sought to restore millions of acres to people displaced by the decades of fighting between the government and guerrilla forces. The law also provides for financial compensation to victims of human rights violations.

It would have been better if Mexico?s victims? law wasn't necessary, Mr. Sicilia said during the ceremony. ?It?s the consequence of not applying the laws that are made to protect and provide justice to citizens. It?s the consequence of impunity, corruption ? and of a war that never should have been.??

?I have hopes that they?ll listen to us,? says Mar?a Eugenia Morales, whose 19-year-old daughter, Nayeli Francia Morales, has been missing for nearly two years.

?We aren?t just one or two? who have lost someone, she says. ?We are millions.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/world/~3/-bmREM-xsqg/We-are-millions-Victims-of-organized-crime-in-Mexico-seek-justice-in-new-law

madonna halftime m i a mia super bowl tom coughlin wes welker eli manning eli manning

Scientist at Work Blog: A Persistent Foreign Predator, Dangerous but Delicious

Luiz Rocha, the curator of ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, writes from Belize, where he conducts research on the social wrasse, one of the world?s most endangered fish.

Saturday, Dec. 22

Despite the occasional swollen, painful sting, we have had little problem putting our hands on the invasive lionfish here in Belize. During our last day of diving we collected another 17. We would have collected many more if we had additional divers.

They are everywhere, and in much greater numbers than their native range in the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific. We think that two factors are influencing their numbers in the Caribbean: they are released from competition and the Caribbean prey is ?na?ve.?

They are not the first invasive species to encounter a lack of natural predators and competition combined with easy prey. A similar pattern was observed in the brown tree snake, which was accidentally introduced to the island of Guam shortly after World War II. The invader found a forest free of predators, and stocked with plenty of unwitting prey (native forest vertebrate species). They reached such high numbers that many native species were driven to near extinction. They also tended to climb utility poles, shorting circuits and causing power outages.

In its natural range, the brown tree snake was never able to dominate so completely. There, young snakes faced a shortage of juvenile lizards, their primary food source.

Diversity plays a natural role in controlling lionfish numbers?in its native habitat. Sometimes four different lionfish species coexist in a single dive area.?These species have similar diets, so they compete for the same resources with one another, and also with other ambush predators.?And some of these ambush predators, like large groupers and sharks, eat lionfish in their native range. But these threats are absent in the Caribbean.?There, the Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) dominates, and has few competitors and would-be attackers.

Also, like the bird with no natural fear of the brown tree snake, the social wrasse seems unaware of the threat a lionfish poses ? often straying dangerously close to them.

Our last morning in the field was dedicated to carefully preserving and packing the stomach contents of 51 lionfish ? the partially digested bounty of our trip. Among those contents, we found at least 20 critically endangered social wrasses. That number makes the social wrasse the most common prey item found inside lionfish in the area.

As I prepare to leave the Carrie Bow Key field station, my mind turns to the question of what to do about this invasion in progress. And a lot of readers asked about potential solutions. One might be gastronomical.

These are tasty fish. Since we only needed their stomachs for the research, we also carried out a little experiment for the palate: we had lionfish ceviche, fried lionfish and lionfish sashimi with a bit of soy sauce and wasabi. It was simply delicious in every preparation. The consistency of the meat is excellent, especially for sashimi, and its very mild taste reminds me of pricey red snapper and rockfish.

A large-scale commercial catch would potentially mitigate population growth. But there are complications. First, these fish are small, and economic viability would require catching them in high numbers. This might seem like a good thing, given that the objective is to keep their numbers down. But their poisonous spines make these fish very hard to handle even when they are being cleaned. (I?ve got some first hand experience with that issue.)

Capturing them also poses another problem. While they are extremely easy to catch with a spear, they only eat live fish. So hook and line will not work. You?ve got to get in the water, up close and personal. But even with all of those limitations, demand will certainly move things the right way, so I encourage everyone to ask for lionfish in Caribbean sea food restaurants.

Some readers also mentioned the practice of feeding them to groupers and sharks. While this seems like a nice option at first, the groupers and sharks in many areas are learning to seek divers for a free food handout rather than acquiring a taste for the lionfish. Most locations of the Caribbean are so overfished that it is hard to find large fish to offer dead lionfish to in the first place.

One reader made another very important point. This invasion likely started with an aquarium release, and the lionfish is not the only invasive aquarium fish present in tropical waters. There are dozens more, including tropical Indo-Pacific angelfish, butterflyfish and surgeonfish. I know aquarium owners do get attached to their fish. They might think that the most humane thing to do when a fish grows too large for its tank is to release it in the nearest large body of water. But doing that will only contribute to the invasive species problem. So here is my suggestion if you have an aquarium fish that is becoming a problem for any reason, just take it back to the aquarium store where you bought it. Store owners will gladly take the fish back most of the time as they can try to resell it to someone with a larger tank.

Regardless of what we do, one thing is certain: the lionfish (as is the case with many other invasive species) is here to stay. They have such a broad habitat and depth range that specialists now agree that it is impossible to eradicate them. All we can do is try to control their numbers. We are confident that the ecosystem in Belize will adjust and nature will find a way. The better question is: how long will this take and just how much will the Caribbean fauna?particularly, the social wrasse?suffer while it does?

Source: http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/a-persistent-foreign-predator-dangerous-but-delicious/?partner=rss&emc=rss

christina hendricks lifelock camp david hawaii weather the jerk lake havasu halo 4

Stocks Regain Some Strength; Celgene Hits New ... - Investors.com

Stocks firmed up Thursday afternoon, with all of the major indexes back in positive territory.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average were up 0.4% and 0.3% respectively. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq turned fractionally higher after bouncing back from a 0.2% loss. Big caps such as Amazon.com (AMZN), Google (GOOG) and Priceline.com (PCLN) were lower, but there was some strength among chip issues. ARM Holdings (ARMH) and Cirrus Logic (CRUS) rose about 4% each.

Turnover was tracking higher on the NYSE and lower on the Nasdaq.

Celgene (CELG) added 2% to a fresh record high. The stock has been on a hot streak since staging an upside reversal at its 50-day line Dec. 31. It's now 15% past a 81.34 buy point. Earlier this week, the biotech announced positive trials of a psoriasis drug and outlined rosy long-term financial targets. In particular, the company is aiming to double sales by 2017.

Ashland (ASH) rose 2% to an all-time high. It's now 10% past a 78.37 buy point in a cup base. The stock broke out in lackluster volume Dec. 12. Ashland distributes specialty chemicals to the drug, energy, construction, automotive and food industries. It is best known as the maker of Valvoline motor oil. Analysts see its fiscal 2013 earnings rising 15% to $7.61 a share, but that is down from 70% growth in fiscal 2012.

On the downside, Ellie Mae (ELLI) tumbled 6% in heavy trading. The stock has again triggered the 8% sell rule after clearing a 28.96 buy point from a cup-with-handle base Tuesday. Ellie Mae initially cleared that buy point Jan. 2, but that breakout failed two days later.

Michael Kors (KORS) dropped 4% and sliced its 50-day moving average in fast trade. The luxury apparel and accessories firm is likely down in sympathy with Tiffany (TIF), which warned that its full-year earnings would come in at the low-end of its outlook given in late November.

Source: http://news.investors.com/investing-markets-update/011013-640065-wall-street-turns-positive-again-thursday.htm

buffalo bills pittsburgh steelers seattle seahawks ryan tannehill cispa baltimore ravens space shuttle new york

Family of 12 elephants slain by poachers

The carcasses of a family of elephants have been found in a wildlife reserve in Kenya - the victims of the worst massacre on record by ivory poachers there. NBC News' Rohit Kachroo reports.

By Rohit Kachroo, Correspondent, NBC News

TSAVO EAST NATIONAL PARK, Kenya -- The bodies of five elephants lie under the shade of the trees ? their giant ears flapping in the wind, but their majestic bodies totally still.

It is a gruesome sight in this, one of Kenya?s oldest, largest and most stunningly beautiful national parks.

As our helicopter circles the scene, we glimpse two other elephants nearby: A mother lying dead next to a baby calf - her daughter. The bodies of another three siblings sit in the baking heat. Other corpses are slumped across several acres of parkland.

In total, there are 12 slain elephants ? a family, murdered on Saturday in Kenya?s bloodiest attack by poachers on record.

The spot is so remote ? inaccessible by road vehicles ? that it was only possible for us to reach them by the air. And yet, the poachers are thought to have trekked for days ? maybe weeks ? through the dense bushes with the intention of killing the family for their horns. It is, perhaps, an indication of the poachers? determination, and the sophistication of their planning.

Armed with guns and axes, the 15-strong gang struck during the day. They shot the animals one by one before sawing off their tusks. Park rangers chased their footprints for 10 miles into the bush, but the trail vanished. Investigators believe that they may have dumped the tusks in the park to collect later, before splitting up and disappearing into the woods.

Wilson Korir, who leads the military-style defense force tasked with protecting the park from poachers, said: ?These guys [the gang of poachers] are now looking for some crude transport like the use of a donkey to be able to transfer the tusks to the nearest center where they can ferry it using a vehicle.?

??We have a lot of covert operations going on outside. We have positioned a platoon of rangers outside there just to wait and see. If they appear they will pounce and arrest.?

Accompanied by rangers, we leave our helicopter and walk towards the spot where some of the bodies lie. We are all struck by the stench of the corpses, as flies swarm and maggots eat away at them. The face of each of the animals is badly severed ? it is clear where the poachers? axes have struck.

From the position of the elephants, investigators suspect that there was a stampede as the animals tried -- and failed -- to race away.

It is grim evidence of a growing problem for Kenya. According to the country?s Prime Minister Raila Odinga, 360 elephants were killed in Kenya last year ? almost one a day ? up from 289 in 2011.

Demand comes from the growing middle class in China, where ground tusk is said to have medicinal value, and ivory is still desirable in jewelry and home decorations. A pound of illegal ivory can fetch around $1,000.

?The dynamics of poaching are taking a different angle altogether because there is a lot of demand for ivory from outside,? Korir said.

?But in the history of Tsavo National Park this is the worst.?

He welcomes promises of greater investment in wildlife security, and calls by world leaders for a global campaign against trafficking. But his priority now is to find the poachers behind Saturday?s attack.?

?The message is clear. They come (back) into the national park at their own peril. The rangers are there and waiting for them. They come and they will be eliminated.

?These are dangerous gangs. They carry firearms. There are no two ways about it ? fire for fire. So let them come. We are equally prepared. We are waiting.?

Related stories:

Cursed creature: India battles rhino poachers

Rhino slaughter in South Africa sets savage pace

Hunted for horns worth more than gold, S. Africa's rhinos face worst year on record

Kenya Wildlife Services step up collaring efforts in wake of increased poaching

?

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/10/16446547-family-of-12-elephants-slain-by-poachers-in-kenya?lite

cpac straw poll i will always love you whitney cummings maine caucus whitney houston has died blue ivy carter whitney houston death

Sickle cells show potential to attack aggressive cancer tumors

Thursday, January 10, 2013

By harnessing the very qualities that make sickle cell disease a lethal blood disorder, a research team led by Duke Medicine and Jenomic, a private cancer research company in Carmel, Calif., has developed a way to deploy the misshapen red blood cells to fight cancer tumors.

Reporting in the Jan. 9, 2013, edition of the on-line journal, PLOS ONE, the researchers describe a process of exploiting sickle-shaped red blood cells to selectively target oxygen deprived cancer tumors in mice and block the blood vessels that surround them.

"Sickle cells appear to be a potent way to attack hypoxic (oxygen-starved) solid tumors, which are notable for their resistance to existing cancer chemotherapy agents and radiation," said senior author Mark W. Dewhirst, DVM, PhD, a radiation oncologist and director of Duke's Tumor Microcirculation Laboratory. "This is an exciting finding that suggests a potential new approach to fighting tumors that are currently associated with aggressive disease."

"The very qualities that make sickle cells a danger to people with the inherited genetic disorder can be turned against tumors to fight cancer," said lead author David S. Terman, M.D., head of Molecular Genetics at Jenomic. "Our approach using sickle cells is a novel strategy with broad therapeutic potential that could be directed at breast cancers, prostate cancers, and many other solid tumors that develop resistance to current therapies."

Sickle cells are typically associated with a potentially life-threatening disease in which red blood cells are deformed in the shape of a crescent moon or sickle. Unlike healthy red blood cells that flow smoothly through vessels, the sickle cells get stuck, causing blockages that are painful and damaging to tissue.

A collaborative effort between Duke researchers and scientists from Jenomic began in 2006 to explore whether sickle cells could similarly build clots in the vast networks of blood vessels that feed oxygen-starved, or hypoxic, cancer tumors, which can grow increasingly lethal as their oxygen needs escalate.

In a National Institutes of Health-funded study of mice with breast cancer, the researchers gave the animals an infusion of fluorescently dyed sickle cells and viewed them under special window chambers that provide real-time observation of processes inside the body. Within five minutes, the deformed cells began to adhere to the blood vessels surrounding the hypoxic tumors. Over 30 minutes, the cells had formed clots and began blocking the small blood vessels that fed the tumor.

Dewhirst said the sickle cells stick like Velcro to the hypoxic tumor because it produces an abundance of adhesion molecules as part of its distress from oxygen deprivation. Normal cells don't produce the adhesion molecules, so there's nothing for the sickle cells to snag onto.

"Unlike normal red blood cells, we found that sickle cells show a highly unique natural attraction to oxygen deprived tumors where they stick, cluster and plug tumor blood vessels. Once clustered within the tumor, the sickle cells deposit a toxic iron residue as they die, causing tumor cell death," Terman said.

To boost that caustic effect, the researchers added zinc compounds (zinc protoporphyrin alone or in combination with doxorubicin) to the sickle cells, which caused even greater oxidative stress in the tumor and surrounding blood vessels. This resulted in a dramatic delay in tumor growth, quadrupling the amount of time the tumors were inactive compared to tumors exposed to regular blood cells. Mice showed no acute toxicity to the sickle cell treatment.

"In contrast to drug treatments directed only to the hypoxic tumor cell, our approach uses the inherent qualities of sickle cells to induce injury to the tumor and the vascular micro-environment that feeds the tumor," Terman said.

Dewhirst and Terman said the research team would continue to conduct studies in animals before moving to human trials.

###

Duke University Medical Center: http://www.dukemednews.org

Thanks to Duke University Medical Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 46 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126229/Sickle_cells_show_potential_to_attack_aggressive_cancer_tumors

jessica biel ipad mini Kevin Krim Autumn Pasquale ann coulter Iron Man 3 Trailer minecraft