CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government plans to raise the nation's debt ceiling by a whopping two-thirds to 500 billion Australian dollars ($486 billion) in a bid to avoid any future Washington-style political crisis over spending.
The conservative government, elected last month, said Tuesday latest data showed that debt was on track to reach the current AU$300 billion ceiling in December.
While the previous center-left Labor Party government had forecast debt to peak at AU$370 billion in 2015-16, new data showed it would exceed AU$400 billion that year due to falling tax revenues.
"We are not going to allow ourselves to get into the position that the United States is in where there's tremendous uncertainty about the capacity of a country to live within its means," Treasurer Joe Hockey told Australian Broadcasting Corp. late Tuesday.
A 16-day partial U.S. government shutdown ended last week when Congress approved a budget that keeps the government running through Jan. 15 and lets the Treasury continue to pay its bills through Feb. 7. But a repeat of the economically-damaging political stalemate and the threat of a default on the national debt could be repeated in the New Year.
"The thing that undermines market confidence and business confidence is when the government says: 'we will not exceed a certain level of debt" and then keeps going back to the Parliament or back to the Congress to get it lifted," Hockey told ABC on Wednesday.
"What we want to do is be in a position where we only do this once to fix up the mess that we inherited and then get on with the job of making sure that we start to live within our means," he added.
A bill to increase the borrowing limit will go to Parliament when it sits on Nov. 12 for the first time since the government changed.
Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke said Labor wanted to see the latest budget projections before voting on the bill. The opposition would deal with the debt ceiling legislation "responsibly," Burke said.
LONDON (Reuters) - The upturn in Britain's economy could be self-sustaining, but considerable slack in the labour market means monetary policy needs to remain loose, according to Bank of England policymaker David Miles.
"The recent rise in activity and confidence in the UK could be - I believe - sustainable and self-confirming," Miles wrote in a chapter for an e-book on forward guidance.
"What the self-confirming and stronger path for output and confidence does not need right now is tighter monetary policy."
It was not immediately clear when the chapter was written.
Data on Friday is expected to show Britain's economy grew by 0.8 percent in the third quarter compared with the April-June period, its strongest growth in more than three years.
(Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by William Schomberg)
Back at WWDC, Apple invited the robotics company Anki on to the stage to show off its connected toy car game, Drive, in which physical toy cars sail around a track while you control them with your iOS device. It was seriously impressive. iFixit got their hands on an Anki Drive set, and like spoiled children, set about dismantling their new toys.
Tiger Pistol, is launching version 2.0 of its platform aimed at making social media marketing easy for small businesses. It’s also announcing that it has raised $1 million in additional funding.
The company says that when customers sign up, Tiger Pistol can use information like the type of business, its location, and its status on Facebook to create step-by-step instructions on how the business should be promoting themselves. It includes the ability to schedule posts and ads, as well as guidelines on what kind of content should be included.
“The complexity in social marketing comes from companies not knowing what to post, when to post, whether they should advertise, how to advertise, when they should try and generate sales and what they should expect in return, and we’ve seen how much support they need,” co-founder and CEO Steve Hibberd told me in an email. “Their requirements are no different to big businesses, but they don’t have the thousands of dollars to hire experts or pay agencies.”
When I first wrote about the company last year, it was leaving its closed beta. Now Tiger Pistol says it has already worked with “thousands” of customers in more than 100 countries, and Hibberd told me the new version includes “unprecedented levels of smart automation and analytics.”
Behind the scenes, he said the company is using large amounts of data to determine what will and won’t work for its customers. He also noted that from existing customers, he’s learned that “small businesses want and need their unique personalities to come through”: “Templates and canned copy simply doesn’t work, but at the same time they need guidance on what to write, so it’s a fine balance.”
Tiger Pistol (the name comes from the tiger shrimp) previously raised $1 million in angel funding led by Australian investor David Solomon. The new funding comes from the new firm Rampersand and existing investors.
You've put yourself into an exceptionally sticky situation—and we're not talking about the masturbation scene that was cut from the pilot! LOLz!
Reign—which airs its second episode TONIGHT, focuses on 15-year-old Mary (played by Adelaide Kane) who has just been freed from a battle between Scotland and England over her crown!
For her safety, she's sent to France to marry the next king, but just wants to have fun, despite the essential curse of the monarchy!
Ch-ch-check out the crazy clip (above) to see if the show's juicy enough for you to tune in!
If you're into love triangles, fancy period clothing, and lavish social events, allow Reign to take over your TV every Thursday on the CW!
My original iPad has seen better days. Its screen is all marred, scratches and dents adorn its back shell, and iOS 5 -- yep, you read that right -- creaks along on its outmoded internals. It's time for an upgrade. If you're in the same boat as me, take heart: You don't have to be stuck with a tattered slab of aluminum and glass after you upgrade.
Lots of services allow you to sell back your old iPad in exchange for cash or store credit -- or at least unload it on someone else who will dispose of it or recycle it for you. Here's what you need to know about four popular gadget-buyback services, and how much they'll give you for that "ancient" 18-month-old iPad you can't bear to use anymore.
Amazon Amazon will take back your old iPad in return for an Amazon gift card through its electronics trade-in program. To use it, visit Amazon.com, and click Shop by Department in the upper-left corner of the page. Click Electronics & Computers, and select Trade In Electronics.
From there, you can search for the iPad model that you have by typing its description into the search field (for example, "iPad 2 32GB Wi-Fi"). This step can be a somewhat tedious endeavor -- Amazon's search function isn't the most precise -- but once you find your iPad model, click the yellow Trade In button. Once you do, Amazon will ask you to log in with your account. Sign in, and Amazon will ask you to specify the condition of your iPad and then step you through the trade-in process.
Amazon does not take back broken or severely damaged iPads, so make sure your slightly mangled tablet meets the eligibility levels: To see what each criterion means, simply mouse over it and Amazon will give you a full description.
If you want cash instead of an Amazon gift card, you can always sell your iPad through Amazon. This approach requires you to register as a seller with Amazon, which may be a hassle, but it does mean that you can set your own price for your iPad.
Best Buy Much like Amazon, Best Buy will take back your old iPad through BestBuyTradeIn.com in return for a Best Buy gift card.
The process is reasonably straightforward: Scroll down and select Apple under the Tablets & E-Readers heading, and either search for your iPad model or choose it from the list. Once you find your model, select it, and Best Buy will give you an estimate of how much it's worth, based on its condition. After you click the Add to Cart button, Best Buy will walk you through the process of determining your iPad's condition and sending it in for your store credit.
If your iPad is too damaged for you to get anything for it, Best Buy will offer to recycle it, so at least it won't clutter up your desk anymore.
Gazelle If you're looking for a site that's dedicated to buying back used electronics, Gazelle is for you. In addition to iPads and other tablets, it will buy back smartphones, iPods, and Mac laptops and desktops.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's MTN Group on Thursday cut its full-year target for new subscribers by nearly 10 percent, as U.S. sanctions against Iran dampen consumer demand for its largest Middle East business.
MTN, Africa's top mobile operator, now expects to add 19.1 new customers by the end of this year, from the 21.1 million it previously forecast, said spokesman Nik Kershaw.
The Johannesburg-based company owns 49 percent of MTN Irancell, which contributed nearly a quarter of its 2012 revenue. But Iran has seen its economy suffer from U.S. sanctions against Tehran.
"With sanctions (against) Iran, the economy is under pressure. It's going to put more and more pressure on the business," Kershaw told Reuters.
MTN on Thursday reported a slower-than-expected 1 percent increase in third-quarter subscribers, to 203.8 million from the previous three months.
The company, which operates in 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East, added subscribers in almost all of its major markets except Iran, where it saw subscribers fall 1.7 percent to 41.3 million.
Business in Iran was also hurt by the withdrawal of a SIM card promotion, Kershaw said.
MTN said on Tuesday it has been unable to repatriate around $450 million from its Iranian unit because of the sanctions.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, subscribers rose by just 0.6 percent to 55.6 million. South Africa also saw growth of just under 1 percent, to 25.2 million.
MTN said conditions would remain challenging in its home market, where it faces tough competition from local rivals Vodacom and unlisted Cell C.
South Africa's telecoms regulator said this month it planned to cut by 75 percent the fees mobile operators can charge rivals to use their network.
Analysts have said the change would be a blow to MTN's revenue. The company said it continued to discuss the proposed changes with the regulator.
Shares of MTN fell 1.7 percent to 197.70 rand, underperforming Johannesburg's benchmark Top-40 index, which was flat.
The folks over at Gear Junkie got a chance to visit the product development lab at North Face's new headquarters in Alameda, California, and one of the many new innovations they were shown was this wonderful runner's jacket that uses a clever ventilation system to cool you down.
An Afghan child writes on a blackboard as she attends classes in a school built by German troops at a refugee camp in the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif on April 19. The number of students enrolled in Afghan schools has skyrocketed since the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001.
Farshad Usyan/AFP/Getty Images
An Afghan child writes on a blackboard as she attends classes in a school built by German troops at a refugee camp in the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif on April 19. The number of students enrolled in Afghan schools has skyrocketed since the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001.
Farshad Usyan/AFP/Getty Images
It's one of the most touted "positive statistics" about Afghanistan: Today, there are 10 million Afghans enrolled in school, 40 percent of them female.
Under the Taliban, about a million boys and almost no girls were attending schools. Western officials routinely point to the revived education system as a sign of success and hope for the future.
The international community has spent billions on the construction of schools and programs ranging from teacher training to community-based education in remote villages to book distribution. The U.S. Agency for International Development alone has spent more than $850 million on education since the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001.
But the numbers tell only part of the story: While 10 million students might be enrolled in all levels of education, they aren't all attending classes, and there are questions about how many of those attending are actually learning.
Cultural And Economic Obstacles
Take the Neswan school in Parwan province, north of Kabul, for example. On a recent day, students shuffle to class in a two-story building. The school holds about 400 students at a time, and there are three daily sessions — a total of about 1,200 students are supposed to attend class each day.
But principal Fawzia Hakimi says average attendance is only a little more than 50 percent.
"Some boys can't attend school because they are working," she says. "When we ask them why they are late, some say, 'I was selling water, I was selling plastic bags.'"
Afghan children attend class in a tent in Bamiyan province, west of Kabul, the Afghan capital, on June 3. A shortage of classroom buildings is just one of a host of problems the Afghan educational system faces.
Ahmad Massoud/Xinhua/Landov
Afghan children attend class in a tent in Bamiyan province, west of Kabul, the Afghan capital, on June 3. A shortage of classroom buildings is just one of a host of problems the Afghan educational system faces.
Ahmad Massoud/Xinhua/Landov
As in most of Afghanistan, many of the families in the school district live in poverty. So they make their sons work for at least part of the day. The 48-year-old principal says looking at the attendance log is depressing.
And it's not just the boys who are often late or absent.
"We have a girl in sixth grade who is engaged," says Hakimi. "She is just a little girl. And there are others who are engaged, too."
Many girls in rural areas are forced into marriage once they reach puberty — and disappear from school.
"One of my classmates stopped attending school due to security issues, and another got married when we were in grade nine," says Mojdah, a 12th-grader at the Hora Jalali Girls High School in Parwan.
By ninth grade, classes are segregated, and female teachers must teach the girls. Even though Hora Jalali is a single-sex school, it's so conservative that girls like Mojdah have to wear a double headscarf to ensure not a single strand of hair is visible.
"Family issues, social issues, and also cultural and traditional customs prevent girls attending school in our society," says Mojdah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name.
But it's not just cultural practices that keep girls out of school, says Deputy Minister of Education Asif Nang.
"In more than 166 districts of Afghanistan out of 416, we don't have a single female teacher," he says. In about 200 districts, Nang adds, there is no secondary education for girls.
So even if families want to send their daughters to school, it's not always an option. Nang says there are roughly 5 million Afghan boys and girls attending primary school nationwide. But only about a million Afghans make it to grades 11 and 12.
Shortage Of Classrooms, Books
Parwan province is above average in the country. Officials there claim 95 percent of kids have access to school. But access doesn't necessarily translate into a quality education.
Sadeqi High School in Parwan consists of an old building, two newer ones, and seven tents. Boys attend classes in the morning, girls in the afternoon.
Sadina Saqeb teaches history in one of those tents.
Afghan girls take classes at a refugee school in Afghanistan's Parwan province, on April 3. Under the Taliban, girls were forbidden from receiving an education. Now they account for 40 percent of the country's student enrollment.
Zhao Yishen/Xinhua/Landov
Afghan girls take classes at a refugee school in Afghanistan's Parwan province, on April 3. Under the Taliban, girls were forbidden from receiving an education. Now they account for 40 percent of the country's student enrollment.
Zhao Yishen/Xinhua/Landov
"Most of the students have sore throats during the summer because of the dust," she says. "And these tents can't block outside noise, so the students can't study their lessons properly."
Although some 4,000 schools have been built since the fall of the Taliban, some provinces are desperately in need of more. At the same time, there are other provinces where large numbers of schools are closed because of a lack of security or of teachers, or simply because not enough families want to send their children to school.
Classroom space isn't the only thing in short supply, says teacher Roshan Rasooli.
"We have a shortage of books," she says. "17 of 55 students are present today, and we still don't have enough books."
Officials like Bashir Ahmad Abed, headmaster of the Sadeqi school, says even if a student has a book, there's no guarantee he or she can read it: Many books are too complicated for the students.
That's in large part because most kids aren't getting any kind of early childhood education, says Mindy Visser, the national education adviser for the Aga Khan Foundation in Afghanistan.
"Maybe their parents are illiterate so they haven't been exposed to reading material or even words very often before they enter school," says Visser.
Recruiting Qualified Teachers
While many students aren't getting much help from their parents, a lot of them aren't being well served by their teachers either, says Nang, the deputy education minister. He says that half the teachers in Afghanistan don't have the minimum required training, which is the equivalent of an associate degree.
"In the rural area[s], we have a huge shortage of professional teachers," he says, adding that many of them have not even finished 12th grade.
The government even had a program trying to encourage teachers to go to more rural schools by paying higher wages, says Visser, the education adviser. But even so, she says, qualified teachers still don't want to go to rural areas because of security concerns or because of the travel time and distance.
Visser gives the Ministry of Education good marks for its efforts to modernize the school curriculum and expand access at the primary level. She says long-term challenges include increasing the number of kids who stay in school beyond the primary level, and addressing the bottleneck in higher education.
About 300,000 people graduate from high school each year; they are competing for 60,000 openings in colleges as well as vocational and teacher training programs.
Even though many schools and teachers — or students, for that matter — are getting failing grades, the principal of the Hora Jalali High school in Parwan says that's not diminishing the appetite for education. She says in one case, a 35-year old woman returned to school after a 15-year hiatus during the civil war and Taliban rule.
Americans wishing for a Grand Bargain this Christmas are likely to be disappointed.
The bipartisan conference committee established by last week’s 11th-hour agreement to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling probably won’t produce a truly groundbreaking bipartisan deal that would end the nation's debt problem once and for all, nor are the members aiming that high.
At best, the budget resolution that comes out of the committee may serve as a "down payment" on that debt and provide Congress an opportunity to fulfill its most basic function of setting spending levels so the appropriations committees can fund the government.
In other words, it is literally likely to be the least lawmakers could do — which for this unpopular, Do-Nothing Congress, would be quite an achievement.
As part of the agreement to temporarily keep the government open, the House and Senate have appointed 29 lawmakers to a conference committee tasked with reconciling the House and Senate budget proposals that passed earlier this year. The panel's leaders, Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, who each chair the Budget Committees in their respective chamber, must report back to Congress by Dec. 13 with the final version of the budget.
When the new conference committee members held their first meeting last Thursday, both sides kept expectations low.
“Chairman Ryan knows I’m not going to vote for his budget. I know that he’s not going to vote for mine,” Murray said at the Thursday meeting. “We’re going to find the common ground between our two budgets that we both can vote on. That’s our goal.”
“Our job,” she added, “is to make sure that we have put forward a spending cap and a budget path for this Congress in the next year or two or further if we can.”
That common ground, as one aide close to Ryan described it to Yahoo News, would amount to little more than “small things.”
At the end of these formal negotiations, Republicans want modest changes made to the nation’s entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare — the primary drivers of U.S. debt — which they say are necessary to keep those programs sustainable for future generations. Democrats want sequestration eliminated, or at least reformed to give federal agencies more flexibility to find savings.
And yes, there is some common ground on this.
Unlike in years past, this time Ryan won’t insist that Democrats hand over the Holy Grail of Republican entitlement reform, a controversial plan to transform Medicare into a system that provides vouchers for seniors to buy health care on a private market. (Sound familiar?) Instead, as Yahoo News reported earlier this month, Ryan intends to seek more realistic tweaks to entitlement programs that Democrats, including Obama, already have proposed.
Ryan outlined some of his ideas in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal earlier this month. Although he wrote the piece in the context of the ongoing debt limit debate at the time, aides close to Ryan say it revealed how he plans to approach the budget conference.
“We could ask the better off to pay higher premiums for Medicare. We could reform Medigap plans to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. And we could ask federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement,” Ryan wrote. “Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) have been working for more than a year now on a bipartisan plan to reform the tax code. They agree on the fundamental principles: Broaden the base, lower the rates and simplify the code. The president himself has argued for just such an approach to corporate taxes. So we should discuss how Congress can take up the Camp–Baucus plan when it's ready.”
As part of the deal, Republicans appear willing to loosen up the tight reins of sequestration, which is their strongest piece of leverage.
“The sequester offers that nice opportunity,” to make structural changes to entitlement spending, a Ryan aide told Yahoo News. “In [Ryan's] mind, it's how he can do everything in his power to forge a good down payment on this debt. If you're just cutting government agency spending you can't get much, but if you go into entitlement programs, that’s where the bigger structural problems are.”
The opportunity is indeed a long time coming. This year marks the first time both the House and Senate have passed budget resolutions since 2009.
Since the passage of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, both chambers are supposed to pass their own resolution that sets spending levels, then each side appoints members of a conference committee to negotiate their differences. The resolutions are not technically law — the president, who submits his own budget annually, never “signs” a “budget” — but they serve to reveal priorities, force Congress to regularly re-examine its spending and set spending levels for appropriators. For most of President Barack Obama’s time in office — and during three years under former President George W. Bush — Congress has instead funded the government through a series of stopgap bills that set the spending levels for short periods of time
The government currently operates based on spending levels set by the Budget Control Act of 2011, the law that ushered in sequestration, which indiscriminately cut billions across most of the federal government. Democrats outright hate sequestration, and despite many Republicans who give sequestration lip service because it reigned in spending, plenty of them can’t stand the defense cuts.
In March, the Republican-majority House passed its version of a budget resolution, which cut enough spending to balance the federal budget in a decade. The Senate responded two days later with its own resolution (after Republicans threatened to withhold lawmakers’ pay if they didn’t.)
But then seven months passed and nothing happened. Senate Democrats called repeatedly for a budget conference, but Republicans resisted, saying that there was too much disagreement between the parties for formal negotiations to begin. Democrats, who had spent the past four years getting hammered by Republicans because they hadn’t passed a budget resolution of their own, were furious. Finally last week, as the nation neared its borrowing limit, Republicans agreed to talk.
Striking a deal this year would help the government avoid yet another bout of brinkmanship over a shutdown when the latest round of short-term government funding runs out in January.
But here’s where the hope for a final resolution could fall apart: Traditionally, Congress only really acts when it must. Like schoolchildren and journalists, politicians need deadlines and severe consequences for not meeting them. (Think back to the ominous-sounding “Fiscal Cliff,” “Government Shutdown,” and “Taxmageddon.”)
In this case, there are no hard deadlines for the budget committee.
Yes, the agreement hashed out last week asks the panel to report back to Congress in December, and if they fail, perhaps they’ll find coal in their stockings from Santa Claus at Christmas. Hopefully the potential for an agreement is more than just a figment of our imagination.
Ranches like Double J Feeders in Ault, Colo., are feeling the industry contraction, whether it's caused by epic drought, scarce feed supplies, harsh winters or wild price volatility.
Luke Runyon/Harvest Public Media/KUNC
Ranches like Double J Feeders in Ault, Colo., are feeling the industry contraction, whether it's caused by epic drought, scarce feed supplies, harsh winters or wild price volatility.
Luke Runyon/Harvest Public Media/KUNC
Over the last 20 years, the number of sheep in this country has plummeted by one half. The sheep industry has actually been declining since the late 1940s, when it hit its peak.
The sharp drop in production has left ranchers to wonder, "When are we going to hit the bottom?"
Some sheep are raised for their wool, others primarily for food. Both products – lamb meat and wool – have seen declining consumption in the U.S.
If you look at the tags on clothes in your closet, chances are quite a few pieces will be blended with synthetic fibers: nylon, rayon and polyester. As these human-made fibers have become more prevalent and inexpensive, people are wearing less and less wool.
The same goes for lamb. In the early 1960s, the average person in the U.S. ate about 4.5 pounds of lamb in a year. That has dropped to less than a pound in 2011.
At the same time as the American sheep industry's decline, Australian and New Zealand wool and lamb imports are way up, squeezing into niche markets that America's sheep producers are having a hard time filling.
Ranchers are feeling the industry contraction, whether it's caused by epic drought, scarce feed supplies, harsh winters or wild price volatility.
Congress ending subsidies, wolves, frost, droughts and other hazards have all played a role in the decline in demand for sheep. But farmers markets and demand for locally-sourced food is helping sheep farmers find a niche.
Luke Runtyon/Harvest Public Media/KUNC
Congress ending subsidies, wolves, frost, droughts and other hazards have all played a role in the decline in demand for sheep. But farmers markets and demand for locally-sourced food is helping sheep farmers find a niche.
Luke Runtyon/Harvest Public Media/KUNC
"The numbers are just way down – and less sheep ranchers, just in general," says Albert Villard, a sheep rancher in Craig, Colo.
Blizzard and drought the past three years have culled Villard's herd to its lowest point in a long time. Building it back up hasn't been easy.
"The industry as a whole, I think, is trying to get the numbers up, but there's so many factors as to why," Villard says. "I don't think you can blame any one thing."
Double J Feeders outside Ault, Colo., which is one of just a handful of lamb feeding operations in the country, feels the decline too. The feedlot can hold up to 50,000 sheep at any given time and fattens them up before slaughter.
One part of the decline could be the changing agricultural landscape across the country. Farms have grown larger and more technologically advanced, and there are fewer small family farms today than ever before.
"Thirty or 40 years ago, every farmer in the winter time would buy 1,000 lambs, run them out on the beet tops, corn – whatever – and then they'd market those lambs in the spring. Well, all that has changed," says Jeff Hasbrouck, the owner of Double J Feeders.
Most farms aren't fenced in any more, Hasbrouck says, and have grown so large that maintaining a sheep herd makes no economic sense. It's more trouble than it's worth for a large crop grower.
Another problem that has plagued the industry is lamb's perception by the average consumer. Longtime sheep producers put the blame on the meat fed to soldiers all the way back in World War II.
"Those troops were fed canned mutton and when they came home they said, 'No more lamb, no more sheep. Don't eat any of it.' And that's where we saw the steady decline," says Brad Anderson, livestock supply manager for Mountain States Rosen, a large co-op that markets lamb to meatpacking companies and locks in prices.
Sheep numbers tanked even faster 20 years ago when Congress ended subsidies for sheep ranchers with the repeal of the National Wool Act in 1993. The removal of those subsidies sent the sheep industry into wild market swings and stayed volatile for years. The increased risk, Anderson says, pushed many ranchers out of business.
Today, ranchers who are left face new problems like wolf attacks. Peter Orwick, director of the American Sheep Industry Association, says an attack this year in Idaho left more than a hundred sheep dead.
"In spite of having herders out there, the wolves still come right in, the horses scream, the dogs lay down and whine and they ran sheep over a cliff," Orwick says.
But there is hope for sheep producers. Because many sheep and lamb operations tend to be small, the growth in farmers markets and local food has benefited sheep ranchers. One-third of all lamb sold in the U.S. now is direct sale from producer to consumer, according to the American Sheep Industry Association. There's plenty of room for growth in big cities, too.
"It's ethnic communities. Every major metropolitan city in the U.S. has a large immigrant neighborhood," Orwick says. "Where are the people coming from? Where they prefer lamb. It's their meat."
As the face of America changes, ranchers will be watching those new markets to see whether or not they grow fast enough to keep their industry from shrinking even further.
A new installation of British graffiti artist Banksy is pictured in New York on Oct. 18, 2013.
Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters
I was all set to write something snarky about the media frenzy around Banksy’s current month-long, self-declared “residency” in New York, for which the famed British street artist has been seeding daily guerrilla art interventions across the Big Apple. I’m less dismissive of Banksy than other art critics—Jerry Saltz pans him as “the easy-access photorealist of graffiti artists”—but I do wonder if his presence really is worth so much hype when our own native New York graffiti landmarks, like Long Island City’s imperiled 5 Pointz, are being turned into condos. But then, last week, outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg weighed in, and opened my eyes to the beauty of it all.
Bloomberg made his remarks at a press conference to mark the opening of a new water tunnel beneath Central Park—an important event but one that literally falls beneath the field of interest of most New Yorkers, so I suppose reporters were trying to spice things up when they brought up Banksy. New York’s dependable tabloids portrayed the mayor as declaring war on the elusive artist, conjuring tantalizing visions of a Keystone Cops-style manhunt for the elusive artist. In truth, however, Bloomberg’s musings are more philosophical than anything else. Here they are, in their full glory:
[block] I’ll leave it up to our Department of Cultural Affairs. But look, graffiti does ruin people’s property and it’s a sign of decay and loss of control. Art is art. And nobody’s a bigger supporter of the arts than I am. I just think there are some places for art and there are some places [not for] art. And you running up to somebody’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that’s exactly what the law says. [block]
A Banksy on the Lower East Side of New York as seen through a chain link fence on Oct. 9, 2013.
Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Readers curious about the object of the mayor’s distaste can click on over to the website for “Better Out Than In,” which is the name of the month-long Banksy plot to dot the city with “elaborate graffiti, large scale street sculpture, video installations, and substandard performance art.” There, Team Banksy is teasing fans with daily news of his latest exploits. Some are goofy stencils of the kind he is most famous for (a dog peeing on a fire hydrant, which sprouts a thought balloon that says “You Complete Me”) or quick-fire jokes (a series appending the words “The Musical” to a pre-existing scrawl: “Dirty Underwear: The Musical,” “Occupy: The Musical,” and so forth). Others are more involved stunts—two so far have incorporated trucks that circle the city (one with a bucolic landscape incongruously placed in the cargo bay and one transporting a screaming gaggle of animatronic stuffed animals, as if to slaughter).
Bloomie and Banksy would appear at first glance to be natural antagonists. The former is a financial services billionaire who will leave behind a city perhaps more unequal than it has ever been. As for Banksy, you can argue about whether his signature brand of “anti-authoritarian whimsy” (as one commentator dubbed it) is just shtick, but you have to admit that he has the common touch: His sense of humor is generally leveled against the powerful. Last week’s best piece was a Ronald McDonald sculpture, unveiled in front of a Bronx outlet of the burger chain. The effigy came complete with a real live boy dressed as a Depression-era street urchin, tasked with buffing the sculpture’s grotesquely exaggerated (even by clown standards) shoes—a likely reference to NYC’s fast food workers’ ongoing fight for a living wage.
Subject matter aside, Bloomberg has staked his reputation on a form of “broken windows” policing so aggressive that a court actually has deemed it criminal. It is therefore perfectly logical that, when faced with news of a marauding graffiti artist, what comes to his mind is “decay and loss of control.” Left unchecked, Banksy’s antics might inspire untold numbers of New Yorkers to engage in droll outbursts of public art, with who knows what consequences!
A man photographs a Banksy depicting the the Twin Towers on Oct. 15, 2013 in Tribeca.
Photo by Daniel Pierce Wright/Getty Images
And yet, if Bloomberg really thought about it, the Banksy “residency” might well offer him much more to love than hate. What strikes me about the mayor’s remarks is that he is stuck in a ’70s narrative about graffiti. The new narrative of street art isn’t that it is a sign of impending urban apocalypse; it is that it’s worth lots and lots of money. Heck, in places like Miami, developers deliberately woo street art stars to boost neighborhood cachet. And Banksy is the biggest star of all.
“Better Out Than In” only really hit its stride in terms of piquing public interest on Oct. 13, when Banksy set up a stall in Central Park selling signed canvasses of his work for $60. The result was a jubilant torrent of stories about how a few canny tourists hit the jackpot—the works might well sell for tens of thousands of dollars each—which shows how the fascination with Banksy is often less about his scrappy politics and more about his ability to spray gold from his magic paint can. It’s this part of his legend that has made him a running gag on the Colbert Report all month; Stephen Colbert has even framed a section of bare wall in front of his studio, sternly warning Banksy not to be tempted. “The last thing I want,” Colbert raged, “is for the front of my building to vandalized, and for its property value to skyrocket!”
A child poses with a Banksy in Brooklyn on Oct. 17, 2013.
Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters
If lifestyle policing has been one pillar of the Bloomberg era, the other has been courting the wealthy and business interests by selling NYC as “luxury city.” You’d think, then, that a world-famous entrepreneur setting up shop for an ambitious citywide project would be welcome. The trickle-down economic benefits of Banksy’s “residency” have been much in the news in recent days. In Williamsburg, a business owner thinks his mural so valuable that he’s hired guards and had a gate built to protect it—so there are some jobs created right there. In East New York, an enterprising duo threw a box over a Banksy stencil and started charging $20 for visitors to see it. And best of all, unlike most city-backed art initiatives, Banksy’s “residency” is self-funded; it is, in essence, a completely laissez-faire program of public art.
Bloomberg talks a good game about the supporting art, but I’m with David Byrne, who recently published an angry essay lamenting how New York has become rather inhospitable to creativity: “Middle-class people can barely afford to live here anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people.” For his part, Banksy believes there’s something left to love, something that hasn’t been buffed out yet: “New York calls to graffiti writers like a dirty old lighthouse,” he told the Village Voice—though he did add, “Maybe I should be somewhere more relevant, like Beijing or Moscow, but the pizza isn’t as good.” Not a ringing endorsement, but I’ll take it. At any rate, even if Bloomberg can’t bring himself to embrace “Better Out Than In,” he might think of it as a kind of prophecy of the future he is leaving for us: a city were artistic spark has to be imported from without, because nobody here can afford to take any real risks.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli, right, celebrates with John Lackey, center, and teammates after Game 1 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 8-1 to take a 1-0 lead in the series. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli, right, celebrates with John Lackey, center, and teammates after Game 1 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 8-1 to take a 1-0 lead in the series. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright wipes his face as he pitches to Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli during the second inning of Game 1 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
St. Louis Cardinals' Carlos Beltran leaps to catch a long fly ball hit by Boston Red Sox's David Ortiz during the second inning of Game 1 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Boston Red Sox's David Ortiz celebrates as he crosses home after hitting a two-run home run during the seventh inning of Game 1 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. Dustin Pedroia (15) scored on the homer. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Holliday waits in the outfield during the seventh inning of Game 1 of baseball's World Series against the Boston Red Sox Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
BOSTON (AP) — An easy toss on a sure out that skittered away. A routine popup that somehow dropped between Gold Glovers. And something even more startling — umpires reversing a key call.
Most everything fell into place for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series opener.
Mike Napoli hit a three-run double right after a game-changing decision in the very first inning, Jon Lester made the early lead stand up and the Red Sox romped past the sloppy St. Louis Cardinals 8-1 Wednesday night for their ninth straight Series win.
A season before Major League Baseball is expected to expand instant replay, fans got to see a preview. The entire six-man crew huddled and flipped a ruling on a forceout at second base — without looking at any video.
"I think based on their group conversation, surprisingly, to a certain extent, they overturned it and I think got the call right," Boston manager John Farrell said.
David Ortiz was robbed of a grand slam by Carlos Beltran — a catch that sent the star right fielder to a hospital with bruised ribs — but Big Papi later hit a two-run homer following third baseman David Freese's bad throw.
The Red Sox also capitalized on two errors by shortstop Pete Kozma to extend a Series winning streak that began when they swept St. Louis in 2004. Boston never trailed at any point in those four games and coasted on this rollicking night at Fenway Park, thanks to a hideous display by the Cardinals,
It got so bad for St. Louis that the sellout crowd literally laughed when pitcher Adam Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina, who've combined to win six Gold Gloves, let an easy popup drop untouched between them.
Serious-minded St. Louis manager Mike Matheny didn't find anything funny, especially when the umpires changed a call by Dana DeMuth at second base.
"Basically, the explanation is that's not a play I've ever seen before. And I'm pretty sure there were six umpires on the field that had never seen that play before, either," Matheny said.
"It's a pretty tough time to debut that overruled call in the World Series. Now, I get that they're trying to get the right call, I get that. Tough one to swallow," he said.
DeMuth said he never actually saw Kozma drop the ball.
"My vision was on the foot. And when I was coming up, all I could see was a hand coming out and the ball on the ground. All right? So I was assuming," DeMuth told a pool reporter.
There was no dispute, however, that the umpires properly ruled Kozma had not caught a soft toss from second baseman Matt Carpenter on a potential forceout. That's what crew chief John Hirschbeck told Matheny.
"I just explained to him ... that five of us were 100 percent sure," Hirschbeck said. "Our job is to get the play right. And that's what we did."
"I said, 'I know you are not happy with it, that it went against you, but you have to understand that the play is correct,'" he said.
The normally slick-fielding Cardinals looked sloppy at every turn. Wainwright bounced a pickoff throw, Molina let a pitch trickle off his mitt, center fielder Shane Robinson bobbled the carom on Napoli's double and there was a wild pitch.
The Cardinal Way? More like, no way.
"We had a wakeup call. That is not the kind of team that we've been all season," Matheny said. "And they're frustrated. I'm sure embarrassed to a point."
Game 2 is Thursday night, with 22-year-old rookie sensation Michael Wacha starting for St. Louis against John Lackey. Wacha is 3-0 with a 0.43 ERA this postseason.
Beltran is day to day after X-rays were negative.
Lester blanked the Cardinals on five hits over 7 2-3 innings and struck out eight for his third win this postseason.
"We wanted to set the tone and get them swinging," he said.
Ryan Dempster gave up Matt Holliday's leadoff home run in the ninth.
Boston brought the beards and made it a most hairy night for St. Louis. The Cardinals wrecked themselves with just their second three-error game of the season.
The umpires made a mistake, too, but at least they got to fix it in a hurry.
After the control-conscious Wainwright walked leadoff man Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia singled him to second with one out.
Ortiz then hit a slow grounder to Carpenter, and it didn't appear the Cardinals could turn a double play. Hurrying, Kozma let the backhanded flip glance off his glove.
DeMuth instantly called Pedroia out, indicating that Kozma dropped the ball while trying to transfer it to his throwing hand. Farrell quickly popped out of the dugout to argue while Pedroia went to the bench.
Farrell argued with every umpire he could and must've made a persuasive case. As the fans hollered louder and louder as they studied TV replays, all the umpires gathered on the dirt near shortstop and conferred and decided there was no catch at all.
"You rarely see that, especially on a stage like this," Napoli said. "But I think that was good for the game."
Pedroia came bounding from the dugout and suddenly, the bases were loaded in the first. Napoli unloaded them with a double that rolled to the Green Monster in left-center.
Napoli, with maybe the bushiest beard of all, certainly picked up where he left off the last time he saw the Cardinals in October. In the 2011 Series, he hit .350 with two home runs and 10 RBIs as Texas lost in seven games to St. Louis.
The Red Sox added to their 3-0 lead with two more runs in the second. A fielding error by Kozma set up Pedroia's RBI single.
The whole inning got going when Stephen Drew's popup in front of the mound landed at Wainwright's feet, a step or two from Molina. The ace pitcher and the star catcher both hung their heads.
"I called it. I waited for someone else to take charge. That's not the way to play baseball. It was totally my error," Wainwright said.
Ortiz, who hit a tying grand slam at Fenway in the AL championship series win over Detroit, sent a long drive to right-center. Beltran, playing in his first World Series, braced himself with one hand on the low wall in front of the bullpen and reached over with his glove to make the catch.
"At least I got an RBI and we were up four and got the momentum," Ortiz said.
Beltran hurt himself on the play and left in the third inning.
Ortiz homered in the seventh and the Red Sox got another run in the eighth on a sacrifice fly by 21-year-old rookie Xander Bogaerts.
The Red Sox almost made a terrific play to finish the game. With two outs in the ninth, Freese hit a sharp single and right fielder Shane Victorino nearly threw him out at first base.
NOTES: Lester has pitched 13 1-3 scoreless innings in two Series starts. He closed out a 2007 sweep over Colorado. ... The Red Sox won their fifth straight World Series opener since losing Game 1 to St. Louis in 1967. ... Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski threw out the first ball. ... The team that won the Series opener has taken the title in 14 of the past 16 years.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Hundreds of men, some on crutches, all wearing tattered clothing, gather shortly before dawn at major intersections throughout Kabul and other Afghan cities. Displaying primitive tools such as a level or a trowel, they seek labor that is often backbreaking, always temporary and will earn just a few dollars for a day's work.
Employers circle the intersections, eyeing the crowds. Usually they are looking for one or two workers for minor construction tasks. Before they even stop, dozens of men swarm their vehicle, fighting with each other to get one of perhaps five or six jobs available that morning.
Despite billions of dollars from abroad to develop this impoverished country since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, roughly 12 million people, or eight out of every 10 working-age Afghan are unskilled day laborers, according to an International Labor Organization report. Most land only temporary jobs.
In rural areas, work is also temporary — but it's also seasonal and often illegal, the report said. Some of the biggest employers, opium-producing poppy farmers, provide tens of thousands of short-term jobs.
But almost everywhere, the pay is meager. Afghans with jobs, whether part-time or full-time, earn on average $410 per year — or about $1 per day, according to the World Bank.
Mir Afghan, a day laborer standing on line one recent morning at a Kabul intersection, says he hasn't worked in 13 days and is $1,260 in debt. He said neighbors occasionally help him out and local stores give him food on credit. One neighbor recently loaned him $9 to buy medicine for one of his six children.
At Mir Afghan's home in a congested neighborhood on the edge of Kabul, his wife, Sabar Gul, started crying when asked about the family's meals. Cradling her coughing and feverish infant son in her arms, she said she has enough food to cook only one meal each day and they rarely can afford to eat meat.
The International Labor Organization report, released last year, offered several grim statistics: nearly half of Afghans don't have enough to eat; 18 percent of children under 15 years old are working; and 82 percent of Afghans are illiterate.
Most businesses are not registered and thus do not pay taxes. That means the government, riddled with corrupt officials, is heavily dependent on international aid as well as on the black market — most often linked to the country's flourishing drug trade.
Ten years ago the International Labor Organization warned that long-term stability and prosperity would elude Afghanistan if employment, the kind that guarantees a regular income, wasn't made a key component of projects to reconstruct this war-ravaged country.
But aid organizations were reluctant to get involved in job creation, the private sector remained stagnant despite significant investment in telecommunications, and many wealthy Afghans chose to put their money in other countries.
Nowadays, the report said, most Afghans cannot find permanent work, and even temporary work is drying up as international aid money dwindles ahead of the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan.
"There is a serious looming problem with unemployment in Afghanistan," said Graeme Smith, senior Afghanistan analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
"Ordinary workers have depended heavily on construction, trucking and other sectors that saw boom times because of the presence of foreign troops and aid projects — and there's likely a coming bust, as soldiers withdraw and development budgets shrink," he said. "This could badly affect stability and security."
A day laborer works two, maybe three days a week, said Maroof Qaderi, president of the National Union of Afghanistan Workers, Employees. They are often heavily indebted to banks, family and friends.
To pay his bills, Mir Afghan has taken his oldest son, Mohammad, out of school and put him to work making carpets and doing odd jobs.
But Mohammed, a lean 19-year-old, says he keeps up his studies at night. "I don't want my life to be the shovel. I want to finish high school, and go to a government college to study economics," he said.
For the past several mornings, several university students have mingled among the scores of men, including Mir Afghan, looking for work at the intersection in Koti Sangi, a district in the heart of the Afghan capital.
Waheedullah, 22, says his family has only enough money to pay for his attending classes part-time, and he's worried he won't be able to finish his studies. He gets up at 4:30 a.m. to bicycle to Koti Sangi, where he hopes to find a couple of days of work.
Waheedullah, who uses just one name, blamed the weak economy on rampant corruption, saying Afghan officials and their foreign partners have siphoned off most of the money that's come to Afghanistan.
"Foreigners came here to make jobs for themselves, but nothing has changed for the lives of Afghans," he said. "I think Afghanistan is going in a very bad direction. No one is doing anything about the problems of the poor people."
Khwaja Tamim, a house painter who said he's come to Koti Sangi every morning for the last six years, says jobs are dwindling as people expect the worst after the final withdrawal next year of U.S. and NATO combat forces.
"People are scared," he said, noting "the suicide attackers, the jobless, the criminal gangs and always the rumors between Afghans."
On Monday a car bomb exploded at Koti Sangi, killing the driver and creating a stampede as workers ran for safety. Police were unsure whether militants or criminal gangs were behind the bombing.
"From one second to the next you don't know what can happen, whether a bomb goes off right here and our lives are finished," Tamim said one day earlier in an interview at Koti Sangi.
"I have experience of the civil war," he said, referring to the period when rival mujahedeen groups who forced the Russians out of Afghanistan turned their guns on each other, killing as many as 50,000 civilians before the Taliban took power in 1996.
"I think the future will be worse than the civil war."
___
Kathy Gannon is AP special regional correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed at www.twitter.com/kathygannon
Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Currently, disease usually found too late to save lives
Reporting on a small preliminary study, Johns Hopkins researchers say a simple blood test based on detection of tiny epigenetic alterations may reveal the earliest signs of pancreatic cancer, a disease that is nearly always fatal because it isn't usually discovered until it has spread to other parts of the body.
The findings of their research, if confirmed, they say, could be an important step in reducing mortality from the cancer, which has an overall five-year survival rate of less than 5 percent and has seen few improvements in survival over the last three decades.
"We have mammograms to screen for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer but we have had nothing to help us screen for pancreatic cancer," says Nita Ahuja, M.D., an associate professor of surgery, oncology and urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the study described online this month in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. "While far from perfect, we think we have found an early detection marker for pancreatic cancer that may allow us to locate and attack the disease at a much earlier stage than we usually do."
For their study, Ahuja and her colleagues were able to identify two genes, BNC1 and ADAMTS1, which together were detectable in 81 percent of blood samples from 42 people with early-stage pancreatic cancer, but not in patients without the disease or in patients with a history of pancreatitis, a risk factor for pancreatic cancer. By contrast, the commonly used PSA antigen test for prostate cancer only picks up about 20 percent of prostate cancers.
Ahuja and her colleagues found that in pancreatic cancer cells, it appears that chemical alterations to BNC1 and ADAMTS1 -- epigenetic modifications that alter the way the genes function without changing the underlying DNA sequence -- silence the genes and prevent them from making their protein product, the role of which is not well-understood. These alterations are caused by the addition of a methyl group to the DNA.
Using a very sensitive method called Methylation on Beads (MOB) developed by Jeff Tza-Huei Wang, Ph.D., a professor at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the researchers were able to single out, in the blood, even the smallest strands of DNA of those two genes with their added methyl groups. The technique uses nanoparticle magnets to latch on to the few molecules being shed by the tumors, which are enough to signal the presence of pancreatic cancer in the body, the researchers found.
Specifically, researchers say, they found BNC1 and ADAMTS1 in 97 percent of tissues from early-stage invasive pancreatic cancers. Surgery is the best chance for survival in pancreatic cancer, because radiation and chemotherapy are not very effective against it. The smaller the cancer -- the earlier it is detected -- the more likely surgery will be successful and the patient will survive.
Ahuja says the practical value of any blood test for cancer markers depends critically on its sensitivity, meaning the proportion of tumors it detects, and its specificity, meaning how many of the positive results are false alarms. The specificity of this new pair of markers is 85 percent, meaning 15 percent would be false alarms. Ahuja says she hopes further research will help refine the test, possibly by adding another gene or two, in order to go over 90 percent in both sensitivity and specificity.
Ahuja also cautions that her team still needs to duplicate the results in a larger sample of tumors, but is encouraged by the results so far. She says she doesn't envision the blood test as a means of screening the general population, the way mammograms and colonoscopies are used to find early breast and colon cancers. Instead, she imagines it would be best used in people at high risk for developing the disease, such as those with a family history of pancreatic cancer, a previous case of pancreatitis, long-term smokers or people with the BRCA gene mutations, which are linked to breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.
"You have to optimize your medical resources," says Ahuja, who hopes a commercial blood test might one day only cost $50.
She also notes that once BNC1 and ADAMTS1 are identified in a patient's blood, further tests will be needed to locate an actual cancer.
People who test positive will likely undergo CT scanning and/or endoscopic ultrasound tests -- whereby a tube is placed down the throat into the stomach to image the pancreas -- to search for the cancer. Surgery to remove it would presumably have a better chance of curing the disease owing to its small size and early stage.
###
The research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (K23CA127141, U54CA151838, RO1CA155305, P30CA006973, T32CA126607 and CA058184) and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01 ES011858), the American College of Surgeons/Society of University Surgeons Career Development Award, the Lustgarten Foundation, the Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation and the National R&D program through the Dongnam Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences funded by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Joo Mi Yi, Ph.D.; Angela A. Guzzetta, M.D.; Vasudev J. Bailey, Ph.D.; Stephanie R. Downing, M.D.; Katherine B. Chiappinelli, Ph.D.; Brian P. Keeley; Alejandro Stark, M.S.E.; Alexander Herrera, M.S.; Chistopher Wolfgang, M.D., Ph.D.; Emmanouil P. Pappou, M.D., Ph.D.; Christine A. Iacobuzio-Donahue, M.D., Ph.D.; Michael G. Goggins, M.B.B.Ch., M.D.; James G. Herman, M.D.; and Stephen B. Baylin, M.D.
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
Media Contacts:
Stephanie Desmon
410-955-8665 sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
Helen Jones
410-502-9422 hjones49@jhmi.edu
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A simple test may catch early pancreatic cancer
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Currently, disease usually found too late to save lives
Reporting on a small preliminary study, Johns Hopkins researchers say a simple blood test based on detection of tiny epigenetic alterations may reveal the earliest signs of pancreatic cancer, a disease that is nearly always fatal because it isn't usually discovered until it has spread to other parts of the body.
The findings of their research, if confirmed, they say, could be an important step in reducing mortality from the cancer, which has an overall five-year survival rate of less than 5 percent and has seen few improvements in survival over the last three decades.
"We have mammograms to screen for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer but we have had nothing to help us screen for pancreatic cancer," says Nita Ahuja, M.D., an associate professor of surgery, oncology and urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the study described online this month in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. "While far from perfect, we think we have found an early detection marker for pancreatic cancer that may allow us to locate and attack the disease at a much earlier stage than we usually do."
For their study, Ahuja and her colleagues were able to identify two genes, BNC1 and ADAMTS1, which together were detectable in 81 percent of blood samples from 42 people with early-stage pancreatic cancer, but not in patients without the disease or in patients with a history of pancreatitis, a risk factor for pancreatic cancer. By contrast, the commonly used PSA antigen test for prostate cancer only picks up about 20 percent of prostate cancers.
Ahuja and her colleagues found that in pancreatic cancer cells, it appears that chemical alterations to BNC1 and ADAMTS1 -- epigenetic modifications that alter the way the genes function without changing the underlying DNA sequence -- silence the genes and prevent them from making their protein product, the role of which is not well-understood. These alterations are caused by the addition of a methyl group to the DNA.
Using a very sensitive method called Methylation on Beads (MOB) developed by Jeff Tza-Huei Wang, Ph.D., a professor at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the researchers were able to single out, in the blood, even the smallest strands of DNA of those two genes with their added methyl groups. The technique uses nanoparticle magnets to latch on to the few molecules being shed by the tumors, which are enough to signal the presence of pancreatic cancer in the body, the researchers found.
Specifically, researchers say, they found BNC1 and ADAMTS1 in 97 percent of tissues from early-stage invasive pancreatic cancers. Surgery is the best chance for survival in pancreatic cancer, because radiation and chemotherapy are not very effective against it. The smaller the cancer -- the earlier it is detected -- the more likely surgery will be successful and the patient will survive.
Ahuja says the practical value of any blood test for cancer markers depends critically on its sensitivity, meaning the proportion of tumors it detects, and its specificity, meaning how many of the positive results are false alarms. The specificity of this new pair of markers is 85 percent, meaning 15 percent would be false alarms. Ahuja says she hopes further research will help refine the test, possibly by adding another gene or two, in order to go over 90 percent in both sensitivity and specificity.
Ahuja also cautions that her team still needs to duplicate the results in a larger sample of tumors, but is encouraged by the results so far. She says she doesn't envision the blood test as a means of screening the general population, the way mammograms and colonoscopies are used to find early breast and colon cancers. Instead, she imagines it would be best used in people at high risk for developing the disease, such as those with a family history of pancreatic cancer, a previous case of pancreatitis, long-term smokers or people with the BRCA gene mutations, which are linked to breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.
"You have to optimize your medical resources," says Ahuja, who hopes a commercial blood test might one day only cost $50.
She also notes that once BNC1 and ADAMTS1 are identified in a patient's blood, further tests will be needed to locate an actual cancer.
People who test positive will likely undergo CT scanning and/or endoscopic ultrasound tests -- whereby a tube is placed down the throat into the stomach to image the pancreas -- to search for the cancer. Surgery to remove it would presumably have a better chance of curing the disease owing to its small size and early stage.
###
The research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (K23CA127141, U54CA151838, RO1CA155305, P30CA006973, T32CA126607 and CA058184) and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01 ES011858), the American College of Surgeons/Society of University Surgeons Career Development Award, the Lustgarten Foundation, the Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation and the National R&D program through the Dongnam Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences funded by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Joo Mi Yi, Ph.D.; Angela A. Guzzetta, M.D.; Vasudev J. Bailey, Ph.D.; Stephanie R. Downing, M.D.; Katherine B. Chiappinelli, Ph.D.; Brian P. Keeley; Alejandro Stark, M.S.E.; Alexander Herrera, M.S.; Chistopher Wolfgang, M.D., Ph.D.; Emmanouil P. Pappou, M.D., Ph.D.; Christine A. Iacobuzio-Donahue, M.D., Ph.D.; Michael G. Goggins, M.B.B.Ch., M.D.; James G. Herman, M.D.; and Stephen B. Baylin, M.D.
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
Media Contacts:
Stephanie Desmon
410-955-8665 sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
Helen Jones
410-502-9422 hjones49@jhmi.edu
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Big, innit? ...
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