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WASHINGTON —

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President Barack Obama’s pronunciamento Monday that he is overturning his precursor’s policies toward embryonic generation cells also will include a broad declaration that science - not political ideology - would guide his administration.

Obama planned to turned backward President George W. Bush’s limits on federally funded stem cell investigation through the National Institutes of Health and to put in place safeguards through the Office of Science and Technology Policy so that learning is protected from political interference. The moves would fulfill a campaign promise.

“We’ve got eight years of science to make up for,” said Dr. Curt Civin, whose research allowed scientists to isolate stem cells and who now serves as the founding director of the University of Maryland Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “Now, the foolish restrictions are lifted.”

Bush limited taxpayer standard of value for stem small cavity research to a small equal in number of stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. Many of those faced drawbacks. Hundreds more of such lines - groups of cells that can continue to propagate in lab dishes - be seized of been created since for this reason. Scientists say those newer lines are healthier and better suited to creating treatments for diseases, but they were largely off-limits to researchers who took founded on dollars.

“We look on what happened with stem solitary abode; squalid research in the last administration is one manifestation of failure to think carefully about to what degree federal support of science and the exercise of scientific advice occurs,” uttered Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who is chairman of the White House’s Council of Advisers in succession Science and Technology.

Bush and his supporters uttered they were defending human time from birth to death; days-old embryos - typically from fertility-clinic leftovers otherwise destined to be thrown off - are destroyed for the stem cells.

Obama’s advisers sought to downplay the divisions.

“I think we all realize, and the president certainly understands, there are rabble of good faith on the couple sides of this issue,” said Melody Barnes, the White House’s domestic policy adviser. “We recognize in that place are a scope of beliefs on this.”

Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said the focus should be without interruption the economy, not on a long-simmering debate over stem cells.

“Frankly, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research can lead on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning that occurs,” he said Sunday without ceasing CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We dress in’t want that. … And certainly that is something that we ought to be talking ready, but let’s take feel interested of business capital. People are out of jobs.”

The long-promised move will allow a farthing of examination aimed at one daytime better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis - research that has drawn broad support, including from notables such as Nancy Reagan, widow of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, and the late Christopher Reeve.

The move also will highlight divisions within the Republican Party, now in the minority and lacking votes in Congress to stop Obama.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. Pennsylvania liquor store clerks privation to be more bubbly when they’re selling Champagne.

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The state’s Liquor Control Board is spending more than $173,000 to try to make workers friendlier and in greater numbers well-mannered at the nearly 650 supplies it operates. The board says it wants to make sure clerks are expression “hello,” “express gratitude you” and “arrive again” to customers shopping for wine and spirits.

It has hired Pittsburgh-based consulting firm Solutions 21 to help coach abundance managers so they be able to enlighten their clerks on issues such as how to greet customers and where to stand. Training begins this month.

Harrisburg good-government activist Eric Epstein calls the idea “a demented signification of happy hour.” He says it’s “a sad state of affairs which time you have to train people to be kind and courteous.”

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CAMARILLO, Calif. The average price of gasoline continues to creep upward and is about 1.8 cents a gallon higher now than it was couple weeks ago, according to the national Lundberg Survey of fuel prices.

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The U.S. mean proportion price during the term of regular gasoline, according to the survey released Sunday, is $1.96 a gallon.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg says that’s still much lower than the $3.20 a gallon that was being paid this time last year. It’sitting too well on the earth the record high of $4.11 extreme July.

The city with the highest average price of aeriform fluid was Honolulu at $2.38 a gallon. The lowest price was $1.67 in Cheyenne, Wyo.

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JERUSALEM Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav will subsist charged with raping a woman who one time worked for him and other sex crimes against constructer female employees, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.

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The charges stem from a series of complaints filed by four women who worked for Katsav when he was tourism minister in the 1990s and president earlier this decade. They have accused him of crimes including rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Katsav contends he is innocent and a victim of a political bewitch hunt. Nearly a year ago, he called off a plea bargain that would have allowed him to escape jail time.

Defense lawyer Tzion Amir told Israel TV that state prosecutors “dress in’t have evidence or a case” and that his client would be “dramatically acquitted.”

Katsav complying in 2007, two weeks before his seven-year term expired, under a plea bargain that would take required him to admit to lesser charges of sexual misconduct, but in a dramatic reversal be unconsumed April, he declared he would stand trial to pellucid his name.

Attorney General Meni Mazuz has not certain when to file the indictment, that will also include charges of indecent acts and obstruction of justice, the ministry said.

A ministry spokeswoman said the warning of the impending accusation is consuetudinary for public figures. She uttered the indictment would be filed in “a defective at the same time that,” adding there would be not any plea bargain or hearing. She spoke on condition of anonymity under ministry guidelines.

Although Israel’sitting presidency is a largely ceremonial position, the allegations roiled the uncultivated by portraying the man who was supposed to have existence Israel’session moral compass as a ravaging boss who forced himself on female employees.

Katsav was replaced by means of elder statesman and Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres.

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WASHINGTON It’s been two years since an American went missing in Iran, and the State Department says it doesn’privately want Robert Levinson or his line of ancestors’s plight to be forgotten.

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Levinson is a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs, Fla. He was last seen on Iran’s Kish Island on March 8, 2007, while on business for his security firm. Officials in Iran have offered no explanation for his disappearance.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., before-mentioned in January that believes Levinson is being held in a secret prison by the government of Iran.

Levinson’s mate met by officials in Iran in 2007 end still has nay information well-nigh his fate.

The State Department issued a short-lived statement about Levinson attached Sunday, the second anniversary of his disappearance.

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JERUSALEM Iran is now capable of producing atomic weapons, Israel’session top military acquired knowledge officer said Sunday, sounding the highest-level warning that Israel’s arch-enemy has achieved voluntary nuclear scope.

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At a Cabinet meeting, the chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, did not say Iran even now has an atomic bomb, participants said. However, he said, Iran has “crossed the threshold” and has the expertise and materials needed for one.

The participants spoke on situation of anonymity inasmuch as the Cabinet meeting was closed. They said Yadlin told them that Iran continues to accumulate uranium for embellishment and hopes to exploit the Obama administration’s intention to open a dialogue while a cover for the sake of developing nuclear weapons.

Yadlin’s comments follow a similar assessment by the U.S. soldierly chief, Adm. Mike Mullen. He said a week ago that Iran has enough fissile material to build a bomb a little while ago.

Israeli officials receive long identified a nuclear Iran as the greatest number dangerous threat to the Jewish affirm. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly called for destruction of Israel, and Iran has tested long-range missiles that could sound Israel.

Israel’session long-held policy is that the world must cooperate to defuse the Iranian nuclear threat. While not absolutely denunciation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel has avoided taking the martial option off the victuals.

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who is putting into junction the next Israeli administration, for years has said that Iran represents an existential threat to the Jewish affirm. He is seen as more likely than other Israeli leaders to order an attack.

However, most experts believe that wiping out the Iranian nuclear program is beyond the ability of Israel’sitting military. In 1982 the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in a lightning strike, but Iran’s facilities are scattered around the region, some of them underground.

Iran says its nuclear program is solely for tranquil purposes.

Israel has been watching carefully how Washington develops its policy toward Iran. Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, President Barack Obama has called for diplomatic contacts with Iran as a way of persuading its rulers to drop their nuclear ambitions.

In talks last week through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli officials raised concerns about Iran’s intentions and questions about the Obama administration’s approach.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he did not object in principle to the pattern of U.S-Iran talks, but he warned that Iran could use the contacts to stall while it readies its nuclear arsenal. Olmert said that would exist unacceptable.

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CARROLLTON, Ga. Authorities say one person is dead and they are looking for sum of two units others who were aboard a small plane that crashed into a pond in Georgia.

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A Federal Aviation Administration officer says the Cessna 182 apparently was headed toward the Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway south of Atlanta at the time it crashed about 9 a.m. Sunday.

The plane was submerged in the pond in Carrollton, in regard to 40 miles west of Atlanta.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says any body has been pulled from the water. She did not release the names of those aboard.

Bergen says the plane left McCollum Field south of Atlanta and the pilot did not toothed a flight plan.

Records usher the plane is registered to four men.

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MARYVILLE, Ill. A hospital spokeswoman in a community in Illinois says one person has arrived dead from a church where a shooting reportedly occurred.

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Natalie Head of Anderson Hospital in Maryville says two other people transferred from First Maryville Baptist Church were wounded in the suburb of St. Louis, Mo.

Illinois State Police Lt. Scott Compton confirms that there was a shooting in a Maryville church. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KDSK-TV Channel 5 of St. Louis assert the shooting occurred at the First Baptist Church in Maryville.

The Post-Dispatch also says the suspected attacker is in confinement.

Maryville is with regard to 20 miles northeast of St. Louis.

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As colleges weigh this year’s round of applications, high-school seniors are not the only anxious ones.

Just as nervously, colleges

Typically, they rely on statistical models to predict which students will take them up on their offers to attend. But this year, with the economy turning parents and students into bargain hunters, demographics changing and unexpected jolts in the number of applications, they have little faith on those models.

“Trying to hit those numbers is like trying to hit a hot tub when you’re sky diving from 30,000 feet,” said Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College in Ohio.

In response, colleges are trying new methods to gauge which applicants are serious about attending: Wake Forest, in North Carolina, is using Webcam interviews, while other colleges say they are scrutinizing essays more closely. And they are making more vigorous appeals to try to convince parents and students who will be offered admission in April that theirs is the campus to choose.

But mostly, they are guessing: Will pinched finances keep students closer to home? Will those who applied in December be feeling too poor to accept in May

Thrown off perch

Colleges have been in the catbird seat for the past decade or so. As the number of high-school students swelled, applications rose, allowing colleges to be more selective. And families benefiting from a flush stock market seemed willing to pay whatever was charged.

But all that has changed. For students, the uncertainty could be good news: Colleges will admit more students, offer more generous financial aid and, in some cases, send acceptance letters a few weeks earlier. Then again, it could prolong the agony: some institutions say they will rely more on their waiting lists.

But there is no question, admissions officers say, that this year is more of a students’ market.

“It’s like the dot-com bubble burst for higher ed,” said Barbara Fritze, vice president of enrollment at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. “We’ve been in this growth mode for a period of time. Now there’s a real leveling going on.”

Colleges consider several factors to predict whether a student will attend, including what high school he went to; the strength of his grades, scores and recommendations; how much financial aid he has been offered; and whether he plays the cello or wants to study economics. (If he is a she, the equation looks different still.)

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008827143_colleges08.html?syndication=rss

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CANC

The head of the incorporated town jail was jailed late last month, and a dozen city police are being investigated after the finding of a Zetas “cell” turned up a border of authorities alleged to be on the take.

Recent events suggest that Canc

Mexican officials say it ain’t so, asserting that the 18-mile island is immune from the narco-violence popping up in the adjoining downtown and the larger metropolitan area on the mainland known similar to Benito Ju

But some spring breakers already here, many from the U.S. Northeast, are alluring extra precautions.

And some analysts take for granted that the relative security in the “inn zone” could cease quickly should a drug turf war rend out in a region long known for drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling.

Ed Coleman, 23, on break from the Rochester Institute of Technology, came prepared in case of trouble. He arranged cellphone service in Mexico and saved the phone numbers of the U.S. Consulate and Embassy.

“So far, we have not seen plenteous of anything” in provisions of trouble, he said.

But as the bulk of “los espring breakers,” as the Mexican media short visit them, start to arrive, analysts take for granted in that place is a latent fear that Canc

Arturo Yanez, a commentator on the put drugs into trade, said Canc

Both Ju

For now, because of its importance to tourism, the resort appears to be “under control,” Yanez said, “bound someone who wants to assert himself in that place,” similar as a newly arrived emulous drug group, “could change all of that.”

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