Video: Taco Bell enters breakfast battle

>> you planning to grab breakfast on your way to work? you may be interested to know a new fast food giant is joining the breakfast battle. janet shamlian has more on that. good morning.

>> reporter: good morning to you. the breakfast wars are heating up. it's really the only area of growth in the fast food industry now. there is a new entrant into the game. how will mexican far e e play in the morning? the bell is ringing early as taco bell aims to find out. let's face it. it's not the first place you think of for breakfast.

>> can i get a number three with an orange juice , please?

>> reporter: taco bell for years promoted a very different dining hour.

>> who says nothing good happens after midnight?

>> reporter: they branded the after hours snack attack with a new name.

>> late night is made for fourth meal.

>> reporter: but now the bell is ringing for early rise rs.

>> no matter how you end your tight, start your morning with first meal at taco bell .

>> good morning.

>> reporter: the breakfast club dominated by mcdonald's and crowded with others like burger king and wendy's. even lunch timers like subway are in the game.

>> build a better breakfast at subway.

>> reporter: experts say it's the only growth area for restaurants in a tight economy. when customers are more time crunched than ever.

>> you have 13 minutes to eat breakfast, you can't go to a sit-down restaurant. even at home you have trouble making it in 13 minutes. you have to get stuff on the run. every fast food restaurant chain in america is looking at, if not doing something about, should i get into the breakfast market.

>> reporter: taco bell won't have just burritos for breakfast.

>> can i have a cinnabon, please?

>> reporter: and other fare starting under $1 million.

>> i heard about the breakfast, stopped by yesterday. i said, i will come back in the morning and get some more.

>> reporter: the scramble for the breakfast dollar. as one of the biggest names in late night noshing sets up early. you can get the breakfast mostly in the west. 800 stores are hoping to roll it out to in the next couple of years. there is a burrito with your name

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46187569/

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WTO: China unfairly limits export of raw materials (AP)

GENEVA ? The World Trade Organization ruled Monday that China unfairly limited exports of nine raw materials to protect domestic manufacturers.

A WTO appeals body rejected China's appeal of an earlier ruling in July that concluded the Asian economic powerhouse had violated international trade rules. The appeals body largely sided with the United States, European and Mexico, which had taken issue with Chinese restrictions on its exports of nine materials used widely in the steel, aluminum and chemical industries.

They had complained that China drives up prices on overseas shipments of the materials by setting export duties, quotas and licensing requirements on them, giving the country's manufacturers an unfair edge over competitors. But China had argued that its export limits were needed to protect the environment.

The ruling affects China's exports of certain forms of bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorous and zinc. In it, the WTO appeals body says China must now "bring its export duty and export quota measures into conformity with its WTO obligations."

The issue has sparked tension with some of China's major trading partners. In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the ruling "a tremendous victory for the United States ? particularly its manufacturers and workers."

He called it a decision that "ensures that core manufacturing industries in this country can get the materials they need to produce and compete on a level playing field."

The European Commission said in a statement that while the case requires China to comply, the EU "continues to be deeply troubled by China's use of export restrictions" for other rare earth and industrial raw materials.

China's WTO mission in Geneva said it "deeply regrets" that the appeals body upheld major parts of the earlier panel's conclusions, but noted that some other aspects were reversed. It vowed to abide by the WTO findings.

But it explained that Chinese government had in recent years "reinforced its administration on certain resource products, especially the 'high-pollution, high-energy-consuming and resource-dependent' products" to protect the environment and conserve natural resources.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_wto_china_trade

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Shop Android Deal of the Day: Case-Mate Barely There Case for Samsung Skyrocket

The Jan. 30 Shop Android Deal of the Day is the Case-Mate Barely There Case for the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4G Skyrocket. These cases are designed to help protect the design of the Samsung Skyrocket while allowing more of it to show, thanks to a slim profile and impact-resistant flexible plastic shell. It's available in black or pink today only for just $12.95 -- that's 48 percent off! Get yours while supplies last!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/7BN-_Wf52IU/story01.htm

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Stealthy leprosy pathogen evades critical vitamin D-dependent immune response

ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2012) ? A team of UCLA scientists has found that the pathogen that causes leprosy has a remarkable ability to avoid the human immune system by inhibiting the antimicrobial responses important to our defenses.

In one of the first laboratory studies of its kind, researchers discovered that the leprosy pathogen Mycobacterium leprae was able to reduce and evade immune activity that is dependent on vitamin D, a natural hormone that plays an essential role in the body's fight against infections.

The pathogen manipulated micro-RNAs, tiny molecules made of ribonucleic acids that carry information and that help regulate genes to direct cell activity, including immune system defenses. Micro-RNAs are short RNAs that do not code information for proteins, which carry out all cell activity; rather, they bind to the RNAs that do code for proteins and block them.

Published in the Jan. 29 online edition of the journal Nature Medicine, the findings demonstrate how an infectious disease pathogen like M. leprae can use micro-RNAs to impact the immune system's fight response.

"We may find that these tiny micro-RNAs can be exploited by pathogens to weaken our immune response," said the study's first author, Dr. Philip T. Liu, an assistant professor of medicine at the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center and in the department of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "By better understanding how pathogens can escape our immune cells, we can design more effective therapies to boost our immune responses to these difficult to treat infections like leprosy."

Leprosy, one of the world's oldest known diseases, is a chronic infectious disease that affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, the upper respiratory tract and the eyes and can lead to disfigurement of the hands, face and feet. In 2008, approximately 249,000 new cases of leprosy were reported worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

For the study, researchers compared the micro-RNAs in human skin lesions from two types of leprosy: tuberloid leprosy, a milder infection that is more easily contained, and lepromatous leprosy, which is more serious and causes widespread infection throughout the body.

In the lab, the scientists identified 13 micro-RNAs that differed between the two types of leprosy. The micro-RNAs that were found to be more common in lepromatous leprosy seemed to target the genes important for directing key immune system cells, including macrophages and T cells.

The team found that a particular micro-RNA, hsa-mir-21, inhibited the gene activity of the vitamin D-dependent immune pathway used to help fight infection. When researchers neutralized the activity of hsa-mir-21 in macrophages, the cells were able to kill the bacteria again.

"The leprosy pathogen was able to effectively evade the host's immune response by regulating critical immune system genes," said senior investigator Dr. Robert Modlin, UCLA's Klein Professor of Dermatology and chief of dermatology at the Geffen School of Medicine. "It's like having the enemy sending a decoy message to your combat troops and telling them to lower their weapons."

To test the significance of this micro-RNA with other infectious diseases, the researchers also introduced hsa-mir-21 to human macrophages that were then infected with tuberculosis in the lab. Researchers found that the micro-RNA similarly blocked the ability of the macrophages to kill the bacteria.

Researchers also demonstrated that immune activation of the leprosy-infected immune cells decreased the leprosy bacteria's viability four-fold -- but only when hsa-mir-21 activity was silenced. In fact, an over-expression of this micro-RNA blocked immune activity, resulting in a five-fold increase in bacterial viability.

"We were surprised at the devastating effects that even a single micro-RNA had on the ability of immune cells to fight the infections," Liu said.

In addition, the team showed that this micro-RNA was found in human immune cells only 18 hours after the onset of leprosy infection. The presence of the micro-RNA so early in the infection suggests it might play a role in actual disease development, the researchers said.

Further investigation of this single micro-RNA in leprosy may provide a framework for analyzing other micro-RNAs to help determine their cumulative role in regulating the immune response.

The micro-RNAs are small, and therefore it is possible to develop treatments which neutralize them, the researchers said.

"We may find that a combination of vitamin D supplementation with a genetically targeted therapy could provide an optimal treatment approach to leprosy and possibly other chronic infectious diseases," said Modlin, who also serves as vice chair for cutaneous medicine and dermatological research at UCLA and is a distinguished professor of medicine and of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics.

"Vitamin D insufficiency has been associated with a number of infectious and autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease and cancers," Modlin added. "Our study indicates that micro-RNAs can alter human vitamin D responses and contribute to disease pathology."

Dr. Barry Bloom of Harvard University, who was not an author of this study but is part of the research team studying this field, agreed.

"Such a novel approach may be especially worth exploring in treatment of drug-resistant pathogens such as some forms of tuberculosis, where antimicrobial therapy is becoming increasingly problematic," Bloom said.

Bloom, the former dean of the faculty at Harvard's School of Public Health, is Harvard's Distinguished University Service Professor and the Jack and Joan Jacobson Professor of Public Health in the School of Public Health's department of immunology and infectious diseases and department of global health and population.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Arthritis, Skin and Musculoskeletal Diseases, both parts of the National Institutes of Health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles. The original article was written by Rachel Champeau.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Philip T Liu, Matthew Wheelwright, Rosane Teles, Evangelia Komisopoulou, Kristina Edfeldt, Benjamin Ferguson, Manali D Mehta, Aria Vazirnia, Thomas H Rea, Euzenir N Sarno, Thomas G Graeber, Robert L Modlin. MicroRNA-21 targets the vitamin D?dependent antimicrobial pathway in leprosy. Nature Medicine, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nm.2584

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120129151106.htm

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Cuba Communist Party eyes term limits at gathering

A santera looks back while crossing the street where a wall is covered with a mural of the Cuban flag and an image of Cuba's revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Havana, Cuba, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. After economic reforms by President Raul Castro were endorsed by the communist congress in mid-2011, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) is preparing to hold a party conference this weekend. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)

A santera looks back while crossing the street where a wall is covered with a mural of the Cuban flag and an image of Cuba's revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Havana, Cuba, Friday Jan. 27, 2012. After economic reforms by President Raul Castro were endorsed by the communist congress in mid-2011, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) is preparing to hold a party conference this weekend. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)

HAVANA (AP) ? Cuba's Communist Party opened a two-day conference Saturday to hold an internal debate on the future of the party, the possibility of political term limits and perhaps even a change or two at the top.

The closed-door gathering is a follow-up to last April's historic party summit where delegates green-lighted fledgling reforms, opening up long-shut doors of economic opportunity.

But while the government has essentially followed through on its economic promises ? things like liberalizing home and car sales, expanding private-sector activity and offering loans to support farmers, entrepreneurs and homeowners ? expectations were low that this weekend would yield any blockbuster announcements beyond what officials have already hinted at.

"The expectations were high because this conference was perceived as an act of continuity with relation to the 6th Congress, as a space to complete the economic adjustment with complementary political reforms," said Cuban-born economist Arturo Lopez-Levy, a lecturer at the University of Denver. "It became clear that that vision was unfoundedly optimistic."

Foreign journalists were not allowed access, and limited coverage was available through the island's official media. State-run website Cubadebate showed photos of President Raul Castro presiding over the conference wearing a gray blazer and a dark, open-collar shirt, with what appeared to be a small bandage on the tip of his nose.

In a brief snippet of video posted on Cubadebate, Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said in a keynote speech that the conference would focus on "the everyday work of the organization."

Castro himself has dampened expectations for any big announcements, saying two weeks ago that nobody should have "great illusions about the conference" and the topics of debate were more "an internal question for the party."

According to a draft agenda that circulated last fall, one matter up for discussion will be Castro's call to limit officeholders including the president to two five-year terms, with the goal of achieving a "gradual renewal in leadership."

Over the years a number of rising young stars considered potential successors to Raul Castro, 80, and his brother Fidel, retired and largely out of sight at 85, have been unceremoniously fired. There are no obvious replacements waiting in the wings.

In April the younger Castro, who is also party chief, lamented the lack of politicians prepared to take over from the 70- and 80-somethings who occupy many top posts. Grooming new leaders would be a priority during his five-year term, he said.

Recently a Cuban official told The Associated Press that despite the lack of movement in visible roles like cabinet ministers, many midlevel government posts have quietly changed hands, with younger officials moving up. If true, that would bolster Raul Castro's claim that his government was laying the groundwork, albeit slowly, for generational change. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, and his assertions could not be independently confirmed.

Communist Party newspaper Granma said Saturday that delegates would consider how best to promote women, blacks and young people through the ranks of the party and government.

They will also evaluate the party's role in "the direction and systematic control of the process of updating the economic model and the progress of the economy," Granma said.

The draft agenda for the conference was discussed at thousands of local party and committee meetings and many of its objectives modified. The purpose of the conference was to turn the agenda into policy in support of last year's reforms, Machado Ventura said.

"Let us make our best effort to cast off obsolete mindsets of inertia and old prejudices," he said in comments broadcast on the afternoon news. "Let us work with responsibility and an eye toward the future, with the goal of strengthening the foundation of the (party's) work."

The Communist Party, the only party allowed in Cuba, does not have lawmaking powers but issues guidelines that are later taken up by parliament.

The conference's opening day was timed to coincide with the 159th anniversary of the birth of poet and independence hero Jose Marti, in whose honor a noontime 21-cannon salute thundered from a historic fort overlooking the Havana harbor.

But some said that's about all the fireworks they expect this weekend.

"The only thing that might be interesting is if they have some kind of election, to see who they put in the political bureau, especially if they put someone there who's not 80 years old," said Javier Blanco, a 32-year-old Havana resident. "Other than that... I don't think anything will come out that we don't already know."

Many Cubans were disappointed last month when authorities scuttled a proposal to eliminate the exit visa required for travel off the island.

Lopez-Levy said recent signals from Cuban leadership suggest there's no prospect for major political change in the near future.

"The Cuban Communist Party is going to make an adjustment to its internal life ... but it's not going to subject its political model to open debate on structural reforms as it did with its economic and social project," he said. "It's a low-risk strategy for the short term, but it could complicate the future."

___

Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.

___

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Peter(underscore)Orsi.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-28-CB-Cuba-Communist-Party-Conference/id-f6bd4bc360c24b449ce20ba9ffc6583c

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Friend says on 911 call Demi Moore was convulsing (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital on Monday night and was convulsing and "semi-conscious, barely," according to a caller on a frantic 911 recording released Friday by Los Angeles fire officials.

The woman tells emergency operators that Moore, 49, had been "having issues lately."

"Is she breathing normal?" the operator asks.

"No, not so normal. More kind of shaking, convulsing, burning up," the friend says as she hurries to Moore's side, on the edge of panic.

The recording captures the 10 minutes it took paramedics to arrive as friends gather around the collapsed star and try to comfort her as she trembles and shakes.

Another woman is next to Moore as the dispatcher asks if she's responsive.

"Demi, can you hear me?" she asks. "Yes, she's squeezing hands. ... She can't speak."

When the operator asks what Moore ingested or smoked, the friend replies, but the answer was redacted.

"Some form of ... and then she smoked something. I didn't really see. She's been having some issues lately with some other stuff. So I don't know what she's been taking or not," the friend says.

The city attorney's office advised the fire department to redact details about medical conditions and substances to comply with federal medical privacy rules.

Asked if Moore took the substance intentionally or not, the woman says Moore ingested it on purpose but the reaction was accidental.

"Whatever she took, make sure you have it out for the paramedics," the operator says.

The operator asks the friend if this has happened before.

"I don't know," she says. "There's been some stuff recently that we're all just finding out."

Moore's publicist, Carrie Gordon, said previously that the actress sought professional help to treat her exhaustion and improve her health. She would not comment further on the emergency call or provide details about the nature or location of Moore's treatment.

The past few months have been rocky for Moore.

She released a statement in November announcing she had decided to end her marriage to fellow actor Ashton Kutcher, 33, following news of alleged infidelity. The two were known to publicly share their affection for one another via Twitter.

Moore still has a Twitter account under the name mrskutcher but has not posted any messages since Jan. 7.

During the call, the woman caller says the group of friends had turned Moore's head to the side and were holding her down. The dispatcher tells her not to hold her down but to wipe her mouth and nose and watch her closely until paramedics arrive.

"Make sure that we keep an airway open," the dispatcher says. "Even if she passes out completely, that's OK. Stay right with her."

The phone is passed around by four people, including a woman who gives directions to the gate and another who recounts details about what Moore smoked or ingested. Finally, the phone is given to a man named James, so one of the women can hold Moore's head.

There was some confusion at the beginning of the call. The emergency response was delayed by nearly two minutes as Los Angeles and Beverly Hills dispatchers sorted out which city had jurisdiction over the street where Moore lives.

As the call is transferred to Beverly Hills, the frantic woman at Moore's house raises her voice and said, "Why is an ambulance not on its way right now?"

"Ma'am, instead of arguing with me why an ambulance is not on the way, can you spell (the street name) for me?" the Beverly Hills dispatcher says.

Although the estate is located in the 90210 ZIP code above Benedict Canyon, the response was eventually handled by the Los Angeles Fire Department.

By the end of the call, Moore has improved.

"She seems to have calmed down now. She's speaking," the male caller told the operator.

Moore and Kutcher were wed in September 2005.

Kutcher became a stepfather to Moore's three daughters ? Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle ? from her 13-year marriage to actor Bruce Willis. Moore and Willis divorced in 2000 but remained friendly.

Moore and Kutcher created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.

Moore can be seen on screen in the recent films "Margin Call" and "Another Happy Day." Kutcher replaced Charlie Sheen on TV's "Two and a Half Men" and is part of the ensemble film "New Year's Eve."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_en_mo/us_people_demi_moore

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Microbubbles provide new boost for biofuel production

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The technique builds on previous research in which microbubbles were used to improve the way algae is cultivated.

Algae produce an oil which can be processed to create a useful biofuel. Biofuels, made from plant material, are considered an important alternative to fossil fuels and algae, in particular, has the potential to be a very efficient biofuel producer. Until now, however, there has been no cost-effective method of harvesting and removing the water from the algae for it to be processed effectively.

Now, a team led by Professor Will Zimmerman in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Sheffield, believe they have solved the problem. They have developed an inexpensive way of producing microbubbles that can float algae particles to the surface of the water, making harvesting easier, and saving biofuel-producing companies time and money. The research is set to be published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering on 26 January 2012.

Professor Zimmerman and his team won the Moulton Medal, from the Institute of Chemical Engineers, for their earlier work which used the microbubble technology to improve algae production methods, allowing producers to grow crops more rapidly and more densely.

"We thought we had solved the major barrier to biofuel companies processing algae to use as fuel when we used microbubbles to grow the algae more densely," explains Professor Zimmerman.

"It turned out, however, that algae biofuels still couldn't be produced economically, because of the difficulty in harvesting and dewatering the algae. We had to develop a solution to this problem and once again, microbubbles provided a solution."

Microbubbles have been used for flotation before: water purification companies use the process to float out impurities, but it hasn't been done in this context, partly because previous methods have been very expensive.

The system developed by Professor Zimmerman's team uses up to 1000 times less energy to produce the microbubbles and, in addition, the cost of installing the Sheffield microbubble system is predicted to be much less than existing flotation systems.

The next step in the project is to develop a pilot plant to test the system at an industrial scale. Professor Zimmerman is already working with Tata Steel at their site in Scunthorpe using CO2 from their flue-gas stacks and plans to continue this partnership to test the new system.

Dr. Bruce Adderley, Manager of Climate Change Breakthrough Technology at Tata, said, "Professor Zimmerman's microbubble-based technologies are exactly the kind of step-change innovations that we are seeking as a means to address our emissions in the longer term, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to extend our relationship with Will and his team in the next phase of this pioneering research."

###

University of Sheffield: http://www.shef.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Sheffield for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117089/Microbubbles_provide_new_boost_for_biofuel_production

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Kim Kardashian Lands Role On ?Drop Dead Diva?

Kim Kardashian Lands Role On “Drop Dead Diva”

Kim Kardashian has scored a recurring role on a television show! The reality star is set to appear in the fourth season of the drama/comedy, [...]

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/Jq-agC6Pgd8/

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Egypt bans travel for US official's son, 9 others (AP)

CAIRO ? Egypt banned at least 10 Americans and Europeans from leaving the country, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, hiking tensions with Washington over a campaign by Egypt's military against groups promoting democracy and human rights.

The United States warned Thursday that the campaign raised concerns about Egypt's transition to democracy and could jeopardize American aid that Egypt's battered economy needs badly after a year of unrest.

The travel ban was part of an Egyptian criminal investigation into foreign-funded democracy organizations after soldiers raided the offices of 10 such groups last month, including those of two American groups.

The investigation is closely intertwined with Egypt's political turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly a year ago. The generals who took power have accused "foreign hands" of being behind protests against their rule and they frequently depict the protesters themselves as receiving foreign funds in a plot to destabilize the country.

Egyptian opponents of the military say the generals are trying to smear the protesters in the eyes of the public and silence organizations they fear will undermine their managing of the country.

Also startling is the military's willingness to clash with its longtime top ally, the United States, over the issue, particularly since the army itself receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington. The December raids brought sharp U.S. criticism, and last week President Barack Obama spoke by telephone with Egyptian military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to emphasize "the role that these organizations can play in civil society," according to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday.

The ban became public after Sam LaHood, Egypt director of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, went to Cairo's airport Saturday to catch a flight and was told by an immigration official that he couldn't leave.

"I asked her why I was denied, she said she didn't know. I asked how to fix it, and she said she didn't know," said LaHood, 36. An hour later, a man in civilian clothes gave him back his passport and escorted him to the curb, LaHood said.

"It's a dark signal for groups who are interested in doing this kind of work," he said.

LaHood's father, a former congressman from Illinois, is the only Republican in Obama's Cabinet. The elder LaHood declined to comment.

The IRI was among the groups raided last month, along with the National Democratic Institute and a number of Egyptian organizations. Both American groups, linked to the political parties of the same name, monitored Egypt's recent parliamentary elections. In the raids, troops ransacked 17 offices of the 10 organizations around the country, carting away computers and documents.

The Egyptian government said the raids were part of a legitimate investigation into whether the groups were operating legally.

Sen. John McCain blasted Egypt's handling of the issue Thursday, warning that continued restrictions on civil society groups "could set back the long-standing partnership between the United States and Egypt."

IRI and NDI officials said they have been trying since 2005 to register as required by law, but were left in legal limbo, never officially denied nor granted permission. Both groups continued to operate while keeping authorities abreast of their activities, they said. Many Egyptian non-governmental organizations say officials often keep their groups in such limbo to maintain a threat over their heads.

Sam LaHood said he was told by his lawyer that he is under investigation on suspicion of managing an unregistered NGO and receiving "funds" from an unregistered NGO, namely, his salary.

Two other Americans and a European with IRI have also been banned from travel, Lahood said his lawyer had been told. From the National Democratic Institute, three Americans and three Serb employees are also on the list, according to its Egypt director Lisa Hughes.

Hughes, who is among those barred, said she has been interrogated for more than four hours about her group's work and that she had planned to fly to the U.S. next month before she heard about the ban.

"I think we would be silly not to be concerned," she said. "We were concerned the moment armed men showed up at our office door, and this has done nothing to calm those concerns."

The State Department's top human rights official, Michael Posner, told reporters in Cairo Thursday that such moves could jeopardize U.S. aid to Egypt, one of the biggest recipients.

"All need to have the ability to operate openly, freely, without constraint, not based on the content of their work," he said.

Posner pointed to recent U.S. legislation that blocks annual aid to Egypt unless it takes certain steps. These include abiding by its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, holding free and fair elections and "implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion and due process of law."

"Obviously, any action that creates tension between our governments makes the whole package more difficult," Posner said.

The U.S. is due to give $1.3 billion in military assistance and $250 million in economic aid to Egypt in 2012. Washington has given Egypt an average of $2 billion in economic and military aid a year since 1979, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Egypt's military has been locked in a confrontation for months with protesters who demand it immediately hand over power to civilians.

Hundreds of protesters camped Thursday in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, a day after several hundred thousand people massed there to mark the one-year anniversary of the 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising.

Thursday evening, hundreds moved from Tahrir and rallied in front of the state TV building, beating drums as they chanted for the "liberation" of state-run media from the military's control. They projected video footage of soldiers beating protesters onto the building.

State TV has been a mouthpiece of the military, broadcasting its accusations against protesters. Activists demand it be restructured as an independent media institution.

"The media is still manipulated and projects the same lies," said protester Mahmoud Ragab. "We will be here everyday to let them know it is a revolution."

___

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt

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Four-year-old U.S. boy pulls out marijuana at school (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? A four-year-old U.S. boy who announced to his teacher at school snack time that he wanted to share pulled nine bags of marijuana out of his jacket pocket, police said on Wednesday.

Police in Meriden, Connecticut were called to Hanover Elementary School Tuesday afternoon after the young special needs student displayed the drugs, authorities said.

Meriden police said the nine individually wrapped bags of marijuana appeared prepared for sale.

Hanover Elementary School principal Miguel Cardona called it an "extremely unfortunate" and "isolated" incident that was not witnessed by any other students.

"What's so disheartening is this is really an adult issue and problem and adult behavior put a student at risk," Meriden schools superintendent Mark Benigni told Reuters.

"This student had no idea what he brought to school or what the substance was," he added.

Authorities are not releasing the names of the student or parents and police said there is a possibility for arrests pending the outcome of the investigation.

The Department of Children and Families is also looking into the incident.

(Reporting By Lauren Keiper. Editing by Paul Thomasch)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/od_nm/us_marijuana_snacktime

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US women top Mexico 4-0, on to do-or-die semis

/

By JOSEPH WHITE

updated 2:32 a.m. ET Jan. 25, 2012

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The U.S. women's soccer team was still on the field, having dispatched rival Mexico, when Abby Wambach gathered her teammates for a little speech.

The message: "We haven't done anything yet."

The Americans avenged one of their most shocking losses Tuesday night, and did so emphatically. A pair of early goals put to rest any notion of another upset by the neighbor to the south, and Carli Lloyd scored her first international hat trick in a 4-0 victory that clinched first place in the Americans' group and put them a major step closer to the London Olympics.

But hang on. Next up is the one game in this tournament that matters most, the London-or-bust semifinal against Costa Rica on Friday. The winner gets one of the two available berths for the Olympics; the loser stays home.

"The next game is the game that we need to be prepared for, and that matters the most," goalkeeper Hope Solo said. "She made sure that we didn't celebrate too much today."

Wambach and her teammates remember all too well the sting from a 2-1 defeat against Mexico in Cancun in a World Cup qualifier 14 months ago, the only time in 28 tries the Mexicans have beaten the Americans. That loss forced the U.S. into a backdoor playoff just to qualify for the World Cup ? and served as a wakeup call that the top-ranked team in the world can't take important games for granted any more.

"This was the exact same position that we were in, in Mexico in 2010," Wambach said. "We haven't done anything. We still have one game left. That's what I said ? stay focused.

"It's simple. I think everybody knows it. I think everybody understands it. But I also think that in hindsight we wish we had said something like that prior to that game. Because we didn't say those things, I didn't want to leave any stone unturned. And that's kind of what that speech was about."

The Americans will be heavily favored in the semis. Costa Rica is ranked No. 41 in the world and has never beaten the U.S., having been outscored 34-0 in seven meetings. Had the Americans lost to Mexico on Tuesday, they would have faced a much tougher semifinal against host Canada.

Instead, it will be Mexico vs. Canada in the other semi that will produce the tournament's second Olympic berth.

The lessons from Cancun have been prevalent during this entire CONCACAF tournament. The Americans routed their first two opponents ? Dominican Republic and Guatemala ? by scores of 14-0 and 13-0, the most lopsided results in U.S. team history.

Keeping with that theme, coach Pia Sundhage wanted a strong start against the Mexicans, and she got one. The Americans controlled the run of play early, and it paid off when Lloyd headed in the rebound in the seventh minute after Rachel Buehler clanged a shot off the post following a corner kick.

A minute later, the lead was doubled. Amy Rodriguez's cross was deflected by a defender and then by goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago straight to Heather O'Reilly for an easy goal.

Lloyd also netted in the 57th and 86th as the Americans avoided a repeat of a Mexican upset ? and wrapped up group play with three wins by a combined score of 31-0.

"It was redemption for us," Lloyd said. "We came out strong and knew we had to get it done."

The Mexicans, buoyed by a vocal and slightly pro-Mexico crowd of 7,599 at BC Place, worked hard on the counterattack for a goal, but the American back four of Buehler, Becky Sauerbrunn, Christie Rampone and Amy LePeilbet cleared nearly every serious threat, leaving goalkeeper Hope Solo without much work to earn her third shutout of the tournament.

That was probably for the best. Solo revealed after the game that she has "a little quad pull" that nearly caused her to ask for a sub. She hopes she'll be fine for the semifinals.

The defensive performance was especially heartening for the Americans given the absence of Ali Krieger, who tore two ligaments in her right knee against the Dominican Republic and likely won't be back in time for the Olympics. As a tribute to Krieger, each American player had the word "liebe" ? German for "love" ? written on her arm. Krieger, who has played five seasons in the German league for FFC Frankfurt, has a tattoo with the word on her left arm.

"Ali will be a part of this team ? whether she's here or not," Wambach said.

___

Joseph White can be reached at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46126538/ns/sports-olympic_sports/

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I'm Watching You, Mitt (talking-points-memo)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/biotech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120122/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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Virgin America honors Steve Jobs at 30,000 feet with tribute jet (Yahoo! News)

The Steve Job's quote was chosen from an internal competition to name the plane

List?Virgin America's new plane as one of the latest additions to the increasing number of Steve Jobs tributes that include a?posthumous Grammy, a?Mythbusters-style documentary, and a?7' bronze statue. The U.S. airline had the popular Steve Jobs quote "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" painted on the side of an?Airbus A320.?This specific quote was chosen among the list of entries for the company's plane naming contest.

Jobs uttered the phrase back in 2005 while giving a?commencement address at Stanford University, although it originally appeared on the back cover of a 1960's American counterculture publication called?Whole Earth Catalog. "On the back cover of [Whole Earth Catalog's] final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself," Jobs said.

It's not too surprising for the company to come up with a Steve Jobs tribute. Virgin America identifies as a?tech-forward company, and offers?fleet-wide wifi as well as touchscreen displays and power outlets on board. Virgin Group head honcho,?Sir?Richard Branson, is also a?known Apple fan.

[via?MacRumors]

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120124/tc_yblog_technews/virgin-america-honors-steve-jobs-at-30000-feet-with-tribute-jet

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Libya could fall into 'bottomless pit', leader warns

By msnbc.com staff and news services

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, warned on Sunday the country could be heading towards a "bottomless pit" after protesters stormed a government office in Benghazi when he was inside.

A crowd demanding the resignation of the Libyan government smashed windows and forced their way into the NTC's local headquarters late on Saturday, in the most serious show of anger at the new authorities since Moammar Gadhafi was ousted.

---

The NTC has the support of the Western powers that?helped force out Gadhafi in a nine-month conflict, but it is unelected, has been slow to restore basic public services, and some Libyans say too many of its members are tarnished by ties to Gadhafi.

Abdul-Jalil later?suspended the six representatives to the NTC?from Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya. They can continue to serve only if approved by the local city council.?

He also?said he appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gadhafi regime.

The body's deputy head, Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, resigned in protest over the suspensions. Ghoga, known for his polished language and expensive suits, was a prominent spokesman during the eight-month civil war that ended with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October.

Another delegate, Fathi Baja, called the move "illegitimate" and said he would stand down only if the people of Benghazi asked him to. Baja, a well known critic of Gadhafi even before the uprising, also criticized the appointment of religious leaders, saying that when he was criticizing Gadhafi, "they were calling on people to obey the leader."

Also Sunday, the head of the committee tasked with preparing the country's election law said its release would be delayed for one week. The final law, which was set to be announced Sunday, will be made public on Jan. 28, said Othman al-Mugherhi.

The committee published a draft law earlier this month and said it would solicit comments from Libyans. Al-Mugherhi said the delay will allow the committee to consider these comments while drafting the final law.

The law will spell out how Libyans will elect the 200-members national congress, which will oversee the drafting of a constitution. The body is supposed to be elected before June 23.

Al-Mugherhi also announced the formation of a 17-member electoral commission to oversee the vote. The body contains professors, judges, lawyers and men and women representing non-governmental organizations, he said.

Under Gadhafi's rule, Libya had no working parliament for four decades.

Abdul-Jalil warned the protests risked undermining the country's already fragile stability.

"We are going through a political movement that can take the country to a bottomless pit," he said. "There is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country."

"The people have not given the government enough time and the government does not have enough money. Maybe there are delays, but the government has only been working for two months. Give them a chance, at least two months."

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Reuters, The Associated Press?and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/22/10210037-libya-could-fall-into-bottomless-pit-leader-warns

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How to jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2 on Windows now via redsn0w CLI 0.4.3

If you're running Windows, you can now jailbreak your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 on iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1. The Dev Team has issued an update to redsn0w that adds support. This process isn't as easy as a simple one click tool like Greenpois0n Absinthe but if you absolutely can't wait any longer to jailbreak, we've got you covered.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/U4JwPJ_h1aE/story01.htm

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GOP race offers scattershot list of angels, demons (AP)

WASHINGTON ? In the short time since Mitt Romney tried unsuccessfully to leave the rest of the GOP field behind in New Hampshire, the presidential race has served up a scattershot cast of angels and demons as the candidates try to strike a chord with different slices of the electorate.

Capitalism was in, then out, then in again. Insurance companies got a sideways sympathetic nod. Mike Huckabee and Betty White proved to have some cachet. The press was an ever-popular whipping child.

Europe and entitlements, felons, food stamps and French: All were on the outs with one candidate or another.

Newt Gingrich even ran an ad faulting Romney for his language skills: "Just like John Kerry, he speaks French," it warned ominously.

The GOP challengers went after Romney's venture capitalist credentials with a vengeance ? most memorably when Texas Gov. Rick Perry rebranded him a "vulture capitalist" ? then eased up somewhat when they caught grief from the defenders of free enterprise.

For a little while, even insurance companies ? typically a popular target for politicians of any stripe ? got a little love after Romney said he liked the idea of being able to fire them for poor performance. The other candidates summoned a chorus of outrage at the notion that Romney would relish firing anyone.

Republican strategist Terry Holt said it all adds up to "a blizzard of buzz words" as candidates try to deliver a headline-grabbing quote that will get people's attention.

But does it work?

"Ultimately, it all blends together into a general sense of the candidate," says Holt. "The back-and-forth is lost on most people."

And there's been a lot of back-and-forthing.

Romney and Gingrich both ran ads trying to claim a little luster from popular conservative Huckabee by rolling out nice things he'd said about them. But it turned out Huckabee hadn't endorsed either of them, and both got a scolding from the former Arkansas governor.

President Barack Obama, watching the GOP race from the sidelines, had to be hoping that a little of Betty White's uncanny popularity would rub off when he taped a video piece for her 90th birthday in which he joked that the actress looks so good she should cough up her long-form birth certificate to prove she's really that old.

The GOP candidates trotted out plenty of reliable enemies ? "Obamacare," federal regulations, big government, the Dodd-Frank financial regulations ? but added some new ones to the mix as well.

Gingrich, catering to South Carolina sensibilities and its port communities, singled out the Army Corps of Engineers, complaining in Thursday's debate that the corps "takes eight years to study ? not to complete ? to study doing the port. We won the entire Second World War in three years and eight months."

Candidates' messages zigzagged all over in search of a winning line that would work with voters.

Earning money was good ? except if your name was Mitt Romney.

A super PAC supporting Gingrich made a half-hour movie attacking Romney for reaping "massive rewards for himself and his investors," complete with sinister music and a baritone-voice narrator.

Romney defended his capitalist credentials by lining himself up with the philosopher known as a father of capitalism, proudly announcing, "Adam Smith was right."

Perry managed to turn the news that U.S. troops had apparently been captured on video urinating on corpses in Afghanistan into an indictment of the Obama administration. The Texas governor accused the Obama team of piling on against "kids" who sometimes make "stupid mistakes."

It didn't do him much good: He was out of the race within days.

Then came the issue of infidelity: Gingrich chose not to comment on the details of his marriage to his second wife after she claimed that he'd asked her for an "open marriage" in which he could have both a wife and a mistress.

Gingrich managed to steer that conversation to the one enemy that all the candidates love to beat up on: the media.

"I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country," he declared.

But even rival Rick Santorum saw through the tactic, urging voters not to be swept away by Gingrich's blast at the press.

Republicans should "get past the glib one-liners, the beating up of the media, which is always popular with conservatives," Santorum said.

Democratic strategist Karen Finney said the Republicans' random list of friends and foes has emerged as candidates "try to pick off pieces of the Republican electorate" with very targeted appeals that will add up to an overall win in each primary or caucus state.

"The narrative is shifting based on the audiences they're speaking to," she said.

"There's always, `Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy,'" she said.

In this campaign, that lineup changes every day.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_angels_and_demons

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Austrian panel strikes ball from culture list (AP)

VIENNA ? A committee reporting to the U.N.'s culture organization has struck the Viennese Ball from its list of Austrian cultural traditions.

The move follows massive criticism of one of the events named by the Austrian UNESCO Commission as part of its list of balls it considers an "Intangible Cultural Heritage in Austria."

Critics say the ball, staged in part by dueling fraternities, draws neo-Nazis from Austria and Germany. Organizers reject any links to the extreme right.

The committee announced its decision in an email Thursday to The Associated Press, describing the inclusion of the fraternity ball on its list as "a major mistake."

U.N. Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization spokeswoman Sue Williams describes the committee as a "go-between" between Austria's government and the Paris-based organization.

(This version CORRECTS name of organization.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_eu/eu_austria_rightist_ball

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First secure quantum computer is blind to its own bits

The first secure quantum computer has been made by combining entanglement, a bizarre property of tiny particles, with the power of apparent randomness.

The technique is similar to quantum cryptography, which guarantees the secrecy of a message sent from one place to another, but in this instance guarantees the privacy of data-processing. It could enable code-breakers, governments or private individuals to harness the power of a quantum server remotely without having to worry that the owner can snoop on their data or calculations.

Quantum computers exploit the ability of quantum particles to be in more than one state at the same time. This allows the computer to check many possible solutions to a problem simultaneously.

If this capability can be scaled up, it could allow quantum computers to solve problems that are beyond the power of classical computers. Nobody has yet succeeded in building a useful quantum computer, but if they do, such computers will be expensive and rare. So it is unlikely that people, or even government departments, will have their own.

Fragile qubits

Renting time on them remotely, though, presents a new problem: how to ensure that whatever the remote user is doing is hidden from the person or company who owns the computer. Enter blind quantum computation, first outlined theoretically in 2009. It combines two tricks to ensure that a computer owner can detect nothing about the data it receives, the algorithm it executes or the result it finds.

The first is entanglement, the ability to link two quantum particles no matter how far apart they are. Entanglement is hugely fragile: sneeze and it vanishes. As a result, if an eavesdropper measures any properties of an entangled qubit, his or her presence will be obvious.

However, all quantum computers already have entangled qubits, and this alone can't provide complete security. An eavesdropper could still glean some information in the process of being detected.

So blind quantum computing has an added twist. The remote user must encode the programs to be run on the computer in such a way that it looks random but in fact is not. The quantum computer still runs the program but if the computer owner intercepts the result, he or she would not be able to make sense of it. The user, of course, can decode the result that is returned by reversing the encryption process.

Doubly blind

For the first time Stefanie Barz at the University of Vienna in Austria and colleagues have demonstrated such blind quantum computing using a photon-based quantum computer.

They created strings of photons that looked random but were actually encoded versions of two programs: Deutsch's algorithm, which looks for regularities in certain mathematical functions, and Grover's algorithm, which searches an unsorted database.

They beamed these strings at the quantum computer. It ran the algorithms but because of encryption there was no way to detect it was doing this just by examining the quantum computer. Only when the results were returned could they be decoded and checked. "It's a new level of security," says Barz.

The secrecy is two-way. The technique also ensures that the user cannot know anything about the quantum computer. "You don't learn anything about their technology or how it works. It's a kind of double-blindess," says Vlatko Vedral, a quantum physicist at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the work.

This may seem like an extreme form of secrecy, but Vedral says that various government and military organisations need to guarantee the secrecy of their data and calculations on timescales of 30 to 50 years. "The only way of doing that is to use blind computing," he says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1214707

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GOP NJ Sen. Kyrillos to run for US Senate (AP)

TRENTON, N.J. ? TRENTON, N.J. (AP) ? State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (KIR'-ill-ohs) will seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to run against incumbent Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

The 51-year-old Monmouth County legislator says he converted his federal exploratory committee to a campaign account on Thursday and will formally announce his candidacy soon.

Kyrillos is a long-time friend of Gov. Chris Christie.

The 24-year veteran of the New Jersey Legislature would face a better-known and well-financed opponent if he wins the GOP primary.

Menendez, 58, served out Jon Corzine's term in the Senate before being elected to his own full term in 2006.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

New Jersey Sen. Joseph Kyrillos will seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to run against Sen. Bob Menendez in November.

Two people familiar with Kyrillos' plans told The Associated Press on Thursday the 51-year-old Monmouth County legislator is switching the federal exploratory committee he formed months ago to a campaign account, leaving no doubt about his intent to run.

The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement has been made.

An announcement was expected soon.

Kyrillos is a long-time friend of Gov. Chris Christie and has been the governor's closest GOP ally in the Legislature. Kyrillos chaired Christie's successful 2009 campaign for governor and Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential bid in New Jersey. Christie and his wife were the match-makers for Kyrillos and his wife, Susan.

"Joe has been a good friend of mine for nearly 20 years, as has his wife, and they are wonderful people," Christie said. "New Jersey would be extraordinarily well-served if Joe Kyrillos wound up in the United States Senate."

A 24-year veteran of the New Jersey Legislature, Kyrillos would face an uphill battle against the better-known and well-financed Menendez, especially with President Obama at the top of the ticket.

First, he'll have to get through a GOP primary that could include Hunterdon County conservative Sen. Michael Doherty and Tea Partier Anna Little. Conservative Ian Linker is the only other declared Republican candidate so far.

Kyrillos formed a federal exploratory committee in June. At the time, he said he was exploring ways to serve the country beyond the New Jersey Legislature.

Menendez, the son of immigrants who grew up in Union City, has been in Washington since 1993, first in the House before moving up to Senate in 2006.

He is known as a fierce political competitor who came up through the rough-and-tumble world of Hudson County politics.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_el_se/us_us_senate_kyrillos

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