BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — After two years of review, Montana and federal officials notified Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday that they intend to seek damages for injuries to birds, fish and other natural resources from a major crude oil spill into the Yellowstone River.
The Texas company's 12-inch Silvertip pipeline broke near Laurel during flooding in July 2011, releasing 63,000 gallons of oil that washed up along an 85-mile stretch of the scenic river.
The move puts Exxon on notice that Montana and the Department of Interior expect the company to make up for harm done to wildlife and their habitat. The company also is being asked to pay for long-term environmental studies and for lost opportunities for fishing and recreation during and since the cleanup.
Separate fines totaling $3.4 million for safety and water pollution violations already have been resolved or are pending before state and federal agencies.
Exxon has told regulators it spent $135 million on the cleanup and related repair work intended to prevent a repeat of the spill, which came on a line installed just a few feet beneath the riverbed.
State officials said some of the damage is ongoing and will take years to fully understand and quantify.
That includes harm done to the river and its banks during the cleanup itself, when Exxon brought in 1,000 workers who removed hundreds of oil-stained wood piles along the river.
"You picked up the oil, but you picked up the stuff that makes the habitat work, as well," said Bob Gibson, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "We know there's damage out there that has not been mitigated, cleaned up or compensated for. We need to decide what further can be done."
Representatives of Exxon said they were preparing a response to Thursday's notice.
The break spurred Congress to demand a Department of Transportation review of oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines that cross beneath major rivers and other waterways across the U.S. The agency last year said there were more than 2,800 such locations.
The Transportation Department recently revised its estimate to 18,136 hazardous pipeline crossings, including 5,110 locations where the body of water has a width of 100 feet or greater.
Federal officials have said they will return to Congress in early 2014 with a determination on whether rules such as a 4-foot depth requirement for pipeline crossings are sufficient.
The Yellowstone spill also prompted oil companies including Exxon to rebury pipelines at other water crossings where the lines were considered at risk of failure due to erosion. In the case of Silvertip, the company installed new sections of line dozens of feet beneath the surface at the Laurel site and two other crossings.
Negotiations with Exxon are ongoing but no agreement has been reached, said Robert Collins, the state's lead attorney in the case.
If the company resists paying for the upcoming studies or for compensation, Collins said the state and federal government could take legal action. It's uncertain how long it will take to gauge the extent of damages. For other spills the process has taken many years.
"We're anticipating we could go to court, but we want to give (negotiations) a try before we take that step because that would string things out even further," Collins said.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A 6.6-magnitude earthquake rocked central Chile on Thursday, causing buildings to sway in the capital and nervous people to run out into the streets.
But Chile's emergency services office said no damages to infrastructure were immediately reported and discarded the possibility of a tsunami.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter was located about 65 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of the city of Coquimbo. Its depth was 10 kilometers (6 miles).
Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed more than 500 people, destroyed 220,000 homes, and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts.
Sure, it's got a protective Gorilla Glass 3 coating, but there's only one way to really protect that new Nexus 5: cases. If you're breathlessly refreshing the Play store for a shot at ordering Google's new handset, you may want to check out the associated bumper case (available in black, grey, red ...
Microsatellite DNA analysis reveals genetic change of P. vivax in Korea, 2002-2003
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Ryouhei Nishigaya rnishiga@hosp.ncgm.go.jp Public Library of Science
Continual reintroduction of P. vivax from North Korea could be the cause of change
Malaria is one of the major infectious diseases transmitted by mosquitos, with enormous impact on quality of life. According to World Health Organization figures, as of 2010 there were over 219 million reported cases of malaria with an estimated 660,000 deaths. Plasmodium vivax, which is the second most prevalent species of the human malaria parasite, is widely distributed around the world especially in Asia, Melanesia, the Middle East, South and Central America. 2.85 billion people worldwide live at risk of the infection in 2009.
Vivax malaria was once endemic in Japan including the mainland (Honshu) and the northern island (Hokkaido), but it has been eliminated from these areas as of 1959. In the same way as Japan, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) is another country where vivax malaria had been successfully eliminated by the late 1970s. However, re-emergence of vivax malaria in South Korea was reported in 1993. The first patient was a South Korean soldier who served in the demilitarized zone (a border region between South and North Korea) and had never been abroad. In spite of continuous malaria control measures implemented by the South Korean government, there was a steady increase in the number of reported vivax malaria cases until 2000 (4,183 cases), then a gradual decrease until 2004 (864 cases), when the number of infected civilians who lived in or near the area increased gradually. The number of reported cases fluctuated between 838 and 2,227 per year from 2005 to 2011.
Similarities in the ecology (i.e., climate, vegetation, species of mosquito vector) of Japan and South Korea mean that the Japanese environment is particularly suited to the establishment of Korean strains of vivax malaria. For example, the main vector species of vivax malaria in South Korea is Anopheles sinensis, which in the past has also been the main vector species of vivax malaria in the mainland of Japan, and which remains distributed throughout Japan. In addition, mosquitoes on the mainland of Japan are highly prevalent from June to September (the rainy season and the summer season), which is the same period in which vivax malaria is most prevalent in South Korea.
For these reasons, it is very important not only for South Korea, but also for Japan, to understand the characteristics of vivax malaria in South Korea and to provide a possible explanation as to why, in spite of a continuous malaria control program spanning two decades, efforts to eliminate vivax malaria have been unsuccessful. To answer this question, Dr. Moritoshi Iwagami, et al. conducted a 15-year-long longitudinal study on P. vivax population genetics in South Korea using highly polymorphic neutral markers of the parasites.
The team of researchers from the Japanese National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Inje University and the University of Tokyo analyzed 163 South Korean P. vivax isolates collected from South Korean soldiers who served in the demilitarized zone from 1994 to 2008, using 14 microsatellite DNA loci of the parasite genome. Based on this data, they performed population genetic analysis, with a focus on the differences of the parasite populations between successive years. Through this, they aimed to provide a detailed and precise estimate of the characteristics of the vivax malaria population structure and the temporal dynamics of its transmission.
Their population genetic analyses show that two genotypes coexisted from 1994 to 2001, while three different genotypes coexisted from 2002 to 2008. This result suggested that a drastic genetic change occurred in the South Korean population during 2002 and 2003.
This data suggests that vivax parasites were introduced from another population, most probably from North Korea, especially during 2002 and 2003, and explains why South Korea was not able to eliminate vivax malaria for 20 years. The finding is an example that malaria parasites were transmitted by Anopheles mosquitos between two countries where traveling is basically prohibited. This evidence demonstrates the difficulty of malaria elimination by one country and the need for collaboration between two (or more) adjacent countries for effective malaria elimination.
In the (near) future, a distribution of Anopheles mosquitoes might expand in Japan due to global warming or climate change. Should a certain numbers of vivax malaria patients (and/or carriers of vivax malaria hypnozoites) come to Japan from South Korea and stay in or near A. sinensis breeding sites during summer season, indigenous vivax malaria transmission might occur by locally infected mosquitoes in Japan. Therefore, careful monitoring of all travelers coming from endemic areas of South Korea is required, as is collaboration between both nations in order to prevent the introduction of the malaria parasite into Japan.
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Microsatellite DNA analysis reveals genetic change of P. vivax in Korea, 2002-2003
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Ryouhei Nishigaya rnishiga@hosp.ncgm.go.jp Public Library of Science
Continual reintroduction of P. vivax from North Korea could be the cause of change
Malaria is one of the major infectious diseases transmitted by mosquitos, with enormous impact on quality of life. According to World Health Organization figures, as of 2010 there were over 219 million reported cases of malaria with an estimated 660,000 deaths. Plasmodium vivax, which is the second most prevalent species of the human malaria parasite, is widely distributed around the world especially in Asia, Melanesia, the Middle East, South and Central America. 2.85 billion people worldwide live at risk of the infection in 2009.
Vivax malaria was once endemic in Japan including the mainland (Honshu) and the northern island (Hokkaido), but it has been eliminated from these areas as of 1959. In the same way as Japan, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) is another country where vivax malaria had been successfully eliminated by the late 1970s. However, re-emergence of vivax malaria in South Korea was reported in 1993. The first patient was a South Korean soldier who served in the demilitarized zone (a border region between South and North Korea) and had never been abroad. In spite of continuous malaria control measures implemented by the South Korean government, there was a steady increase in the number of reported vivax malaria cases until 2000 (4,183 cases), then a gradual decrease until 2004 (864 cases), when the number of infected civilians who lived in or near the area increased gradually. The number of reported cases fluctuated between 838 and 2,227 per year from 2005 to 2011.
Similarities in the ecology (i.e., climate, vegetation, species of mosquito vector) of Japan and South Korea mean that the Japanese environment is particularly suited to the establishment of Korean strains of vivax malaria. For example, the main vector species of vivax malaria in South Korea is Anopheles sinensis, which in the past has also been the main vector species of vivax malaria in the mainland of Japan, and which remains distributed throughout Japan. In addition, mosquitoes on the mainland of Japan are highly prevalent from June to September (the rainy season and the summer season), which is the same period in which vivax malaria is most prevalent in South Korea.
For these reasons, it is very important not only for South Korea, but also for Japan, to understand the characteristics of vivax malaria in South Korea and to provide a possible explanation as to why, in spite of a continuous malaria control program spanning two decades, efforts to eliminate vivax malaria have been unsuccessful. To answer this question, Dr. Moritoshi Iwagami, et al. conducted a 15-year-long longitudinal study on P. vivax population genetics in South Korea using highly polymorphic neutral markers of the parasites.
The team of researchers from the Japanese National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Inje University and the University of Tokyo analyzed 163 South Korean P. vivax isolates collected from South Korean soldiers who served in the demilitarized zone from 1994 to 2008, using 14 microsatellite DNA loci of the parasite genome. Based on this data, they performed population genetic analysis, with a focus on the differences of the parasite populations between successive years. Through this, they aimed to provide a detailed and precise estimate of the characteristics of the vivax malaria population structure and the temporal dynamics of its transmission.
Their population genetic analyses show that two genotypes coexisted from 1994 to 2001, while three different genotypes coexisted from 2002 to 2008. This result suggested that a drastic genetic change occurred in the South Korean population during 2002 and 2003.
This data suggests that vivax parasites were introduced from another population, most probably from North Korea, especially during 2002 and 2003, and explains why South Korea was not able to eliminate vivax malaria for 20 years. The finding is an example that malaria parasites were transmitted by Anopheles mosquitos between two countries where traveling is basically prohibited. This evidence demonstrates the difficulty of malaria elimination by one country and the need for collaboration between two (or more) adjacent countries for effective malaria elimination.
In the (near) future, a distribution of Anopheles mosquitoes might expand in Japan due to global warming or climate change. Should a certain numbers of vivax malaria patients (and/or carriers of vivax malaria hypnozoites) come to Japan from South Korea and stay in or near A. sinensis breeding sites during summer season, indigenous vivax malaria transmission might occur by locally infected mosquitoes in Japan. Therefore, careful monitoring of all travelers coming from endemic areas of South Korea is required, as is collaboration between both nations in order to prevent the introduction of the malaria parasite into Japan.
###
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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.
In this Friday, Sept. 7, 2012, photo, Shanieka Walford holds her sleeping daughter, Azanah Blount, and stands next to her son, Aminah Blount, as she faxes job applications from the WorkForce One office in Hollywood, Fla. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
In this Friday, Sept. 7, 2012, photo, Shanieka Walford holds her sleeping daughter, Azanah Blount, and stands next to her son, Aminah Blount, as she faxes job applications from the WorkForce One office in Hollywood, Fla. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
In this Friday, Sept. 7, 2012, photo, WorkForce One staffer Rose Capote-Marcus works with a client, Pen Osuji as he works on job applications at an unemployment office in the Hollywood, Fla. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 10,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, a sign that employers are laying off very few workers.
The Labor Department said Thursday that the four-week average rose 8,000 to 356,250, the highest since April. The 16-day partial government shutdown and backlogs in California due to computer upgrades inflated the average.
Still, a government spokesman said those unusual factors did not affect last week's first-time applications, which appeared to be free of distortions for the first time in two months.
Applications are a proxy for layoffs. They have fallen for three straight weeks and are just above the pre-recession levels reached in August.
Fewer applications are typically followed by more job gains. But hiring has slowed in recent months, rather than accelerated.
The economy added an average 143,000 jobs a month from July through September. That's down from an average of 182,000 in April through June, and 207,000 during the first three months of the year.
"A larger concern remains over firms not willing to accelerate hiring as the lean workforce does not leave much room left for firing," said Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas.
Nearly 3.9 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ended Oct. 12, the latest data available. That's about 40,000 more than the previous week. But a year ago, more than 5 million people were receiving unemployment aid.
Hiring likely weakened even further in October because of the shutdown, which ended on Oct. 16. In addition to government contractors, other companies also likely cut jobs, such as restaurants and hotels located near national parks, which were closed. Some economists are forecasting that job gains in October could be 100,000 or less.
Payroll provider ADP said Wednesday that businesses added just 130,000 jobs in October. That's down from ADP's estimate of 145,000 private-sector jobs added in September.
The government will release its October employment report on Nov. 8. The report was delayed a week because of the shutdown.
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the economy is growing at a moderate pace but still needs its support. Fed policymakers decided to continue purchasing $85 billion a month in bonds. The bond purchases are intended to lower long-term interest rates and encourage more borrowing and spending.
In a statement, the Fed struck a slightly more optimistic tone about the economy. That suggests the Fed might pull back on its stimulus as early as December, economists said.
Most economists expect growth at an annual rate of between 1.5 percent and 2 percent in the July-September quarter, and about the same in the final three months of the year.
NEW YORK (AP) — When Naomi Watts was a struggling actress, she never would have imagined that one day she would play Princess Diana, one of the most famous women in the world, even after her death.
In fact, the thought makes her laugh.
"Yeah, that would sound a bit silly wouldn't it," said the actress at the New York premiere of the biopic "Diana" on Wednesday night.
Watts plays the Princess of Wales during roughly the last two years of her life. The story is based on the 2001 book "Diana: Her Last Love," chronicling her relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed.
Cas Anvar, who plays Fayed, would often marvel on set about the way Watts embodied the essence of Princess Diana. In fact, he says she even stayed in character between takes.
"It was quite surreal sometimes, but it was thrilling to be around, working with someone like that," Anvar said. "She kept in character all the time, so I never actually got to experience the Naomi side of things," he recalled. "I was more or less always interacting with Lady Di."
Watts says she tried to stay in character not because she's "as disciplined as Daniel Day-Lewis," but because the accent was so difficult to master.
Despite all her effort, few have been impressed with the film, which opens Friday. Reviews have been mostly negative thus far.
Naveen Andrews, who plays Dr. Khan, believes a big part of that is because Diana really was, as her nickname implies, the people's princess.
"Obviously in England, I think people feel a sense of ownership over her," he said. "They did when she was alive. Now they do that she's passed. It's a testament to her power that she can generate so much emotion and feeling."
Watts agrees: "Everyone feels they know her and they thought they had an opinion about who she was and their version of the story must be true and the comparisons that will be made inevitably."
Anvar says he thinks the strong opinions over the film are a good thing.
"Personally I would rather be part of a project that inspires massive debate and controversy than a project that just fades away with a whimper, he said. "Any kind of uproar or upheaval usually is a good thing and indicative of a good story."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration officials defended U.S. efforts in Syria Thursday against blistering criticism from Republicans who claim Washington has goals, but no strategy to find a solution that would end the bloody conflict affecting nations throughout the Mideast.
Robert Ford, U.S. ambassador to Syria, testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States is proud of the humanitarian and other assistance it has provided to the Syrian opposition trying to topple President Bashar Assad's government. He acknowledged that the Syrian people were "deeply disappointed" when the U.S. did not take military action against the Syrian regime, but said the administration is working furiously to arrange a conference in Geneva next month to set up a transitional government and end the bloodshed.
Ford had tense exchanges with two of the committee's harshest GOP critics.
"You continue to call this a civil war, Ambassador Ford," said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. "This isn't a civil war anymore; this is a regional conflict. It's spread to Iraq. We now have al-Qaida resurgence in Iraq. It's destabilizing Jordan. Iran is all in. Hezbollah has 5,000 troops there. For you to describe this as a quote, 'civil war,' of course, is a gross distortion of the facts, which again makes many of us question your fundamental strategy because you are — you don't describe the realities on the ground."
Ford said he does not think that Assad can win militarily and only has the advantage in a few places like around Aleppo in northern Syria. He said Assad has a disadvantage on the battleground in other places, including some in the east and south.
McCain was not satisfied, saying Assad's killing of civilians remained unchecked.
"Come on. ... The fact is that he was about to be toppled a year ago, or over a year ago. Then Hezbollah came in. Then the Russians stepped up their effort. Then the Iranian Revolutionary Guard intervened in what you call a, quote, 'civil war,' and he turned the tide. And he continues to maintain his position of power and slaughtering innocent Syrian civilians. And you are relying on a Geneva conference, right?"
The prospects for an international peace conference in Geneva to end the war are unclear.
Assad told the Arab League-U.N. envoy Wednesday that foreign support for the armed opposition must end if any political solution to the country's conflict is to succeed.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations have been trying for months to bring the Syrian government and the opposition together in Geneva to attempt to negotiate a political resolution to the conflict. After repeated delays, efforts renewed in earnest last month to organize the conference, but the Syrian opposition remains deeply divided over whether to attend, while the government refuses to sit down with the armed opposition.
Meanwhile, fighting continued to rage in Syria. And the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights increased its estimate of the death toll of the war now in its third year. It said more than 120,000 people have been killed since the start of conflict, up from the previous estimate of 100,000. The new estimate said more than 61,000 of the dead were civilians.
"The problem itself is tragic ... and we want to help them," Ford said in one exchange with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the committee. "But ultimately, Senator, Syrians must fix this problem, and ultimately, Senator, it's going to require them to sit down at a table. The sooner they start, the better. But in the meantime, we will keep helping the opposition, Senator."
Corker, who has long been critical of the slow pace of aid to Syria, said he thinks the U.S. assistance to Syrian opposition has been an "embarrassment."
"I find it appalling that you would sit here and act as if we're doing the things we said we would do three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago," said Corker. "The London 11 (group of countries that support the opposition) has to look at us as one of the most feckless nations they've ever dealt with."
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., cautioned that the U.S. should approach the situation in Syria "with a lot of humility, given what we've learned after we intervened in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan; after what we've seen go on in Egypt."
"We should just have a little humility in the United States in terms of our ability to control events on the ground in these countries," he said.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the Foreign Relations panel's chairman, said in prepared remarks that progress toward destroying Syria's chemical weapons was "the only positive note" in the worsening crisis.
He referred to the announcement earlier Thursday by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that Syria had completed the destruction of equipment used to produce chemical weapons, meeting another deadline in an ambitious timeline to eliminate the country's entire stockpile by mid-2014.
But Menendez lamented the worsening humanitarian crisis caused by the war, noting it has created more than 2 million refugees, and he said lack of progress on a negotiated political settlement portends continued bloodshed and suffering.
___
Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says that almost 7 percent of imported spices over a three-year period were contaminated with salmonella.
In a report released Wednesday, the FDA says testing of imported spices between 2007 and 2010 showed that spices were twice as likely as other inspected foods to be contaminated with the pathogen. More than 80 different types of salmonella were detected.
The agency decided to study the issue as several spice-related outbreaks have caused illnesses around the globe. In 2009 and 2010, black pepper and red pepper from India, Vietnam and China used in salami caused hundreds of illnesses. The FDA says there have been 14 known outbreaks around the world since 1973, causing almost 2,000 illnesses, many of which were in children.
The FDA says that during the three year period, 749 shipments of spice were refused entry into the United States because of salmonella contamination while 238 other shipments were denied because of the presence of what the FDA calls "filth" — insects, excrement, hair or other materials.
The agency said that some of the spices that were found contaminated at the border were later cooked or treated to eliminate possible pathogens, so much of the salmonella was likely gone by the time the spices were eaten. The agency also noted that the amount of spice generally eaten at a meal is small, meaning people have less of a chance of getting sick from a contaminated spice than a contaminated fruit or vegetable, for example.
Still, the agency has targeted spices because their route to a diner's plate is so circuitous and the potential for contamination comes at many different points. Most all of the spices eaten in the United States are imported, and most come from small farms in a variety of countries that all have different levels of food safety oversight.
The report says spices are produced by a wide variety of agricultural practices, including "on very small farms where farm animals are used to plow, crops are harvested by hand, and spices are dried in open air." All of these practices have potential for animal, bird or human contamination. Off the farm, spices from the small farms are often combined, sold to exchanges or packing companies, or stored for years, increasing the chances that they are temporarily in unclean circumstances.
The study looked at spices imported from several countries, with many of the shipments coming from India, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam.
Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods, says the agency is "not recommending that consumers stay away from spices," though the chances of someone getting sick can be reduced by adding spices to food before it is cooked.
Taylor says that food safety rules proposed earlier this year aiming to make imported and domestic food safer on farms and in processing facilities should help reduce spice contamination. The proposed rules include regulations that will require food importers to better understand where the food they bring into the country has been.
According to the study, much of the knowledge and technology to reduce contamination exist but are often not used. It surmised that problems arose because of generally unhygienic conditions, including the failure to limit animal and insect access to food and not taking steps like irradiation to kill any potential pathogens.
The report said that better training across the spice supply chain would be one way to reduce illnesses.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
The quarterfinals ended with a bang on Wednesday night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18. Despite being Team Tate's No. 1 male pick, Cody Bollinger pulled a Gabe Ruediger and failed to make weight -- in rather dramatic fashion, I might add -- which led Team Rousey's Anthony Gutierrez to advance to the semis by default. Then Team Tate's Sarah Moras evened the score at four wins apiece, overpowering Peggy Morgan en route to first-round armbar victory.
Now just one fight stands between the remaining eight fighters and a spot in November's live finale. On the men's side it's Chris Holdsworth (Tate) vs. Michael Wootten (Rousey) and Anthony Gutierrez (Rousey) vs. David Grant (Rousey), while on the women's side it's Raquel Pennington (Tate) vs. Jessica Rakoczy (Rousey) and Sarah Moras (Tate) vs. our own Julianna Pena (Tate).
If you have any questions for Pena, feel free to drop them in the comments below and she'll answer you during next week's TUF Mailbag. Now without further ado, let's gets to it.
Al-Shatti: So right off the bat, I want to ask because I wasn't sure, did Cody Bollinger get kicked off the show?
Pena: Yep.
Al-Shatti: Wow. I know you and him didn't exactly get along, so how did you feel as everything was going down?
Dana White confronts Cody Bollinger
Pena: It's not like I was over the moon happy, but I wasn't crying or upset or anything like that. I felt like he had been rude to me and caused me a lot of problems earlier on in the season.
But I think (him being kicked off) was merited. On The Ultimate Fighter show, if you don't make weight, you go home.
Al-Shatti: So walk me through this. He was Team Tate's No. 1 male pick. How exactly did something like this happen?
Pena: I wasn't watching him too closely. I just remember one time him eating ice cream and being like, ‘Oh, I'll burn this off in 15 minutes in the sauna. It's not even a big deal.' We were all kinda like, I wouldn't do that if I were you. And he was just, ‘Bah, child's play. This is only a few minutes in the sauna.' He'd read the label and be like, ‘Oh, only 150 calories for a quarter of a cup? Child's play. I'll burn this off in 10 minutes in the sauna.'
I just think that he was wrapped up in being friends with everybody and wrapped up in eating all the food that he wanted. He wasn't taking into account how much he was going to have to lose and he wasn't being very intelligent when it comes to weight cutting. The pressure of being No. 1 pick was probably too much. I wouldn't say that it was a direct result as to why he left, but it's definitely a lot of pressure when you're the No. 1 pick. You automatically have a target on your back and you're trying to go out there and prove why you were picked No. 1. It's a lot to deal with.
Al-Shatti: Cody quit more than a few times during the cut. What was the reaction around the team as he kept repeating that feeling?
Pena: I think everybody couldn't believe it. Nobody could believe that was actually happening. At least, I couldn't. Like, are you kidding me?
We just couldn't believe the fact that somebody would give up and not try to make weight, just throw in the towel when there was so much riding on the line.
Al-Shatti: Cody might have screwed up bad, and that's probably an understatement, but do you respect the way he owned up to it and didn't make excuses?
Pena: He wouldn't have told Dana (White) if he didn't have to. He got called out. Do I respect him for owning up to it? I mean, what else can you do? Deny it?
Al-Shatti: True. Okay, last thing on this and then we'll move on. Anthony Gutierrez ended up getting a choice between a free pass to the semis or having to cut weight all over again and fight. He chose the free pass. I'm just curious, if you were in that situation, would you do the same?
Pena: I'd probably have done the same thing. (You have to do) whatever advances you further on into the competition without risking getting hurt or risking putting your body on the line an extra time when you wouldn't need to.
Al-Shatti: Fair enough. So next up, in the season's last quarterfinal Sarah Moras made short work of Peggy Morgan. She's next in your sights. Were you impressed by her performance?
Pena: I completely predicted it! I sat there doing my makeup -- they didn't show it -- but I'm like, ‘Yeah, it's going to be an armbar in the first round, for sure.'
Al-Shatti: Wow, nicely done. What made you think that?
Pena: Once we caught rumors of who the list was going to be for the cast, who was going to maybe make it and get a chance to compete for the elimination fights, Peggy Morgan's name was on there. I remember watching a couple fights she'd been a part of, studying her ground game a little bit, and [analyzing] her as a fighter.
Because I've already fought Moras before, and judging from the fights that I'd seen online of Peggy, I just knew that Moras' ground game was world class, and Peggy, she wasn't going to have an answer. And she didn't. Moras proved it.
Al-Shatti: You've been a team-first cheerleader the entire season. So be honest with me, after everything that happened, it had to be sweet satisfaction for you Team Tate girls to go 3-1 against Rousey, right?
Full Fight: Peggy Morgan vs. Sarah Moras
Pena: Absolutely! I was absolutely happy. On top of the world. I wanted our team to win. I'm always the first one screaming in the mic. During every fight you can see me in background standing up and cheering. I can always hear myself screaming and yelling for my team. So yeah, I was very happy when that happened.
Al-Shatti: Well now we've finally reached the semis, and bam, you're fighting Sarah Moras, who's not just a teammate, but also the girl who handed you your first professional loss. What's going through your mind when Dana White announces those match-ups?
Pena: It completely threw a wrench into what I'd been preparing for. The thing is, I knew I wasn't going to get (Jessica) Rakoczy. Me and Moras had already fought before, and Moras had already fought Raquel (Pennington) before. We knew that one of us was going to have to fight a teammate, and so since Sarah had already fought both me and Raquel, we were thinking they'd give Sarah the match-up against Rakoczy, so that she could have somebody she's never fought before. I was mentally (preparing for that).
Then Dana changed it last second. When they said I was fighting Moras, I was like, What? What just happened? I wasn't expecting that at all.
Al-Shatti: You're so competitive though. Was it a pleasant surprise? I mean, you get a chance to avenge a loss on national TV.
Pena: When I was in the interview to get into the house, they asked me, ‘So, Moras is here. You lost to her. How's that going? What happened there?' I was like, ‘Man, I'll fight her right here, right now, for free. Where is she? I'll do it right now.' (Laughs.) When I fought Moras the first time, it hit me hard. I'd just got hit by a car, then fought up a weight class and took my first loss. I was just devastated. It took me a long time to come back from martial arts after that. I pretty much hid under a rock and died. I'd never experienced a loss before, so to get another opportunity to fight her, it was like, I've been waiting for this.
TUF MAILBAG
@wrestling_1000 asks: Favorite music before a fight?
Pena: That's tough, because when I first started, I would only listen to classical music before I'd fight. Like, straight classical music. But then I switched it up because one time I remember listening to classical music, then going out there and just getting rocked within the first 30 seconds, and being like, the music didn't pump me up enough. I would've never got hit like that if I was listening to some Kayne! So now I like to listen to anything with a good, fast beat. Something that gets me revved up, something that makes me hot and angry and ready to throw down. I love a lot of music, and so anything that just gets the blood boiling.
Bboyawall asks: Julianna as we head into semifinals, is it getting harder not to slip on the results of who made it to the finals? Also I feel like a little kid at work when I see my questions being answered. It's awesome, thank you!!!
Pena: (Laughs.) Absolutely! It's my pleasure to answer your questions. Thank you for taking the time to ask a question and for caring. That means a lot to me and makes me happy.
And yeah, it is (tough). Everybody wants to know the answers! It really sucks because you want to be like, just watch the show, dangit! I haven't told anybody. I was sworn to secrecy on a $5 million contract and I take that very seriously. (Laughs.)
superfknmario__ asks: 1. Who wins in a Rousey/Cyborg fight? 2. Hablas español?
Pena: 1. Cyborg. TKO/KO.
2. Si habla español un poquito. Si me español es muy mal. Yo entiendo un poquito.
Do you have a question for Julianna Pena? Ask it in the comments below and she'll answer you next week. The Ultimate Fighter 18 airsevery Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Portions of this interview have been edited for concision.
GREENWOOD COUNTY, S.C. (AP) — Six people were found dead in a home by SWAT team members who came after a man called authorities and said he was thinking about hurting himself.
Authorities found the bodies Tuesday of four adults and two children, including the body of the man they believe called police, Greenwood County Sheriff's Office spokesman John Long told The Associated Press. The ages of the dead ranged from 9 years old to early 50s, Long said. He could not immediately say how the six were killed.
A preliminary investigation indicates the deaths were related to "a domestic-related incident," Long said. He declined to call it a murder-suicide.
Officers first went to the home in Greenwood County after receiving a call from a man who said he was thinking about hurting himself, Long said. He said while police were on their way, one of the man's neighbors called 911 saying four children from that address had arrived at her house and told her a shot had been fired. He said the children remained at her house.
After about an hour and "several unsuccessful attempts" by officers to make contact with anyone in the home, the SWAT team entered and discovered the bodies, Long said.
The county coroner's office did not immediately respond to an email seeking the deceased's cause of death and identities.
Early Wednesday morning, yellow police tape surrounded the one-story home on a rural stretch of road south of Greenwood, a city of about 23,000 in northwestern South Carolina.
___
Associated Press writer Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland tees off the 5th hole during the Pro-Am event of the HSBC Champions golf tournament, which begins on Thursday, at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo)
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland tees off the 5th hole during the Pro-Am event of the HSBC Champions golf tournament, which begins on Thursday, at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo)
Phil Mickelson of the United States tees off the 5th hole during the Pro-Am event of the HSBC Champions golf tournament, which begins on Thursday, at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo)
SHANGHAI (AP) — Rory McIlroy found himself in a spot that must have seemed vaguely familiar — atop the leaderboard.
McIlroy looked more like a two-time major champion Thursday when he opened with a 7-under 65 to build a two-shot lead in HSBC Champions. McIlroy was at his best around the turn when he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch.
The 24-year-old from Northern Ireland has not won all year.
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, coming off a win last week at the BMW Masters, and Jamie Donaldson each had 67. Jordan Spieth and U.S. Open champion Justin Rose were at 68.
British Open champion Phil Mickelson had a chance to join McIlroy in the lead until putting two balls in the water on the par-5 eighth hole and making a quadruple-bogey 9.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, in Washington. Time is growing short for Congress to prevent a threatened Treasury default and stop a partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, in Washington. Time is growing short for Congress to prevent a threatened Treasury default and stop a partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican senator said Wednesday he would block President Barack Obama's nominees for Federal Reserve chairman and Homeland Security chief in a dispute over last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said using his Senate prerogative to stall all future nominees is his only leverage as Republicans try to force the administration to let survivors of the assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission talk to members of Congress.
"What I am asking for is to talk to the people who were there," Graham told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference, insisting that congressional investigator have access to survivors.
A diplomatic security agent who was an eyewitness to the Sept. 11, 2012, raid that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans already has been deposed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Graham said that only occurred because the individual was subpoenaed.
Benghazi is the rallying cry for conservatives who argue that the administration tried to mislead the American people in the heat of a presidential campaign by playing down a terrorist attack on Obama's watch. In the months since, congressional Republicans have accused the administration of stonewalling their investigations.
In a letter to Graham, the State Department said it was concerned about congressional interviews with the survivors of the attack because of Justice Department advice that they could be witnesses in a criminal trial and any interviews outside the criminal justice process could jeopardize a case.
The department also wrote that "because these survivors are potential witnesses in a terrorism prosecution, as well as law enforcement professionals who engage in security activities around the world including at high-threat posts, disclosure of their identities could put their lives, as well as those of their families and the people they protect, at increased risk."
Republicans who joined Graham at the news conference, including Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who served as New Hampshire's attorney general, dismissed that argument from the department. Republicans said they would neither compromise national security nor jeopardize any prosecution.
Nominees in limbo are Janet Yellen, Obama's choice to replace Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Jeh Johnson, tapped to fill the vacancy at Homeland Security after Janet Napolitano resigned as secretary. The Senate also must decide the fate of judicial nominees as well as military officers.
Graham said he planned to vote for Johnson, but this was his only recourse.
Graham's news conference came as a new poll showed the senator's support plunging among Republican voters in South Carolina. Benghazi is an issue that energizes core Republicans.
The Winthrop Poll showed Graham with the backing of 45 percent of Republican voters in October, down from 72 percent in February. The poll conducted Oct. 19-27 interviewed 887 adults and had a margin of error of 3 percent.
Graham, who is seeking a third term next year, faces primary challenges from three candidates: Nancy Mace, the first female graduate of the Citadel; state Sen. Lee Bright; and businessman Richard Cash. They have criticized the incumbent for working with Democrats on immigration and other issues.
If no candidate gets 50 percent plus one of the vote in the June 10 primary, the top two finishers compete in a June 24 runoff.
Separately, Senate GOP opposition is solidifying against Obama's nomination of Patricia Millett to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Some Democrats are hinting that if Millett is defeated, they'd consider ramming through rules changes to make it harder for the Senate minority party — currently Republicans — to block nominations.
Because the appeals court rules on federal agency actions, it is widely considered second only to the Supreme Court in judicial power. Millett would tip the partisan balance of the D.C. Circuit to 5-4 in favor of judges appointed by Democratic presidents.
GOP leaders say Democrats are trying to grab the partisan advantage on that court and argue that the circuit's workload is too light.
Millett is an attorney who worked in the solicitor general's office, which argues Supreme Court cases, for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Democrats plan to try ending GOP delaying tactics on Thursday, for which they will need 60 votes. That means they will need support from five Republicans.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted to end GOP delays against two nominees and confirmed Alan Estevez for a top Pentagon procurement job and Katherine Archuleta to head the Office of Personnel Management.
____
Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
___
Follow Donna Cassata on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DonnaCassataAP
Researchers from device security firm Skycure have unearthed an unnerving vulnerability in iOS that can be used to hijack a number of apps when used on an insecure Wi-Fi network. And it might not just be an iOS issue, either.
Skycure calls the problem "HTTP Request Hijacking," or HRH for short, and it exploits the way many iOS applications deal with receiving an HTTP 301 status code ("Moved Permanently") from a server.
"Most mobile apps do not visually indicate the server they connect to," says Skycure, "making HRH attacks seamless, with very low probability of being identified by the victims."
At its core, the attack is essentially a variant on a standard man-in-the-middle attack. If an app is used on an insecure Wi-Fi network, an attacker can intercept requests sent by the app, reply to the requests with a 301, and trick the app into being redirected to a hostile server.
This is bad enough, but iOS apps have a behavior quirk that makes them particularly vulnerable to the attack: Whenever they receive a 301 redirection request, that request is cached indefinitely. In other words, once an attacker uses a request hijack on an iOS app, its requests are redirected continuously to the hostile server until the cache is cleared ... and the user may never know about it.
HRH attacks do require a few conditions to be met before they can be pulled off successfully. Most crucially, they need to be "physically near the victim for the initial poisoning," meaning that the attacker has to know where the user is connecting via Wi-Fi and hijack that specific connection.
Skycure has declined to name specific apps that are affected by this bug, as part of its responsible disclosure policy. Instead, the company has created a sample application that demonstrates the problem in action, along with a short video demonstrating the hijack. Most importantly, Skycure has published code in its article that allows concerned iOS developers to fix the problem quickly.
The New York Times Bits Blog was one of the first third-party sources to spread the word, noting that the same researchers also found another iOS-related security issue, back in 2012, in which LinkedIn's iOS app turned out to be leaking sensitive information when it collected meeting details from users' iOS calendars. LinkedIn has long since fixed that problem, but more recently it's come under fire yet again for another iOS app, LinkedIn Intro.
In a final note to its post, Skycure adds that "HRH isn’t necessarily a problem of iOS applications alone; it may apply to mobile applications of other operating systems too." In the abstract, the mechanism of an HRH attack isn't specific to iOS. If another platform -- Android, for instance -- behaves the same way in caching 301 requests, the same attack could conceivably be performed there as well.
Let's hope that's not the case -- but better yet, let's find out if it is true and do something about it.
NEW YORK (AP) — Young New Yorkers who want to light up will soon have to wait for their 21st birthdays before they can buy a pack of smokes after lawmakers in the nation's most populous city voted overwhelmingly to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21.
The City Council's vote Wednesday makes New York the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds, and one of only a few places throughout the United States that have tried to stymie smoking among young people by raising the purchasing age. The council also approved a bill that sets a minimum $10.50-a-pack price for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales.
"We know that tobacco dependence can begin very soon after a young person first tries smoking so it's critical that we stop young people from smoking before they ever start," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement after the council's vote.
Bloomberg, a strong supporter of tough smoking restrictions, has 30 days to sign the bills into law. The minimum age bill will take effect 180 days after enactment.
The city's current age limit is 18, a federal minimum that's standard in many places. Smoking in city parks and beaches already is prohibited as it is in restaurants.
Advocates say higher age limits help prevent, or at least delay, young people from taking up a habit that remains the leading cause of preventable deaths nationwide.
But cigarette manufacturers have suggested young adult smokers may just turn to black-market merchants. And some smokers say it's unfair and patronizing to tell people considered mature enough to vote and serve in the military that they're not old enough to decide whether to smoke.
"New York City already has the highest cigarette tax rate and the highest cigarette smuggling rate in the country," said Bryan D. Hatchell , a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which makes Camel and other brands. "Those go hand in hand and this new law will only make the problem worse."
Another anti-smoking initiative pushed by the Bloomberg administration was previously shelved ahead of Wednesday's vote: forcing stores to keep cigarettes out of public view until a customer asks for them.
Newsstand clerk Ali Hassen, who sells cigarettes daily to a steady stream of customers from nearby office buildings, said he didn't know if the new age restrictions would do any good.
While he wouldn't stop vigilantly checking identification to verify customers' age, Hassen doubted the new rules would thwart determined smokers.
"If somebody wants to smoke, they're going to smoke," he said.
Similar legislation to raise the purchasing age is expected to come to a vote in Hawaii this December. The tobacco-buying age is 21 in Needham, Mass., and is poised to rise to 21 in January in nearby Canton, Mass. The state of New Jersey also is considering a similar proposal.
"It just makes it harder for young people to smoke," said smoker Stephen McGorry, 25, who started lighting up at 19. He added that had the age been 21 when he took up the habit, "I guarantee I wouldn't be smoking today."
Luscious Jackson has reconvened after more than a decade for its new album, Magic Hour, which comes out Nov. 5.
Doug Seymour/Courtesy of the artist
Luscious Jackson has reconvened after more than a decade for its new album, Magic Hour, which comes out Nov. 5.
Doug Seymour/Courtesy of the artist
"3 Seconds to Cross," a new song by Luscious Jackson, begins somewhere in New York City. The narrator lies awake longing to be in California, though it becomes apparent a New Yorker like her really wouldn't fit in: "It only takes just a little to get yourself lost."
California, we're told, is a land unfriendly to pedestrians, where an L.A. traffic light might give you three seconds to cross the street.
"Well, yeah. You do step off the curb and then it changes to red," says singer-guitarist Gabby Glaser. "And you're just like, 'How can any human being cross the street that fast?'"
Glaser's lyrics suggest her connection to New York — a city where people still walk for miles, or meet people on the sidewalk the way the members of Luscious Jackson once did. The group, known for the hit "Naked Eye," includes Glaser, drummer Kate Schellenbach and singer-bassist Jill Cunniff.
"I think I met Gabby on a stoop on St. Mark's Place, and I believe Kate, as well," Cunniff says.
"We were all about 13, 14, and it was an amazing time, as far as not only bands playing but also the early rap scene and the breakdancing scene," Glaser says. "It was all kind of colliding at the same time."
And in that mix in the early 1980s, the musicians made connections that served them for years.
"I remember meeting Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys in front of the UK Club at a Bad Brains show," says Cunniff. "There were probably 20 of us, all underage, running around to clubs."
In the years that followed, the group would begin playing in clubs themselves, have their songs heard on the radio and sign to the Beastie Boys' label, Grand Royal.
Luscious Jackson's new album, Magic Hour, sounds like a conversation between friends. The band kept that lighthearted feel despite more than a decade off — a time of having kids and trying other careers.
"We're in Brooklyn and we're still making it work," Cunniff says.
The band financed its new album with a pledge drive online. Their crowdfunding brought back a band born in the crowds of New York.
Coal mining is a dirty, dangerous business. Even with modern safety equipment protecting workers from black lung, plenty of other dangers await them underground. Like, say, mixing easily ignited coal dust with hot machine surfaces. That's why GE has invented a mine-car engine that keeps its cool to prevent setting off a raging inferno.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill. She can expect some heated questions about the rugged rollout of the Affordable Care Act. President Obama, meanwhile, heads to Boston to talk about health care in the afternoon.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. More hearings come today on the messy rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will face questions from the House, Energy and Commerce Committee. Now, yesterday, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid testified before a different committee. Marilyn Tavenner offered consumers an apology for the problems at the healthcare.gov website.
(SOUNDBITE OF HEARING)
MARILYN TAVENEER: We know that the consumer experience has been frustrating for many Americans. Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging into the site while others have received confusing error messages or had to wait for slow response times. This initial experience has not lived up to our expectations or the expectations of the American people and it is not acceptable.
INSKEEP: Now, as the hearings continue, the president goes to Boston today. He'll be talking about healthcare. And we're going to talk about healthcare now with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson, who's on the line. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. So why in Boston for the president?
LIASSON: Well, it's a bit of counterprogramming to the Sebelius hearings, but he'll also be making the point about the arc of enrollment. In Massachusetts, which of course was the model for his healthcare plan, only 123 people signed up in the first month. That's .3 percent of the eventual enrollment. And a full 20 percent signed up in the final month.
This is why the administration doesn't want to give enrollment numbers until mid-November. But...
INSKEEP: So they're basically trying to say it was very slow in Massachusetts.
LIASSON: That's right.
INSKEEP: Don't hammer us for being too slow.
LIASSON: That's right. But on a call yesterday, the administration admitted that there are limitations to the Massachusetts analogy. Yes, it was the model for the president's plan, but it's also very different - so much smaller - and it had bipartisan support from the very beginning.
INSKEEP: Now, here's some awkwardness. Republicans are pointing out news reports that a lot of people are seeing their policies, their old policies, cancelled or their premiums go up under the new Obamacare rules. Does the White House have any answer to that?
LIASSON: Well, it does, but here's the problem. In order to sell the plan back in 2009, the president said this a lot.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period.
LIASSON: But that's just not true in every case. What we're talking about here is about five percent of the population who are in the private individual market. They don't get their healthcare through their employer or through Medicare or Medicaid. And some of them - we don't know how many of them - are seeing their plans canceled when their 12-month contracts come up because their plans don't meet the new standards for coverage in the Affordable Care Act.
Now, some of these people are going to have to pay a little more. Some of them will pay less. The White House says in the end more people will end up with better coverage and in some cases cheaper coverage because of the subsidies. But the fact is, the Affordable Care Act is a disrupter. This is why the White House wanted this rolled out after the president was reelected.
And the problem is that the president raised expectations. He went out and said the website will be as easy to use as buying a plane ticket on Kayak. He said your insurance won't change if you like it. But health insurance is very complicated. There are premiums and there are deductibles and there are co-pays and the law affects different people in different ways.
So for every positive anecdote, you can find a negative one. The president made it sound so simple and those promises are now coming back to haunt him.
INSKEEP: But I do want to ask, Mara Liasson, because this is a debate that has been so heated, so intense, and the people who are saying that the president was untruthful or even that he lied are in some cases people who have talked about death panels in the law, who've said the IRS was going to be coming after people with squads of goons.
They've talked about socialism. There's been extraordinary rhetoric surrounding this entire debate for years. Is it a little late for anyone to complain about anybody being untruthful?
LIASSON: It's never too late...
(LAUGHTER)
LIASSON: I mean, the problem is that today, when Secretary Sebelius takes the stand - of course Republicans will call for her resignation, but she's going to get questions not just about the website. Now the focus is on this new line of attack: Why are people's plans being changed when the president said they wouldn't be? And why are people getting cancellation notices at the same time they can't get on the website to look for a new plan?
So yes, people - everyone has exaggerated and been untruthful in the past, but right now the big questions of credibility and competence are directed at the administration, and Sebelius is going to bear the brunt of them today.
INSKEEP: Mara, thanks as always.
LIASSON: Thank you.
INSKEEP: That's NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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Sure, it's got a protective Gorilla Glass 3 coating, but there's only one way to really protect that new Nexus 5: cases. If you're breathlessly refreshing the Play store for a shot at ordering Google's new handset, you may want to check out the associated bumper case (available in black, grey, red ...
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