Early in November, AT&T exec Larry Solomon mentioned that their 4G/LTE network would be extending its reach to New York City sometime "soon." Turns out, "soon" means "sometime around December 1st" ? as of this evening, reports started coming in that some devices within the Big Apple's limits were lighting up with 4G/LTE signal.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/efgx6nyTwsY/
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LONDON ? BP PLC said Thursday it is selling its Canadian natural gas liquids business to Plains Midstream Canada, a subsidiary of Plains All American Pipeline, for $1.67 billion.
The business is involved in extracting, processing and transporting natural gas liquids across Canada and in the Great Lakes region of the United States. It includes 2,600 miles of pipelines, storage facilities, processing plants, and long-term leases on rail cars that move petroleum products. About 450 BP employees will now work for Plains as part of the agreement.
The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.
BP made the sale as it works to shed $45 billion in assets, mainly to meet the costs arising from the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
Separately, Plains on Thursday announced four more recent acquisitions worth an additional $620 million.
They include:
? 120 miles of South Texas oil pipelines from Velocity Midstream Partners. The pipeline, which is under construction, is expected to be capable of transporting 150,000 barrels per day.
? A trucking operation in Canada.
? A petroleum storage and distribution terminal in Yorktown, Va., from Western Refining Inc. Plains All American plans to upgrade the facility so that it can store oil, refined products, propane, butane, ethanol and other bio-diesel fuels.
? An 82-mile oil pipeline in New Mexico from Western Refining. The pipeline can transport up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
Greg Armstrong, Plains All American's Chairman and CEO, said the company will invest an additional $100 million to $150 million in those additional assets over the next two years.
Because of the expansion, Plains said it expects company distributions to rise by 8 to 9 percent in 2012. Its current annual distribution is $3.98 per unit.
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Lady Gaga Poses Nude–The Frisky Leona Lewis Talks About New Album–HollyWire Jennifer Lopez Travels with New Boy Toy–Right Celebrity Marc Jacobs Robbed Again–The Celebrity Cafe [...]
Trash Talkin’ Tuesday Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2011/11/29/trash-talkin-tuesday-25/
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Strolling through Camden Market, the modern-day Mecca for London's indie scenesters, a suspicious mix of darting eyes and exotic smells gives you the impression that the sea of shops and stalls offer something slightly more sinister than your standard Big Ben replicas. Led down to the dingy basement of one of these shops, you're confronted with a stunning stash of drugs ? cannabis clones such as Amsterdam's Finest, party pills with names like Benzo Fury, and more mushrooms than you can shake a sweaty glo-stick at. The drugs are designed to mimic the effects of Schedule I and II substances like cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines ? but every single one of them is legal.
According to the statistics in an October report by the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), as many as four in 10 youngsters have tried these legal highs which, along with now-banned mephedrone ? a party drug similar to ecstasy and speed ? are thought to have contributed to up to 98 deaths in the U.K. since 2009. Dealers working out of high-street "head shops" and through websites have taken advantage of a legal loophole allowing them to sell the drugs as long as they're marked "Not for human consumption." Web sales, in particular, are booming. Figures released on Nov. 15 by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show the number of sites selling legal highs to buyers in the European Union doubled in the first six months of 2011 ?spiking from 314 in January to 631 by July. Which could be why the British government has decided it's time to take action. Claiming that the U.K. is "leading the way in cracking down on legal highs," Home Office minister Lord Henley announced on Nov. 15 a raft of new measures aimed at slowing the flow of designer drugs into the country. The powers enable the government to place a 12-month ban on any substance deemed potentially harmful while drug advisors investigate whether the ban should be permanent. And the government has pledged a tightening of U.K. border control, with an import ban on two common ingredients found in legal highs ? Diphenylprolinol and diphenylmethyl-pyrrolidine ? making it possible for customs officers to seize and destroy shipments before they leave port. (See pictures of the U.K. heroin underground. Advisory: Some of the photos in this gallery contain graphic content.)
The hope is that this tougher stance will end the current game of chemical cat-and-mouse, in which suppliers circumvent U.K. law by subtly changing the make-up of legal highs each time the government bans them. But hardline backbenchers say the laws don't go far enough, while a number of high-profile figures, including a former government minister and the ex-head of security service MI5, have called for a more liberal approach which would see the drug trade decriminalized and taken out of "the hands of criminals."
And, as is often the case, those whom the new laws are intended to protect are the people least in favor of them. David, 35, spends his days working in London's financial sector and his nights partying on a high-octane fuel of legal highs. His drug of choice is the ecstasy-like Benzo Fury, and his "legendary" capacity for consuming it has earned him the nickname Benzo Dave. "The way I see it, Benzo Fury is just a safer and cheaper alternative to alcohol; legality doesn't really bother me," he says. "The recession has hit everyone hard, so legal highs are seen as a cheaper way of getting a buzz. It only becomes dangerous when people take too much, but you could say that about any drug ? even Paracetamol." (See if Britain can save its wayward youth.)
But experts says that, unlike with most other drugs, the real danger posed by legal highs is the fact that no one knows what constitutes a safe dose. The blink-and-you'll-miss-it rate at which new designer drugs are being produced creates a vacuum of reliable information, leaving users at the mercy of advice from internet chatrooms.
One man who sees the outcome of these gambles every day is Dr. Owen Bowden-Jones, who recently launched the U.K.'s first clinic dedicated to club-drug addicts. Bowden-Jones thinks the unknown qualities of legal highs not only leads to an under-representation when it comes to statistics, but also means users in trouble have nowhere to turn. "These drugs are so new that not even doctors know about them; people suffering from addiction are often left in limbo," he says. Describing the explosion in the number of people taking up legal highs as "unprecedented" compared to those turning to traditional drugs, Bowden-Jones says he has received calls from users across Europe seeking help. Visitors to his clinic tell tales of chronic addiction, causing side effects that include incontinence, insomnia and paranoia. "Many of our patients are affluent professionals in their mid to late 20s who find their addiction has grown from what started out as a once-a-month dabble on a night out."
The rise in the number of addicts mirrors the rise in the number of drugs they can get hold of ? in its October report, the ACMD said that a record 41 new substances were produced in China and the Far East before being sold in the U.K., while similar figures are expected for 2011. Many in the business of stemming the tide, including the government's chief drug advisors, are looking to harsher U.S.-style anti-drug laws as a possible answer. But even with tougher laws and a federal anti-drug budget of $50 billion, the U.S. is still playing catch-up in the war against legal highs. In October, the Drug Enforcement Administration was forced to bring in an emergency one-year ban on so-called bath salts ? designer drugs that come in powdered form ? when they were linked to a number of violent crimes, including the attempted murder of a sheriff's deputy in Montana by a teen wielding an AK-47. (See pictures of the great American pot smoke-out.)
Mindful of the effect these kinds of tragic headlines can have on public opinion, Britain's leaders believe tough tactics are the only way quell the legal-highs epidemic. Time will tell if this form of prohibition can be more successful than its predecessors.
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The climate may be less sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought ? and temperature rises this century could be smaller than expected. That's the surprise result of a new analysis of the last ice age. However, the finding comes from considering just one climate model, and unless it can be replicated using other models, researchers are dubious that it is genuine.
As more greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere, more heat is trapped and temperatures go up ? but by how much? The best estimates say that if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, temperatures will rise by 3 ?C. This is the "climate sensitivity".
But the 3 ?C figure is only an estimate. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the climate sensitivity could be anywhere between 2 and 4.5 ?C. That means the temperature rise from a given release of carbon dioxide is still uncertain.
To pin down the sensitivity, Andreas Schmittner of Oregon State University, Corvallis, and colleagues took a close look at the Last Glacial Maximum around 20,000 years ago, when the last ice age was at its height.
They used previously published data to put together a detailed global map of surface temperatures. This showed that the planet was, on average, 2.2 ?C cooler than today. We already know from ice cores that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at the time were much lower than they are now.
Schmittner plugged the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations that existed during the Last Glacial Maximum into a climate model and tried to recreate the global temperature patterns. He found that he had to assume a relatively small climate sensitivity of 2.4 ?C if the model was to give the best fit.
If climate sensitivity really is so low, global warming this century will be at the lower end of the IPCC's estimates. Assuming we keep burning fossil fuels heavily, the IPCC estimates that temperatures will rise about 4 ?C by 2100, compared with 1980 to 1999. Schmittner's study suggests the warming would be closer to their minimum estimate for the "heavy burning" scenario, which is 2.4 ?C.
Past climates can help us work out the true climate sensitivity, says Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York City. But he says the results of Schmittner's study aren't strong enough to change his mind about the climate sensitivity. "I don't expect this to impact consensus estimates," he says.
In particular, the model that Schmittner used in his analysis underestimates the cooling in Antarctica and the mid-latitudes. "The model estimate of the cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum is a clear underestimate," Schmidt says. "A different model would give a cooler Last Glacial Maximum, and thus a larger sensitivity."
Schmittner agrees it is too early to draw firm conclusions. Individual climate models all have their own quirks, so he wants to try the experiment with several models to find out if others repeat the result.
Even if the climate sensitivity really is as low as 2.4 ?C, Schmittner says that doesn't mean we are safe from climate change. The Last Glacial Maximum was only 2.2 ?C cooler than today, yet there were huge ice sheets, plant life was different, and sea levels were 120 metres lower.
"Very small changes in temperature cause huge changes in certain regions," Schmittner says. So even if we get a smaller temperature rise than we expected, the knock-on effects would still be severe.
Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1203513
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Demi Lovato is counting her blessings this holiday season.
"As many of you know, last year at this time, I was in treatment. I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve away from my home and family which is why I am so excited to be with them this year," the 19-year-old singer writes in her monthly Seventeen column. "Thinking about how far I have come in a year makes me so thankful."
PHOTOS: Demi through the years
In late 2010, Lovato checked into a rehab facility to treat depression and bulimia. While there, the former Disney Channel star also discovered she suffers from Bipolar II disorder.
"I could not have done this without God and the amazing support from my family," Lovato says. "They have stuck by me through everything and love me just the way that I am. That is a wonderful feeling to know that people accept the real you."
VIDEO: Watch Demi's triumphant return to the stage
Despite her hardships, the teen singer says she's "thankful for my life path, including the highs and the lows, because it has caused my true self to shine through."
"Going to treatment was a gift and I believe it saved my life. I learned how to be strong and healthy even through struggles," Lovato says. "It also helped me open up about my issues and share them with others. Knowing that my family, friends and fans accept me for who I am is the greatest feeling ever!"
PHOTOS: Famous Disney stars
Lovato -- who is currently on tour to promote her third album, Unbreakable -- says the experience taught her to stop taking "things for granted, like my family, friends, fans and career. Each day is special to me and I take each day one day at a time."
"Sometimes people get busy and forget to enjoy the moment, but I know I will not do that this holiday season," she adds. "I have worked very hard to get to the place I am today and I am going to enjoy every minute of it!"
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Reading comes to life with the VTech V. Reader Interactive E-Reading System ($59.99 list). This storyteller learning system brings books to life and makes reading vivid and fun for your child! Kids can touch and play as they learn core reading skills, touch the screen to read the story, and play interactive reading games.
With the V.Reader Interactive E-Reading System, children will discover the joy of reading while interacting with well-loved characters like Elmo and Disney Princesses. As the stories come alive with animations and sounds on the color touch screen, children take a journey into a world of imagination while developing the necessary building blocks to grow from a pre-reader to a confident and fluent reader. The V.Reader comes pre-loaded with the "What's That Noise" storybook and fun applications such as a Photo Viewer, Video Player, and art activities. Additional storybook cartridges (sold separately) offer new stories and adventures and feature a fully narrated and animated story, reading skill games, and a Story Dictionary. You can even download additional e-books, avatars, and themes while tracking your child's progress on VTech's Learning Lodge Navigator.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/GfYRIZd9rNk/0,2817,2396650,00.asp
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You know, I'm beginning to think that Samsung's factory lines are rigged up like the bus in Speed. If at any time they drop below 50 newly created Android phones per month, bam! Factory falls down and Keanu Reeves never hooks up with Sandra Bullock. Alternative Intro: Samsung and Verizon are incredibly excited about their latest handset, the Samsung Illusion. You can always tell a company is excited about a product when much of the press release is dedicated to the riveting details, like its Underwriters Laboratory score.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Dr-lTkOcFs4/
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Theodore J. Forstmann, a longtime Wall Street financier who was a major player during the wave of corporate takeovers in the 1980s, including the battle for RJR Nabisco in 1988, died Sunday at the age of 71.
The cause was brain cancer, according to a statement from sports marketing giant IMG, where Forstmann served as chairman and CEO after acquiring the company in 2004.
A pioneer of the leveraged buyout business, celebrity bachelor and free market proselytizer, Forstmann cut the figure of a swashbuckling risk taker. But in buying companies, he tended to be more careful and conservative than did rivals. Famously, he backed down from buying RJR Nabisco when the price got too high. His instincts turned out right. The winner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, struggled for years to wring profits from the company.
Forstmann was the senior founding partner of investment firm Forstmann Little & Co., one of Wall Street's most successful specialists in leveraged buyouts, deals financed mostly with debt. The company completed dozens of such deals to purchase a wide array of companies, including Dr. Pepper, baseball card maker Topps, Gulfstream Aerospace and Ziff-Davis Publishing.
Forstmann Little's leveraged buyouts generated lofty returns for its partners and outside investors, which included many corporate pension funds.
In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Forstmann said his interest in deal-making was sparked in childhood, while reading a biography of Howard Hughes. "This guy loved doing deals," Forstmann said of Hughes.
Forstmann earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University, and his law degree from Columbia University. He spent some time as an attorney before establishing Forstmann Little in 1978, with his brother Nicholas and then-partner Brian Little.
Forstmann's first takeovers were small ones, as he only had so much money to spend. Things picked up as the 1980s unfolded and the firm's successes brought in more investors.
"I never went to business school. I was basically never in an investment banking firm worthy of mentioning," Forstmann told the AP. "I've always been a guy who had ideas."
He was often seen with celebrities, and dated a few, too, although he never married. Two names romantically linked to him: Elizabeth Hurley, the model and actress, and Padma Lakshmi, the TV host and cookbook author. He was also a big Republican party supporter. He wanted free markets to help reform education. To help bring market-based solutions in government, he helped fund the education of "Forstmann Scholars" at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy.
Forstmann was a complex, brilliant person who was the quintessential entrepreneur, said Michael Dolan, IMG's president and chief operating officer.
He would remember numbers for years and had the ability to spot a company's potential, no matter whether it marketed athletes or made aircraft or soft drinks, Dolan said Sunday in an interview with the AP.
"He had no problem jumping into an opportunity," Dolan said. "That's what makes an entrepreneur, someone who sees something that other people don't see and says 'I'm going to go after this.'"
Forstmann eventually became a big critic of the industry he helped create. In the late 1980s, he lit into rivals for the risky way they financed their acquisitions. They would borrow money from investors in junk bonds. Those bonds are IOUs issued by the riskiest companies.
Later, he complained that there were simply too many people in the takeover business. The result: Buyout firms were paying sky-high prices for their targets to beat competitors, and so might have trouble wringing profits out of the deals.
He turned out right again ? but maybe not in the way he imagined. In the tech mania of the late 1990s, Forstmann himself ended up overpaying for two firms ? XO Communications and McLeodUSA. Both eventually filed for bankruptcy.
In 1988, Forstmann made clear his distaste for dealmaking greased by junk bonds. The AP quoted him as saying, "Today's financial age has become a period of unbridled excess with accepted risk soaring out of proportion to possible reward.
"Every week, with ever-increasing levels of irresponsibility, many billions of dollars in American assets are being saddled with debt that has virtually no chance of being repaid," he said.
During the furious bidding for RJR Nabisco Inc. in the fall of 1988, Forstmann's protestations about the rampant use of expensive junk bonds ? which carried interest rates sometimes as high as 18 percent ? were ignored. Rival takeover firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts ended up buying RJR in what was then the biggest takeover in U.S. history.
KKR's $24.5 billion purchase of the food and tobacco giant was announced in November of that year after a bidding brawl that some considered a symbol of corporate gluttony. That deal saddled RJR with enormous debt.
For all of 1988, the dollar amount of mergers and acquisitions financed largely with borrowed money totaled more than $200 billion.
International Management Group (IMG), a sports and celebrity management and marketing firm that has represented Tiger Woods, Joe Montana and Derek Jeter, was sold to Forstmann Little in a cash deal valued at more than $700 million.
When Forstmann bought it, the company was mostly representing professional athletes. But Forstmann saw the potential of college sports, diversifying IMG into licensing college athletic programs for apparel and other uses.
Forstmann also saw growth potential in China, India and Brazil, forming joint ventures to set up a basketball league in India and motor sports and soccer competition in China.
Forstmann, who cited Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln as his heroes, was a philanthropist and co-founder of the Children's Scholarship Fund in 1998, which focuses on helping parents send their children to schools of their choice.
He was also a director of the International Rescue Committee and helped establish a medical program for war-injured children in Bosnia. He was a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and also served on the board of directors at Freedom House, Empower America, the Robin Hood Foundation, the CATO Institute, and the Preventative Medicine Research Institute.
He signed "The Giving Pledge" earlier this year, in which America's wealthiest people pledge to give away at least half of their fortunes. Forbes estimated Forstmann's net worth at $1.8 billion as of September 2011.
He is survived by his adopted sons Siya and Everest, and his siblings: J. Anthony Forstmann, John Forstmann, Marina Forstmann Day and Elissa Forstmann Moran.
____
Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.
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Remember that time the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about an influx of "start-up" companies raising seed/angel rounds and then all those companies subsequently trying to raise Series A rounds and failing hard? And then all these VCs and angels got in a fight about it, on Twitter, and on their own blogs? Well, we pulled some rough funding data from Crunchbase (which come to think of it should be a National Treasure), and, as it turns out, more and more companies are raising seed and angel rounds (we're counting both as the same) and less and less companies are raising Series A. In fact the number of seed deals went up 33% from 2008 to 2010, while Series A deals were down 9.6% during the same period.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kka6s3-cVow/
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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Pakistan removed restrictions on the import of 12 goods from India as part of measures to normalize trade between the nuclear-armed rivals, Pakistani officials said on Saturday.
Pakistan has long been reluctant to open up trade with its neighbor because of long-running political disputes, particularly over the Kashmir region. But both countries have been trying to boost their trade following a recent thaw in ties.
Lasting peace between the rivals is seen as essential to South Asian stability and to helping a troubled transition in Afghanistan as NATO-led combat forces plan their military withdrawal from that country in 2014.
Pakistan last week said it would grant India most-favored nation (MFN) trade status that would help normalize trade by ending huge restriction. India gave MFN status to Pakistan in 1996.
Pakistan's Commerce Ministry recently requested the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), the top decision-making body on economic affairs, to increase the number of items that can be imported from India.
"The ECC met on Friday and approved the addition of 12 goods in the positive list of items that can be imported from India," a ministry official said.
Another official said the goods included machinery and raw materials for the leather and textile industries.
The decision came as senior commerce officials of the two countries prepare to meet early next week in New Delhi to explore ways to boost bilateral trade.
Despite having a combined population of more than a billion, Pakistan and India's official bilateral trade stood at $1.4 billion in 2009/10 while an estimated $3 billion unofficial trade is routed through third countries in the Gulf.
Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said on Thursday the two countries would take the process of normalization of trade to its "logical conclusion" and India would also work toward a preferential trade agreement with Pakistan and easing of visa restrictions for businessmen.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, since their independence in 1947 but their relations have improved since they resumed a dialogue in February that was derailed by an attack by Pakistan-based militants in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh hailed progress in diplomatic ties and promised a "new chapter" in ties when they met on the sidelines of a regional summit in the Maldives on Thursday.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2011) ? Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum (RUB) have developed a flexible and efficient new process for the separation of enantiomers. Enantiomer separation is indispensable for the production of many pharmaceuticals. In their process, the scientists use porous molecular frameworks (MOFs) that are assembled in layers on solid substrates using a specifically developed method.
The results have now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Enantiomers are pairs of molecules built in a mirror-inverted manner. They differ from each other like a left and a right glove. This property of the molecules that is referred to as chirality is of particular relevance to biosciences and pharmaceutics. "While many, especially smaller, molecules like carbon dioxide or methane are not chiral, many biologically relevant molecules, such as tartaric acid have this property," explains Professor Christof W?ll, Head of the KIT Institute of Functional Interfaces (IFG). For many pharmaceutical agents, only one of both enantiomers is desired for the effective molecules being able to dock to certain structures in the body.
In contrast to conventional methods, the process developed by the team of researchers directed by Professor W?ll, Professor Roland Fischer from the Chair for Inorganic Chemistry II of RUB, and Humboldt scholar Bo Liu (KIT and RUB) allows for a more rapid and, hence, cheaper separation of enantiomers. It is based on novel molecular frameworks (MOFs) that can be grown on solid substrates. These porous coatings that are also referred to as SURMOFs are produced by an epitaxy process specifically developed by the researchers. Instead of heating the solution mixtures produced from the initial substances, modified substrates are immersed alternately in the solutions of the initial substances. "In this way, the molecular layers are assembled one after the other comparable to a rack system," explains Roland Fischer. These molecular rack systems anchored to the surfaces can be functionalized for various applications.
The enantiomers are separated by chiral organic molecules that are the linkers or struts of the rack systems. Thanks to their enantiopure structure, these coatings retain one of both enantiomers. In their contribution that was also selected for the title photo of the journal "Angewandte Chemie," the scientists describe the separation of the enantiomer molecules (2R, 5R)-2,5-hexanediol (R-HDO) and (2S, 5S)-2,5-hexanediol (S-HDO). Future work will be aimed at increasing the mesh width of the porous structures in order to test the method for larger molecules used as pharmaceuticals. "Pharmaceutical substances are two or more nanometers in size and, hence, larger than hexanediol. The development of surface-attached networks with such large structures is a big challenge," explains Professor W?ll.
It is a particular advantage of SURMOFs that the efficiency of enantiomer separation can be measured rapidly and precisely. With the help of quartz crystal microbalances, it was demonstrated that surface-anchored molecular framework structures reach excellent separation efficiencies already. "The SURMOFs as a new material have an enormous potential for use in pharmaceutical industry," explains Professor J?rgen Hubbuch, holder of the Chair for Molecular Separation Engineering (MAB) and Spokesman of the KIT Competence Field of Biotechnology.
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LOS ANGELES ? The single word, "Guilty," brought a muffled shriek in the gallery of the packed courtroom and tears from Michael Jackson's family, but no reaction from the doctor convicted of supplying the King of Pop with the drug he craved for sleep.
With the snap of handcuffs, another chapter in the bizarre saga surrounding Jackson's life came to a close, and the man who once envisioned a glamorous career as the music icon's personal physician was led from the courtroom. Dr. Conrad Murray was going to jail for involuntary manslaughter.
Murray's face was grim but betrayed no emotion. In a few minutes, his life had been shattered and it was likely he would never practice medicine again.
It was a precipitous fall for a man who told his patients he had been given "a once in a lifetime opportunity" for which he was giving up his practice. At 58, he planned to devote himself to one patient, Jackson, who would escort him into a world of glamor and celebrity. They were going to London for Jackson's spectacular comeback concerts.
All of that ended on June 25, 2009, in a Holmby Hills mansion where he gave his difficult patient what he wanted ? an operating room anesthetic that Jackson called his "milk," the only thing the singer trusted to put him to sleep.
Now Murray faces up to four years in prison, although overcrowding makes it unlikely he'll serve that long.
Jurors heard hours of testimony about propofol, the drug that killed Jackson, and they listened while defense attorneys blamed the singer for his own death, suggesting it was he, not Murray, who injected the fatal dose.
Did they believe that? Jurors weren't saying. In fact, they said nothing after their verdict. But they didn't have to find that Murray administered the dose that killed Jackson, only that the doctor was primarily responsible for the singer's death.
Their deliberations were short, less than nine hours over two days, presided over by the foreman, a 45-year-old management consultant who had previously been a classical musician and had served on a jury before.
Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor praised the panel's dedication and was harsh in his comments about Murray after the jury left the room.
"This is a crime where the end result (was) the death of a human being," the judge said. "Dr. Murray's reckless conduct in this case poses a demonstrable risk to the safety of the public" if he remains free on bond, the judge said.
He then ordered Murray taken into immediate custody and held without bail pending sentencing Nov. 29.
Prosecutors will address whether Murray should pay restitution at a later hearing and the physician is being pursued by Jackson's father in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Defense attorney Ed Chernoff said the verdict was a disappointment and would be appealed. Asked how Murray took the verdict, Chernoff said, "he's a pretty strong guy."
Regarding Murray's future, he said, "the keys to his handcuffs belong to the judge. We certainly would like to do anything we can to keep him from going to prison."
In post-verdict comments to the media, District Attorney Steve Cooley praised the verdict but suggested a recent change in state law might make it difficult to keep Murray behind bars because non-violent felony offenders are being sentenced to overcrowded county jails and being released early.
Despite six weeks of testimony and hundreds of pieces of evidence, precisely what happened in Jackson's bedroom in the hours before his death remains unknown. Murray offered an account to police two days after Jackson's death, but prosecutors said the doctor's version wasn't consistent with the amounts of propofol found in Jackson's system or other evidence.
Murray's departure from the courtroom in handcuffs was an abrupt end to the freedom he had kept since being charged with Jackson's death nearly 21 months ago. After Murray changed into prison garb at the courthouse his elegantly tailored suit was returned to his mother, who had sat through every day of the trial.
The other mother in the courtroom, Katherine Jackson, walked away slowly on the arm of her son, Randy.
"I feel better now," she said quietly and told an Associated Press reporter that she had been confident of the outcome. Her daughter, La Toya, said she was overcome with joy and felt her brother's presence in the courtroom.
"Michael was looking over us," she said.
Jackson's sister, Rebbie Jackson, appeared on NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday, and said she thought she would feel relief at the verdict, but instead felt numb and "started crying profusely."
"I guess because the reality of what had transpired really hit me at that point ... It was just tremendous."
NBC on Tuesday also aired a clip from an interview with Murray that was conducted a few weeks ago. In it, reporter Savannah Guthrie asks Murray if he remembers Jackson's final words.
"It was probably, I don't know, but probably when he was pleading and begging me to please, please let him have some milk because that was the only thing that would work," Murray says. NBC said the interview will air on Friday.
Monday's verdict was greeted with cheers outside the downtown courthouse where Murray was convicted. His fans sang the Jackson hit "Beat It" and cheered his parents and siblings as they left the courthouse.
The singer left behind three children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, who did not attend the trial but were a key component of the case. The eldest children witnessed Murray's frantic efforts to revive their father. Deputy District Attorney David Walgren repeatedly told jurors in closing arguments that Murray's actions were the reason the children would grow up without their father, who had planned a series of comeback concerts in large part so they could see him perform.
After the verdict, Walgren extended his sympathies to the Jackson family, who "lost not a pop icon, but a son, a brother and a father."
___
Associated Press Writer Greg Risling and Videographer John Mone contributed to this report.
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McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Russia and Iran warned the West against a military strike on the Islamic Republic Monday, saying an attack targeting its nuclear program would lead to civilian casualties and create new threats to global security.
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The separate remarks by foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Ali Akbar Salehi of Iran coincided with speculation about a potential Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites ahead of the release of a U.N. watchdog report expected to cast more light on suspected military aspects to Iran's nuclear activity.
"This would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences," Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow when asked about reports that Israel was preparing for a possible pre-emptive military strike.
In St. Petersburg, Russia, Salehi said Iran "condemns any threat of military attack on independent states."
Salehi spoke alongside Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other ministers from nations in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping dominated by Russia and China in which Iran has observer status.
Germany's Foreign Ministry also rejected military action against Iran, suggesting that the dispute should be resolved through diplomatic pressure instead. "This continues to be the key way to move forward in dealing with this threat to regional and international security," a spokesman said.
Foreign assistance
New disclosures in the IAEA report provide details on an apparent secret research program that was more ambitious, more organized and more successful than commonly suspected, The Washington Post said.
The paper said the report's findings provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians on high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.
Technology linked to Pakistani and North Korean experts also helped Iran advance its capabilities, the officials and experts told the paper.
The report says the intelligence also supports concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related nuclear research after 2003, when U.S. intelligence agencies believed Iran halted the research in response to international pressure.
"The program never really stopped," David Albright, a former IAEA official who reviewed the agency's findings, told the paper.
"After 2003, money was made available for research in areas that sure look like nuclear weapons work but were hidden within civilian institutions," Albright told the paper.
Western powers believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy program.
Tehran denies wanting atom bombs, saying it is enriching uranium only to power reactors for electricity generation.
Story: Iran's Ahmadinejad defiant as U.S. raises heat: paperThe United States, the European Union and their allies have imposed economic sanctions on Tehran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program.
The United States and Israel have repeatedly hinted at the possible use of force against Iranian nuclear sites, eliciting threats of fierce retaliation from the Islamic Republic.
Based on the intelligence the U.N. agency has concluded that Iran "has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device" using highly enriched uranium as its fissile core, Albright said.
Albright described some of the highlights at a private conference of intelligence professionals last week, the newspaper said, adding that it had obtained slides from the presentation and a summary of Albright's notes.
Russia and China grudgingly supported four previous rounds of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. But the two veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members have made clear any new sanctions would be an extremely tough sell.
Moscow is calling for a step-by-step process under which the existing sanctions would be eased in return for actions by Iran to dispel concerns over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is purely peaceful.
Russia, which has built Iran's first nuclear power station, has vociferously opposed any military action.
"There is no military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem as there is no military solution to any other problem in the modern world," said Lavrov.
"This is confirmed to us every day when we see how the problems of the conflicts around Iran are being resolved -- whether Iraq or Afghanistan or what is happening in other countries in the region. Military intervention only leads to many times more deaths and human suffering."
Reflecting regional fear of blowback from any attack on Iran, a government official in Kuwait said the Gulf state would not let its territory be used to launch attacks on any of its neighbors. Kuwait was a launchpad for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and lies a short distance from Iran across the Gulf.
Salehi echoed Lavrov's words hours later.
"Past experience has shown that willful, unilateral military actions by certain countries have led to instability, to the murder of innocent people and to the emergence of new threats to the world," he said at the SCO meeting.
Israeli media have been rife with talk that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to secure cabinet consensus for an attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman George Little said the United States remained focused on using diplomatic and economic levers to pressure Iran.
Asked whether he believed Israel would give the United States advance notice in the event of military action against Iran, Little said: "It would always of course be preferable on a matter as grave as this to work closely with the Israelis."
A military strike would likely provoke Tehran into hugely disruptive retaliatory measures in the Gulf that would sever shipping routes and disrupt the flow of oil and gas to export markets, political analysts believe.
It would sour ties between the West and Russia, where Putin is expected to return to the presidency in 2012.
Senior Russian security officials accept that the West has legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear program. But Putin has said several times in the past that there was no clear evidence that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb
Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45187774/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain addresses the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain said Tuesday that he would not drop his bid for the Republicans? presidential nomination in the face of decade-old allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain addresses the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain said Tuesday that he would not drop his bid for the Republicans? presidential nomination in the face of decade-old allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain addresses the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain said Tuesday that he would not drop his bid for the Republicans? presidential nomination in the face of decade-old allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain addresses the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain said Tuesday that he would not drop his bid for the Republicans? presidential nomination in the face of decade-old allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain addresses the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain was responding to Sharon Bialek, a Chicago-area woman, who accused Cain on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, of making an unwanted sexual advance against her in 1997.(AP Photo/Matt York)
Sharon Bialek, a Chicago-area woman, with her attorney Gloria Allred, right, addresses a news conference at the Friars Club, Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, in New York. Bialek accused Republican presidential contender Herman Cain of making an unwanted sexual advance against her in 1997. Bialek says she wants to provide "a face and a voice" to support other accusers who have so far remained anonymous. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) ? A defiant Herman Cain declared Tuesday he would not drop his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in the face of allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. "Ain't gonna happen," Cain said at a news conference a day after a fourth woman accused him of unwanted sexual advances.
"We will get through this," he added, trying to steady a campaign that has been rocked by the controversy for the past 10 days.
Cain denied anew that he had ever behaved inappropriately and said the alleged incidents "they simply didn't happen." He said he would be willing to take a lie detector test if he had a good reason.
Earlier in the day, Cain sought to undercut the credibility of the latest woman whose accusations are threatening his Republican presidential campaign. His chief rival, Mitt Romney, weighed in for the first time, calling the allegations "particularly disturbing."
Cain said he called the news conference because he wanted to speak directly to the public, accusing the media of distorting his response to the allegations. He said that had never seen Sharon Bialek until she called her news conference on Monday in New York, alongside attorney Gloria Allred.
"I don't even know who this woman is," he said of Bialek. "I tried to remember if I recognized her and I didn't."
Another name confronted Cain, as well, when one of his two original accusers gave an interview to The New York Times and was identified publicly by news organizations including The Associated Press as Karen Kraushaar, now a spokeswoman in the Treasury Department's office of inspector general for tax administration.
When asked about Kraushaar, Cain said he recalled her accusation of sexual harassment but insisted "it was found to be baseless."
Cain contended that "the Democratic machine" was pushing the allegations but said he could not point to anyone in particular. He also suggested his accusers were lying.
Earlier, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has been a GOP front-runner for months, told ABC News/Yahoo! the allegations were serious "and they're going to have to be addressed seriously." He called the latest accusations disturbing, and Cain didn't disagree, both in an earlier interview and at the news conference.
"He's right. They are disturbing to me," Cain said. "They are serious. And I have taken them seriously."
But they're untrue, he declared.
"I reject all of those charges," he said, adding that "I have never acted inappropriately with anyone" and didn't even recognize Bialek.
Cain said it was "a remote possibility" when asked if it were possible he would recall Bialek's alleged incident in the future.
"I seriously doubt I'm going to have an 'a-ha' moment later," Cain said.
Prominent Republicans pressed for a full accounting.
"Get all the facts in front of people, otherwise he's going to have this continuing distraction," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman with deep ties to the GOP establishment, told MSNBC.
Though recent polling shows Cain still doing well, party operatives suggested it was only a matter of time before his political standing could suffer.
"Herman's base is going to stick with him," said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, Newt Gingrich's former spokesman. "But the average Republican voter who is not as engaged as intensely in the race, is sick of this and, for Cain, the concern is they will pass on it and pass on him."
Cain looked to keep those supporters in his corner.
"We are not going to allow Washington or politics to deny me the opportunity to represent this great nation," he said.
"As far as these accusations causing me to back off and maybe withdraw from this presidential primary race? Ain't gonna happen. Because I'm doing this for the American people, and the children and the grandchildren."
Cain spoke at a hotel on the outskirts of Phoenix, where reporters crowded a small room. Outside, protesters waved signs that read: "Hey Herman. How many more women will you be calling liars?"
There were growing signs of unease in conservative circles as the Georgia businessman tried to stem the controversy in its second week.
"If there is a pattern then it's a part of his character and then, yes, it is going to matter," Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Center, said in an interview.
An upstart in the presidential race, Cain shot to the top of opinion polls and emerged in recent weeks as Romney's main conservative opponent, with tea party activists and other conservatives flocking to the former pizza company executive's tell-it-like-it-is style and outsider image.
But he's spent the past 10 days battling accusations from women that he acted inappropriately toward them while he headed of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
Cain's campaign issued a tough statement by Tuesday about Bialek, the most recent accuser, including references to civil lawsuits in the Cook County Court system in Illinois allegedly relating to her and cited news reports of her involvement in a paternity case and a bankruptcy filing.
"In stark contrast to Mr. Cain's four decades spent climbing the corporate ladder rising to the level of CEO at multiple successful business enterprises, Ms. Bialek has taken a far different path," the campaign said.
It also questioned whether Bialek had a financial interest in stepping forward.
"Who is financing her legal team, have any media agreed to pay for her story, and has she been offered employment for taking these actions?"
In a round of media interviews early Wednesday, Bialek was asked repeatedly about her motives in speaking out after staying quiet for 14 years.
"I'm just doing this because it's the right thing to do," she said. She said she was neither paid nor offered a job to go public with her allegations. She said she waited so long to come forward because "I was embarrassed ... and I just kind of wanted it to go away."
She said she wasn't paying a fee to Gloria Allred, the attorney whose name has become synonymous with women's rights issues.
At least two women who worked at the restaurant association the same time as Cain filed sexual harassment complaints with the trade group and received financial settlements.
One of them was Kraushaar.
After her name was revealed by several news sites on Tuesday, The Associated Press chose to publish her name after independently confirming that she was one of his accusers. Kraushaar and her attorney previously had attempted to keep her name out of the public discussion, but they issued an anonymous statement last week that confirmed she had complained of sexual harassment and received a financial payout from the trade group. Kraushaar later confirmed to news organizations that she had filed the complaint. And she spoke publicly on Tuesday to The New York Times, saying she had decided to speak out since her name was public.
"When you are being sexually harassed in the workplace, you are extremely vulnerable," she said. "You do whatever you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe, and that is what I thought I had achieved when I left."
Kraushaar, 55, previously worked as a news reporter, and she has held other U.S. government jobs since she left the National Restaurant Association after she settled her complaint against Cain. She also has written a children's book with her mother-in-law, "Gas Station Charley," about a dog. Her husband, Kevin, has worked as a lobbyist on environmental, municipal and health issues. He has donated money to both Democrats and Republicans. They live in suburban Maryland.
A third woman told The Associated Press last week that she considered filing a workplace complaint against Cain over what she deemed sexually suggestive remarks and gestures that included a private invitation to his corporate apartment. And a former pollster for the restaurant association has said he witnessed yet another episode involving a different woman.
The AP has not identified the other woman who filed a claim against Cain while working at the restaurant association. It also has not identified the third woman, who did not file a claim, because it promised confidentiality to her because she said she feared retaliation if her name became public.
Bialek came forward Monday to say that Cain, an acquaintance, groped her in car in July 1997 after they'd had dinner in Washington. Cain led the association at the time, and the unemployed Bialek was seeking job advice. She said she had been fired from her job raising money for the trade group's education arm ? told, she said, that she had not raised enough money.
Cain has been urging supporters to donate to his Iowa fund so he can meet a $999,999 goal before Wednesday's debate in Michigan.
"The media is just itching to be able to make up more stories about how my campaign is faltering," Cain said in an email blast to supporters.
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McCaffrey reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers David Espo in Washington and Becky Bohrer in Alaska contributed.
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