| McCain to Obama: Make Afghan decision now

McCain-to-Obama:-Make-Afghan-decision-now WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain is exhorting President Barack Obama to make a decision quickly on sending additional troops to Afghanistan, saying U.S allies are nervous and military commanders are frustrated.

McCain said in a nationally broadcast interview Wednesday that the war policy in Afghanistan has been reviewed time and again and that its now time to act.

Interviewed on CBSs The Early Show, the Arizona Republican said the drawn-out decision-making process on Afghanistan is not helpful to our effort in the wartorn nation.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama would announce his next step in the coming weeks, a phrase he has used before.

In a speech, meanwhile, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz said U.S. policy should be centered on building up local pockets and not on devising a strong central government that never has been part of Afghanistans history.

We have allowed our position to morph into creating a country that hasnt existed before, Shultz said Tuesday at a seminar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a liberal leaning Washington think tank.

- | McCain to Obama: Make Afghan decision now |

| Fed says economy perked up from depressed levels

Fed-says-economy-perked-up-from-depressed-levels

WASHINGTON –
U.S. economic conditions stabilized or improved modestly in most parts of the country, according to a Federal Reserve report on Wednesday that suggested the economy was slowly clawing out of a recession.

In its "Beige Book" of anecdotal reports on the economy, the Fed noted improvement in two of the hardest hit areas -- residential real estate and manufacturing.

"Reports from the 12 Federal Reserve districts indicated either stabilization or modest improvements in many sectors since the last report, albeit often from depressed levels," the Fed said in its report, which was prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond based on information collected before October 13.

"Reports of gains in economic activity generally outnumber declines, but virtually every reference to improvement was qualified as either small or scattered."

U.S. stocks stayed at higher levels after the report was released, while prices for government debt remained lower, as did the U.S. dollar.

Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets, said the tone of the Fed's report was "tentatively" more positive than the prior one, which was released on September 9.

"Not super-duper-jumping-up-and-down-with-great-excitement positive, but slightly more optimistic than seen in recent reports," she said.

The central bank gave a grim assessment of commercial real estate, which is widely seen as one of the big remaining trouble spots for the still-struggling financial sector.

"The weakest sector was commercial real estate, with conditions described as either weak or deteriorating across all districts," the Fed said.

A number of the regional Fed banks said businesses in their area did not expect commercial real estate to improve much, if at all in, in 2010.

"Tenants are demanding significant concessions -- including space improvements and one- to two-year leasing commitments -- along with low rental rates," the Boston Fed reported.

THOSE WALL STREET BONUSES

Labor markets were typically characterized as weak or mixed, although there were "occasional pockets of improvement." That assessment supported the view that the worst of the job losses are over, but it may be a while before growth resumes.

The Atlanta Fed said many employers "indicated that they were holding on to the most skilled workers, but have reduced overall hours. They feel that a sustained increase in orders and sales is a prerequisite to adding to payrolls."

Despite all the recent talk about huge bonuses at Wall Street firms, the New York Fed heard from one of its contacts that times were getting tougher for top-tier bankers.

"Compensation -- especially cash compensation -- has reportedly fallen sharply, and is expected to fall further during the remainder of the year and into 2010, most notably for the top earners in the industry," the New York Fed said.

The report said the "cash for clunkers" auto sales incentive program left depleted inventories and slower sales in its wake. Overall spending remained weak in most districts, although "some improvements" were noted.

In residential real estate, which was at the heart of the credit crisis that sparked the recession, the government's $8,000 first-time homebuyers' tax credit helped to lift sales of low- to middle-priced houses, the Fed said. However, residential construction activity remained weak in most districts.

Measures of discretionary and business spending were a mixed bag. In New York City, retail sales showed improvement, particularly for one unnamed higher-end department store.

Broadway theaters report that attendance picked up somewhat in September and early October but remained slightly lower than a year earlier.

In North Carolina, a contact on the Outer Banks, a popular vacation spot, indicated that bookings for the Columbus Day holiday weekend were somewhat stronger than a year ago, which she attributed to "visitors being a little more positive."

And in the Boston Fed's region, business travel was especially soft, and one contact worried that decreased corporate travel and spending will become "the new norm."

- | Fed says economy perked up from depressed levels |

| DuPont cuts costs boosts profits in third quarter

DuPont-cuts-costs,-boosts-profits-in-third-quarter DOVER, Del. -DuPont offset falling sales and prices using cost cuts and reported larger third-quarter profits Tuesday.
All major chemical makers, including Wilmington-based DuPont Co., were hit first by soaring crude and energy costs last year, and then plummeting sales both in the U.S. and abroad. Cutting expenses has become a priority for the industry and DuPont said reduced spending by $900 million so far this year, just short of its full-year goal of $1 billion.
Costs have since fallen, 12 percent for DuPont during the third quarter, and could be as much as 6 percent lower by the end of the year, the company said.
That led to a surprise profit of $409 million, or 45 cents per share, for the quarter ending Sept. 30, compared to $367 million, or 40 cents per share, in last years third quarter, which included a hurricane-related charge of 16 cents per share.
The results easily beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of 33 cents a share.
Still, revenue fell to $6.1 billion from $7.4 billion during the same period last year.
We see overall sequential improvement in our industrial businesses as market conditions begin to firm, CEO Ellen Kullman said. With a more streamlined organization, permanent fixed cost reductions, and increased productivity, DuPont is well-positioned to capitalize as markets improve.
The company revised its full year earnings outlook to a range of $1.95 to $2.05 per share, excluding significant items, narrowing toward the upper range its previous forecast of $1.70 to $2.10.
DuPont said it expects demand to improve in key markets and said it will benefit from lower raw material costs and currency exchange rates in the fourth quarter.
For the most recent quarter, however, the company again saw double-digit volume declines in four of its five business units, with the agriculture and nutrition unit again being the exception. Volumes were down in all markets, with the largest declines in the U.S., Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Continued weakness in motor vehicle markets contributed to sales declines in the performance materials and coatings and color technologies units.
Sales of $1.2 billion in the agriculture and nutrition unit were off 5 percent and the unit reported a pretax loss of $113 million.
Dupont shares closed at $34.62 Monday. - | DuPont cuts costs boosts profits in third quarter |

| Vaccine for cocaine habit? May be coming soon

Vaccine-for-cocaine-habit?-May-be-coming-soon CHICAGO - A simple shot could be the latest tool in curbing cocaine abusers habits, says new research. The vaccine-like shot not only kept them from getting high but also helped them fight their addiction, showed the first successful rigorous study of this approach to treating illicit drug use.

The shots didnt work perfectly, but the researchers say their limited success is promising enough to suggest the intriguing vaccine approach could be widely used to treat addiction within several years.

It is such an important study. It clearly demonstrates ... that it is possible to generate vaccine that could interfere with cocaine actions in the brain, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study.

The results come just days after that government agency announced plans for the first late-stage study of an experimental nicotine vaccine designed to help people quit smoking. The NicVAX vaccine has been fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration, and the research will be paid for with federal stimulus money.

The cocaine and nicotine vaccines both use the same approach, stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies that attach to molecules of the drugs and block them from reaching the brain.

2 million cocaine abusers nationwide
In the new study, cocaine-fighting antibodies helped prevent users from getting a euphoric high and led nearly 40 percent of them to substantially cut back or stop cocaine use at least temporarily.

With more than 2 million cocaine abusers nationwide and no federally approved treatment, the results are good enough — better than having nothing, said lead author Dr. Thomas Kosten of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He developed the vaccine used in the study.

The study appears in Octobers Archives of General Psychiatry, released Monday.

Volkow said the research exemplifies a transformative perspective on drug addiction.

By targeting it as a medical disease as opposed to a moral dilemma, were likely to come up with solutions that have a much longer impact, she said.

The research involved 115 cocaine abusers also addicted to heroin who sought methadone treatment at a New Haven, Conn. clinic. Methadone treats heroin addiction, not cocaine, but it requires repeat clinic visits. That made it easier for the researchers to work with and track the cocaine abusers, Kosten said.

Over 12 weeks, nearly all participants got five shots of cocaine vaccine or a dummy substance. They were followed for an additional 12 weeks. All participants also attended weekly relapse-prevention therapy sessions, had their blood tested for antibodies and their urine tested for cocaine and heroin.

Overall, 21 vaccine patients — 38 percent — developed cocaine antibody levels high enough to prevent a cocaine high. In this group, 53 percent stopped using cocaine more than half the time during the study, versus 23 percent of those with lower antibody levels.

Despite the limited success, the results are exciting and show that the vaccine approach is a good one, said Dr. Kyle Kampman, a University of Pennsylvania addiction researcher who was not involved in the study.

We need novel approaches because cocaine dependence is a disease that has been very difficult to treat, Kampman said.

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Legal © 2009 MSNBC.com - | Vaccine for cocaine habit? May be coming soon |

| Boaters missing for a week rescued at sea

Boaters-missing-for-a-week-rescued-at-sea PORT ARANSAS, Texas - Three Texas boaters missing for a week were reunited with their families early Sunday after they were found alive, sitting on top of their capsized catamaran 180 miles from land, the Coast Guard said.

The crew of the Affordable Fantasy spotted the men Saturday night off Port Aransas and rescued them from their 23-foot catamaran, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Renee Aiello. A Coast Guard boat met them and brought them back to land, where emergency management services crews were waiting for them. They declined medical attention.

They were identified as Curtis Hall, 28, of Palacios; Tressel Hawkins, 43, of Markham; and James Phillips, 30, of Blessing, who owned the boat.

The three were reported missing Aug. 22 after they left Matagorda, about 90 miles southwest of Houston, on a fishing trip and never returned. Port Aransas is about 130 miles from Matagorda.

Awakened by water coming in
The three went to sleep that Friday night and were awakened by water coming in, said Shane Phillips, whose husband, James, was relaxing Sunday with his five children.

They tried to start the pumps to get the water out, she told the Houston Chronicle. They would not start.

They fired off three flares hoping to get the attention of workers at a nearby oil rig, but no one responded. The boat capsized that night.

The Coast Guard officials said they survived because they stuck with the boat. The men also rationed bubble gum and crackers and used a hose to suck fresh water out of the internal washdown tank. Fishermen often keep such a tank to wash fish slime off their boat when they are out in the salt water.

Its not the cleanest, not the greatest and it tasted like diesel, Shane Phillips told the newspaper.

Search called off Friday
The Coast Guard had called off its search Friday after scouring 86,000 square miles of water without finding them.

Its like finding a needle in a haystack out in the Gulf of Mexico, Aiello said late Saturday. Its obvious they had a will to survive, and they did it for seven days.

Halls fiancee, Rebecca Kern, said it was difficult to describe her emotions.

Its just been a roller coaster of emotions all week, the not knowing, getting upset and fearing for them out there. We werent going to give up, she said. We knew they were out there on that boat and we had to bring them home.

- | Boaters missing for a week rescued at sea |

| NASA telescope discovers giant ring around Saturn

NASA-telescope-discovers-giant-ring-around-Saturn

PASADENA, Calif. – The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced late Tuesday.

The thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planets main ring plane, the laboratory said.

JPL spokeswoman Whitney Clavin said the ring is very diffuse and doesnt reflect much visible light but the infrared Spitzer telescope was able to detect it.

Although the ring dust is very cold — minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit — it shines with thermal radiation.

No one had looked at its location with an infrared instrument until now, Clavin said.

The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million miles from the planet and extends outward about another 7.4 million miles.

The newly found ring is so huge it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it, JPL said.

Before the discovery Saturn was known to have seven main rings named A through E and several faint unnamed rings.

A paper on the discovery was to be published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

This is one supersized ring, said one of the authors, Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Her co-authors are Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, College Park, and Michael Skrutskie, also of the University of Virginia.

Saturns moon Phoebe orbits within the ring and is believed to be the source of the material.

The ring also may answer the riddle of another moon, Iapetus, which has a bright side and a very dark side.

The ring circles in the same direction as Phoebe, while Iapetus, the other rings and most of Saturns other moons go the opposite way. Scientists think material from the outer ring moves inward and slams into Iapetus.

Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturns outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus, said Hamilton. This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship.

The Spitzer mission, launched in 2003, is managed by JPL in Pasadena. Spitzer is 66 million miles from Earth in orbit around the sun.

- | NASA telescope discovers giant ring around Saturn |

| Picnic time! Bittman’s beet salad panzanella

Picnic-time!-Bittman’s-beet-salad,-panzanella Preparing snacks for alfresco eating shouldnt take all day. “How to Cook Everything” author Mark Bittman offers these simple yet tasty picnic recipes to help you get out of the kitchen and into the sunshine.

PanzanellaMark Bittman - | Picnic time! Bittman’s beet salad panzanella |

| Church ordains sex offender as minister

Church-ordains-sex-offender-as-minister LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A tiny Louisville churchs newest minister is a gifted music leader and popular among its three dozen members.

Mark Hourigan is also a sex offender. Almost a decade ago, long before he joined the flock at the City of Refuge Worship Center, he was convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in central Kentucky. Hourigan served a five-year sentence and the 41-year-old was placed on Kentuckys sex offender registry for the rest of his life.

A former leader at the church along with an abuse victims advocacy group say Hourigan is a risk to hurt another child and he should not have been placed in a position of authority.

Hes still a threat to children, said Cal Pfeiffer, who was abused by a Catholic priest as a young student in Louisville in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Pfeiffer and experts on religion and sexual abuse believe it could be the first time a convicted sex offender has been knowingly ordained as a minister in a Christian church.

It sets a precedent, said Pfeiffer, a member of a group that has protested Hourigans ordination. It elevates him to an ordained minister which almost automatically conveys a level of trust and responsibility.

The churchs pastor, the Rev. Randy Meadows, ordained Hourigan during a service on Sept. 13. The self-described Pentecostal church, started by Meadows and a handful of other members six years ago, welcomes anyone regardless of race, religion, culture sexual orientation, according to its Web site. It also has a Sunday school for children.

Keeping mum
Meadows declined several requests from The Associated Press for an interview, but said in a brief phone conversation that the church has not experienced any backlash based on the decision to ordain a convicted pedophile.

Were just finished with the whole ordeal with everything, so were moving on, Meadows said.

There was no phone listing for Hourigan and no one answered the door during a reporters two visits to the apartment listed on Hourigans sex offender registration.

Church members arent talking about it, either. Several calls to members listed on the churchs Web site were not returned; people outside the church declined to comment to reporters during two visits to the church as services were beginning or ending.

But a pastor and friend to Meadows who attended Hourigans ordination said the churchs board gave Meadows and Hourigan its full support.

It was a really beautiful ceremony, said the Rev. Aletha Fields, a high school teacher and gay-rights activist. The sanctuary was full because there were people from out of town.

Fields, who sometimes serves as a guest pastor, said she asked Meadows about why he decided to make Hourigan a church leader.

I asked him flat out about it because I wanted to get behind his thinking, she said. Meadows believes firmly in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, and told her Hourigan had served his prison term and completed probation.

I believe they followed Biblical principle, Fields said.

An illness that you cant cure
One of the churchs founders, Kevin Pickerrell, said he left last year over plans to ordain Hourigan. He said Meadows assured church members that Hourigan wouldnt minister to children, but Pickerrell continued to balk at the idea of ordaining Hourigan.

Pickerrell said Meadows believed that Hourigan had been reformed.

He tried to convince me that Mark had changed, Pickerrell said of Meadows.

Hourigan said in an interview with CNN in September that wants to minister to others like him who have been rejected. Hourigan said he has learned not to put himself in situations where he might be tempted and to seek counsel when hes having emotional problems ... so it doesnt turn into something that it has in the past.

Pickerrell said Hourigan has an illness that you cant cure.

Recidivism rates are high for sex offenders, with more than half reoffending, said Keith F. Durkin, a criminologist at Ohio Northern University who has studied pedophiles. He said that rate increases when the crimes involve prepubescent children, like Hourigans victim.

I cannot possibly see him being reformed, Durkin said. is the most powerful drive we have as a human and its kids.

Anybody can be healed
Pickerrell said Hourigan was a wonderful music leader at the church and was well-liked when Pickerrell attended services. But he and Pfeiffer said they worry that Hourigan can present himself as a minister to strangers who dont know his past.

Hourigan was arrested on one count each of first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse in Marion County, Ky., in 1998, according to court records. An indictment said the abuses occurred between 1993 and 1994. Hourigan pleaded guilty a year later to two counts of sexual abuse. The terms of Hourigans parole, which he completed in June 2008, included an order that he not serve in any leadership capacity at a church with youths.

Pfeiffers group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests , sent a letter to the church but Pfeiffer said members have not responded.

Pastor Meadows, as a Pentecostal, may hold a strong belief in the healing power of the Holy Spirit, which could explain why he believes Hourigan can be reformed, experts said.

They believe absolutely anybody can be healed of absolutely anything, no exceptions, said Paul Alexander, a professor of Theology and Ethics at Azusa Pacific University in California.

Meadows told CNN that Hourigans faith has helped him reform, but he pledged to monitor the former sex offender closely.

I dont take anything lightly when it comes to someones past, Meadows said.

- | Church ordains sex offender as minister |