BAGHDAD (AP) ? A car bomb exploded as Sunni worshippers were leaving a mosque after evening prayers Tuesday in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks that killed at least 20 people nationwide in a week of the most sustained sectarian violence in the country since U.S. troops withdrew more than a year ago.
Rising tensions between Sunnis and the Shiite-led government have burst into a new round of bloodshed with 279 people killed since last week and scenes reminiscent of some of the worst carnage during the days when the two Islamic sects battled each other as well as U.S.-led forces in the chaotic years after Saddam Hussein's ouster.
The violence has raised fears the country is sliding back to the brink of civil war amid rising Sunni anger over perceived mistreatment at the hands of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government and dangerous spillover from Syria's civil war next door, which pits mainly Sunni rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters in Washington that the U.S. administration was "deeply concerned by the frequency and the nature of recent attacks." U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington were in contact with a wide range of senior Iraqi leaders "to urge calm and help resolve ongoing political and sectarian tensions," he said Monday.
The explosion targeting the worshippers occurred in the western neighborhood of Abu Ghraib, the site of the infamous prison of the same name, killing 10 people and wounding 21, according to police and hospital officials. A bomb also targeted a tea house in Baghdad's mainly Sunni southern Dora neighborhood, killing three people and wounding 14, two police officers and a medical official said.
Several smaller attacks struck areas elsewhere in the country earlier Tuesday.
A suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden vest at a military checkpoint in the town of Tarmiyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad. The blast was followed by militants who opened fire at the Iraqi troops, killing three soldiers and wounding nine, a police official said.
In the northern city of Tuz Khormato, two parked car bombs went off simultaneously, killing three civilians and wounding 38 people, said Mayor Shalal Abdool. The town is about 200 kilometers (130 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.
And in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, three bombs exploded back-to-back at a sheep market, killing one person and wounding 25, police Col. Taha Salaheddin said.
Authorities also raised the death toll from Monday's wave of bloodshed ? a series of blitz attacks stretching from north of Baghdad to the southern city of Basra and targeting bus stops, open-air markets and rush-hour crowds ? to 113 after many of the wounded died of their injuries. That made it the deadliest single day since July 23, 2012, when attacks aimed largely at security forces killed 115.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but such systematic carnage carries the hallmarks of the two sides that brought nearly nonstop chaos to Iraq for years: Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida's branch in Iraq, and Shiite militias defending their newfound power after Saddam's fall.
Hours after Monday's stunning bombings, al-Maliki accused militant groups of trying to exploit Iraq's political instability and vowed to resist attempts to "bring back the atmosphere of the sectarian war."
Under Saddam, Iraq's Sunni minority held a privileged position, while the Shiites were largely oppressed. But since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam, those dynamics have been flipped.
Many Sunnis contend that much of the country's current turmoil is rooted in the policies of al-Maliki's government, which they accuse of feeding sectarian tension by becoming more aggressive toward the minority community after the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011.
Protests by Sunnis, which began in December amid anger over alleged random detentions and neglect, have largely been peaceful. However, the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.
We gasped our way through the liveblog. We brought you news of the specs and the software and everything else. But now it's time to take a deep dive into the Xbox One, Microsoft's next-gen console, and what it might mean for Earth's living rooms. Engadget was given exclusive access to the hallowed labs at the heart of this project and to the engineers who made it happen. We got to play with prototypes of the hardware and to discover firsthand whether Kinect 2.0 really can tell if we're winking. Read on past the break and we promise to spare you no detail.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Secretary of State John Kerry challenged Congress on Monday to go beyond its investigations of embassy security and help ensure that U.S. embassies and consulates abroad have the resources they need for appropriate security. His comments come as the Republicans continue to press for answers about the Obama administration's handling of last year's deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
Speaking to State Department trainees at the Foreign Service Institute, Kerry said the administration would spare no expense or effort to protect American diplomats overseas. However, in a sign of frustration with congressional Republicans who have suggested the administration is trying to cover up alleged malfeasance related to the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack, he said lawmakers must play a part in mitigating the risks that diplomats take.
"We need to hold all of our elected officials accountable for making these efforts a priority," he said. "And that includes the Congress. This is a Congress that reminds us all the time they that are a co-equal branch of the federal government. And they should, because they are. But that means Congress needs to play a role on the world stage as well; not just investigating, but leading."
Congress, Kerry said, must provide "the resources and the support and the investments that make the risks that we take today worthwhile."
His comments follow a similar call that President Barack Obama made last week when he complained that persistent Republican-led investigations into Benghazi were a "sideshow" and urged lawmakers to provide more money to strengthen security at U.S. diplomatic missions around the world. The State Department is seeking about $1.4 billion for increased security; the money would come primarily from funds that haven't been spent in Iraq.
Since the Benghazi attack, Democrats have complained that Republicans cut $300 million from the Obama administration's budget request of $2.6 billion for diplomatic and embassy security in 2012. Republicans have said such allegations are unfair.
Kerry said Monday the administration is fully committed to implementing, and expanding upon, the recommendations of an independent review board that investigated the Benghazi attack and sharply criticized the State Department for not providing adequate security at the missions. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack.
But Kerry pointed out that the risks to American officials abroad are not new and will not go away.
"The dangers of diplomacy are not unique to this moment in time: our diplomatic missions didn't become dangerous that night in Benghazi," he said, noting that most of the 244 diplomats honored on plaques at the State Department were killed in the line of duty long before Benghazi.
Kerry said the risks can never be eliminated, but they can and will be mitigated because America's national security interests demand diplomatic outreach even in the most dangerous places.
"If we are going to bring light to the world, we have to go where it is dark," he said.
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
A team of University of Pennsylvania engineers has used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action, opening the door to more sensitive infrared cameras and more compact chemical-analysis techniques.
The research was conducted by assistant professor Ertugrul Cubukcu and postdoctoral researcher Fei Yi, along with graduate students Hai Zhu and Jason C. Reed, all of the Department of Material Science and Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
It was published in the journal Nano Letters.
Detecting light in the mid-infrared range is important for applications like night-vision cameras, but it can also be used to do spectroscopy, a technique that involves scattering light over a substance to infer its chemical composition. Existing infrared detectors use cryogenically cooled semiconductors, or thermal detectors known as microbolometers, in which changes in electrical resistance can be correlated to temperatures. These techniques have their own advantages, but both need expensive, bulky equipment to be sensitive enough for spectroscopy applications.
"We set out to make an optomechanical thermal infrared detector," Cubukcu said. "Rather than changes in resistance, our detector works by connecting mechanical motion to changes in temperature."
The advantage to this approach is that it could reduce the footprint of an infrared sensing device to something that would fit on a disposable silicon chip. The researchers fabricated such a device in their study.
At the core of the device is a nanoscale structure about a tenth of a millimeter wide and five times as long made of a layer of gold bonded to a layer of silicon nitride. The researchers chose these materials because of their different thermal expansion coefficients, a parameter that determines how much a material will expand when heated. Because metals will naturally convert some energy from infrared light into heat, researchers can connect the amount the material expands to the amount of infrared light hitting it.
"A single layer would expand laterally, but our two layers are constrained because they're attached to one another," Cubukcu said. "The only way they can expand is in the third dimension. In this case, that means bending toward the gold side, since gold has the higher thermal expansion coefficient and will expand more."
To measure this movement, the researchers used a fiber interferometer. A fiber optic cable pointed upward at this system bounces light off the underside of the silicon nitride layer, enabling the researchers to determine how far the structure has bent upwards.
"We can tell how far the bottom layer has moved based on this reflected light," Cubukcu said. "We can even see displacements that are thousands of times smaller than a hydrogen atom."
Other researchers have developed optomechanical infrared sensors based on this principle, but their sensitivities have been comparatively low. The Penn team's device is an improvement in this regard due to the inclusion of "slot" nanoantennas, cavities that are etched into the gold layer at intervals that correspond to wavelengths of mid-infrared light.
"The infrared radiation is concentrated into the slots, so you don't need any additional material to make these antennas," Cubukcu said. "We take the same exact platform and, by patterning it with these nanoscale antennas, the conversion efficiency of the detector improves 10 times."
The inclusion of nanoantennas provides the device with an additional advantage: the ability to tailor which type of light it is sensitive to by etching a different pattern of slots on the surface.
"Other techniques can only work at the maximum absorption determined by the material itself," Yi said. "Our antennas can be engineered to absorb at any wavelength."
While only a proof-of-concept at this stage, future research will demonstrate the device's capabilities as a low-cost way of analyzing individual proteins and gas molecules.
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, Penn's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Penn's Nano/Bio Interface Center and the Penn Regional Nanotechnology Facility.
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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.
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
A team of University of Pennsylvania engineers has used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action, opening the door to more sensitive infrared cameras and more compact chemical-analysis techniques.
The research was conducted by assistant professor Ertugrul Cubukcu and postdoctoral researcher Fei Yi, along with graduate students Hai Zhu and Jason C. Reed, all of the Department of Material Science and Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
It was published in the journal Nano Letters.
Detecting light in the mid-infrared range is important for applications like night-vision cameras, but it can also be used to do spectroscopy, a technique that involves scattering light over a substance to infer its chemical composition. Existing infrared detectors use cryogenically cooled semiconductors, or thermal detectors known as microbolometers, in which changes in electrical resistance can be correlated to temperatures. These techniques have their own advantages, but both need expensive, bulky equipment to be sensitive enough for spectroscopy applications.
"We set out to make an optomechanical thermal infrared detector," Cubukcu said. "Rather than changes in resistance, our detector works by connecting mechanical motion to changes in temperature."
The advantage to this approach is that it could reduce the footprint of an infrared sensing device to something that would fit on a disposable silicon chip. The researchers fabricated such a device in their study.
At the core of the device is a nanoscale structure about a tenth of a millimeter wide and five times as long made of a layer of gold bonded to a layer of silicon nitride. The researchers chose these materials because of their different thermal expansion coefficients, a parameter that determines how much a material will expand when heated. Because metals will naturally convert some energy from infrared light into heat, researchers can connect the amount the material expands to the amount of infrared light hitting it.
"A single layer would expand laterally, but our two layers are constrained because they're attached to one another," Cubukcu said. "The only way they can expand is in the third dimension. In this case, that means bending toward the gold side, since gold has the higher thermal expansion coefficient and will expand more."
To measure this movement, the researchers used a fiber interferometer. A fiber optic cable pointed upward at this system bounces light off the underside of the silicon nitride layer, enabling the researchers to determine how far the structure has bent upwards.
"We can tell how far the bottom layer has moved based on this reflected light," Cubukcu said. "We can even see displacements that are thousands of times smaller than a hydrogen atom."
Other researchers have developed optomechanical infrared sensors based on this principle, but their sensitivities have been comparatively low. The Penn team's device is an improvement in this regard due to the inclusion of "slot" nanoantennas, cavities that are etched into the gold layer at intervals that correspond to wavelengths of mid-infrared light.
"The infrared radiation is concentrated into the slots, so you don't need any additional material to make these antennas," Cubukcu said. "We take the same exact platform and, by patterning it with these nanoscale antennas, the conversion efficiency of the detector improves 10 times."
The inclusion of nanoantennas provides the device with an additional advantage: the ability to tailor which type of light it is sensitive to by etching a different pattern of slots on the surface.
"Other techniques can only work at the maximum absorption determined by the material itself," Yi said. "Our antennas can be engineered to absorb at any wavelength."
While only a proof-of-concept at this stage, future research will demonstrate the device's capabilities as a low-cost way of analyzing individual proteins and gas molecules.
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, Penn's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Penn's Nano/Bio Interface Center and the Penn Regional Nanotechnology Facility.
[ | 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.
Here?s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I?ve read over the past week.
One Child?s Autism Eliminated by Removal of Glutamate From Her Diet
This is one of the most amazing things I?ve ever read. By changing this child?s diet, her severe case of autism has been reversed, she has caught up to children of her own age and she shows no signs of ever even having the condition. If you know someone with an autistic child, show them this article.
My Medical Choice by Angelina Jolie
Can you believe that Angelina Jolie was able to get a preventive double mastectomy without anybody finding out? She underwent the procedure before actually having breast cancer, but decided that it was the right choice for her and her family since she has a gene mutation that gives her an 87 percent risk of getting it. What an amazing, and drastic, decision she made. I?m not sure how I feel about it. I feel that cancer is caused by the things that are introduced to our bodies ? pesticides, food dyes, molds, pollution, and so on ? and I think there are better ways of preventing cancer than removing parts of our bodies.
Coaching the Sumo Deadlift
Great tips on pulling sumo deadlifts. The author doesn?t mention much about why sumo?s are better than conventional but he does mention that one of his lifters was at a standstill for a year before trying sumo?s and then reached a PR shortly after switching.
Sleep: What the Research Actually Says
Poor sleep can reduce insulin sensitivity, suppress testosterone, may decrease workout performance and could cause overeating. There are some cool geeky tips here on fixing your sleep so that you won?t suffer any of those things.
Non-smoking hotel rooms still expose occupants to tobacco smoke
Looks like choosing a non-smoking room in a hotel that allows smoking isn?t good enough to prevent high exposure to tobacco pollutants, so if you?re traveling, choose a non-smoking hotel.
Simple Squat Correction
I?m constantly messing with my form trying to find something that feels right for me and I can say from experience that what Brett talks about here works. I?ve used the ?poor? form he shows many times and it really screws with my knees. The ?correct? form he demonstrates feels much more natural to me and allows me to get into a deeper position easier.
The Wii game that shows the greatest potential as a cardiovascular fitness tool
Do you like to workout with video games? If you?re looking for a fun game that can provide good cardio benefit, it looks like Wii Sports boxing is your answer. I must admit, Wii Sports Boxing is a lot of fun!
Don?t Swing Your Kids By the Arms, Please
It?s common to see people swinging their kids around by the arms, but that?s because they don?t realize the potential to dislocate their child?s shoulders or cause damage to their arms, elbows and shoulders, which may show in their later years. Luckily for me, my dad swung me and my brother around in King Soopers bags
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court says a woman can seek lawyers' fees from the government even though her lawsuit over damage she said was caused by a vaccine was ruled untimely.
The high court on Monday ruled for Melissa Cloer, who wanted lawyers' fees for her lawsuit over damage she says was caused by hepatitis B vaccines. Shortly after finishing the vaccine, she started having symptoms of what was later diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. Cloer sued, but courts said her lawsuit was too late.
Cloer then filed for more than $118,000 in lawyers' fees, but government officials said she shouldn't get anything.
The justices disagreed, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing that even unsuccessful petitions under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act can get attorneys' fees if they are "brought in good faith and (for which) there was a reasonable basis."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea fired short-range projectiles into its own eastern waters Monday for a third straight day, Seoul officials said. The North said it was bolstering deterrence against enemy attack.
North Korea regularly conducts short-range missile tests. Analysts say the recent launches appear to be weapons tests or an attempt to get U.S. and South Korean attention amid tentative signs of diplomacy after soaring tensions that followed U.N. sanctions aimed at a North Korean nuclear test in February.
The two projectiles fired by North Korea on Monday had similar trajectories as four previous launches over the past two days, according to officials at Seoul's Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials were analyzing whether the projectiles were missiles or rockets fired from a large-caliber gun North Korea may be developing, the officials said on condition of anonymity citing department rules.
Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters earlier Monday that South Korea is taking seriously whatever weapons North Korea develops because it could attack the South. He said artillery guns with a larger caliber will likely have more destructive power.
South Korea urged North Korea to behave responsibly, while the U.S. said threats or provocations would only further deepen the North's international isolation.
North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea on Monday called South Korean and U.S. criticism an "intolerable challenge" that is deepening tension. It said it conducted "rocket launching tests" on Saturday and Sunday as part of drills to bolster deterrence against what it calls U.S. and South Korean plots to launch nuclear strikes against North Korea. It didn't comment on Monday's firing.
North Korea has a variety of missiles but Seoul and Washington don't believe the country has mastered the technology needed to make nuclear warheads small and light enough to be placed on a missile capable of reaching the U.S.
The Korean Peninsula officially remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Sometimes, more medical information is a bad thing. The influential United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends against most women getting genetic screenings for their susceptibility to breast cancer. Why? Because the tests are imperfect: for every woman who gets tested for genes associated with onset breast cancer, even more will falsely test positive, leading spooked patients into needless surgery or psychological trauma. Super cheap genetic testing from enterprising health startups, such as 23andMe, have complicated cancer detection for us all by increasing the accessibility of imperfect medical information.
After discovering a mutated BRCA1 gene, known to increase the?likelihood?of breast cancer 60 to 80 percent, actress Angelina Jolie underwent a radical preventive double mastectomy. Her brave confession in the New York Times brought much needed attention to breast cancer awareness, but it?s dangerous in the hands of a statistically illiterate population.
For instance, as New York Times statistical guru, Nate Silver, once reminded me, while breast cancer mammograms are 75 percent accurate, a woman who tests positive only has about a 10 percent chance of actually getting cancer. Since the vast majority of women don?t have cancer, there are far more women who will falsely test positive (here is a helpful blog post with the numbers worked out). Most importantly, surveys reveal that many people don?t understand the math behind false positives in cancer testing, and may make uninformed decisions as a result.
The same math holds true for the mutated BRCA1/2 gene of Jolie?s confession: researchers estimate that a tiny 0.11 to 0.12 of women have the faulty gene. ?I believe in doing genetic testing for BRCA1/2 with appropriate counseling,? writes University of Southern California?s David Agus, one of Steve Jobs? cancer doctors. The answers are not simple in this case and require experienced professionals to discuss with the patient.?
Traditionally hundreds of thousands of dollars to test, a cottage industry of cheap genetic testing has sprung up. 23andMe, one of the most popular, offers the service for as little at $99, and has even dared to weigh in on the BRCA controversy on the company blog.
Citing a new study that found no negative emotional consequences from patients after learning about their BRCA1 mutation, 23andMe concludes, ?The findings are important given that a frequent criticism of direct-to-consumer testing is based on the assumption that it causes either serious emotional distress or triggers deleterious actions on the part of consumers.?
Given the absence of evidence for serious emotional distress or inappropriate actions in this subset of mutation-positive customers who agreed to be interviewed for this study, ?broader screening of Ashkenazi Jewish women for these three BRCA mutations should be considered.?
Sometimes, however, voluntary surveys don?t tell the whole story. In its cover story on Jolie?s decision, TIME magazine recounts the tale of one woman who likely had unnecessary preventative surgery after learning about a genetic defect. ?She freaked out and had a bilateral mastectomy,? said Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, who worried that this patient?s particular mutation was not as troubling as she worried it was.
Interestingly, TIME?s author, Kate Pickart, argues the financial costs of genetic testing has stall mass run on genetic tests. Even a new provision under the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) only mandates 100 percent insurance coverage for patients with a family history of genetic flaws.
But, at just $99 (and probably far less in the future), financial barriers are crumbling. This isn?t to say that genetic screening is bad, it just complicates things for the rest of us, especially those who don?t understand statistics. The more women get tested, the more false positives exist, the less confident patients and physicians become in a course of action.
Maybe our only hope out of this cheaper testing spiral is technology that makes detection more accurate and more predictive. One promising solution is a new bra that constantly monitors deep tissue for cancerous signs (below).
So, perhaps, before long, we will innovate our way out of this dilemma.
Even though we don't yet know what the PlayStation 4 looks like or how much it will cost, one of the many details revealed at Sony's February event was that games will be playable even as they download. Now it turns out we won't have to wait for the new hardware to experience that feature on a console -- Steam, for example, does this on PCs with some games -- as The Last of Us leaders Bruce Straley and Neil Druckman told Game Informer the PS3 game will be available as a download the same day it arrives on discs, and is playable once the transfer is 50 percent complete. There's no word whether other developers will have access to the "magic" Naughty Dog worked out with Sony to make it happen, but as least there will be as little delay as possible before you begin exploring its post-apocalyptic landscape June 14th.
BAMAKO (Reuters) - After winning adulation across Mali for a five month military offensive that crushed al Qaeda fighters, France is now frustrating some of its allies by pushing for a political settlement with a separate group of Tuareg rebels.
A standoff over how to restore Malian government authority to Kidal, the last town in the desert north yet to be brought under central control, is sowing resentment with Paris and could delay planned elections to restore democracy after a coup.
Mali's army has moved troops towards Kidal, a stronghold of the MNLA Tuareg separatists, but missed a self-imposed deadline this week to retake the Saharan town. France, which has its own forces camped outside, does not want Malian troops to march on the town, fearing ethnic bloodshed if it is taken by force.
"Paris blocks army at the gates of Kidal," read a headline in Le Matin, a weekly in Mali's capital Bamako.
Elections are planned for July in Mali to finally restore normalcy after a chaotic 18 months that saw Tuaregs launch a revolt, the military carry out a coup, al Qaeda-linked Islamists seize the north and 4,000 French troops arrive to dislodge them.
Many in government and on the streets of Bamako blame the January 2012 uprising by the Tuareg MNLA for unleashing the other calamities that nearly dissolved the country. Nationalists now want the army to march into Kidal to disarm the rebels.
France is instead backing secretive talks being held in neighboring Burkina Faso, designed to allow the July elections to take place, while urging Bamako to address Tuaregs' long-standing demands for autonomy for their desert homeland.
Clashes between Arabs and Tuaregs have shown that ethnic tension remains high.
GOODWILL FRAYING
The former colonial power, France won enthusiastic public support across Mali for its decision to send troops in January to crush the al Qaeda-linked fighters. French flags still flutter in parts of the dusty riverside capital, and President Francois Hollande was cheered as a liberator by huge crowds when he visited in February.
But goodwill is giving way to frustrations over Kidal, with many Malians questioning why France would not boldly confront the MNLA as it had done the coalition of al Qaeda-linked rebels.
Within the army, whose morale evaporated in a string of defeats last year, anger simmers over foreign interference.
"Our men are ready but we have not received the orders to enter the town. It is a political decision," said a senior Malian officer, who asked not to be named.
Mali's interim President Dioncounda Traore, whom Paris has defended from military pressure, voiced support for dialogue with the MNLA on Friday in Paris ahead of a meeting with Hollande. He said plans for decentralization should satisfy the MNLA's demands.
But many in Mali, particularly those close to the army, are hostile towards dialogue. The official Twitter feed for Mali's presidency refers to the MNLA as terrorists.
Hollande rejects that label, saying the MNLA fought alongside French and African forces against the Islamists, providing intelligence on Islamists' positions.
"We have said we will are willing to aid the return of Malian civilian administration to Kidal to organize elections," Hollande said this week, appearing to rule out a military alternative. "We want a political dialogue, and I think that will happen."
"KIDAL WILL VOTE"
The MNLA stole back into Kidal after France's air and ground assault scattered the Islamists. The town has since been under awkward joint occupation by the MNLA with French troops and, for a time, their Chadian allies.
Defence Minister Yamoussa Camara promised parliament this month that Mali's forces would be in the town by May 15. Residents in northern Mali have reported movement towards Kidal for weeks, but the force has yet to arrive.
The Kidal region is home to just 0.5 percent of Mali's population - by far its least populated area - but the authorities say the national vote cannot take place without it.
"Kidal will vote like the rest of the country ... That's what Malians want," said Gamer Dicko, spokesman for the territorial administration ministry, tasked with organizing elections. "Not holding an election there would be a de facto split of the country."
Diplomats say talks are quietly underway in Burkina Faso to find a way of allowing the elections to proceed in Kidal, as a stepping stone to political talks with the MNLA and other armed groups once a permanent, elected government is in place.
"It is about finding a gentleman's agreement so the elections can take place in Kidal," a West African diplomat said, asking not to be named. "The transitional government will not find a definitive solution to the problem."
President Traore has named a former minister, Tiebile Drame, as special envoy to coordinate talks with northern groups.
Traore wrote in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Drame had been named so that "Mali can keep control of the process", an apparent sign of frustration with the role played by a panoply of U.N. and African mediators.
Another diplomat said recent discussions in Bamako had revealed divisions between the Western position that more regional autonomy was needed to resolve the conflict and African nations' support for a tougher line on the rebels.
"African nations didn't criticize France directly but they were very critical of the MNLA," said the source.
Part of the difficulty of talks with the Tuaregs, diplomats say, is the divisions within their armed groups. The MNLA alone has 21 representatives on its negotiating commission.
A spokesman for the MNLA in Paris confirmed that contacts had been made with the Malian government through Burkina Faso mediators, but he said they were not official talks. He would not comment on the conditions needed for elections to go ahead.
(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Dakar, Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Peter Graff)
A derailed Metro-North rail car is hoisted back on to the tracks in Bridgeport. Conn. on Sunday, May 19, 2013. Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post,Brian A. Pounds ) MANDATORY CREDIT
A derailed Metro-North rail car is hoisted back on to the tracks in Bridgeport. Conn. on Sunday, May 19, 2013. Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post,Brian A. Pounds ) MANDATORY CREDIT
Metro-North employees work at the site of Friday's train derailment in Bridgeport. Conn. on Sunday, May 19, 2013. Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post,Brian A. Pounds ) MANDATORY CREDIT
Map locates Bridgeport, Conn
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? Traffic in southwest Connecticut could be a mess for as much as a week until service is restored to the commuter rail line affected by a derailment that injured scores of passengers, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Sunday.
Malloy used dire language to describe traffic troubles for the work week ahead in an area that even in normal times is a pain for motorists. And the governor warned that the weather will not cooperate as rainy weather forecast will make driving a bit more treacherous.
Malloy even urged commuters to stay out of the state if possible.
"Tomorrow's commute will be extremely challenging," he said at a brief news conference in Hartford. "Residents should plan for a week's worth of disruptions."
If all 30,000 affected commuters took to the highways to get to work, "we would literally have a parking lot," the governor said. If a substantial number of affected consumers hit the roads, traffic will be "greatly slowed," he said.
The state will dispatch more state troopers and tow trucks to respond to car accidents that could come with crowded roads and slipper conditions, he said.
"If you are going to New York and you get to New York or you're transporting yourself to New York you may decide that perhaps you should stay there for the duration of this disturbance," Malloy said.
Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people. Nine remained hospitalized, with one critically.
"This amounts to the wholesale reconstruction of a two-track electrified railroad," he said.
Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, Metro-North President Howard Permut said. The damaged rail cars were removed from the tracks on Sunday, the first step toward making the repairs.
Starting with the Monday morning rush-hour, a shuttle train will operate about every 20 minutes between New Haven and Bridgeport and two shuttle buses will run between Bridgeport and Stamford stations, state transportation officials said.
For morning and evening peak commutes, limited train service will operate between Grand Central Terminal and Westport.
State officials said travel times will be significantly longer than normal and trains will be crowded. Commuters are advised to use the Harlem line in New York.
Amtrak service between New York and New Haven was also suspended and there was no estimate on service restoration. Limited service was available between New Haven and Boston.
Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he's asked officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations. Twelve stations are affected by the shutdown.
But Cameron said he doubts many commuters will use three modes of transportation to get to work: driving their cars to catch a bus to get to a train station for the final leg.
He suggested that local and regional officials post highway signs directing motorists to available parking so motorists "don't get off the highway and drive in circles looking for where to dump their cars."
About 700 people were on board the trains Friday evening when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed just outside Bridgeport. It was hit by a train heading west from New Haven.
Dan Solomon, a trauma surgeon who lives in Westport and was headed to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, was on the train that derailed. He said he treated several injured passengers, including a woman with severely broken ankles.
He said he was in a front car that was not as badly affected as cars in the rear of the train.
"I hardly lost my iced tea," Solomon said in an interview.
Solomon said walls were torn off both trains and he quickly checked injured passengers to separate the most badly injured from others.
"When the EMS arrived, I was covered in everyone's blood," he said.
Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision. Officials said it wasn't clear if the rail was broken in the crash or earlier.
NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.
The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines - the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven - run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.
Khloe Kardashian is many things: reality TV star, outspoken older sister to sisters Kim and Kourtney, savvy business woman and doting wife to NBA star Lamar Odom. But many may not know about another important role she plays -- stepmom.
Odom, whom she married in 2009 after a month-long courtship, has two kids with ex girlfriend Liza Morales. (Their third child died of SIDS at six months old in 2006.)
In the latest issue of Redbook, on newsstands now, Kardashian opened up about what it's like being a stepmom.
When asked if stepparenting has been hard for her, Kardashian replied, "Everything can be hard. But I had the most phenomenal teacher ever: Bruce Jenner. He loved my dad and never spoke ill about him. I would never want Lamar's kids to think I didn't totally support them. I love their mom, and they need to know that."
Great advice!
Click through the slideshow below to learn more about the Kardashians and four other Hollywood blended families.
Kris and Bruce Jenner
When Kris and Bruce Jenner <a href="http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/01/kris-jenner-robert-kardashian-divorce-details-documents">tied the knot</a> in April 1991, they each had <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20141784,00.html">four children from previous marriages</a>. The Kardashian matriarch had Kourtney, Kim, Khloe and Robert from her marriage to the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/02/local/me-kardashian2">late Robert Kardashian</a> and Jenner <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/19820404/SPORTS11/50627032/Bruce-Jenner-Graceland-College-1982?nclick_check=1">had two children</a> (son Burt and daughter Casey) with his first wife Chrystie Crownover and two sons (Brandon and Brody) from his <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20092921,00.html">marriage to Linda Thompson</a>.
The reality show couple later had two more children together -- daughters <a href="http://www.tmz.com/person/kendall-jenner/">Kendall</a> and <a href="http://www.tmz.com/person/kylie-jenner/">Kylie.</a> If you're keeping track, that's a whopping 10 kids.
Marie Osmond and Stephen Craig
Marie Osmond famously <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20486972,00.html">remarried her first husband</a>, Stephen Craig, in May 2011, almost 30 years after their <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20486972,00.html">first trip down the aisle</a>. Their first marriage produced one son, Stephen, who was <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H6pRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6537,4559616&hl=en">born in 1983</a>.
After their split, Osmond <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705372424/Mormons--Media-Marie-Osmonds-wedding-day.html?pg=all">married music producer Brian Blosil</a> in 1986 with whom she had <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1254282/Marie-Osmonds-teenage-son-Michael-Blosil-commits-suicide.html">two biological children</a> (Rachael and Matthew)<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1254282/Marie-Osmonds-teenage-son-Michael-Blosil-commits-suicide.html"> and five adopted children</a> (Jessica, Michael, Brandon, Brianna and Abigail). The pair <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20033248,00.html">split in 2007</a>. The Osmond-Blosil-Craig clan boasted eight children until tragedy struck in 2010 when adopted son <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/27/michael-blosil-suicide-ma_n_479483.html">Michael committed suicide</a>.
Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw
Director Steven Spielberg and actress Kate Capshaw <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9099283/Oscars-2012-director-and-star-couples-in-film.html?image=6">met when she was cast</a> in his 1984 film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." When they <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-10-15/news/9110150408_1_kate-capshaw-spielberg-steven">got married in October 1991</a>, Spielberg already had one son, Max, with his <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-30/entertainment/ca-2952_1_couple-s-property-petition-divorce">ex-wife Amy Irving</a>. Capshaw had a <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20149384,00.html">daughter, Jessica, from her previous marriage</a> to Robert Capshaw and one <a href="http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/entertainment-morecelebrityadoptiveparents/13/">adopted son, Theo</a>, whom Spielberg later adopted too.
Spielberg and Capshaw <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1996-04-01/news/9603310261_1_jess-walter-dangerous-minds-hottest">adopted another child</a> together, Mikaela, and had <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/bio">three more biological children</a> together: Sasha, Sawyer and Destry Allyn for a grand total of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/04/style/chronicle-587869.html">seven kids</a>.
Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner
Before they <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20104315,00.html">split in 1994</a>, Kevin Costner <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=111389&page=1#.UHSZsvmfGRk">had three children</a> (Anne, Lily and Joe) with Cindy Silva -- his <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20104315,00.html">wife of 16 years</a>. Costner also had <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20136601,00.html">a son, Liam,</a> with former girlfriend Bridget Rooney in 1996.
In 2004, the "Hatfields & McCoys" actor <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,702154,00.html">tied the knot</a> with handbag designer Christine Baumgartner. The couple have <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/8340761/Kevin-Costner-interview-I-had-to-stop-making-films.html">three children of their own</a>, <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/2007-05-07-87631846_x.htm">Cayden</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/kevin-costners-wife-has-a_n_166664.html">Hayes</a> and <a href="http://www.popeater.com/2010/06/03/kevin-costner-seventh-child/">Grace</a>. The final tally? Seven kids.
Steve Harvey and Marjorie Bridges
Before comedian Steve Harvey and Marjorie Bridges <a href="http://www.bvnewswire.com/2009/11/06/steve-harvey-wife-marjorie-essence-interview/">got married </a>in June 2007, Harvey already had four children with two different women. He had three children with his first wife Marcia -- <a href="http://www.essence.com/2012/03/12/disney-dreamers-academy-2012-magical-and-star-studded/">twin girls</a> Karli and Brandi, and son S<a href="http://www.blackcelebkids.com/2008/05/steve-harvey-loves-his-blended-family/" target="_hplink">teven, Jr.</a> With his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/steve-harveys-court-docum_n_820370.html">second wife, Mary Shackelford</a>, he had one son named Wynton. Bridges had <a href="http://www.bvnewswire.com/2009/11/06/steve-harvey-wife-marjorie-essence-interview/">three children</a> from a previous marriage. Between the two of them, they have<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/steve-harvey-stepfamilies/story?id=8703514#.UHSlYvmfGRk"> seven kids. </a>
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Enter Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano of Almost Famous and Haywire), some years earlier a brilliant student of Sinclair's who has returned home to small-town Pennsylvania after supposedly failing as a playwright in New York City. Sinclair reads Sherwood's play, a dark family drama called The Chrysalis, and falls in love with it. (Start counting the minutes until the transference occurs.) She shares the manuscript with her colleague, drama teacher Carl Kapinas (more than once a joke is made about the pronunciation of his last name), played by the overly fey Nathan Lane.
Sinclair and Kapinas then join forces to convince their principal and vice principal (the very physically humorous Jessica Hecht of Sideways, and Norbert Leo Butz, who appeared recently in Disconnect) to allow them to make The Chrysalis into the next student theatrical production. Unbeknownst to Sherwood, who already is reluctant about the proposition, Sinclair and Kapinas agree to alter the play's violent ending on the ultimatum of their superiors.
My biggest problem (and there were several) with the film is that what we see of the play ? the supposed work of a genius student ? is utterly preposterous. A complete bomb! Couldn't the filmmaker come up with something better than nonsensical melodrama?
Meanwhile, I sort of enjoyed the main subplot, during which Sinclair enters into a sparring feud with Sherwood's dad, a physician played by the affable Greg Kinnear. Sinclair's got it in her mind that Dr. Sherwood is the model for the abusive father character in his son's play, and that now he's quashing Jason's creativity and forcing him to go to law school. As we all know, appearances are deceiving, and Moore and Kinnear actually create a sizzling on-screen chemistry.
The most iconic skyline in the world (or at least in America) would look completely different if it was on another world. On Venus, New York City would be a yellow haze, on Mercury would look glow in the dark, on Mars would make everything rusty and on Uranus and Neptune would totally obliterate the city.
Apple recently released iTunes 11.0.3 with a number of cosmetic improvements including an updated MiniPlayer and songs view. However, this release is more than just a pretty face, bringing a number of security patches which address a wide range of vulnerabilities. Even users not interested in the visual treatments will want to grab this update.
Out of all 40 of the vulnerabilities listed in Apple?s article detailing the security content of the update, only one of them affected Mac users. The remaining 39 vulnerabilities addressed in this iTunes release only affected Windows users. Though this doesn?t mean that it?s not important to update if you?re a Mac user. The bug fixed for OS X users addresses an issue with certificate validation, where iTunes could accept an untrusted SSL certificate without alerting the user, potentially leading to intercepted or maliciously altered traffic.
Windows users were also affected by the certificate validation bug, as well as a significant number of memory corruption bugs in WebKit. These bugs could allow for a man-in-the-middle attack and potentially lead to arbitrary code execution on a user?s computer. While specific details aren?t available for all of the fixed bugs, a number of them seem to have been previously patched in iOS and Safari and are not particularly new. In fact, details of the oldest bug on the list were first discovered over a year ago, and fixed in iOS and Safari earlier this year.
If you haven?t already updated iTunes, you can update to 11.0.3 with iTunes? ?Check for Updates...? option or grab it straight from the iTunes download page.
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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