SF Bay Area transit talks could last all weekend

In this file photo from Monday, July 1, 2013, commuters wait in standstill traffic to pay their tolls on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in Oakland, Calif. A major San Francisco Bay Area transit system ran trains as usual on Friday after labor negotiations were extended past a midnight deadline, but the threat of a commute-disrupting strike loomed with the unions promising to walk off the job Monday if weekend talks fail to reach a deal. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

In this file photo from Monday, July 1, 2013, commuters wait in standstill traffic to pay their tolls on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in Oakland, Calif. A major San Francisco Bay Area transit system ran trains as usual on Friday after labor negotiations were extended past a midnight deadline, but the threat of a commute-disrupting strike loomed with the unions promising to walk off the job Monday if weekend talks fail to reach a deal. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A long weekend of talks are in store for negotiators for San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit and two unions, who are working to avert a second strike in less than three months.

The unions have vowed to strike if no new labor agreement is reached by Monday, forcing hundreds of thousands of commuters in the nation's fifth-largest rail system to find other ways to work.

With state legislators acting as facilitators and BART's general manager listening to proposals much of the day Friday, the two sides did not discuss specific developments but said the day saw a shift that could lead to a weekend agreement.

"The elements are here that are needed for the two sides to come together," said Pete Castelli, executive director for the Service Employees International Union local 1021.

A BART news release said the talks adjourned for the night at 10 p.m. PDT riday and would resume at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. The statement said no further details of the day's discussions were being released.

The SEIU and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 agreed to keep negotiating after a 60-day, state-mandated cooling-off period that prohibited a strike expired Friday, saying their 2,300 members would stay on the job at least through Sunday night.

The unions said BART General Manager Grace Crunican's presence in talks Friday made a difference — they had repeatedly criticized her for not being more involved.

"The unions have been clear that they feel that Grace would be helpful in the process," BART spokesman Jim Allison said. "She's been abreast of all of the developments on a daily basis, hourly basis, sometimes."

ATU leader Antonette Bryant said they wanted Crunican at the table "because she's the dealmaker. She's the one who can say yay, nay or whatever."

BART workers went on strike for nearly 5 days in July before Gov. Jerry Brown mandated the cooling-off period.

The unions want a raise of nearly 12 percent over three years while BART has proposed a 10 percent increase over four years. BART said workers from the two unions now average about $71,000 in base salary and $11,000 in overtime annually.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-10-12-US-BART-Strike/id-64192b1e1ef74d27aabac55bf870a8c0
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2 Afghan police die in Taliban checkpoint attack

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Afghan authorities say Taliban fighters attacked security checkpoints in a northern provincial capital, killing two members of a community-based security force. The officials claim 18 attackers died in the assault.

Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, spokesman for Kunduz provincial police, said Saturday that the initial Taliban attack Friday in the provincial capital of the same name killed one member of the Afghan local police and wounded two.

Hussaini says the Taliban then moved outside the city where a gun battle with Afghan security forces lasted until about midnight. He says 18 Taliban fighters and another local policeman were killed. Another 11 militants were wounded.

NATO formally handed over control of Afghanistan's security entirely to local forces on Tuesday. The transition comes as violence reaches levels matching the worst in 12 years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-afghan-police-die-taliban-checkpoint-attack-084519297.html

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Friend: James Gandolfini died of heart attack

ROME (AP) ? An autopsy on James Gandolfini confirmed the "Sopranos" star died of a heart attack, with no evidence of substance abuse or foul play, a family friend said Friday.

Michael Kobold told reporters that Gandolfini's body has been released to a funeral director and that the family was working with the Italian government to speed up the bureaucratic red tape to get the body back to the United States soon. While the process can take up to 10 days, Kobold said the family was hoping to have the body repatriated by mid-week with a funeral planned in New York by Saturday at the latest.

Gandolfini, 51, died Wednesday night after being discovered in a Rome hotel room by a family member.

He had arrived in Rome on Tuesday and spent his first full day in the Eternal City with his son visiting the Vatican and dining in the hotel, the luxury Boscolo Exedra.

"He had a wonderful day," Kobold said of the father-son vacation.

Asked if Gandolfini had a history of heart problems, Kobold said he was healthy.

"There's nothing out of the ordinary. It was a heart attack. It was a natural cause," he said. "There was no foul play, no substance abuse. None of that."

Morgue officials at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I hospital said the U.S. Embassy had told them not to speak to the media, and that a family representative would provide the results of the autopsy. Gandolfini's sister, Leta, went to the morgue on Friday to formally identify the body.

Gandolfini was to have helped preside over the closing ceremony on Saturday of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily. The festival instead is organizing a tribute to him.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/friend-james-gandolfini-died-heart-attack-135046174.html

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Wall Street ends mostly higher in late rebound

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks mostly rose in a late rebound on Friday, with the Dow and S&P 500 ending two days of heavy losses, though traders continued to fret over planned changes to the Federal Reserve's easy money policy.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 44.31 points, or 0.30 percent, at 14,802.63. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 4.45 points, or 0.28 percent, at 1,592.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 7.39 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,357.25.

For the week, the Dow fell 1.8 percent, the S&P lost 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq declined 1.9 percent.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-st-plunges-p-posts-biggest-drop-since-004828050.html

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Bacterial DNA may integrate into human genome more readily in tumor tissue

June 20, 2013 ? Bacterial DNA may integrate into the human genome more readily in tumors than in normal human tissue, according to a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences. Researchers analyzed genomic sequencing data available from the Human Genome Project, the 1,000 Genomes Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). They considered the phenomenon of lateral gene transfer (LGT), the transmission of genetic material between organisms in the absence of sex.

Scientists have already shown that bacteria can transfer DNA to the genome of an animal. The researchers at the University of Maryland Institute for Genome Sciences found evidence that lateral gene transfer is possible from bacteria to the cells of the human body, known as human somatic cells. They found the bacterial DNA was more likely to integrate in the genome in tumor samples than in normal, healthy somatic cells. The phenomenon might play a role in cancer and other diseases associated with DNA damage. The paper was published in PLOS Computational Biology on June 20.

"LGT from bacteria to animals was only described recently, and it is exciting to find that such transfers can be found in the genome of human somatic cells and particularly in cancer genomes," says Julie C. Dunning Hotopp, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and lead author on the paper. Dr. Hotopp also is a research scientist with the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center. "Studies applying this approach to additional cancer genome projects could be fruitful, leading us to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer."

In the research, a team of interdisciplinary scientists and bioinformatics researchers found that while only 63.5% of TCGA samples analyzed were from tumors, the tumor samples contained 99.9% of reads supporting bacterial integration. The data presented a compelling case that LGT occurs in the human somatic genome and that it could have an important role in cancer and other human diseases associated with mutations. It is possible that LGT mutations play a role in carcinogenesis, yet it is also possible that they could simply be passenger mutations.

The investigators suggest several competing ideas to explain the results, though more research is needed for definitive answers. One possibility is that the mutations are part of carcinogenesis, the process by which normal cells turn into cancer cells. Alternatively, tumor cells are so very rapidly proliferating that they may be more permissive to lateral gene transfer. It is also possible that the bacteria are causing these mutations because they benefit the bacteria.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health's Director's New Innovator Award Program (1-DP2-OD007372) and the NSF Microbial Sequencing Program (EF-0826732).

"This is the type of basic science research, conducted using the analysis of much publicly available genomic data, that makes us leaders in the cutting edge field of genomic science and personalized medicine," says E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "It is just this type of research that will lead us to a new world of personalized medicine, in which doctors can use each patient's genomic make-up to determine care and preventive measures. We are excited to be a part of this future with the outstanding work of our Institute for Genome Sciences."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/1E47tAbVfjI/130620192043.htm

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What the NSA Does With the Data It Isn't Allowed to Keep (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Billboard won't count Jay-Z-Samsung 1M downloads

NEW YORK (AP) ? Jay-Z's got 99 problems and the Billboard chart is one.

Billboard said Friday it will not include the 1 million album downloads Jay-Z is giving to Galaxy mobile phone users through a deal with Samsung. Jay-Z announced the partnership this week. His new album, "Magna Carta Holy Grail," will be released July 7, but it will go out to 1 million Samsung users on July 4.

In a letter posted on Billboard's website, editorial director Bill Werde says it won't count the downloads because Samsung ultimately isn't selling the album on its phones. He adds that it wasn't easy turning down Jay-Z's request to include the downloads on the Billboard chart.

Werde writes: "The passionate and articulate argument by Jay's team that something was for sale and Samsung bought it ... doesn't mesh with precedent."

____

Online:

http://www.billboard.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/billboard-wont-count-jay-z-samsung-1m-downloads-131351979.html

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