Brennan at CIA fills 3rd key national security job

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Senate's approval of John Brennan to be CIA director, after contentious debate on the use of armed drones against terrorism suspects, puts in place a third key member of President Barack Obama's second-term national security team.

Brennan won Senate confirmation on Thursday after the administration bowed to demands from Republicans blocking the nomination and stated explicitly there are limits on the president's power to use drones against U.S. terror suspects on American soil.

Last week Chuck Hagel won Senate confirmation to be defense secretary, joining Secretary of State John Kerry in Obama's revamped national security lineup.

The Brennan vote was 63-34 and came just hours after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, used an old-style filibuster of the nomination to extract an answer from the administration on the drone question.

Brennan won some GOP support. Thirteen Republicans voted with 49 Democrats and one independent to give Brennan, who has been Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, the top job at the nation's spy agency. He will replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.

The confirmation vote came moments after Democrats prevailed in a vote ending the filibuster, 81-16.

In a series of fast-moving events, by Senate standards, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a one-paragraph letter to Paul, who had held the floor for nearly 13 hours on Wednesday and into Thursday.

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Holder wrote Paul.

"The answer to that question is no."

That cleared the way.

"We worked very hard on a constitutional question to get an answer from the president," Paul said after voting against Brennan. "It may have been a little harder than we wish it had been, but in the end I think it was a good healthy debate for the country to finally get an answer that the Fifth Amendment applies to all Americans."

However, Paul's stand on the Brennan nomination and insistence that the Obama administration explain its controversial drone program exposed a deep split among Senate Republicans, pitting leader Mitch McConnell, libertarians and tea partyers against military hawks such as John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

The government's drone program and its use in the fight against terrorists were at the heart of the dispute.

Though Paul held the Senate floor for the late-night filibuster, about a dozen of his colleagues who share his views came, too, to take turns speaking for him and trading questions. McConnell, a fellow Kentuckian who faces re-election next year, congratulated him for his "tenacity and for his conviction."

McConnell said in Senate remarks on Thursday, "The United States military no more has the right to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil who is not a combatant with an armed, unmanned aerial vehicle than it does with an M-16."

Paul's filibuster echoed recent congressional debates about the government's authority in the anti-terror war and whether the United States can hold American terror suspects indefinitely and without charge. The disputes have created unusual coalitions as libertarians and liberals have sided against defense hawks.

The latest GOP split also underscored the current rift within the rank and file over budget cuts, with some tea partyers willing to reduce defense dollars to preserve tax cuts but longtime guardians of military spending fighting back.

During his talkathon, Paul had suggested the possibility that the government would have used hellfire missiles against anti-war activist Jane Fonda or an American sitting at a cafe. During the height of the Vietnam War, Fonda traveled to North Vietnam and was widely criticized by some in the U.S. for her appearances there.

McCain derided that notion of an attack against the actress and argued that Paul was unnecessarily making Americans fear that their government poses a danger.

"To somehow allege or infer that the president of the United States is going to kill somebody like Jane Fonda or somebody who disagrees with the policies is a stretch of imagination which is, frankly, ridiculous," McCain said.

McCain found himself in the odd position of defending Fonda's constitutional rights over her July 1972 trip to Hanoi that earned her the derogatory nickname "Hanoi Jane."

"I must say that the use of Jane Fonda's name does evoke certain memories with me, and I must say that she is not my favorite American, but I also believe that, as odious as it was, Ms. Fonda acted within her constitutional rights," said McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 5? years. "And to somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false. It is simply false."

Graham expressed incredulity that Republicans would criticize Obama on a policy that Republican President George W. Bush enforced in the terror war.

"People are astonished that President Obama is doing many of the things that President Bush did," Graham said. "I'm not astonished. I congratulate him for having the good judgment to understand we're at war. And to my party, I'm a bit disappointed that you no longer apparently think we're at war."

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Richard Lardner and David Espo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brennan-cia-fills-3rd-key-national-security-job-091029290--politics.html

how i met your mother Jordan Pruitt real housewives of new jersey Kanye West sex tape emmys emmys torrey smith

Tech baseball surrenders late lead, falls at Baylor

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://thenewsstar.com/article/20130306/UPDATES02/130306038/-1/rss

adriana lima victoria secret fashion show SEC Championship Rick Majerus Cotto vs Trout Robin Givens Gus Malzahn

Pension funds join forces to invest in farmland

LONDON (Reuters) - Major asset managers, cowed by the cost, the risk and the controversy involved in investing in farmland, are joining forces to increase investment in the historically under-capitalised sector.

In one example, Swiss fund of funds Adveq is in talks with three European pension funds, a private family and a Korean asset manager to buy farmland, in which it will act as the originator and lead investor.

Last year one of the world's largest institutional investors, TIAA-CREF, partnered with pension funds including British Colombia Investment Management Corporation and AP2 to create a $2 billion investment vehicle to buy farmland.

The new approach is likely to attract significant amounts of money from pension funds and other institutional investors into farmland, a sector in which they are reluctant to go it alone.

"We see agriculture and farmland as an asset class that's still being shaped," said Biff Ourso, director and portfolio manager of farmland investments at U.S. asset manager TIAA-CREF.

"It (working together) creates alignment for investors, economies of scale, cost-sharing and the transparency that a lot of investors want today," he added.

Adveq expects three institutional investor club deals to close in the next 12 months, each between $200 million and $400 million in size.

Investors are attracted into farmland by the rising global demand for food and a low correlation of agricultural land prices with traditional asset classes.

Pension funds have been cautious in how they approach the sector, however, because charities worldwide have voiced concern that large-scale land grabs by foreign investors could push up food prices, push farmers off the land and increase hunger.

"Agriculture is a very sensitive subject for two reasons, one is the fundamental human right for food in a food-insecure world, and secondly land is sacred to every country. To sell land in some societies is not acceptable," said independent consultant Mahendra Shah, member of a panel advising Adveq on agricultural investment strategy.

"My personal view is these pension funds are afraid to go into the field alone, and they want to spread their bet or their risk by having partners join them."

FLEDGLING ASSET CLASS

By working together, pension funds aim to create bespoke investment vehicles in a fledgling asset class that meet requirements for responsible investment in a sensitive area.

Research by Macquarie in 2012 showed institutional investment at a meagre $30 billion to $40 billion out of a total global value for farmland of $8.4 trillion.

Most farmland is owned by family farmers, giving institutional investors huge scope for buying up individual properties to form larger operations.

Institutional investors say that by working together they have a much better chance of being successful in terms of social responsibility as well as economic returns.

But some agricultural experts questioned the benefits.

"It's not absolutely clear to me that the simple fact that just a few of them come together is going to produce a better overall result," said David Hallam, director of trade and markets at the United Nations food agency (FAO).

"Unless the nature of the actual investments changes substantially, then I don't see the fact that a few companies get together would necessarily improve things," he added.

RICH SEAM

Institutional investors have generally focused on regions that are net exporters of food including North America, Australia, South America and Central and Eastern Europe.

"We like to be a in a situation where we're not taking food from the local market, where we are not taking food away from its natural value chain for speculation purposes, (where) on the contrary we contribute to increasing food production," said Berry Polmann, executive director at Adveq.

"While doing so, we don't want to undercut local farmers by producing more at lower costs, eroding their competitive power and wiping them out. That's one of the reasons why Africa for us is very difficult."

Adveq's group is looking for farmland assets in North America, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Oceania.

Through partnering, institutional investors aim to become more efficient and share knowledge.

"We prefer to go with other institutional investors," said Ibrahim Abdulkhaliq, portfolio manager, alternative investments at MASIC, a Saudi Arabian institutional family office.

Abdulkhaliq cited two reasons for the trend - more difficult governance and due diligence in farmland and the ability to reduce costs, making investments more viable.

(Reporting by Sarah McFarlane; Editing by Veronica Brown and Jane Baird)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pension-funds-join-forces-invest-farmland-171009681--sector.html

brady quinn bloom box obama sweet home chicago accenture match play george washington carver king cake fun.

Tunisia in last-minute talks to form new government | Morocco World ...

TUNIS, March 7, 2013 (AFP)

Prime minister-designate Ali Larayedh on Thursday was to hold tense, last-minute negotiations on forming a new coalition government to defuse Tunisia?s political crisis.

With less than 48 hours before a constitutional deadline, Larayedh, an Islamist and the outgoing administration?s interior minister, left open the possibility of failure as he prepared to meet party leaders.

?We have held talks with the parties individually and then in groups. Now we are going to discuss the makeup of the government. Much of it is agreed but some points remain,? he told Mosaique FM radio.

?Failure doesn?t scare me because what is asked of me is to have a clear conscience and make the maximum effort. Everyone will have to take responsibility for the result,? Larayedh said.

He was tapped to head a new government on February 22, with a two-week deadline to present his team and government program to President Moncef Marzouki. The deadline runs out at midnight on Friday.

Two of six movements which have taken part in the talks on forming a new lineup walked out on Wednesday, with disputes centred on the key posts of interior and justice ministers.

Tunisia has been in a political crisis since the February assassination of leftist politician Chokri Belaid, a vocal critic of the Islamist-led government.

That led to the resignation of prime minister Hamadi Jebali after he failed to forge a non-partisan government of technocrats when his ruling Islamist party Ennahda refused to support his efforts.

While Ennahda, to which Larayedh also belongs, has made a key concession in accepting that key ministries be entrusted to independent candidates, the parties have so far failed to agree on the names of the ministers.

If a cabinet is not named by Friday night, Marzouk must choose another politician to try to form a government.

Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/03/81311/tunisia-in-last-minute-talks-to-form-new-government/

limbaugh aaron smith wilt chamberlain joe arpaio cat in the hat green eggs and ham wiz khalifa and amber rose

Study pinpoints, prevents stress-induced drug relapse in rats

Mar. 6, 2013 ? In a new study in Neuron, scientists identified specific key steps in the chain of events that causes stress-related drug relapse. They identified the exact region of the brain where the events take place in rat models and showed that by blocking a step, they could prevent stress-related relapse.

"We're at the point of coming to understand the processes (of stress-related drug relapse) and possible therapeutic targets. Remarkably, this has worked. All too often, stress turns addiction recovery into relapse, but years of basic brain research have provided scientists with insight that might allow them develop a medicine to help. A new study in the journal Neuron pinpoints the neural basis for stress-related relapse in rat models to an unprecedented degree. The advance could accelerate progress toward a medicine that prevents stress from undermining addiction recovery.

In the paper published March 6, researchers at Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated specific steps in the sequence of neural events underlying stress-related drug relapse and showed that they take place within a brain region called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which helps reinforce behaviors related to fulfilling basic needs. They also showed that a closely related neural process believed to be crucial to stress-related relapse may not be involved after all.

Moreover, this new understanding allowed the researchers to prevent relapse to drug seeking in the animal model. When they treated rats that had recovered from cocaine addiction with a chemical that blocks the "kappa opioid receptors" that stress activates in the VTA, the rats did not relapse to cocaine use under stress. Untreated rats who had also recovered from addiction did relapse after the same stress.

The chemical that helped the rats, "nor-BNI," may be one that would someday be tried in humans, said study senior author Julie Kauer, professor of biology in Brown's Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology. By deepening scientists' understanding of the stress-related relapse mechanism, she and her co-authors hope to identify multiple possible targets for eventual patient treatments.

"If we understand how kappa opioid receptor antagonists are interfering with the reinstatement of drug seeking we can target that process," Kauer said. "We're at the point of coming to understand the processes and possible therapeutic targets. Remarkably, this has worked."

The neural crux of relapse

Exactly how stress acts in the brain to trigger relapse is a complicated sequence that is still not fully understood, but the new study focuses on and elucidates three key players at the crux of the phenomenon in the VTA: GABA-releasing neurons, dopamine-releasing neurons, and the kappa opioid receptors that affect their connections.

Fulfilling natural needs such as hunger or thirst results in a rewarding release of dopamine from the VTA's dopamine neurons, Kauer said. Unfortunately, so does using drugs of abuse.

In normal brain function, GABA applies the brakes on the rewarding dopamine release, slowing it back to a normal level. It achieves this by forging and then strengthening the connections, called synapses, with the dopamine neuron. The strengthening process is called long-term potentiation (LTP).

In the first of their experiments, the team at Brown, including lead author Nicholas Graziane, showed that stress interrupts the LTP process, hindering GABA's ability to slam the brakes on dopamine release.

Previous research implicated kappa opioid receptors as one of many neural entities that could have a role in stress-related relapse. Kauer, Graziane, and co-author Abigail Polter investigated that directly by blocking the receptors in some rats with a treatment of nor-BNI in the VTA and leaving others untreated. Then they subjected the rats to a standardized five-minute stress exercise. After 24 hours they looked at the cells in the VTA and found that LTP was hindered in the untreated rats but still present and underway in the rats whose receptors had been blocked with nor-BNI.

With the role of stress and the receptors in the GABA-dopamine dynamic both confirmed and then mitigated, the question remained: Could this knowledge be used to prevent relapse?

To answer that, Penn co-authors Lisa Briand and Christopher Pierce performed the experiment demonstrating that nor-BNI delivered directly to the VTA prevented stressed rats from relapsing to cocaine seeking, while untreated rats subjected to the same stress did relapse.

"Our results indicate that the kappa receptors within the VTA critically control stress-induced drug seeking in animals," the authors wrote in Neuron.

Along the way, the team also discovered evidence that another stress-affected synapse in the VTA -- one that excites dopamine release rather than inhibits it -- does not play a role in the stress-related relapse as many researchers have thought. The nor-BNI treatment that prevented stress-related relapse, for example, did not affect those synapses.

Kauer emphasized that her lab's findings of therapeutic potential are the product of more than a decade of essential basic research on the importance of how changes in synapses relate to behaviors including addiction.

"If we can figure out how not only stress, but the whole system works, then we'll potentially have a way to tune it down in a person who needs that," she said.

The National Institutes of Health supported the research with several grants: DA011289, MH019118, AA007459, DA026660, DA15214, and DA18678.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brown University.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Nicholas M. Graziane, Abigail M. Polter, Lisa A. Briand, R. Christopher Pierce, Julie A. Kauer. Kappa Opioid Receptors Regulate Stress-Induced Cocaine Seeking and Synaptic Plasticity. Neuron, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.12.034

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://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/i0W3oXTdNSo/130306134220.htm

grizzlies bronx zoo crash april 30 wwe extreme rules 2012 vontaze burfict jimmy kimmel amzn

Who rocker sorry he told child to (bleep) off

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, TODAY

Who frontman Pete Townshend has apologized for mouthing a profanity to a 7-year-old girl and her father who attended one of his "Quadrophenia" performances in Canada on Feb. 19.

The little girl, Janey Costello, apparently was holding a sign that read, "Smash Your Guitar, Pete," referring to the musical destruction for which Townshend used to be well-known. In a video of the incident, Townshend spots the sign and addresses the girl's father, Eric Costello.

?Go away with that sign please, just go away with it," Townshend says. "Don?t bring your children -- use them. I want to tell you two words but I can?t because you?ve got a child there." He then clearly mouths "F--- off" while the audience claps and cheers.

Eric Costello told the Toronto Sun that his daughter had begged to attend the concert. "I?expect a 70-something-year-old man to respect the fact there's a seven-year-old girl standing in front of him," he told the paper. "I'd like him to know in some small way he broke a little girl's heart."

The Sun also quoted nearby fans who said they were shocked by Townshend's response to the sign.

"I did kind of think the (dad) was being overbearing, but it doesn't make it right to say that kind of thing,"?Kayvon Zahedi told the paper.

An Ontario DJ and friend of Townshend's helped the rocker locate the family, and Townshend has now sent the Costellos a letter offering "apologies and condolences from my side, and very best wishes to you and your family."?

He also said, "I thought your placard was fun."

Townshend has made arrangements to meet with the Costellos in April, the newspaper reports.

More from entertainment:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/03/06/17211815-who-rocker-pete-townshend-is-sorry-he-told-child-and-dad-to-bleep-off?lite

dancing with the stars season 14 david garrard michael bay ninja turtles san antonio weather mike daisey nicollette sheridan apple dividend

Analysis: Obama faces skepticism from Democrats on budget deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama must work with a deeply skeptical partner as he tries to undo painful spending cuts and set U.S. finances on a more sustainable course: the liberal wing of his own party.

While Republicans have dug in their heels against further tax increases, many of Obama's fellow Democrats have refused to consider cuts to popular health and retirement programs that are projected to eat up a growing slice of the nation's resources.

As a result, the lion's share of deficit-reduction efforts so far - apart from tax increases - have come from cuts to military and domestic programs, including the $85 billion in reductions that went into effect last week. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that those "sequestration" cuts will eliminate 750,000 jobs.

Obama has said lawmakers in both parties will have to give ground to put an end to the budget wars that have slowed economic growth and dominated Washington for the past two years.

But many of his fellow Democrats already have ruled out the relatively modest changes the president has proposed to "entitlement" benefits such as the Social Security pension program and the Medicare health plan for the elderly.

"I am a supporter of the president, but me being a supporter of the president doesn't mean I'm a servant of the president," said U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a leader of the party's liberal wing in the House. "He and I don't agree on this, and I'm going to fight him tooth and nail on it."

Ellison and other liberals are not eager to compromise after last year's election, in which Obama defeated Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who called for further spending cuts and an overhaul of Medicare.

A majority of House Democrats signed a letter last month telling Obama they would not support cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of a deal to help tame the U.S. government's debt, now more than $16 trillion. A majority of Senate Democrats signed a similar letter in December, rejecting cuts to Social Security.

Powerful labor unions and other outside liberal groups also are pushing Congress to leave benefits untouched.

That stance could complicate Obama's efforts to build what he has called a "caucus of common sense" that could pair modest benefit cuts with reduced tax breaks for the wealthy to try to reduce the annual budget deficit and start to control the national debt.

Republicans have controlled the House since 2011, but they have needed Democrats' support to pass budget deals.

'DRIVING DEFICITS, CRUSHING INVESTMENTS'

Democrats' reluctance to touch entitlement programs also means that their other priorities, from science to transportation programs, will bear the brunt of spending cuts.

According to the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, job losses from last week's "sequester" cuts will fall heaviest on scientists, engineers and construction workers - the type of workers whose labor is particularly important to boosting U.S. productivity.

"There is no doubt that to solve our budget problems more revenue is needed, but we cannot ignore that entitlements are also driving deficits and crushing investments in the next generation," Third Way policy adviser David Brown wrote in a report last week.

Social Security and Medicare are among the most popular services that the U.S. government provides.

As the automatic spending cuts loomed last month, the Pew Research Center found that only 10 percent of Americans would support scaling back Social Security and just 15 percent would back cuts to Medicare. By contrast, 48 percent said foreign aid should be cut.

But foreign aid and other programs that are funded annually by Congress are not the problem. Such "discretionary" spending is projected by the end of the decade to fall to its lowest level in 50 years as a share of the economy, because of spending caps put in place by a 2011 budget deal.

By contrast, Social Security, Medicare, and long-term care programs financed through Medicaid are projected to expand dramatically as the population ages in coming decades.

The Republican-controlled House twice has approved a budget plan that would try to rein in Medicare by offering participants a voucher to buy private coverage, but the measure failed to clear the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2011 and 2012.

The plan's author, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, is expected to unveil a new version on Wednesday aimed at achieving more dramatic savings.

Democrats, including Obama, have rejected Ryan's approach on the grounds that it would force retirees to shoulder more of the their healthcare costs.

They argue that retirees on fixed incomes who depend on Social Security and Medicare should not be forced to bear the brunt of deficit reduction.

TOUCHING ENTITLEMENTS 'A DEAL KILLER'

Obama has put other, more modest benefit cuts on the table.

Notably, he has proposed changing the way Social Security and other benefits are indexed to inflation to slow their growth over time, a concept known as "chained CPI" in Washington-speak.

The savings could be substantial: $340 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Obama has floated a modified version to shield the neediest beneficiaries that would save $130 billion over 10 years, but many of his fellow Democrats say they cannot support it because it would cut too deeply into retiree payments over time.

"I'm going to read anything that's sent over here, but it's a deal killer for me," said Ellison, the Democrat who co-chairs the House Progressive Caucus.

Obama also has proposed requiring wealthy retirees to pay more for their Medicare coverage, which would save about $35 billion over 10 years.

That may reflect the progressive notion that wealthier Americans should pay more for government services, but many liberal lawmakers and interest groups say it could undermine Medicare's financial health and political popularity if it leads affluent retirees to abandon the program.

They also say it would snare too many middle-income retirees in coming years because it would not be indexed to inflation.

"What we're really talking about ... is getting more money from middle-class people by asking them to pay higher premiums, and that's not progressive," said Kelly Ross, deputy policy director at the AFL-CIO federation of labor unions.

Analysts say Obama will have a hard enough time persuading Republicans to agree to any tax increases after he won $600 billion in more revenue in January.

If Obama is going to do so, he'll need to put entitlement cuts on the table, they say.

"It's astonishing that more people haven't pointed this out, that a balanced package would have to include something" on benefits, said Greg Valliere, an analyst with Potomac Research Group. "I think that's the only way we could break the logjam."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obama-faces-skepticism-democrats-budget-deal-060542653--business.html

texas rangers steve jobs meningitis bobby valentine bobby valentine Karrueche Tran miguel cabrera