Today was a heavy morning for data in the U.S. starting at 8:30 a.m. ET.
And the data came in great.
Here's a quick round-up:
The very first data point to beat expectations was durable goods orders at 8:30 a.m. Et. The headline number climbed 3.6%, beating expectations for a 3% rise. ?
Next was the Case-Shiller home price index for May which climbed 12.05% year-over-year in April, beating expectations for a 10.6% rise.
The FHFA home price index was out next this missed expectations rising 0.7% but, the March number was revised up to show a 1.5% rise.
New home sales beat expectations rising 2.1% in May to an annual rate of 476,000, and Aprils number was revised up to show a 3.3% rise.
Consumer confidence jumped to 81.4 in June, beating expectations for 75.1 and up from a revised 74.3 in May.
Finally the Richmond Fed's manufacturing index surged to +8 in June, from -2 in May. This beat expectations for a rise to +2.
?This adds to signs that the economy is continuing to gather steam.
He may not have recorded any new music with Em, but Kendrick tells MTV News he did get some sound advice during their studio session. By Rob Markman, with reporting by Christina Garibaldi
This technically isn't Garmin's first foray into Android territory, but it could prove to be one of the most successful. The navigation company's just introduced Monterra, a dedicated handheld GPS running a TBA version of Android. Basic specs are in line with what you'd expect from a mid-range smartphone, including a 4-inch touchscreen, an 8-megapixel camera with flash and geotag support, 1080p video capture, 6GB of internal storage and microSD expansion. Naturally, the display is optimized for outdoor use -- it's transflective, so you only need to use the LED backlight in low light, letting you conserve power during daytime river treks and sunlit hikes.
The device is ruggedized, with an IPX7 waterproof rating, and can run on either a rechargeable battery pack (included) or AA batteries. It includes WiFi, ANT+, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC, a built-in FM radio with NOAA weather and SAME alerts, dual-band GPS and GLONASS receiver, a 3-axis compass with accelerometer and gyro, a UV sensor for monitoring the sun's intensity and a barometric altimeter, which can report altitude and predict weather based on pressure shifts. There's also a handful of preinstalled apps designed to take advantage of this plethora of connectivity, including Europe PeakFinder, or you can download favorites from Google Play -- anything from farming aids to efficiency trackers can utilize many of Monterra's bundled sensors. The device is expected to ship in Q3, and should run you about $650 in the US or £600 in the UK.
Shapeways seller OliveBird is slowly becoming the single best endorsement for 3D printers. First, they brilliantly upgraded the lowly button with an improved design that allows it to wrangle your headphone cords, and now they've created a similarly genius attachment that turns empty milk jugs into watering cans.
BEIRUT (AP) ? Lebanese army units battling followers of a hard-line Sunni Muslim cleric closed in Monday on the mosque complex where they were holed up in a southern coastal city, the national news agency said. It said a total of 12 soldiers had been killed since fighting erupted a day earlier.
The clashes in Sidon, Lebanon's third-largest city some 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Beirut, is the latest bout of violence in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria.
It is the bloodiest yet involving the army ? at least three of those killed are officers. The Lebanese media has depicted the clashes as a test for the state in containing armed groups that have taken up the cause of the warring sides in Syria, whose sectarian makeup mirrors that of its smaller neighbor.
The fighting between troops and armed supporters of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir has transformed the city, which had been largely spared the violence plaguing border areas near Syria, into a combat zone.
The National News Agency said the clashes also left fifty wounded. The report said it was not clear how many gunmen were killed or wounded in the clashes, nor whether there were civilian casualties. Local media said several gunmen on al-Assir's side had also died, but did not give specifics.
Machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenade explosions caused panic among residents of Sidon. Residents reported power and water outage.
The city streets appeared largely deserted Monday, and local media reported many residents were asking for evacuation from the area of the fighting, a heavily populated neighborhood in the city. The news agency said a government building was hit. The local municipality said that the city is "a war zone," appealing for a cease-fire to evacuate the civilians and wounded in the area.
Many people living on upper floors came down or fled to safer areas, while others were seen running away from fighting areas carrying children. Others remained locked up in their homes or shops, fearing getting caught in the crossfire. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.
The clashes erupted Sunday in the predominantly Sunni city after troops arrested a follower of al-Assir. The army says supporters of the cleric opened fire without provocation on an army checkpoint.
It tied the attack to the war in neighboring Syria and said it will hit back at attempts to sow strife with "an iron fist." Al-Assir is a virulent critic of the powerful Shiite militant Hezbollah group, which along with its allies dominates Lebanon's government. He supports rebels fighting to oust Syria's President Bashar Assad.
A few Hezbollah supporters in the city were briefly drawn into the fight Sunday, firing on al-Assir's supporters. At least one was killed, according to his relatives in the city who spoke anonymously out of concerns for their security.
But the group appeared to be staying largely out of the ongoing clashes. Last week, al-Assir supporters fought with pro-Hezbollah gunmen, leaving two killed.
Early Monday, al-Assir appealed to his supporters through his Twitter account in other parts of Lebanon to rise to his help, threatening to widen the scale of clashes.
The tweets did not give a clear statement on how the battle began. It came after a series of incidents pitting the cleric's followers against other groups in the town, including Hezbollah supporters and the army.
Fighting also broke out in parts of Ein el-Hilweh, a teeming Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, where al-Assir has supporters. Islamist factions inside the camp lobbed mortars at military checkpoints around the camp. Tension also spread to the north in Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city. Masked gunmen roamed the city center, firing in the air and forcing shops and businesses to shut down in solidarity with al-Assir. Dozens of gunmen also set fire to tires, blocking roads. The city's main streets were emptying out. There was no unusual military or security deployment.
The army announced late Sunday additional force deployments around Beirut.
Sectarian clashes in Lebanon tied to the Syrian conflict have intensified in recent weeks, especially after Hezbollah sent fighters to support Assad's forces. Most of the rebels fighting to topple Assad are from Syria's Sunni majority, while the President Bashar Assad belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
In Syria, activists reported fighting Monday between Syrian troops and rebels in the northern province of Aleppo as well as districts on the edge of the Syrian capital and its suburbs.
Clashes in Lebanon have also mostly pitted Sunni against Shiite. The most frequent outbreaks have involved rival neighborhoods in the northern port city of Tripoli, close to the Syrian border.
The clashes in Sidon centered on the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque, a compound where al-Assir preaches and was believed to be holed up. The cleric is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon involved in the fighting. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut. On Monday, they opened fire in other parts of the city, with local media reporting gunshots in the city's market.
By Sunday evening, the army had laid siege to the mosque, sealing off access to it from all directions.
The military openly linked the clashes of Sidon to the conflict in Syria. In a statement Sunday, it said the attacks on its forces by al-Assir supporters were unprovoked, and accusing the cleric of seeking to "incite strife" in Lebanon.
President Michel Suleiman called for an emergency security meeting later Monday.
Headlines of Lebanon's newspapers were all dominated by the violence in Sidon, with many seeing it as a test for the state to impose order. "An attempt to assassinate Sidon and the military," read the headline of the daily al-Safir. "Al-Assir crosses the red line," read another headline in al-Jomhouria daily. A third headline in al-Nahar read: "Yesterday war in Sidon. Today, decisiveness or settlement?"
BOSTON (AP) ? Two goals. Seventeen seconds apart. A second Stanley Cup victory in four seasons for the Chicago Blackhawks.
Seventy-six seconds away from defeat and a trip home for a decisive seventh game, Bryan Bickell tied it. Then, while the Bruins were settling in for another overtime in a series that has already had its share, Dave Bolland scored to give Chicago a 3-2 victory in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night.
The back-to-back scores in about the time it takes for one good rush down the ice turned a near-certain loss into a championship clincher, stunning the Boston players and their fans and starting the celebration on the Blackhawks' bench with 59 seconds to play.
"We thought we were going home for Game 7. You still think you're going to overtime and you're going to try to win it there. Then Bolly scores a huge goal 17 seconds later," said Chicago forward Patrick Kane, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason's most valuable player. "It feels like the last 58 seconds were an eternity."
The team that set an NHL record with a 24-game unbeaten streak to start the lockout-shortened season won three straight games after falling behind 2-1 in the best-of-seven finals, rallying from a deficit in the series and in its finale. Corey Crawford made 23 saves, and Jonathan Toews returned from injury to add a goal and an assist in the first finals between Original Six teams since 1979.
"I still can't believe that finish. Oh my God, we never quit," Crawford said. "I never lost confidence. No one in our room ever did."
Trailing 2-1, Crawford went off for an extra skater and the Blackhawks converted when Toews fed it in front and Bickell scored from the edge of the crease to tie the score.
Perhaps the Bruins expected it to go to overtime, as three of the first four games in the series did. They sure seemed to be caught off-guard on the ensuing faceoff. Chicago skated into the zone, sent a shot on net and after it deflected off Michael Frolik and the post it went right to Bolland, who put it in the net.
"It's unbelievable man," Crawford said. "So much hard work to get to this point. Great effort by everyone on the team."
The Blackhawks on the ice gathered in the corner, while those on the bench began jumping up and down. It was only a minute later, when Boston's Tuukka Rask was off for an extra man, that Chicago withstood Boston's final push and swarmed over the boards, throwing their sticks and gloves across the ice.
"In 2010, we didn't really know what we were doing. We just, we played great hockey and we were kind of oblivious to how good we were playing," said Toews, who scored his third goal of the playoffs to tie it 1-1 in the second period, then fed Bickell for the score that tied it with 76 seconds to play.
"This time around, we know definitely how much work it takes and how much sacrifice it takes to get back here and this is an unbelievable group," Toews said. "We've been through a lot together this year and this is a sweet way to finish it off."
The Bruins got 28 saves from Rask, who was hoping to contribute to an NHL title after serving as Tim Thomas' backup when Boston won it all two years ago.
"It's obviously shocking when you think you have everything under control," Rask said quietly, standing at his locker with a blue baseball cap on backward and a towel draped over his shoulders.
The sold-out TD Garden had begun chanting "We want the Cup!" after Milan Lucic's goal put the Bruins up 2-1 with eight minutes left, but it fell silent after their team coughed up the lead.
"Probably toughest for sure, when you know you're a little bit over a minute left and you feel that you've got a chance to get to a Game 7," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "And then those two goals go in quickly."
The arena was almost empty ? except for a few hundred fans in red Blackhawks sweaters who filtered down to the front rows ? when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman handed the 35-pound Cup to Toews, who left Game 5 with an undisclosed injury and wasn't confirmed for the lineup until the morning skate.
The Chicago captain skated the Cup right over the crease in which the Blackhawks mounted the comeback and in front of the fans in Blackhawks sweaters who lined the front row behind the net. Toews banged on the glass while the remaining Bruins fans headed up the runways.
He then continued the tradition of handing it from player to player before the team settled to the side of the faceoff circle for a picture with the trophy they will possess for the next 12 months.
The Blackhawks opened the season on a 21-0-3 streak and coasted to the Presidents' Trophy that goes to the team with the best regular-season record. But regular-season excellence has not translated into playoff success: Chicago is the first team with the best record to win the Cup since the 2008 Detroit Red Wings.
The Blackhawks went through Minnesota in five games and Detroit in seven, rallying in the Western Conference semifinals from a 3-1 deficit and winning Game 7 in overtime. They got through the defending NHL champion Los Angeles Kings in five games to return to the Cup finals, where Boston was waiting.
The Blackhawks won the first game at home in three overtimes but dropped Game 2 ? another overtime ? and fell behind 2-1 in the series when it returned to Boston.
But since then, it's been all Chicago.
The tightly contested finals ? with three games going a total of five overtimes ? may help fans forget the lockout that shortened the season to 48 games and pushed back the opener to Jan. 19. That left the teams still playing ice hockey on a 95-degree day in Boston on June 24, matching the latest date in NHL history.
Fans in their Bruins sweaters filtered into the air conditioned TD Garden to see the last game in Boston for the year with the hope there would be one more in Chicago: a seventh game just like two years ago, when the Bruins rallied from a 3-2 deficit, then won in Vancouver for their first NHL championship since 1972.
Both teams were bolstered by the return of star forwards, Selke Trophy winner Toews of Chicago and Patrice Bergeron, who was a finalist for the award given to the top defensive forward in the league. Both returned after missing the end of Game 5, and but only Toews showed up in the box score.
What had already been a physical series continued to take its toll, with Jaromir Jagr ? the NHL's active playoff scoring leader ? and Andrew Shaw both going to the dressing room during the first period. Jagr's injury was not known, but Shaw deflected a slap shot from Shawn Thornton off his own right cheek and crumpled to the ice, leaving behind a pool of blood when he skated off.
Both returned, but Jagr again disappeared from the Boston bench in the second. Crawford also forced a stoppage of play when his mask came off following a David Krejci slap shot off his shoulder; the Chicago goalie appeared to need a little time to recover, but he stayed in the game.
The Bruins, who never led in Games 4 and 5, took the lead seven minutes into the game when Tyler Seguin gloved a pass from Daniel Paille and controlled it, then backhanded it across the middle to Chris Kelly. He beat Crawford on the glove side to make it 1-0.
But the Blackhawks tied it early in the second when, as a Bruins power play was ending, Toews broke into the Boston zone on the right side. He had Kane in the middle and Andrew Shaw coming out of the box, but didn't need either one, rattling it in off the right post to make it 1-1.
It stayed that way until Lucic put Boston ahead with 7:49 left in the third.
The final series seemed headed for a Game 7 for the sixth time in the last 10 years before Bickell and Bolland turned it around.
"Dave Bolland, what else can you say about that guy?" Kane said. "He just shows up in big playoff games."
NOTES: The Blackhawks are now 2-5 against the Bruins in playoff series. This was the teams' first matchup in the finals. ... Bolland missed the entire first-round series with an injury. ... Kane and Toews had no goals in the first three games. ... Chara, who won the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenseman in 2009, was on the ice for 10 of the last 12 Chicago goals. ... Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing, was honored before the game. He went onto the ice with a walker and stood up to receive cheers from the crowd.
MOSCOW/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Russia defied White House pressure on Monday to expel former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to the United States before he flees Moscow on the next stop of his globe-crossing escape from U.S. prosecution.
Snowden, whose exposure of secret U.S. government surveillance raised questions about intrusions into private lives, was allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday after Washington asked the Chinese territory to arrest him on espionage charges.
The 30-year-old flew to Moscow as a transit stop before heading elsewhere, several sources said. But reports he would fly to Cuba were put in doubt when witnesses could not see him on the plane, despite heightened security before take-off.
Ecuador, which has sheltered the founder of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization, Julian Assange, said it was considering Snowden's request for asylum. There is no direct flight to Quito from Moscow.
"He didn't take the flight (to Havana)," a source at Russia's national airline Aeroflot told Reuters.
As speculation mounted about where he would go next - Ecuador, Venezuela or Havana at a later date to escape the crowd of journalists on board Monday's flight - Washington was stung by Russian defiance.
Snowden's flight to Russia, which like China challenges U.S. dominance of global diplomacy, is an embarrassment to President Barack Obama who has tried to "reset" ties with Moscow and build a partnership with Beijing.
The White House said it expected the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States and lodged "strong objections" to Hong Kong and China for letting him go.
But the Russian government ignored the appeal and President Vladimir Putin's press secretary denied any knowledge of Snowden's movements.
Asked if Snowden had spoken to the Russian authorities, Peskov said: "Overall, we have no information about him."
He declined comment on the expulsion request but other Russian officials said Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington, after it passed legislation to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of violating human rights.
U.S. HYPOCRISY
"Why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?" said Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament.
Putin has missed few chances to champion public figures who challenge Western governments and to portray Washington as an overzealous global policeman. But Russian leaders have not paraded Snowden before the cameras or trumpeted his arrival.
Since leaving Hong Kong, where he feared arrest and extradition, Snowden has been searching for a country that can guarantee his security.
Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, on a trip to Vietnam, said Quito would analyze his asylum request with a "lot of responsibility". He was expected to hold a news conference around 7 p.m. (1200 GMT) in Hanoi.
A source at Aeroflot said on Sunday Snowden was booked on the flight due to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (1005 GMT). But a correspondent aboard could not see him and the seat he was supposed to occupy, 17a, was taken by another passenger.
A State Department official said Washington had told countries in the Western Hemisphere that Snowden "should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States".
Despite the Kremlin denials, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said Putin had probably known about and approved Snowden's flight to Russia.
"Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States," Schumer, a senior Senate Democrat, told CNN's "State of the Union". He also saw "the hand of Beijing" in Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden leave.
But taking the higher ground after being accused of hacking computers abroad, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed "grave concern" over Snowden's allegations that the United States had hacked computers in China.
It said it had taken up the issue with Washington.
CHILL
Some Russians have praised Snowden's revelations. Others fear a new chill in relations with the United States.
"We are a pretty stubborn country and so is the United States. Both are mighty countries, so I would say this has a good potential to turn into a big fuss in bilateral relations," said Ina Sosna, manager of a Moscow cleaning company.
"I guess it would be best if they just let him move on from Russia to avoid any more controversy over him being here."
Snowden was assisted in his escape by WikiLeaks, whose founder Assange said he had helped to arrange documents from Ecuador.
Ecuador, like Cuba and Venezuela, is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials. The Quito government has been sheltering Assange at its London embassy for the past year.
The New York Times quoted Assange as saying in an interview that his group had arranged for Snowden to travel on a "special refugee document" issued by Ecuador last Monday.
U.S. sources said Washington had revoked Snowden's passport. WikiLeaks said diplomats and Sarah Harrison, a British legal researcher working for the anti-secrecy group, accompanied him.
Snowden, who had worked at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, had been hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.
Snowden has been charged with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.
(Corrects Snowden's age from 29 to 30 in paragraph 3)
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Martin Petty in Hanoi, Sui-Lee Weein in Beijing,; Andrew Cawthorne, Mario Naranjo and Daniel Wallis in Caracas, Alexandra Valencia in Quito and Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Mark Heinrich)
June 24, 2013 ? The brain's pleasure response to tasting food can be measured through the eyes using a common, low-cost ophthalmological tool, according to a study just published in the journal Obesity. If validated, this method could be useful for research and clinical applications in food addiction and obesity prevention.
Dr. Jennifer Nasser, an associate professor in the department of Nutrition Sciences in Drexel University's College of Nursing and Health Professions, led the study testing the use of electroretinography (ERG) to indicate increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in the retina.
Dopamine is associated with a variety of pleasure-related effects in the brain, including the expectation of reward. In the eye's retina, dopamine is released when the optical nerve activates in response to light exposure.
Nasser and her colleagues found that electrical signals in the retina spiked high in response to a flash of light when a food stimulus (a small piece of chocolate brownie) was placed in participants' mouths. The increase was as great as that seen when participants had received the stimulant drug methylphenidate to induce a strong dopamine response. These responses in the presence of food and drug stimuli were each significantly greater than the response to light when participants ingested a control substance, water.
"What makes this so exciting is that the eye's dopamine system was considered separate from the rest of the brain's dopamine system," Nasser said. "So most people- and indeed many retinography experts told me this- would say that tasting a food that stimulates the brain's dopamine system wouldn't have an effect on the eye's dopamine system."
This study was a small-scale demonstration of the concept, with only nine participants. Most participants were overweight but none had eating disorders. All fasted for four hours before testing with the food stimulus.
If this technique is validated through additional and larger studies, Nasser said she and other researchers can use ERG for studies of food addiction and food science.
"My research takes a pharmacology approach to the brain's response to food," Nasser said. "Food is both a nutrient delivery system and a pleasure delivery system, and a 'side effect' is excess calories. I want to maximize the pleasure and nutritional value of food but minimize the side effects. We need more user-friendly tools to do that."
The low cost and ease of performing electroretinography make it an appealing method, according to Nasser. The Medicare reimbursement cost for clinical use of ERG is about $150 per session, and each session generates 200 scans in just two minutes. Procedures to measure dopamine responses directly from the brain are more expensive and invasive. For example, PET scanning costs about $2,000 per session and takes more than an hour to generate a scan.
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. MIT biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows cells to read their own DNA in the correct direction and prevents them from copying most of the so-called "junk DNA" that makes up long stretches of our genome.
Only about 15 percent of the human genome consists of protein-coding genes, but in recent years scientists have found that a surprising amount of the junk, or intergenic DNA, does get copied into RNA the molecule that carries DNA's messages to the rest of the cell.
Scientists have been trying to figure out just what this RNA might be doing, if anything. In 2008, MIT researchers led by Institute Professor Phillip Sharp discovered that much of this RNA is generated through a process called divergent expression, through which cells read their DNA in both directions moving away from a given starting point.
In a new paper appearing in Nature on June 23, Sharp and colleagues describe how cells initiate but then halt the copying of RNA in the upstream, or non-protein-coding direction, while allowing it to continue in the direction in which genes are correctly read. The finding helps to explain the existence of many recently discovered types of short strands of RNA whose function is unknown.
"This is part of an RNA revolution where we're seeing different RNAs and new RNAs that we hadn't suspected were present in cells, and trying to understand what role they have in the health of the cell or the viability of the cell," says Sharp, who is a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "It gives us a whole new appreciation of the balance of the fundamental processes that allow cells to function."
Graduate students Albert Almada and Xuebing Wu are the lead authors of the paper. Christopher Burge, a professor of biology and biological engineering, and undergraduate Andrea Kriz are also authors.
Choosing direction
DNA, which is housed within the nucleus of cells, controls cellular activity by coding for the production of RNAs and proteins. To exert this control, the genetic information encoded by DNA must first be copied, or transcribed, into messenger RNA (mRNA).
When the DNA double helix unwinds to reveal its genetic messages, RNA transcription can proceed in either direction. To initiate this copying, an enzyme called RNA polymerase latches on to the DNA at a spot known as the promoter. The RNA polymerase then moves along the strand, building the mRNA chain as it goes.
When the RNA polymerase reaches a stop signal at the end of a gene, it halts transcription and adds to the mRNA a sequence of bases known as a poly-A tail, which consists of a long string of the genetic base adenine. This process, known as polyadenylation, helps to prepare the mRNA molecule to be exported from the cell's nucleus.
By sequencing the mRNA transcripts of mouse embryonic stem cells, the researchers discovered that polyadenylation also plays a major role in halting the transcription of upstream, noncoding DNA sequences. They found that these regions have a high density of signal sequences for polyadenylation, which prompts enzymes to chop up the RNA before it gets very long. Stretches of DNA that code for genes have a low density of these signal sequences.
The researchers also found another factor that influences whether transcription is allowed to continue. It has been recently shown that when a cellular factor known as U1 snRNP binds to RNA, polyadenylation is suppressed. The new MIT study found that genes have a higher concentration of binding sites for U1 snRNP than noncoding sequences, allowing gene transcription to continue uninterrupted.
A widespread phenomenon
The function of all of this upstream noncoding RNA is still a subject of much investigation. "That transcriptional process could produce an RNA that has some function, or it could be a product of the nature of the biochemical reaction. This will be debated for a long time," Sharp says.
His lab is now exploring the relationship between this transcription process and the observation of large numbers of so-called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). He plans to investigate the mechanisms that control the synthesis of such RNAs and try to determine their functions.
"Once you see some data like this, it raises many more questions to be investigated, which I'm hoping will lead us to deeper insights into how our cells carry out their normal functions and how they change in malignancy," Sharp says.
###
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Written by: Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. MIT biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows cells to read their own DNA in the correct direction and prevents them from copying most of the so-called "junk DNA" that makes up long stretches of our genome.
Only about 15 percent of the human genome consists of protein-coding genes, but in recent years scientists have found that a surprising amount of the junk, or intergenic DNA, does get copied into RNA the molecule that carries DNA's messages to the rest of the cell.
Scientists have been trying to figure out just what this RNA might be doing, if anything. In 2008, MIT researchers led by Institute Professor Phillip Sharp discovered that much of this RNA is generated through a process called divergent expression, through which cells read their DNA in both directions moving away from a given starting point.
In a new paper appearing in Nature on June 23, Sharp and colleagues describe how cells initiate but then halt the copying of RNA in the upstream, or non-protein-coding direction, while allowing it to continue in the direction in which genes are correctly read. The finding helps to explain the existence of many recently discovered types of short strands of RNA whose function is unknown.
"This is part of an RNA revolution where we're seeing different RNAs and new RNAs that we hadn't suspected were present in cells, and trying to understand what role they have in the health of the cell or the viability of the cell," says Sharp, who is a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "It gives us a whole new appreciation of the balance of the fundamental processes that allow cells to function."
Graduate students Albert Almada and Xuebing Wu are the lead authors of the paper. Christopher Burge, a professor of biology and biological engineering, and undergraduate Andrea Kriz are also authors.
Choosing direction
DNA, which is housed within the nucleus of cells, controls cellular activity by coding for the production of RNAs and proteins. To exert this control, the genetic information encoded by DNA must first be copied, or transcribed, into messenger RNA (mRNA).
When the DNA double helix unwinds to reveal its genetic messages, RNA transcription can proceed in either direction. To initiate this copying, an enzyme called RNA polymerase latches on to the DNA at a spot known as the promoter. The RNA polymerase then moves along the strand, building the mRNA chain as it goes.
When the RNA polymerase reaches a stop signal at the end of a gene, it halts transcription and adds to the mRNA a sequence of bases known as a poly-A tail, which consists of a long string of the genetic base adenine. This process, known as polyadenylation, helps to prepare the mRNA molecule to be exported from the cell's nucleus.
By sequencing the mRNA transcripts of mouse embryonic stem cells, the researchers discovered that polyadenylation also plays a major role in halting the transcription of upstream, noncoding DNA sequences. They found that these regions have a high density of signal sequences for polyadenylation, which prompts enzymes to chop up the RNA before it gets very long. Stretches of DNA that code for genes have a low density of these signal sequences.
The researchers also found another factor that influences whether transcription is allowed to continue. It has been recently shown that when a cellular factor known as U1 snRNP binds to RNA, polyadenylation is suppressed. The new MIT study found that genes have a higher concentration of binding sites for U1 snRNP than noncoding sequences, allowing gene transcription to continue uninterrupted.
A widespread phenomenon
The function of all of this upstream noncoding RNA is still a subject of much investigation. "That transcriptional process could produce an RNA that has some function, or it could be a product of the nature of the biochemical reaction. This will be debated for a long time," Sharp says.
His lab is now exploring the relationship between this transcription process and the observation of large numbers of so-called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). He plans to investigate the mechanisms that control the synthesis of such RNAs and try to determine their functions.
"Once you see some data like this, it raises many more questions to be investigated, which I'm hoping will lead us to deeper insights into how our cells carry out their normal functions and how they change in malignancy," Sharp says.
###
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Written by: Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ROME (Reuters) - The body of star actor James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack in Rome last week, will be returned to the United States on Monday, earlier than expected, a family friend said.
Gandolfini, best known for his leading role in the Emmy-winning series The Sopranos, was found dead in his Rome hotel late on Wednesday.
Family friend Michael Kobold thanked the Italian authorities and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for helping accelerate procedures for the return of the body.
"We are fully aware that this process normally takes seven days and we are extremely grateful for their (the authorities') efficiency in dealing with this matter," he told reporters in Rome on Sunday.
"We are now looking at hopefully getting James Gandolfini's remains back to the United States tomorrow," he said.
An autopsy showed Gandolfini had died of natural causes. He was on holiday in Italy with his 13-year-old son and was due to attend the closing of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily on Saturday.
Gandolfini's performance as New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano made him a household name and helped usher in a new era of American television drama.
Since "The Sopranos" ended its six-season run in June 2007, Gandolfini appeared in a number of big-screen roles, including the crime drama "Killing Them Softly" and "Zero Dark Thirty", a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Gandolfini had been working on an upcoming HBO series, "Criminal Justice," and had two films due out next year.
(Reporting by Cristiano Corvino; Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Germany's Ifo index of business sentiment rose slightly in June, suggesting the eurozone's largest economy remains on track for a return to stronger growth after a weak stretch.
The closely-watched index came in Monday at 105.9 points, up from 105.7 the month before and in line with analysts' expectations.
Economists are monitoring Germany's economy because it has been a key source of growth in the troubled 17-country euro currency union. Member countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy are struggling with heavy debt and recessions.
The eurozone economy needs all the growth it can get; it shrank in the first quarter, the sixth consecutive quarterly decline. The European Central Bank says it expects a gradual recovery to set in during the second half of this year, but key indicators such as lending by banks to businesses remain weak.
Germany's export-driven economy shrank by 0.7 percent in the last three months of 2012 and then expanded only 0.1 percent in the first quarter. It was held back by worries about the bailout of eurozone member Cyprus and by political uncertainty in Italy, where a confused election result delayed the formation of a government. Second quarter figures aren't out until mid-August.
"The German economy seems to cruise along nice and steady, defying any growth concerns," economist Carsten Brzeski at ING wrote in a research note to investors. Wage increases in an economy with low unemployment should keep consumers spending, he said, while the main risks are from stagnation in eurozone trading partners and any sudden slowdown in key export market China.
Christian Schulz at Berenberg Bank said signs that the eurozone might be leaving recession soon were positive for Germany. He cited Monday's jump in the Italian consumer confidence index. "Chances rise that Germany can benefit from its strong fundamentals for the rest of the year and beyond," he wrote.
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A suicide car bomb and other militant attacks killed nine people in northern Iraq on Saturday, officials said, the latest in a wave of violence that has killed nearly 2,000 Iraqis since the start of April.
The deadliest attack was in al-Athba village near the northern city of Mosul, when a suicide car bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police patrol, a police officer said. Three civilian bystanders and one policeman died while six other people were wounded, he added.
With violence spiking sharply in recent months to levels not seen since 2008, al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups have been gathering strength in the area of Mosul, some 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
In the city of Tuz Khormato, 210 kilometers (130 miles) north of Baghdad, gunmen on motorcycles riddled a civilian vehicle carrying four off-duty policemen with bullets, killing three and wounding another, a police officer said.
Another group of gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in the city of Samarra, killing two policemen and wounding four, another police officer said. Samarra is 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
Police also said two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a bomb ripped through a small market late Friday in Baghdad.
Four medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
Also on Saturday, the United Nations said another 27 residents of a camp housing members of an Iranian exile group have been relocated to Albania. The move follows a deadly rocket attack on the facility last week.
A total of 71 residents of Camp Liberty have now relocated to the southeast European country, which has agreed to accept 210 of them. Germany has also offered to take 100 residents. The U.N. is urging other member states to accept some of the more than 3,000 living in Iraq.
The dissident group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, is the militant wing of a Paris-based Iranian opposition movement that opposes Iran's clerical regime and has carried out assassinations and bombings there. It fought alongside Saddam Hussein's forces in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and several thousand of its members were given sanctuary in Iraq. It renounced violence in 2001, and was removed from the U.S. terrorism list last year.
Iraq's government wants the MEK members to leave, and the U.N. has been working to resettle them abroad.
Two residents of Camp Liberty were killed in a June 15 rocket attack on the facility. A Shiite militant group claimed responsibility, saying it wants the group out of Iraq.
______
Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed to this report.
June 20, 2013 ? On June 7, 2011, our Sun erupted, blasting tons of hot plasma into space. Some of that plasma splashed back down onto the Sun's surface, sparking bright flashes of ultraviolet light. This dramatic event may provide new insights into how young stars grow by sucking up nearby gas.
The eruption and subsequent splashdown were observed in spectacular detail by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This spacecraft watches the Sun 24 hours a day, providing images with better-than-HD resolution. Its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument was designed and developed by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
"We're getting beautiful observations of the Sun. And we get such high spatial resolution and high cadence that we can see things that weren't obvious before," says CfA astronomer Paola Testa.
Movies of the June 7th eruption show dark filaments of gas blasting outward from the Sun's lower right. Although the solar plasma appears dark against the Sun's bright surface, it actually glows at a temperature of about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. When the blobs of plasma hit the Sun's surface again, they heat up by a factor of 100 to a temperature of almost 2 million degrees F. As a result, those spots brighten in the ultraviolet by a factor of 2 -- 5 over just a few minutes.
The tremendous energy release occurs because the in falling blobs are traveling at high speeds, up to 900,000 miles per hour (400 km/sec). Those speeds are similar to the speeds reached by material falling onto young stars as they grow via accretion. Therefore, observations of this solar eruption provide an "up close" view of what happens on distant stars.
"We often study young stars to learn about our Sun when it was an 'infant.' Now we're doing the reverse and studying our Sun to better understand distant stars," notes Testa.
These new observations, combined with computer modeling, have helped resolve a decade-long argument over how to measure the accretion rates of growing stars. Astronomers calculate how fast a young star is gathering material by observing its brightness at various wavelengths of light, and how that brightness changes over time. However, they got higher estimates from optical and ultraviolet light than from X-rays.
The team discovered that the ultraviolet flashes they observed came from the in falling material itself, not the surrounding solar atmosphere. If the same is true for distant, young stars, then by analyzing the ultraviolet light they emit, we can learn about the material they are accreting.
"By seeing the dark spots on the Sun, we can learn about how young stars accrete material and grow." explains Testa.
A banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, is displayed at Central, Hong Kong's business district, Thursday, June 20, 2013. A WikiLeaks spokesman who claims to represent Snowden has reached out to government officials in Iceland about the potential of the NSA leaker applying for asylum in the Nordic country, officials there said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, is displayed at Central, Hong Kong's business district, Thursday, June 20, 2013. A WikiLeaks spokesman who claims to represent Snowden has reached out to government officials in Iceland about the potential of the NSA leaker applying for asylum in the Nordic country, officials there said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The National Security Agency can keep copies of intercepted communications from or about U.S. citizens if the material contains significant intelligence or evidence of crimes.
That's according to exemptions in NSA's top secret rules published Thursday in the latest leak of classified U.S. materials.
Top secret documents published by The Guardian describe how NSA must first build a case in order to target a foreigner for phone or Internet surveillance. The documents also describe how the agency is to make sure the person is outside the U.S. ? and not an American.
But if the target is communicating with an American, the record of contact can be kept indefinitely. Administration officials have said material NSA inadvertently gathers on Americans is destroyed. NSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alec Baldwin and all the others who get ticked off by the "please power down all your electronics" announcement before takeoff might soon not be listening to that announcement at all.
The Federal Aviation Administration is planning to relax the rules for in-flight electronics usage, say reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. According to the publications' sources, the FAA is expected to ease the ban on some gadgets during taxiing and at low altitudes. Currently, use of electronic devices is prohibited until a plane has reached 10,000 feet.
Awaiting a Recommendation For the past year or so, the FAA has been taking a "fresh look" at the policies with the Aviation Rulemaking Committee, a group that includes representatives from the FCC, pilot and flight attendant groups, airlines and passenger associations. The group will make a formal recommendation by September. However, a first draft of the report, according to the Times and the Wall Street Journal, recommends allowing a wider set of devices during takeoff and landing.
The FAA wouldn't address the speculation when reached by ABC News but did say that it continues to examine this issue very carefully.
"The FAA recognizes consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics aboard aircraft. That is why we tasked a government-industry group to examine the safety issues and the feasibility of changing the current restrictions," an FAA spokesperson told ABC News. "At the group's request, the FAA has granted a two-month extension to complete the additional work necessary for the safety assessment. We will wait for the group to finish its work before we determine the next steps."
The Flight Attendant Union, which is a part of the Aviation Rulemaking Committee, however, said that any reports based on the draft report are "premature."
"The committee's work is not yet completed and AFA will continue to review and comment on the draft document, which is expected to change significantly before final publication," the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said in a statement sent to ABC News.
Arguments on Both Sides of the Aisle The issue of the impact of electronic frequencies on flight safety has long been a hot-button issue. Many, such as aviation analyst and former commercial pilot John Nance, argue that there is no evidence that tablets, e-readers, music players and handheld gaming devices have any impact on the aircraft hardware.
"There are 32,000 flights a day, and at least each one has a cellphone on. Many don't put them in the proper mode," Nance said. "You have a tremendous network of RF energy coming out of the cabin of every flight. Take that and multiply that for 20 years where we haven't had one single verifiable incident where there was any proof where radio emissions had an impact on a flight performance."
But that's not how Kenny Kirchoff, a cabin systems research and development engineer at Boeing, feels about it.
"We're learning that, as we thought, these devices have the potential to interfere with airplane systems and airplane radios on and during flight," Kirchoff told ABC News. "Sometimes they leave devices on inadvertently, sometimes they leave them on just because they leave them on. And we want to be able to make our products safer. We as an industry have to come up with a way to certify our airplanes and test our airplanes to make sure they won't be interfered with by these devices."
Kirchoff clarified that while Boeing has not been able to verify or confirm if a device would bring down an airplane, it could contribute to unsafe conditions that might lead to an accident.
The Aviation Rulemaking Committee is not considering cellphones in its study, but only the airplane mode of cellular devices and other electronic devices, such as e-readers and iPods. According to the Journal, the FAA is considering allowing only some gadgets to be used during all parts of the flight, including e-readers. However, in 2011, the FAA approved the use of iPads in the cockpit.
Kircoff says that the difference there is that the iPads those pilots are using have been tested and certified. Passengers' iPads or devices, however, have not each been examined for specific amounts of frequencies, and other sources of potential interference. Still, he maintains this is a period of transition and uncertainty about what the FAA will approve and change.
"I think we are in a transition period. We see a lot of effort right now with the FAA and with even some members of Congress who want to see some of the rules changed," he said. "And, of course, we want to do it in a safe manner."
ABC News' Matt Hosford and David Kerley contributed to this report.
The fire, which caused only minor damage and injuries, is just the latest in a spate of anti-Muslim incidents in Britain that have followed the May 22 killing of soldier Lee Rigby.
By Jeremy Ravinsky,?Contributor / June 10, 2013
Four teens were arrested yesterday evening in relation to a fire that broke out at an Islamic boarding school late Saturday evening in the southeast London suburb of Chislehurst. The fire was the latest in a series of attacks targeting Britain?s Muslim community following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.
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Contributor
Jeremy Ravinsky is an intern at the Christian Science Monitor's international desk. Born and raised in Montreal, Canada, Jeremy has lived in Boston for a number of years, attending Tufts University where he is a political science major. Before coming to the Monitor, Jeremy interned at GlobalPost in Boston and Bturn.com in Belgrade, Serbia.
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Though no major damage was done to the Darul Uloom School, 128 students and staff members were evacuated due to the fire, while two students were treated for smoke inhalation, reports CNN. Students were allowed to return to school Sunday.
The suspects, a group of 17- and 18-year-olds, are being held at a police station in south London.
The incident comes on the heels of another fire at an Islamic center in the north London municipality of Muswell Hill. According to the Guardian, graffiti was found at the scene that linked the incident to the English Defense League (EDL), an ultra-right anti-Muslim group. The EDL, however, has denied any connections to the fire.
The two fires appear to be part of a Britainwide flare-up in anti-Muslim sentiments following Mr. Rigby's murder on May 22 in Woolwich, another London suburb.
"These are difficult times for London's communities. The Met is now investigating suspicious fires at two locations within the Islamic community which have happened in the past few days,? said Bernard Hogan-Howe, London?s police commissioner, in a statement to the press.
"We should not allow the murder of Lee Rigby to come between Londoners. The unified response we have seen to his death across all communities will triumph over those who seek to divide us."
Rigby, a military drummer, was killed by two men wielding a cleaver and a machete. The men claimed that they attacked Rigby because he had served in Afghanistan.
According to Bloomberg, the frequency of anti-Muslim incidents in Britain has multiplied at an alarming rate since Rigby?s death, jumping from an average of four to six to as high as 26 per day. In that time, 12 mosques have been attacked.
It's being reported that rapper Kanye West and his reality star girlfriend Kim Kardashian have named their brand-new baby, born this weekend, Kaidence Donda West. Donda was Kanye's late mother's name, so that makes sense, but, um, Kaidence? What's going on with Kaidence?
RELATED: Rubio Fights the President's 'Half-Baked' Immigration Plan
The senator from Florida had listened patiently as a panel of hand-picked conservatives, lined up across a long table at the front of the room, took turns speaking about the prospects of immigration reform. When discussion finally opened to the anxious, overflowing crowd of lawmakers at the Republican Study Committee's immigration summit, several were quick to critique their pro-reform colleagues ? Rubio the headliner among them.
RELATED: The Future of Immigration Reform Looks Like We Can All Start to Get Along
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., argued they should be discussing a report by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector on the costs of amnesty. Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., raised concerns about implementing an e-Verify system.?But it was Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, who got under Rubio?s skin.
RELATED: Obama Lays Out Immigration Plan: Is It Any Good?
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Referencing a Jay Leno one-liner, Burgess questioned fellow conservatives about the wisdom of giving citizenship to "11 million undocumented Democrats." Laughter, some of it nervous, spread throughout the room. But not everyone found Burgess' crack funny. According to several people who attended the June 5th gathering, Rubio glared at Burgess.
RELATED: Marco Rubio's Crusade to Sell Immigration Reform to Conservatives
This account, confirmed by multiple members and staffers, sheds light on what is perhaps the most politically obvious -- and perpetually underplayed -- conservative argument against providing citizenship to the nation's illegal immigrants. With all the noise surrounding the debate over policy specifics -- security measures, enforcement triggers, future flow, interior oversight -- there is still an underlying political argument whispered among some of Congress's most conservative members: After 71 percent of Hispanics voted for President Obama in 2012, why should Republicans add millions more to the voting rolls?
RELATED: Why 51% of Americans Approve of Arizona's Immigration Law
Not everyone feels the need to whisper. At this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, Iowa Rep. Steve King --?the leading immigration hardliner in the House GOP?-- earned laughter and applause during an immigration panel when he quipped: "Even Republicans seem to think that these undocumented Democrats could be made voters and somehow we're going to win in that equation. And what happens is that two out of every three that would be legalized become Democrats."
Such commentary is not unusual from King, who is doing everything in his power -- including organizing an anti-immigration event this week on the steps of the Capitol -- to halt the momentum of reform efforts in the House. What's telling is that he's practically the only one making that point publicly. Even Burgess, who represents a deep-red congressional district and opposes ?any proposal to grant amnesty to illegal aliens,? said his piece behind closed doors,?in the basement of the Capitol, at an event that was off-limits to the press.
Burgess explained his quip as "an effort to tamp down some of the tension in the room," but said there is a serious conversation being had about the subject of his joke. "I live in a state that has voted Republican in statewide elections for a long time. And yet you cannot pick up a Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram without reading an article about how 'Texas is going to be a Democratic state, it's just a matter of time,'" Burgess told?National Journal. "What's going on here, is people think if we get a larger and larger immigrant population, they will be obligated to vote Democratic."
Burgess was quick to point out that he doesn't agree with that assessment. But King does. And the Iowa congressman seems to smell blood in the water, suggesting the "undocumented Democrat" argument -- long peddled by radio host Rush Limbaugh, who first used the term in 2010 -- is ?starting to emerge? as a point of contention among conservatives.
If King is right, and this political argument is?gaining steam, it could thanks to a trickle-down dynamic -- the national conversation influencing conservatives in Congress. There are no shortage of conservative activists, media personalities, and elected officials who have taken tough stances outside of Washington in an attempt to influence what happens within the Beltway.
One of these hardliners, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has repeatedly warned about what happened after Ronald Reagan signed a so-called "amnesty package" in 1986: Republicans won a significantly smaller percentage of the Hispanic vote in 1988 (30 percent) than they had in 1980 (35 percent) or 1984 (37 percent). For that reason, Kobach told?National Journal?earlier this year, the "law and order" stance continues to be "the most advantageous position" for the GOP. "We can improve our outreach and expand and amplify our message ... without embracing amnesty," he said.
That argument, oft-cited in the conservative blogosphere, has caught on among Capitol Hill conservatives. Both King and Burgess mentioned the Reagan-Bush statistic in separate interviews, and some of their colleagues have consistently pointed to the precedent set by the 1986 law.
"Historically, the notion that amnesty equals more votes has proven to be untrue," House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said?at the outset of the new Congress, adding: "So if you think that we're one comprehensive immigration reform bill away from electoral success, you're kidding yourself."
This thinking, of course, runs counter to the post-2012 conventional wisdom that Republicans lost Hispanics because of the party?s?harsh immigration rhetoric?and its opposition to reform. If the system were fixed, some Republicans argued?after Mitt Romney's 44-point?drubbing among Hispanics, Democrats would be robbed of a political cudgel and Republicans could finally reach out in earnest to the nation's fastest-growing voting faction.
"We need to fix the broken immigration system, get this issue off the table, so then we can go out and advocate to the Hispanic community that our conservative principles are better for them than the principles of the Democratic Party," Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said in an interview earlier this year. Labrador, who has emerged as King's policy rival on the immigration front, added: "But the problem that we're having with the Hispanic community right now is that they're not even listening to us. It doesn't matter whether they agree with us or not because as soon as they see a Republican, they shut down."
Sounds familiar? This argument was made seven years ago by George W. Bush and his political team; it's being made by Obama today. King wasn't buying it back in 2006 -- when he tangled with Karl Rove on the subject -- and he's certainly not buying it now. "They (pro-reform Republicans) are saying we are never going to win another national election if we don't pass comprehensive immigration reform. That's almost exactly what the president said to us when he came to our conference this February,"?King recalled.?"He said, 'I'm trying to help you. Republicans are never going to win another national election unless you pass comprehensive immigration reform.'"
King sighed, and said: "Barack Obama is not trying to help Republicans. He wouldn't be doing this if it helped Republicans."
There are, however, some Republicans who agree with both Bush and Obama -- including the only person who ran against both of them, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Having worked with Bush on the failed immigration overhaul in 2006, McCain is at it again, working with Obama and the Senate Gang of Eight to pass comprehensive legislation that would solve a policy problem for the country and a political problem for the GOP. When the senators unveiled their bill in April, McCain told reporters that passing immigration reform "puts us on a level playing field to compete for those (Hispanic) votes."
Fellow gang member, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was more explicit?Sunday?on NBC's Meet the Press. "If we don't pass immigration reform -- if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way -- it doesn't matter who you run in 2016," Graham said. "We're in a demographic death spiral as a party.?
King can barely mask his contempt for?Republicans who subscribe?to this theory: "They believe that somehow if we grant amnesty that Hispanics are going to come vote for Republicans. I think that's not going to happen whether or not we pass amnesty,? King said. ?If (Hispanics) vote, they're going to be voting in the patterns that they have shown up to this point. And it's clear, 75 percent or more of them are for more government -- which means more taxes, and more dependability. And that means more undocumented Democrats."
With both chambers of Congress considering immigration measures this month, the stakes couldn?t be higher, nor the contrast clearer. Conservatives on both sides of the "path to citizenship" question are convinced that their plan will save the Republican Party -- and that the alternative will destroy it. The difference, King warned, is those Republicans advocating legalization are abandoning their principles in an attempt to win millions of votes they?ll never receive.
"Their excuse is, 'We're never going to win another presidency unless we pass amnesty,'" King said. "I'll tell you it's the exact opposite. If you want to lock it in -- that Republicans will never win the presidency again -- pass the Gang of Eight bill."
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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