Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193229155?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Source: Investors face 70 pct loss in Greek deal (AP)
BRUSSELS ? Investors participating in a deal to slash Greece's massive debt would face an overall loss on their bond holdings of around 70 percent, a person familiar with the negotiations said Monday.
European leaders at a summit in Brussels said a final debt deal could be signed off in the coming days, together with a second multibillion euro bailout packaged designed to save the country from a potentially disastrous bankruptcy.
Athens and representatives of investors holding Greek government bonds over the weekend came close to a final agreement designed to bring Greece's debt down to a more manageable level. Without a restructuring, those debts would swell to around double the country's economic output by the end of the year.
If the agreement works as planned, it will help Greece remain solvent and help Europe avoid a blow to its already weak financial system, even though banks and other bond investors will have to accept big losses.
The person briefed on the talks said Monday that the 70 percent loss was the result of cutting the bonds' face value in half, reducing the average interest rate to between 3.5 per cent and 4 percent and pushing repayment of the bonds decades into the future.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential.
The deal, which would reduce the country's debt by about euro100 billion and save it billions of euros in interest payments, needs to be finalized quickly. Greece runs the risk of a disorderly default on March 20, when it faces a euro14.5 billion bond repayment it cannot afford without additional help.
Many investors ? banks, insurance companies and hedge funds ? who hold Greek bonds also hold debt from other countries that use the euro, which could lose value if there is a fully fledged Greek default. This is the scenario the eurozone fears most and why the currency union hopes investors will voluntarily accept a partial loss on their Greek bonds.
The agreement taking shape is a key step before Greece can get a second, euro130 billion bailout. The country has been surviving since May 2010 on an initial euro110 billion package of rescue loans from other countries using the euro and the International Monetary Fund.
Besides restructuring its debt with private investors, Greece must also take other steps to secure further aid. It must cut its deficit and boost the competitiveness of its economy through layoffs of public sector workers and the sale of several state companies, among other moves.
But Greece's partners in the eurozone have grown frustrated with the country's slow implementation of austerity measures and economic reforms promised almost two years ago. In recent days, they have discussed ways of monitoring Athens' efforts even more closely, including giving the European Commission, the power to block spending decisions that threaten the country's ability to repay its debts.
Earlier Monday, Greek lenders Eurobank and Alpha Bank said a planned merger to create the country's largest bank by assets could be put on hold because of the negotiations over the bond swap.
The banks said that "an accurate timeline cannot be given" to complete the deal announced last August because of the negotiations.
Greece's finance ministry expressed surprise at the announcement, arguing that the negotiations had produced "nothing new or different" to factors already taken into account by both banks.
__
Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece.
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Visualized: futuristic AMELIA aircraft (theoretically) soars through NASA wind tunnel
Visualized: futuristic AMELIA aircraft (theoretically) soars through NASA wind tunnel originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Must See HDTV (January 30th - February 5th)
Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Next Level
One of the best science fiction series ever returns, this week, remastered and in HD. Check after the break for a video splitscreen showing off the original video crossed over with the new special effects, which were recomposited back on top of the original film negatives for what seems to be an incredible new experience. Not ever revisitation has gotten a positive reception, but it appears this is one fans will enjoy. The release this week is a quick three episode teaser of what's to come, the full meal of season one is still on the way later this year.
(January 31st, $14.99 on Amazon)
Super Bowl XLVI
*Cough*
(February 5th, NBC, 6PM)
I Just Want My Pants Back
Yet another young adult dramedy on MTV, but after the solid efforts of RJ Berger and Awkward (we're going to pretend the ill-fated port of Skins never happened) it may be worth a shot. The title comes from the main character, who is left looking for his pants which were taken by a particularly special one night stand that he's trying to find in the big city. Yeah.
(February 2nd, MTV, 11PM)
Continue reading Must See HDTV (January 30th - February 5th)
Must See HDTV (January 30th - February 5th) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Peru: 26 killed in fire at rehabilitation center (AP)
LIMA, Peru ? A fire swept through a private rehabilitation center for addicts in Peru's capital on Saturday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 10 as firefighters punched holes through walls to rescue residents trapped inside.
One resident of the "Christ is Love" center for drug and alcohol addicts in Lima's eastern Zarate district said he was eating breakfast at 9 a.m. local time on the center's second floor when he saw flames coming from the first floor, where the blaze apparently originated.
Gianfranco Huerta told local RPP newsradio station that he leapt from a second floor window to safety.
"The doors were locked, there was no way to get out," he told the station.
Health Minister Alberto Tejada said the number of deaths had risen to 26 with 10 people injured.
Peru's chief fire fighter, Antonio Zavala, said the fire was of "Dantesque proportions." Firefighters had to punch a hole through a wall with an adjoining building to help the people trapped inside the rehabilitation center.
"We've had to use electric saws to cut through the metal bars of the doors to be able to work," Zavala said.
Television images showed relatives of center residents weeping in front of the building, located in a poor section of eastern Lima.
The cause of the fire is still not known, said Zarate police chief Clever Zegarra.
Local media reported that the "Christ is Love" rehabilitation center sought to use Biblical teachings to help treat addicts.
No representative of the center could be immediately reached for comment.
Peru's fire fighters are notoriously underfunded. All the South American country's firefighters are volunteer and the annual firefighting budget for the entire country is $19 million.
(This version CORRECTS name of center to 'Christ is Love' instead of 'God is Love.')
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Video: Gingrich endorsed from behind bars
Djokovic wins longest Slam final ever
??Novak Djokovic wore down Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam singles final in the history of professional tennis Sunday, winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5 after 5 hours, 53 minutes to claim his third Australian Open title.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46168985#46168985
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Screen Actors Guild votes to approve merger plan (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? The Screen Actors Guild national board of directors has voted to approve a plan to merge with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
In a statement, SAG says the board voted 87 percent to 13 percent Friday for the proposed merger at its meeting in Los Angeles.
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists' board is scheduled to meet Saturday for a vote on the package. If approved, a referendum will be sent out for a vote by members of both unions in the coming weeks.
The merger plan comes after two years of negotiations between the groups to join forces in a bid to gain more leverage in contract negotiations.
The TV and radio artists' group supported a merger with SAG in 1998 and 2003 only to see those efforts fail.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Afghanistan's Karzai in UK for talks with Cameron (AP)
LONDON ? Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Britain for talks with Prime Minister David Cameron, a day after France announced it would withdraw its troops a year earlier than the 2014 date agreed by NATO.
Cameron is due to meet Karzai at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat outside London. Britain's Foreign Office said the meeting "is about long-term partnership and commitment beyond 2014 and the need for progress on the political track."
It is also sure to include the effects of the announcement by President Nicolas Sarkozy that French troops would speed up their withdrawal plans and leave the country by the end of next year, instead of by 2014.
Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan and says it plans to withdraw almost all of them by the end of 2014.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Man charged in beheading plot to appear in court (AP)
WILMINGTON, N.C. ? A Raleigh man accused of paying a hit man to behead three witnesses in a North Carolina terrorism case will make his first appearance in federal court.
Shkumbin Sherifi was arrested last weekend after FBI agents tracked him to a meeting in Wilmington with a government informant posing as a hit man. Agents say the 21-year-old paid the informant $4,250 in cash toward the first killing.
Officials say the plot was masterminded by Sherifi's imprisoned older brother Hysen Sherifi, who was sentenced to 45 years earlier this month in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to attack the Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets abroad.
Also arrested was Nevine Aly Elshiekh, a 46-year-old school teacher from Raleigh. Her first appearance is scheduled for Feb. 3.
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Rate on 30-year fixed mortgage rises to 3.98 pct. (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose this week for the first time this month, though it remained below 4 percent for the eighth straight week.
The low rates may be contributing to a slow turnaround in the depressed housing market. Still, many who can afford to buy or refinance a home have already done so.
Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.98 percent this week. That's up from 3.88 percent the previous week, which was the lowest level on record.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage also rose to 3.24 percent, from 3.17 percent the previous week. The 15-year mortgage hit a record low of 3.16 percent two weeks ago.
Mortgage rates are low because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 2 percent this week.
For the past three months, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate has hovered near 4 percent. Historically low mortgage rates are among the signs that point to a pickup in the housing market this year.
Sales of previously occupied homes rose in December for a third straight month. Homebuilders are slightly more hopeful because more people are saying they might consider buying this year. And home construction picked up in the final quarter of last year.
Still, new homes fell in December, the Commerce Department said Thursday. About 302,000 new homes were sold last year, making 2011 the worst year for new home sales on records dating back to 1963.
High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don't want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.
Builders are hopeful that the low rates could boost sales next year. Low mortgage rates were cited as a key reason the National Association of Home Builders survey of builder sentiment rose strongly in December and January.
To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average rates don't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for the 30-year loan dipped to 0.7 from 0.8; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.
For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate rose to 2.85 percent from 2.82 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan was unchanged at 2.74 percent.
The average fee on the five-year adjustable loan rose was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the one-year adjustable-rate loan was unchanged at 0.6.
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
NFL extends Goodell's contract through 2018 season (AP)
NEW YORK ? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's contract was extended Wednesday through the 2018 season.
The 52-year-old Goodell took over for Paul Tagliabue in 2006. His original five-year contract was extended in 2009, and the new extension runs through March 2019.
He was rewarded by the 32 clubs after one of the league's most successful seasons, even though it was preceded by a 4 1-2 month lockout that led to a new 10-year collective bargaining agreement. Goodell made about $10 million, including bonuses, in his previous deal; during the lockout, he had a $1 salary.
No terms were disclosed for the new contract.
"It is the only place I have ever wanted to work," Goodell said after the league's compensation committee approved the extension. "I am grateful for the contributions and counsel of NFL owners in managing our league, the talented staff that supports us, and the players and coaches that perform their magic on the field. It is truly a team effort.
"I am eagerly looking ahead to the challenge of building on our momentum and doing all we can to improve our game for the fans and everyone that is part of our league."
Goodell has made player safety and discipline his main focal points, and the league has ramped up fines and even suspensions for illegal hits. He also has been criticized for how the league dealt with retired players and with post-career health issues such as brain trauma; both issues have become priorities for Goodell and the league in recent years.
"I speak on behalf of 32 NFL club owners in saying we are fortunate to have Roger Goodell as our commissioner," said Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, chairman of the compensation committee, which also includes owners Tom Benson (New Orleans), Pat Bowlen (Denver), Robert Kraft (New England), Jerry Richardson (Carolina), and Steve Ross (Miami). "Since becoming commissioner in 2006, the NFL - already the leader in professional sports - has gotten even stronger.
"As evidenced by this contract extension, we have great confidence in Roger's vision and leadership of the NFL. Our clubs, players and fans could not ask for a better CEO."
The Sports Business Journal first reported the extension.
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Upbeat and on a roll, Obama showing some swagger (AP)
LAS VEGAS ? Riding a positive but unpredictable wave, President Barack Obama is returning to two states that are important to his re-election, Nevada and Colorado, to promote his energy agenda and grab some of the political spotlight ahead of his Republican adversaries.
Obama will speak at a UPS center in Las Vegas and at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Col., Thursday, drawing attention to proposals for clean energy use and greater production of domestic oil and gas. The pitch comes just days after he drew Republican criticism for blocking a cross-country pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas.
Obama last visited Nevada and Colorado in late October, using that trip to launch a phase of his campaign to jump-start the economy. With economic indicators improving, Obama this time visits on a higher note.
Both states hold their presidential caucuses within the next two weeks ? events that have grown in importance since the Republican contest for the White House continues to shift and narrow to a choice between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
On Wednesday, Obama traveled to Iowa and Arizona to push for tax incentives for manufacturers. His three-day, post-State of the Union trip concludes Friday in Michigan.
Offering a preview of his energy agenda, Obama said Wednesday he was pushing for a renewed economy. "It's an economy built on American energy, fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources that make us more secure and less dependent on foreign oil," he told workers at a Cedar Rapids manufacturing plant that specializes in conveyor screws.
Obama won both Nevada and Colorado in 2008. Nevada has had the nation's highest unemployment. But a poll in December by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed Obama with a 6-percentage-point lead over Romney and a 12-point lead over Gingrich.
Colorado offers an example of a state with a mix of energy programs, from a booming solar-energy industry to natural gas extraction that is a result of a compromise between energy companies and environmentalists.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
No. 10 Michigan St tops Minnesota for Izzo's 400th
No. 10 Michigan St tops Minnesota for Izzo's 400th
LARRY LAGELARRY LAGE, AP Sports Writer?
?Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, right, reacts to a call as he talks to Brandan Kearney during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Minnesota, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, right, reacts to a call as he talks to Brandan Kearney during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Minnesota, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Michigan State's Draymond Green, left, drives against Minnesota's Rodney Williams during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Minnesota Andre Hollins (1) loses the ball while driving against Michigan State's Branden Dawson, left, and Draymond Green (23) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Michigan State's Derrick Nix, right, works under pressure from Minnesota's Ralph Sampson III during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Minnesota's Rodney Williams dunks over Michigan State's Draymond Green during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) ? Draymond Green had 22 points, 14 rebounds and six assists to help No. 10 Michigan State beat Minnesota 68-52 Wednesday night and give coach Tom Izzo his 400th win.
Izzo downplayed what the milestone meant to him on Monday, but was wiping tears off his cheeks during the final seconds of the victory.
The Spartans (17-4, 6-2) moved into a first-place tie in the Big Ten with their second straight win after losing two in a row.
The Golden Gophers (15-6, 3-5) had won three straight, including their previous two on the road.
Minnesota's Rodney Williams scored 15 and Ralph Sampson III had 10 points.
Michigan State led by two midway through the first half when it went on a 16-5 run, leading to a 37-27 advantage at halftime.
The Spartans were up by 13 early in the second half, but Minnesota pulled within five with just under 10 minutes left.
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Lab mimics Jupiter's Trojan asteroids inside a single atom
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Rice University physicists have gone to extremes to prove that Isaac Newton's classical laws of motion can apply in the atomic world: They've built an accurate model of part of the solar system inside a single atom of potassium.
In a new paper published this week in Physical Review Letters, Rice's team and collaborators at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Vienna University of Technology showed they could cause an electron in an atom to orbit the nucleus in precisely the same way that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids orbit the sun.
The findings uphold a prediction made in 1920 by famed Danish physicist Niels Bohr about the relationship between the then-new science of quantum mechanics and Newton's tried-and-true laws of motion.
"Bohr predicted that quantum mechanical descriptions of the physical world would, for systems of sufficient size, match the classical descriptions provided by Newtonian mechanics," said lead researcher Barry Dunning, Rice's Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Bohr also described the conditions under which this correspondence could be observed. In particular, he said it should be seen in atoms with very high principal quantum numbers, which are exactly what we study in our laboratory."
Bohr was a pioneer of quantum physics. His 1913 atomic model, which is still widely invoked today, postulated a small nucleus surrounded by electrons moving in well-defined orbits and shells. The word "quantum" in quantum mechanics derives from the fact that these orbits can have only certain well-defined energies. Jumps between these orbits lead to absorption or emission of specific amounts of energy termed quanta. As an electron gains energy, its quantum number increases, and it jumps to higher orbits that circle ever farther from the nucleus.
In the new experiments, Rice graduate students Brendan Wyker and Shuzhen Ye began by using an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom. Rydberg atoms contain a highly excited electron with a very large quantum number. In the Rice experiments, potassium atoms with quantum numbers between 300 and 600 were studied.
"In such excited states, the potassium atoms become hundreds of thousands of times larger than normal and approach the size of a period at the end of a sentence," Dunning said. "Thus, they are good candidates to test Bohr's prediction."
He said comparing the classical and quantum descriptions of the electron orbits is complicated, in part because electrons exist as both particles and waves. To "locate" an electron, physicists calculate the likelihood of finding the electron at different locations at a given time. These predictions are combined to create a "wave function" that describes all the places where the electron might be found. Normally, an electron's wave function looks like a diffuse cloud that surrounds the atomic nucleus, because the electron might be found on any side of the nucleus at a given time.
Dunning and co-workers previously used a tailored sequence of electric field pulses to collapse the wave function of an electron in a Rydberg atom; this limited where it might be found to a localized, comma-shaped area called a "wave packet." This localized wave packet orbited the nucleus of the atom much like a planet orbits the sun. But the effect lasted only for a brief period.
"We wanted to see if we could develop a way to use radio frequency waves to capture this localized electron and make it orbit the nucleus indefinitely without spreading out," Ye said.
They succeeded by applying a radio frequency field that rotated around the nucleus itself. This field ensnared the localized electron and forced it to rotate in lockstep around the nucleus.
A further electric field pulse was used to measure the final result by taking a snapshot of the wave packet and destroying the delicate Rydberg atom in the process. After the experiment had been run tens of thousands of times, all the snapshots were combined to show that Bohr's prediction was correct: The classical and quantum descriptions of the orbiting electron wave packets matched. In fact, the classical description of the wave packet trapped by the rotating field parallels the classical physics that explains the behavior of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
Jupiter's 4,000-plus Trojan asteroids -- so called because each is named for a hero of the Trojan wars -- have the same orbit as Jupiter and are contained in comma-shaped clouds that look remarkably similar to the localized wave packets created in the Rice experiments. And just as the wave packet in the atom is trapped by the combined electric field from the nucleus and the rotating wave, the Trojans are trapped by the combined gravitational field of the sun and orbiting Jupiter.
The researchers are now working on their next experiment: They're attempting to localize two electrons and have them orbit the nucleus like two planets in different orbits.
"The level of control that we're able to achieve in these atoms would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and has potential applications in, for example, quantum computing and in controlling chemical reactions using ultrafast lasers," Dunning said.
###
Rice University: http://media.rice.edu
Thanks to Rice University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117033/Lab_mimics_Jupiter_s_Trojan_asteroids_inside_a_single_atom
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
'Newt Skywalker' wins South Carolina primary
Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief
(Image: Richard Ellis/Getty)
Following his stunning victory in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is being dubbed the comeback kid. This famously combative politician, often referred to as the GOP's "attack dog", has another nickname that should amuse New Scientist readers: Newt Skywalker.
The moniker stems from Gingrich's longstanding interest in technology ? allied to an expansive vision that sometimes seems to blur the line between science fact and science fiction. As Politico explains:
"Gingrich earned the Star Wars-era nickname in the 1980s and '90s ? back when his high-tech, futuristic proselytizing landed his face, bathed in electric lime, on the cover of Wired."
Gingrich was selected by Scientific American earlier this month as the Republican candidate with the most convincing geek credentials. He has enthusiastically backed investment in research and science education as vital to spurring economic growth, and has a passion for zoos and conservation.
But some of Gingrich's wilder statements on technological issues will cause raised eyebrows from those with their feet planted firmly on earth. Gingrich's technological vision has extended to discussing lunar colonies to harvest minerals, deploying lasers to knock out North Korean missiles, and apocalyptic warnings about the US being sent crashing into a new dark age by an electromagnetic pulse from an airborne nuclear blast.
The ease with which Gingrich embraces speculative technologies relates to a more general criticism of the candidate: he is a fount of big ideas, but often has trouble distinguishing those worth pursuing from the mere fanciful.
His shifting position on climate change ? apparently to triangulate with the intense scepticism that has become Republican orthodoxy ? may also give scientists pause for thought. As recently as 2007, he backed cap-and-trade to control US greenhouse emissions, and in 2008 he made a video for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate protection with Democrat Nancy Pelosi, then House speaker, in which he said:
"[W]e do agree that our country must take action to address climate change ... If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation that we need."
Now Gingrich says "there is no settled scientific conclusion" on whether human activities are causing global warming, and earlier this month he abruptly cut a chapter contributed by a prominent climate scientist from a book on environmental issues to be published under his name.
This week should provide a good opportunity to judge Gingrich's positions on space exploration, as he is promising a "visionary speech" in Florida, home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Space enthusiasts will be watching closely, given Gingrich's previous withering criticism of NASA. At a debate in December, he had this to say:
"You have a National Aeronautics and Space Administration which has currently got no vehicles that can get to the space station. Has it occurred to you to wonder what the billions are for and what the thousands of employees are doing? They sit around and they think space."
In an interview in Florida a few months earlier, Gingrich emphasised the role of the private sector and set his sights on Mars (giving him some common ground with the Obama administration):
I think that we frankly ought to ... put up a big prize, challenge the private sector, and get back into space within two years, and in an aggressive way. We ought to set a goal of getting to the moon, getting permanently on Mars."
Newt Skywalker, or future president? Voters in the Florida Republican primary will get their say on 31 January.
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At PSU, tension over ouster, then grief for JoePa (AP)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? Anguished by an unthinkable scandal that shook a university and tarnished the proud football program, many in the Penn State community rallied around a common cause.
They mourned coach Joe Paterno's dismissal and questioned the motives and tactics of school leaders who pushed out the Hall of Famer in November in the wake of child sex abuse charges against a retired assistant coach.
Alumni, fans and students already racked by emotions were jolted by a much greater loss when Paterno died Sunday of lung cancer at age 85 ? and the grieving process again could be complicated following two tense months that often had the Paterno family and the school at odds.
"I feel like from the inside looking out that most people forget that he donated his whole life to the program. ... And everything that he donated to that school, people tend to look over that," defensive end Jack Crawford, who just completed his senior season with the Nittany Lions, said Sunday from Senior Bowl practice in Mobile, Ala.
"It was tough to swallow. It was harder to swallow when he first got fired. It was a sad moment for the whole Penn State family."
A family seemingly torn Nov. 5 after retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with the first of dozens of counts of abuse allegations. Sandusky has maintained his innocence and is awaiting trial. Paterno testified before a state grand jury investigating Sandusky, and authorities said he wasn't a target of the probe.
It ended up being his undoing anyway.
Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation by reporting a 2002 allegation relayed by a graduate assistant to his university superior. But the state's top cop chastised Paterno, among other school leaders, for failing to fulfill a moral duty to do more and take the allegation to police.
Paterno himself said he "wished he could have done more" when he announced his retirement plans the morning of Nov. 9 before getting ousted by the university Board of Trustees that evening.
"I am saddened to hear the news of Joe Paterno's passing. Joe was a genuinely good person," longtime Nebraska coach and current athletic director Tom Osborne said. "Anybody who knew Joe feels badly about the circumstances. I suspect the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks might have played into it."
That turmoil stretched to Paterno's final days.
Diagnosed with lung cancer days after getting fired, Paterno entered the hospital Jan. 13 for what his family then said was a minor complication from treatments that included radiation and chemotherapy. Mount Nittany Medical Center was barely a half-mile from Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions' home field that Paterno helped make into one of college football's shrines during his 46 seasons as Penn State head coach.
While in the hospital, trustees just a couple miles away at a campus hotel on Thursday told of why they fired Paterno and cited in part a failure to fulfill his moral responsibility in connection with the 2002 allegation. His lawyer, Wick Sollers, called the allegations self-serving and reiterated that Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations.
"I think his legacy should be everything wonderful he did here for Penn State and for the community. That's what I hope," Karen Long, 70, of State College, said at the women's basketball game Sunday afternoon between Iowa and Penn State. "I don't think he was treated fairly, though. Just the way they handled firing him was awful."
Against that backdrop, school leaders, the Paterno family and the university community fractured by the scandal appear to be slowly mending relationships.
On Monday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett ordered the state's flags lowered to half-staff through Paterno's burial.
In recent weeks, university leaders have indicated they intend to honor Paterno's contributions on and off the field ? a sharp contrast to tones sounded in the frantic first week of the scandal. Back then, for instance, school President Rodney Erickson said Paterno was welcome to football games just like any other member of the public.
Paterno won two national championships and a Division I record 409 victories to turn Penn State into a name-brand program. Off the field, Paterno and his wife, Sue, donated millions back to the university, including the library.
"His and Sue's contributions are as much about ensuring student success as the many endowments and the library bearing the Paterno name," said Barbara Dewey, Penn State's dean of University Libraries.
Memorial service and funeral plans weren't ready yet Sunday night, though it appeared the family and the school were coordinating efforts.
Perhaps one last chance to say goodbye for a Penn State community that often took its cues on fall weekends from JoePa.
"No matter what people say, you can't take away what he did for Penn State and college football," former cornerback D'Anton Lynn said. "I don't think there will ever be a college coach that will ever have that impact again."
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Cougars extinct in East? No, say those who spot them
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
This June 2011 photo by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection shows a worker examining a dead mountain lion, or cougar, at the Sessions Woods Wildlife Center in Burlington, Conn. Tests determined that the cat, which was struck by a car, had traveled all the way from South Dakota.
By Jim Gold, msnbc.com
Cougar sightings persist in the East nearly a year after the big predators were declared extinct in the region, a determination that some don't believe. Others want to make cougars' presence a big reality.
Just this month Gary Sanderson, sports editor at the Greenfield, Mass.-based Recorder newspaper, reported?cougar sightings on a farm near the Vermont border, by an Amtrak engineer who claimed his train's video captured images of the creatures?near Leverett, and from readers in the region who claim to have pictures of cougars.
"I've been besieged" with sightings ever since writing a column 10 years ago about hunting with a trapper who became a believer in?cougars' presence?after finding a footprint way too large to be a bobcat in Conway, along the Deerfield River, Sanderson told msnbc.com.
Sanderson said?he has since written 50 columns devoted to cougar sightings and has been told by wildlife officials he was irresponsible to promote the notion of their presence.
With rare exception, there is?no credible evidence of cougars living in the wild?east of the Mississippi River, government and private researchers told msnbc.com.
In Connecticut this week, a CBS radio report and a Greenwich Time newspaper story both cited the growth of cougar sightings since last spring. That's when a cougar first spotted in Greenwich on June 5 was killed by a car six days later in nearby Milford. NBC Connecticut reported at the time that scientists studying the 140-pound animal's DNA concluded the?cougar had?wandered about 1,800 miles east, all the way from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Minnesota and Wisconsin before finding its way to Greenwich, about 70 miles outside New York City.
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Even though he is a?state away, Sanderson said, "I felt vindicated" when the news emerged about the cougar in Milford. "I didn't think they would admit that it was wild."
A Connecticut group called Cougars of the Valley?has an online petition with about?250 signatures asking the state General Assembly to hold a hearing on cougars, also known as mountain lions, pumas and panthers. The group's website also hosts a map of Connecticut cougar sightings and comments from readers?claiming authorities disparaged their reports about seeing cougars.
No evidence?
Mark McCollough, an endangered species specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Orono, Maine, field office, was the lead scientist in the agency's study declaring the Eastern cougar extinct. (See full study report here.)
McCollough told msnbc.com that there is no scientific evidence that Eastern cougars have somehow survived?150 years after being driven from the region. The last known real Eastern cougar was shot dead in 1938 in Maine, he said.
"That's not to say they don?t show up from time to time," McCollough said of cougars, but most reports of sightings are misidentfications, such as coyotes or bobcats, which are about one-fourth the size of cougars.
Officials have documented 110 cougars loose?in the Eastern United States and Canada since 1900, he said.?They come from two main sources:
- Escaped pets: At least 1,000 cougars are known to be held in captivity in the East, he said, and many that have turned up loose have been genetically traced to South American ancestry, indicating they were part?of?the exotic pet trade. "They didn?t walk here," McCollough said.
- Dispersers: Like the wandering cougar killed in Connecticut, some head east from the West and north from Florida, home to about 150 panthers.?Cougars?regularly?show up?on?trail cameras set up privately across the country, McCollough said, but they're not on cameras in the East.
One cougar from Florida, where about 150 panthers live in the wild, was killed in Georgia in 2008. That same year, police shot?a cougar that wandered into Chicago's North Side.
But there is no scientific evidence, no scat (droppings), no confirmed sightings that cougars are establishing homes and breeding east of the Mississippi and?north of Florida, McCollough?said.
Courtesy of The Cougar Network
Green: established populations
Blue = Class I Confirmation
Red = Class II Confirmation
A map by The Cougar Network, a non-profit research group,?shows only a few?confirmed sightings of cougars in the?East since 1990.
"We just don't take those kinds of sightings seriously anymore," said Mark Dowling, a leader of the network. Pictures turn out to be house cats or even golden retrievers.
Cougars couldn't go undetected, he said. "They betray their presence readily," he said, by becoming road kill or chasing people's pets.
The Midwest is seeing a resurgence, he said, including growing cougar populations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and even Louisiana. Nebraska also has a breeding population.?
Christopher Spatz, a southern New York resident who is president of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, told msnbc.com that?wandering cougars are young males looking for females and needing to get away from their fathers' territories before their fathers kill them.
"Young cats out on their own are troublemakers," said Spatz, an advocate for reintroducing cougars into the wilds of the East.
"We need them everywhere. Big predators help regulate ecosystems,"Spatz said.
After wolves were reintroduced at Yellowstone National Park in 1995, elk?stopped?eating cottonwoods and aspens, Spatz said. Vegetation came back, and biodiversity, including beavers, birds and fish, expanded.
Without cougars and other predators, there is an overabundance of whitetail deer in the East, resulting in lack of understory.
Live Poll
Should cougars be recolonized in the East?
173858
Yes, they will help the ecosystem; we can learn to coexist with the cats.
77%
173859
No, the predators are too dangerous to people, pets and livestock.
17%
173860
Not sure.
6%
VoteTotal Votes: 646
"Cougars' presence would change the way deer browse," Spatz said. "They would keep moving; you would see regeneration of your understory."
Cougars are not a threat to people, pets and livestock, he said. California, where there are an estimated 5,000 to 6,000?cougars and no hunting allowed, proves "we can coexist."
McCollough, the wildlife biologist, and Dowling, from the Cougar Network, which doesn't take a stand on repopulation, said chances of recolonization efforts in the East?are remote, as people likely won't want large predators living near them.
Cougars, which can leap 30 feet and reach speeds of 50 mph, are carnivores whose usual diet consists mainly of deer, elk, turkey rabbits porcupine, coyote and other small mammals, according to The Cougar Fund, a non-profit trying to protect cougars. But the animals?do prey on people, pets and livestock. Since 1890, "only 20 people"?have been killed by cougar attacks, says the group, which also offers tips on how to fight off cougars and guidelines to keep children and pets safe. Several non-fatal mauling attacks on people are reported yearly.?
'They are here'
But one cougar advocate, Bill Betty of Matunuck, R.I., said people in the Northeast already coexist with cougars, because, he said, they are present and?breeding.
"Every state in the East will eventually acknowledge?they are here," Betty told msnbc.com. He said he has?had 14 daytime encounters as close as 10 feet with cougars -- and nine family members have had 30 encounters.
"I've chased mountain lions away from kids," he said.
Betty lectures all over the country about mountain lions and has a 90-minute slideshow and other show-and-tell items such as a skull, scat samples and photos. He said he knows what a cougar looks like.
At a lecture in Somers, Conn., he said, 37 people raised their hands when asked if they'd seen a cougar.
"They are here," he said. "Those who say they are not are lying."
"Mature, responsible adults and schoolchildren?can tell the difference between a cougar and?a big yellow dog," he said.
Officials say they still don't believe Betty and that he does not use scientific data in his presentations.
Click here to follow Jim Gold on Facebook?
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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2 more cruise bodies found, oil pumping to begin (AP)
ROME ? Salvage experts can begin pumping fuel from a capsized cruise ship as early as Tuesday to avert a possible environmental catastrophe and the ship is stable enough that search efforts for the missing can continue, Italian officials said.
The decision to carry out both operations in tandem was made after instrument readings determined that the Costa Concordia was not at risk of sliding into deeper waters, Franco Gabrielli, chief of the national civil protection agency, told reporters Monday on the island of Giglio.
"The ship is stable. ... There is no problem or danger that it is about to drop onto much lower seabed," Gabrielli said.
The Concordia rammed a reef Jan. 13 on the tiny Tuscan island and capsized a few hours later just outside Giglio's port as it carried 4,200 passengers and crew on a Mediterranean cruise.
Taking advantage of calm seas, divers on Monday found the bodies of two women near the ship's Internet cafe, raising to 15 the number of confirmed dead.
There are 17 people still unaccounted for, but Gabrielli has said an unregistered Hungarian woman might have been aboard ship. The woman's relatives have told Italian authorities they haven't heard from her since she called them to say she was aboard the ship.
The ship's Italian captain, Francesco Schettino is under house arrest near Naples as prosecutor's investigate him for suspected manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his vessel while some passengers and crew were still aboard. He has insisted that he was coordinating rescue operations from a lifeboat and then from shore.
Costa Crociere SpA has distanced itself from the captain, contending that he made an unauthorized deviation from the programmed route. Schettino has reportedly told investigators that Costa officials had requested that he sail close to Giglio in a publicity move.
Schettino's lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, told reporters Monday that tests on urine and hair samples found that his client had not been under the influence of alcohol or drugs before the crash. Prosecutors could not confirm the report, since they cannot speak about the investigation while it is still under way.
Despite earlier fears, officials said the crippled cruise ship, with a 70-meter (230-foot) long gash in its hull, is not expected to roll off its rocky seabed perch and be completely swallowed by the sea.
An Italian geologist, on Giglio to monitor the Concordia, told Sky TG24 Monday the ship was barely moving.
"It is moving at the rate of about one or two millimeters an hour," said Nicola Casagli, adding the ship has moved up to 3mm an hour when tides come in or out. "The ship responds to the tides."
The sea has been calm for several days but he said waves were expected to grow larger in the next few days.
In all, seven bodies await identification, but Gabrielli said officials have DNA from the relatives of all of the missing passengers and are working to confirm names and nationalities. He said the search would continue "as long as it is possible to inspect whatever can be inspected."
Meanwhile, Italian Admiral Ilarione dell'Anna said the fuel removal could begin as early as Tuesday, addressing growing concern among residents and environmentalists that the heavy, tar-like fuel could leak from the ship's 17 double-bottomed tanks.
"They should start the oil drainage operations on the ship. At this point those who died will not come back to life. Even if they pull them out later, unfortunately it won't make a difference," Andrea Ginanneschi, a resident of Giglio, told The Associated Press.
Dell'Anna predicted it would take 28 days to remove all of the fuel, without any interruptions. Officials said the first tank to be emptied will be one above the waterline.
Eight kilometers (five miles) of oil barriers, including absorbent ones, have been laid in the area to protect marine life and the coast in the pristine waters off Giglio, which are prime fishing grounds and a protected area for dolphins and whales.
Recovery experts from the Dutch salvage company Smit have previously said they will create holes in the top and the bottom of each tank, heating the fuel so it flows more easily and pumping from the top while forcing air in from the bottom. For the underwater tanks, sea water will be used to displace the fuel, which becomes thick and gooey when cooled.
Already, some diesel and lubricants have leaked into the water near the ship, probably from machinery on board. Officials have characterized the contamination as superficial.
"Smit has been ready for a week to begin pumping fuel from the tanks, awaiting only the go- ahead," said a company statement. "For this purpose, SMIT has mobilized an oil tanker with emergency response equipment including sweeping arms, booms and a skimmer."
It said the vessel arrived on Monday.
The company also said Italian authorities have indicated it can begin the removal once a second absorbent boom is in place around the ship. The booms are used "to reduce the possibility of polluting shorelines and to help make recovery easier."
Besides 2,200 metric tons of heavier fuel, there also are 185 metric tons of diesel and lubricants on board in addition to chemicals including cleaning products and chlorine.
__
Barry reported from Milan. Andrea Foa reported from Giglio.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Report: OPEC wants to stay out of Iran-West spat
CAIRO (AP) ? OPEC's acting president said the producer group should stay out of political battles, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Sunday, an apparent bid by the bloc to steer clear of a potential showdown between Tehran and the U.S. over threats to close the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul-Karim Elaibi said that while Iran's "enemies" have imposed various sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' main focus should be protecting its members' interest and not being dragged into a political struggle over oil.
Elaibi, who is also OPEC's current president, last week said he was going to Tehran to warn against closing the strait, through which about a sixth of the world's crude flows daily. IRNA did not say whether the tension over the waterway was raised during the oil minister's meetings with officials.
Instead, the language reflected the warmer relations between Iran and Iraq since a U.S.-led coalition had ousted former strongman Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Shiite government in Baghdad is seen as increasingly close to Tehran, and Iran is investing heavily in Iraq.
Iran has warned repeatedly it would choke off the strait if sanctions affect its oil sales. The U.S. has enacted, but not yet put into force, sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and, by extension, the country's ability to be paid for its oil. The European Union, a major buyer of Iranian oil, is considering sanctions on Iranian crude.
The tension over the strait and the potential impact it would have not only on global oil supplies, but also the price of crude and the economies of the countries that buy Iranian oil, have weighed heavily on consumers and traders.
Gulf nations have offered assurances that they would step in and provide any additional crude needed by the global market. Iran interpreted the offer as an attempt to undercut it and issued a quick warning to the Gulf Arab producers to not try to offset its exports with their own.
Elaibi's remarks appear to be an attempt to pull the producer bloc out of the political fray, but they also reflect the uneasy balance Iraq faces.
Iraq exports most of its crude through the strait, and any attempt to shut the waterway could be a severe blow to its economy. At the same time, it appears reluctant to come across as being too harsh on its neighbor, in part because of the investments Iran provides and its ideological weight as the region's strongest Shiite government.
His visit to Tehran came just days before Iraq inaugurates a new oil export outlet in the Gulf with a capacity of up to 900,000 barrels a day. It would be the first of five floating facilities that would eventually handle about 5 million barrels a day.
The new outlet will help Iraq, limited now by infrastructure bottlenecks, to export more oil.
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US considers closing Embassy in Syria
By NBC News and news services
The Obama administration is considering closing its U.S. Embassy in Damascus, but has not reached a final decision, NBC News has learned.
"We are considering it given the deteriorating security situation in Syria and our increasing concern for our personnel on the ground. No final decision has been made at this time," an administration official told NBC News on Friday.
U.S. officials are waiting?for embattled President Bashar al-Assad to provide better protection to?Americans.
"We have requested that the government of Syria take additional security measures to protect our embassy, and the Syrian government is considering that request. We have also advised the Syrian government that unless concrete steps are taken in the coming days we may have no choice but to close the mission," the State Department said in a statement.
The United States recently reduced the number of staff in Damascus because of security concerns in Syria, where Syrian authorities are seeking to crush anti-government protests.
The United States has repeatedly warned Americans to avoid travel to Syria, where Assad's government has mounted a violent crackdown to crush months of popular protests.
The U.S. ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, returned to Syria in December after having been recalled to Washington in October because of threats to his safety.
Violence, deaths
At least six people were killed in Syria on Friday and the bodies of six others were turned over to their families, activists said, two days before the Arab League decides whether to keep monitors there despite their failure to halt bloodshed.
Hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived in late December in Syria, where an armed insurgency has grown in recent months, challenging Assad's grip on several parts of the country.
The Obama administration has repeatedly called for Assad to leave office because of Syria's handling of the protests, which the United Nations estimates has killed more than 5,000 civilians since unrest erupted in March.
Reuters contributed to this report.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10201476-us-considers-shuttering-embassy-in-syria
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Tangled Necklaces, Mop Pads, and Browser Plugins [From The Tips Box]
Readers offer their best tips for untangling necklace chains, saving money on mop pads, and speeding up your browser.
Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.
Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons?maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in?the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, email it to tips at lifehacker.com, or share it on our tips and expert pages.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/QDNC9-CzQr8/
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Fire at prof's home reveals cache of child porn
Courtesy NBC10
Authorities say firefighters in southern New Jersey uncovered a cache of child pornography while battling flames in the home of an architecture professor.
By NBCPhiladelphia.com
Firefighters battling an Ocean County, N.J., blaze found something hidden within the home?s walls that put the owner in deep trouble with the law, according to New Jersey State Police.
Firefighters arrived Tuesday to the blaze on the 500 block of Dock Road in West Creek, Eagleswood Township to find heavy smoke and flames coming from the roof, authorities said.
As firefighters from at least five municipalities battled the blaze, they worked to make sure the fire wasn?t spreading so they began to pull back the sheet rock ceilings, according to state police.
For more, visit NBCPhiladelphia.com.
As they did, child pornography materials fell down from the ceiling, cops said.
The homeowner, Gamal El-Zoghby, 75, was arrested and hit with child endangerment charges stemming from the porn discovery, according to police.
El-Zoghby, who is an architect listed as a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., and reportedly designed the home, was processed and released, authorities said.
Police didn?t say how much child porn was found in the home.
The cause of the blaze remained under investigation as of Wednesday night.
Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/19/10189228-fire-at-profs-home-yields-cache-of-child-porn
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Friday, January 20, 2012
Divers suspend search of capsized Italy liner (Reuters)
GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? Divers searching the capsized Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia suspended work on Wednesday after the vast wreck shifted slightly but officials said they are hoping to resume as soon as possible.
Five days after the 114,500 tonne cruise ship struck a rock and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio, hopes of finding anyone alive have all but disappeared and salvage experts are preparing to pump 2,300 tonnes of fuel from the hulk.
The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, blamed for causing the accident by coming too close to shore and then abandoning the vessel before the evacuation was complete, was put under house arrest on Tuesday after being questioned by a judge.
The search continued overnight on sections above the water line but and until the order was given to suspend work, divers had been preparing to resume the difficult and dangerous search of partly submerged areas of the giant ship.
"The visibility is awful. Yesterday I couldn't see my hand in front of my face," said Giuseppe Minciotti, director of a school for cave divers in the northern city of Verona and part of the specialist team deployed on the wreck.
"I grabbed a piece of floating debris, and I couldn't see what it was until I had my head out of the water. It was a woman's shoe," he said.
"We're waiting today for new openings to be made, and we'll see if the visibility is any better in those points."
Coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said work would focus on an evacuation assembly area on the partially submerged fourth deck, where most of the 11 bodies found so far have been located.
"It's where we have already found seven of the bodies and it's where the passengers and crew gathered to abandon ship," said coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro.
At least 23 people are still missing from the 4,200 passengers and crew aboard when disaster struck the Concordia, a vast floating resort just two hours into a week-long cruise of the western Mediterranean.
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RELATIVES
As the search work continued, relatives of some of the missing arrived at the scene, although no serious hope remained of finding anyone alive in the icy waters.
"We are asking that in this moment all the rescue team units and authorities don't lose any time and do everything they can to recover or find, dead or alive, my daughter," said Sartonino Soria who had come from Peru after learning that his daughter Erika, a member of the crew, was missing.
"This is the reason why we are here and we will not leave until we have found Erika," he said.
Italian authorities have put up a list of 28 missing people on an interior ministry web site, though they say that probably included five people found dead on Tuesday who are so far unidentified.
The list of people still unaccounted for on Tuesday evening included 13 German, four French, five Italian and two American passengers, together with four crew members from Italy, India, Hungary and Peru.
Dutch maritime services company SMIT said it was ready to start pumping fuel from the stricken liner as early as Wednesday once search operations for missing people have ended and they get the go-ahead from local authorities.
However there was no word on when the work may begin. Authorities fear that stronger winds forecast for the coming days may hinder recovery work and pose a potential threat to the stability of the ship, which rests on a submerged rock outcrop.
The Concordia lies on its side in some 20 meters of water but the rock shelf soon falls away into much deeper water and the wreck could slide down by as much as 130 meters if it shifts free from the rocks.
ALARM RAISED
As the search continued, a dramatic recording of a coast guard commander angrily ordering Schettino to return to the ship to direct rescue operations has transfixed Italy and made a media hero out of the straight-talking coast guard captain Gregorio De Falco.
"Thank you captain," wrote the daily Corriere della Sera newspaper in a front page editorial which said that De Falco's energetic and decisive words were as a wider call to a sense of personal responsibility in Italy.
Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.
He has denied the charges and told magistrates on Tuesday he believed he should be credited with saving "hundreds, if not thousands" of lives because he brought the ship close to shore after it hit a rock, lawyer Bruno Leporatti said.
Video taken from a rescue helicopter in the early hours of Saturday, using a night vision camera, showed an extraordinary scene of dozens of passengers being gingerly lowered on ropes down the upturned hull of the ship into rescue boats.
The ship foundered after striking a rock as dinner was being served on Friday night. The owners say the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders, who included a retired Italian admiral. Investigators say it was within 150 meters of shore.
Most of the passengers and crew survived despite hours of chaos and confusion after the collision. The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.
(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene, Silvia Aloisi, Kate Hudson and Catherine Hornby, Writing by Barry Moody and Philip Pullella; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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