Senator comes out: During the debate over marriage equality language in the Nevada state constitution, state Senator Kelvin Atkinson stood up and said, 'I'm gay.'
By Sandra Chereb,?Associated Press / April 23, 2013
Nevada state Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D) of North Las Vegas, seen here at a 2011 budget hearing, had a coming out of sorts when he announced, 'I'm black. I'm gay,' at the Legislature in Carson City, Nev. during last night's debate over same-sex marriage.
Cathleen Allison / AP / File
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The?Nevada?Senate, after an hour-long, soul-searching debate about equality, love, and marriage passed a resolution late Monday repealing the state's heterosexual definition of marriage, the first step in a long process to recognize?gay?marriage.
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In emotional comments, senators told of family members who are?gay; their own conflicts between religion and social justice. For Sen. Kelvin Atkinson (D) of North Las Vegas, it was a coming out of sorts when he announced to many, "I'm black. I'm?gay."
Senate Joint Resolution 13 repeals a constitutional provision enacted by voters in 2002. It also declares that Nevada?recognizes all marriages, regardless of gender.
The resolution was approved on a 12-9 vote, with Sen. Ben Kieckhefer (R) of Reno voting with the Democratic majority. It now goes to the Assembly.
If passed by lawmakers this year and in 2015, it would go to voters in 2016 for ratification.
"This is a vote to let the people vote for equality," said Sen. Pat Spearman (D) of North Las Vegas. A black, lesbian minister, Spearman talked passionately of growing up in the 1960s in the deep south, being spit on because she was black.
"I know what it feels like when people want to push separate but equal," Spearman said. "Separate is not equal."
Sen. David Parks, a Las Vegas Democrat who was the first openly?gay person elected to the?Nevada?Legislature, urged his colleagues' support.
"There is no threat; no threat to one's marriage or their own personal views," Parks said. "Passage of SJR13 will begin the positive process toward fairness and equality."
The measure, he said, will allow voters to decide "so that someday soon I may have the same rights you are entitled to."
For many Republicans, the vote came down to whether marriage should be in the constitution at all. The original version of the resolution called only for repealing the Protection of Marriage Act passed by voters in 2002 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
They objected to expanding the measure to sanction same-sex marriage.
"It is regrettable that it has come to this," said Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson (R) of Henderson, adding he and others in the Republican caucus supported the original version of SJR13.
LONDON (AP) ? Remember when tweeting was for the birds?
The BBC is hoping to revive that simpler time with "Tweet of the Day" ? an early-morning radio program dedicated to British birdsong.
Veteran naturalist David Attenborough will host the 90-second show, which will feature the song of a different bird each weekday, along with background on the species' behavior and habits.
The show on the BBC's main speech station, Radio 4, may be best appreciated by those who rise with the birds. "Tweet of the Day" will be broadcast at 5:58 a.m.
The BBC said Wednesday that 265 different birds will be featured during the year-long series, which begins next month with a recording of the cuckoo. Attenborough will host for the first month, and be followed by other BBC presenters.
Majority of children readmitted to hospital following stem cell transplantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Irene Sege irene.sege@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-7379 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within six months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells were twice as likely to be readmitted as children who received their own stem cells.
"No one had ever looked at these data in children," said Leslie E. Lehmann, MD, clinical director of pediatric stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC). "This is very important information and will allow us to counsel families appropriately, as well as try to devise interventions that reduce the rate of readmissions."
The study by Lehmann and Harvard Medical School student David Shulman is being presented at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology in Miami, April 24-27.
A record review of 129 children from 2008 to 2011 revealed that 64 percent had at least one hospital readmission within 180 days of transplant. The source of the donor cells was a key predictor: 79 percent of patients receiving transplants from a related or unrelated donor were readmitted compared to 38 percent who received their own cells (autologous transplant). The mean number of readmissions was 2.4, indicating that for some children, discharge after transplant is just the beginning of a long process characterized by repeated hospital stays.
Fever without a documented source of infection accounted for 39 percent of the readmissions; 24 percent were for infections and 15 percent for gastrointestinal problems.
"Most of the patients went on to be successfully treated and ultimately did very well," commented Lehmann.
"We hope these findings can eventually lead to identifying a group of low-risk children who could be managed at local hospitals rather than transplant centers, reducing costs and inconvenience to families."
Lehmann said the goal is to identify which patients could be safely treated without requiring an admission to the hospital.
###
The study was conducted without outside funding.
Written by Richard Saltus, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Since 1947, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have provided comprehensive care for children and adolescents with cancer through Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. The two Harvard Medical School affiliates share a clinical staff that delivers inpatient care at Boston Children's and outpatient therapies at Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic. The Boston Children's inpatient pediatric cancer service has 33 beds, including 13 designated for stem cell transplant patients.
Boston Children's is also the site of DF/CHCC inpatient clinical translational research in pediatric malignancies and has long supported the operation of an effective and productive stem cell transplant service. It has a long history of investment in and support of both clinical and basic cancer research, with more than $7.3 million in National Cancer Institute research support and 47,000 square feet of space devoted to cancer research. It is a recognized center of excellence in angiogenesis, cellular/molecular immunology, cancer genetics, and molecular signaling research.
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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.
Majority of children readmitted to hospital following stem cell transplantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Irene Sege irene.sege@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-7379 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within six months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells were twice as likely to be readmitted as children who received their own stem cells.
"No one had ever looked at these data in children," said Leslie E. Lehmann, MD, clinical director of pediatric stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC). "This is very important information and will allow us to counsel families appropriately, as well as try to devise interventions that reduce the rate of readmissions."
The study by Lehmann and Harvard Medical School student David Shulman is being presented at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology in Miami, April 24-27.
A record review of 129 children from 2008 to 2011 revealed that 64 percent had at least one hospital readmission within 180 days of transplant. The source of the donor cells was a key predictor: 79 percent of patients receiving transplants from a related or unrelated donor were readmitted compared to 38 percent who received their own cells (autologous transplant). The mean number of readmissions was 2.4, indicating that for some children, discharge after transplant is just the beginning of a long process characterized by repeated hospital stays.
Fever without a documented source of infection accounted for 39 percent of the readmissions; 24 percent were for infections and 15 percent for gastrointestinal problems.
"Most of the patients went on to be successfully treated and ultimately did very well," commented Lehmann.
"We hope these findings can eventually lead to identifying a group of low-risk children who could be managed at local hospitals rather than transplant centers, reducing costs and inconvenience to families."
Lehmann said the goal is to identify which patients could be safely treated without requiring an admission to the hospital.
###
The study was conducted without outside funding.
Written by Richard Saltus, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Since 1947, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have provided comprehensive care for children and adolescents with cancer through Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. The two Harvard Medical School affiliates share a clinical staff that delivers inpatient care at Boston Children's and outpatient therapies at Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic. The Boston Children's inpatient pediatric cancer service has 33 beds, including 13 designated for stem cell transplant patients.
Boston Children's is also the site of DF/CHCC inpatient clinical translational research in pediatric malignancies and has long supported the operation of an effective and productive stem cell transplant service. It has a long history of investment in and support of both clinical and basic cancer research, with more than $7.3 million in National Cancer Institute research support and 47,000 square feet of space devoted to cancer research. It is a recognized center of excellence in angiogenesis, cellular/molecular immunology, cancer genetics, and molecular signaling research.
[ | 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.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Maybe rocker Greg Kihn was being prophetic in his 1981 hit, "The Breakup Song," with its chorus, "They don't write 'em like that anymore." An Indiana University professor's new paper looks at how people write to break up today, including through texts, emails and social media.
According to a new research article by Ilana Gershon, associate professor of communication and culture in IU's College of Arts and Sciences, part of what makes the breakup stories she collected into American stories is that the medium seems so important to the message when breaking off relationships.
"It wasn't until after I had collected many breakup stories that I realized my students had told me something quite revealing that would come up time and time again. ... American undergraduates focus on the 'how' of a breakup when describing their breakups, not the 'why' or the 'who,'" Gershon said.
Her paper, "Everytime We Type Goodbye: Heartbreak American Style," published in the journal Anthropology Now, discusses how the narratives of breakups in the United States differ from those in other countries.
Gershon also is the author of the 2010 book, "The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media" (Cornell University Press), which argued that Facebook and other forms of social networking have radically changed the playing field of dating today.
She interviewed 72 people at length for her paper, including 66 undergraduate college students who communicate frequently with new technologies. She found that when American college students tell their breakup stories, they consist of a string of conversations, and people always describe when anyone switched media to continue the conversations.
"The medium used for the conversation mattered enough to be almost always mentioned," Gershon said. "People would invariably mark when a different medium was used, explaining when communication shifted from voicemail to texting to Facebook and then to phone."
Her results differ from other ethnographic research done elsewhere, such as in Japan and Britain, where the story often focuses on justifying why the relationship had to end. Character was the emphasis overseas, not the method.
"The American undergraduates I interviewed were not discussing their breakups in terms of the right balance of dependence, or even the kind of people who might break up," Gershon added.
"The closest an interviewee came to describing herself as a particular type of person was a woman who decided not to show anyone else the text breakup message her ex had sent her. Even this example shows that U.S. undergraduates were using the 'how' of the breakup as the narrative frame to explore what an end of the relationship might mean for them."
In many cases, the young people Gershon interviewed were looking for validation that it had been a bad breakup and the medium was crucial evidence.
In the paper, Gershon cited one example of a breakup done through a text message. "Rebecca" wanted to talk on the phone with her former boyfriend to have what she considered a "proper ending to the relationship."
"As in most of the narratives I collected, the 'how' of the breakup was the central focus of Rebecca's story," Gershon said. "This 'how' stood in for other questions that haunted Rebecca as well -- namely why her ex-boyfriend decided to break off the relationship.
"Rebecca and others did not focus on the 'why' of the breakup or the 'who' of the breakup, although this course would come up in the narratives as secondary themes," she said. "By focusing on the 'how,' she was able to avoid these often unanswerable questions -- unanswerable questions like why the breakup had happened in the first place and who really was to blame."
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday backed a plan that would temporarily eliminate spending cuts disrupting U.S. air travel, while lawmakers in Washington scrambled to avoid blame as the impact of the reductions began being felt across the country.
Airlines pushed for the government to act as flight delays increased and planes stacked up at airports, with one chief executive saying, "We can't do this for long."
With Republicans and conservative commentators blaming President Barack Obama for using the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration to score political points, the White House said it supported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposal to replace the reductions by claiming savings from the drawdown of war spending.
"We support this effort to allow both sides to find a longer-term solution that replaces the sequester permanently in a balanced way so we can stop these harmful cuts that are hurting our economy and middle-class families across the country," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.
The administration would support the move as a temporary measure even though it does not raise revenues, Carney said.
Congressional Republicans have rejected the proposal, saying counting war savings is an accounting gimmick, but complaints about the air traffic delays have thrust sequestration back into the spotlight.
EFFECTS ADDING UP
Thousands of flights have been held on the ground, some for as long as two hours, since the Federal Aviation Administration began furloughing air-traffic controllers on Sunday. The intermittent delays have slowed travel at major hubs like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, caused flight cancellations and stirred concern a chunk of the nation's economy could suffer if the situation persists or worsens.
For business travelers and tourists, the slowdown means missed connections and meetings. Private planes used by businesses are waiting while controllers first guide commercial flights into hubs, and they are carrying more fuel as a safety precaution, in case they are held in the air.
US Airways, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have warned that furloughs could cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue. The airline industry says it helps generate more than $1 trillion in economic activity in the United States annually and supports 10 million jobs.
"We can't do this for long without having major disruption to the flying public," US Airways CEO Doug Parker said in an interview. He said he called government officials at the airline's hubs last week, and that Congress and the Obama administration were trying to limit the damage.
The requirements have put pressure on FAA chief Michael Huerta, who was questioned in congressional hearings in the past two weeks about furloughs and the closures of smaller towers.
Huerta says the cuts are the only way to trim the agency's budget, and he said on Wednesday that flight delays had not been as bad as feared.
But industry critics said the FAA had not been forthcoming with information. "We didn't get a detailed briefing until Tuesday - a week ago Tuesday," said Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the trade organization Airlines for America, or A4A.
Last Friday, A4A sought to block the furloughs in court, and the Air Line Pilots Association joined the A4A in launching a website that directs visitors to email or call congressional members on the issue. The ALPA represents nearly 53,000 pilots at airlines in the United States and Canada.
More than 12,000 people have used it to voice concerns since it went live on Friday. A map showing congressional districts shows large pockets of opposition in Chicago, the Northeast and California. Most of those posting comments oppose furloughs.
CONGRESS LASHES OUT
"These cuts simply punish everyone rather than specifically target the great number of outdated, wasteful and duplicative functions being funded with our taxpayer dollars," Iowa Republican Tom Latham said. "In short, arbitrary, non-targeted, across-the-board cuts are no way to run a government."
Members of Congress are offering a measure that would allow the FAA to transfer funds between accounts to minimize disruptions to air travel.
The sequestration cuts are the legacy of Republican efforts to pressure the Obama administration into spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation's debt limit. The White House and lawmakers agreed to hold up the threat of the reductions, which affect defense and non-defense spending equally, as incentive to reach a broader deficit-reduction deal.
When that deal never materialized, the cuts took effect on March 1. Although the administration broadly advertised the negative impact they would have, those effects were not evident right away.
Flight delays this week have revived the issue. Carney blamed Republicans on Wednesday for underestimating the negative impact of the spending reductions.
"Republicans in Congress made a political tactical decision to embrace the sequester," he said. Cuts proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would bite even more deeply than those under the sequester, he added.
But some Republican conservatives expressed support for the sequestration cuts on Wednesday, saying that they were long overdue.
"I don't understand this fascination with the Democrats right now with the sequester, and frankly some Republicans as well," Republican Representative Raul Labrador said.
(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs in Scottsdale, Arizona; Editing by Ben Berkowitz, Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
If your nerves are a bit frazzled chances are you live in West Virginia. According to the new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released earlier today, residents of this state are the most stressed out in the nation.
Gallup has been tracking the daily stress levels of Americans since 2008. To find out how much the average citizen feels emotional and psychological stress and enjoys life on a daily basis, they polled more than 350,000 people by phone ? despite the fact that numerous studies show increased phone usage can increase anxiety.
Besides West Virginians, more people who live in Rhode Island, Kentucky, Utah and Massachusetts reported a case of frayed nerves the previous day. In all those states over 40 percent of those surveyed admitted they felt some level of stress the day before being interviewed.
West Virginia is ranked the most stressed state in the nation. Photo credit: Getty Images.
And more people from Rhode Island, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia seem to be having a miserable time. Nearly 20 percent of people in those states told interviewers they did not enjoy themselves the day before.
Hawaiians, on the other hand, are mellow compared with those who live in the lower 48. For the second year in a row, they seemed to be the most immune to emotional stress and more likely to feel enjoyment. A mere 32 percent of Hawaiians reported feeling stressed out and nearly 90 percent said they were enjoying life. (President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.)
Other states with the fewest anxious residents included Louisiana, Iowa, Mississippi and Wyoming. After Hawaii, the states with the highest reported enjoyment levels were Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota and Idaho.
The researchers aren?t clear what the association is between stress and enjoyment but many of the states with the highest stress levels were also states where people seemed to be having the least fun. And rankings have remained fairly consistent, with stress levels in all states remaining statistically unchanged in 2012 compared with 2011.
For example, Hawaii has ranked as the state with the lowest percentage of residents reporting stress on the prior day all five years the survey has been conducted. West Virginia, Kentucky, and Utah, have each ranked within the top five most stressed states for the past five years. West Virginia ranked as the most stressed state in 2012, Kentucky was the top state for stress in 2008 and 2011, and Utah was the top state for stress in 2009 and 2010.
Residents in other high-stress states, Kentucky and West Virginia, were also among the least likely to experience enjoyment. Both of these states have appeared among the bottom five states for experiencing enjoyment at least three times since Gallup began reporting this measure, including last year?s poll.
Regionally, states with stress levels at or above 42 percent were clustered in the Northeast and Midwest, but also included Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Utah is unique in that it routinely ranks among both the highest stress and highest enjoyment states. The researchers said they believed this underscores the complex relationship between stress and other emotions.
On average, 40.6 percent of Americans reported feeling stressed ?yesterday? in this year?s survey and almost 85 percent reported feeling enjoyment ?yesterday.? To see where your state ranked, click here.
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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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