For a glimpse of how financial markets may view the deal by Congress to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling, Renee Montagne speaks to HSBC's chief U.S. economist Kevin Logan.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
The last-minute move by Congress that reopened the federal government and raised the debt ceiling has brought some relief to the markets. Stocks are mixed in Asia, but some investors are already worrying about the prospects of another fiscal showdown in Washington early next year, saying Congress is merely kicking the can down the road.
Joining us now is Kevin Logan. He is the chief U.S. economist at the banking giant HSBC. Good morning.
KEVIN LOGAN: Good morning.
MONTAGNE: How relieved are investors with the deal that was made, after all, at the 11th hour?
LOGAN: Well, they're quite relieved, particularly investors in the Treasury market. That's where all the risk was, whether or not the U.S. Treasury would actually default or delay payment on some of its obligations. I think away from the Treasury market, it wasn't quite as much an anxiety. We saw that in the stock market, for example. Gains slowed down, but by and large the market held in. And then there was a small relief rally once the deal was struck.
But the big relief, the big change within the Treasury market, were particularly the short-term securities that were due to mature in the next month or so. Those, which had sold off severely, rallied once the deal was made.
MONTAGNE: Well, when you talk about that market - in fact, you are talking about, in a way, the whole world, certainly world leaders were urging the U.S. Congress and the president to make some kind of deal, you know, saying that the U.S. cannot, if it came to that, default on its debt. And China - now China holds something like $1.3 trillion in American public debt. How has this whole thing affected China?
LOGAN: Well, it certainly made them start to think about the safety and security of their international reserve holdings. China has, over the last two decades, been driven by their economic growth, they've been driven by exports to a large extent. They've run current account surpluses that have piled up quite a treasure trove of international reserves. The place they invest most of those are in U.S. government securities, the deepest, most liquid and most easily transacted market in the world. Now they have to think a little bit more about the risk of that market in a way that they hadn't before.
MONTAGNE: Which, of course, would not necessarily be good for the U.S. I mean, China - there was a point at which coming out of China were calls for the international community to move away from the dollar.
LOGAN: Well, yes. Right now we have international monetary arrangements that are based on the relative strength and the quality of the financial markets in different economies. And over time it's shifted. We know that early in the last century it was U.K. with sterling. More recently, the evolution and development of the euro provided a substitute for the dollar and sterling. Things will keep changing over time. Certainly the emergence of China as a strong and potentially dominant economic power will eventually lead to changes in global monetary arrangements. This little episode we've just been through is probably just one more step on the way of making people think about how these changes will take place in the future.
MONTAGNE: Let's get back to regular folks here in the United States. The housing market took a hit momentarily. What do you think this deal will do for that and just largely such things as interest rates?
LOGAN: Well, the main thing is the end of the government shutdown. Housing was bothered by all of this because the processing of loans was slowed down. A lot of loans depend upon FHA approvals or paperwork that might go through to forming the mortgage pools that are backed by Fannie May or Freddie Mac, and all the uncertainty about the government shutdown delayed all of that processing and so held up mortgages that people might get. Hopefully the backlog will be cleared quickly, and the housing market will return to normal.
MONTAGNE: Kevin Logan is chief U.S. economist at HSBC. Thank you very much for joining us.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
File - in this file photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006 gangs of illegal miners dig for diamonds in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe. The wealth enjoyed by just a few comes, at least in part, from the vast Marange diamond field that was exposed by an earth tremor in 2006. The Marange deposit is the biggest diamond field found in Africa for a century, estimated to be worth some billions of dollars, but as most Zimbabweans remain mired in poverty, questions are being asked about where all the money went and who benefited. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, FILE)
File - in this file photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006 gangs of illegal miners dig for diamonds in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe. The wealth enjoyed by just a few comes, at least in part, from the vast Marange diamond field that was exposed by an earth tremor in 2006. The Marange deposit is the biggest diamond field found in Africa for a century, estimated to be worth some billions of dollars, but as most Zimbabweans remain mired in poverty, questions are being asked about where all the money went and who benefited. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, FILE)
FILE - in this file photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006, illegal miners dig for diamonds in Marange, Zimbabwe. The wealth enjoyed by just a few comes, at least in part, from the vast Marange diamond field that was exposed by an earth tremor in 2006. The Marange deposit is the biggest diamond field found in Africa for a century, estimated to be worth some billions of dollars, but as most Zimbabweans remain mired in poverty, questions are being asked about where all the money went and who benefited. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, FILE)
File - in this file photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006, gangs of illegal miners dig for diamonds in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe. The wealth enjoyed by just a few comes, at least in part, from the vast Marange diamond field that was exposed by an earth tremor in 2006. The Marange deposit is the biggest diamond field found in Africa for a century, estimated to be worth some billions of dollars, but as most Zimbabweans remain mired in poverty, questions are being asked about where all the money went and who benefited. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, FILE)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Despite living in an impoverished country under sanctions, some in Zimbabwe seem awash in money, judging by the Mercedes-Benzes parked at a country club and the private woodland estate with artificial lake and mansion built by the nation's police chief.
The wealth enjoyed by just a few comes, at least in part, from the vast Marange diamond field that was exposed by an earth tremor in 2006. The deposit in eastern Zimbabwe is the biggest diamond field found in Africa for a century, worth billions of dollars.
Now, as most Zimbabweans remain mired in poverty, with government coffers short on funds to build and maintain the nation's roads, clinics, utility services and schools, questions are being asked as to where all the money went and who benefited.
A recent bipartisan parliamentary investigation concluded that tens of millions of dollars in diamond earnings are missing from 2012 alone. The lawmakers who wrote the unprecedented and unusually candid report said their "worst fears were confirmed" by evidence of "underhand dealings" and diamond smuggling since 2009.
In a speech opening parliament on Sept. 17, President Robert Mugabe took the rare step of accusing one top mining official and ruling party loyalist of accepting a $6 million bribe from Ghanaian investors to obtain diamond mining rights in Marange. Mugabe said Godwills Masimirembwa took the bribe when he was head of the state Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation which is in charge of mining concessions.
Masimirembwa quit that post to contest the July 31 national election as a candidate for Mugabe's ZANU-PF party but failed to win a parliament seat. Masimirembwa denies any wrongdoing.
The parliamentary report and a human rights group say diamond mining has led to serious human rights abuses and that diamond concessions were awarded by government officials to enrich top members of the ZANU-PF party, of the security forces and Chinese allies.
In declaring his innocence, Masimirembwa said the purported deal with the Ghanaian investors was discussed with national Police Chief Augustine Chihuri and then Mines Minister Obert Mpofu, a longtime business associate of Masimirembwa who is also one of the nation's wealthiest businessmen.
Chihuri and Mpofu have frequently insisted in the state media that their wealth comes from legitimate business empires to make up for poor salaries paid for full-time government duties.
Expected revenues from the Marange diamond fields have scarcely materialized.
Former Zimbabwe Finance Minister Tendai Biti says he was promised $600 million for economic and development projects from diamond revenues last year but only received $41 million. Nothing was paid into the national treasury up to the disputed July elections that the ZANU-PF won, a vote result that caused the end of a coalition government with the MDC party that Biti belonged to, and the loss of his Cabinet seat.
Some $2 billion in Zimbabwe's diamond revenues have been unaccounted for since 2008, according to Global Witness, which campaigns against natural resource-related conflict and corruption and associated environmental and human rights abuses. Zimbabwe is the world's fourth-largest diamond miner, producing an estimated 17 million carats this year, according to the Kimberley Process which is charged with ensuring that gems reaching world markets don't bear the taint of being "blood diamonds." Marange diamonds have been declared conflict free.
But controversy and secrecy have swirled around Marange since the earth opened up and exposed its riches.
The discovery lured thousands of impoverished Zimbabweans to dig in the alluvial deposit. In 2008, the Zimbabwean army sealed off the 60,000 hectare (130,000 acre) area to take control of the mining. At least 200 people died in a mass expulsion of people living in the closed area, Global Witness and other rights groups have alleged.
Chinese construction contractors built an airfield at the Marange diamond fields. Executive planes arrive there and at a bonded warehouse alongside the runway at Harare's main airport, without traceable flight plans or having to go through customs and immigration formalities, say commercial pilots who say they have complained of the irregularities to aviation authorities. They insisted on anonymity because of fears for their safety.
Some are living high from diamond deals.
As children begged in the street a block away, Zimbabwean diamond company executives accompanied by elegant young women arrived at a popular Harare nightclub last year, ordered drinks for about 120 patrons and picked up the $ 4,000 tab, said a person who witnessed the scene and who demanded anonymity to prevent reprisals.
The identities of owners, directors and shareholders in diamond enterprises have never been officially disclosed, though the Zimbabwe Republic Police Trust, a business enterprise of the police force, is publicly listed as holding a 20 percent stake in the Ghanaian diamond investment project.
The parliamentary panel's report said powerful officials, politicians and police and army commanders repeatedly tried to thwart the probe into diamond dealings. The chairman of the 22-member panel, Edward Chindori-Chininga, a former Mugabe mines minister, died in a car crash just days after he signed the report in June.
Police said Chindori-Chininga's death was accidental and that his car had veered off the highway and slammed into trees.
Car wrecks or mysterious accidents have taken the lives of 12 senior politicians, all of whom were believed to have bucked official policy, in the past two decades, according to local press reports.
The parliamentary committee's report said several officials lied while giving evidence under subpoena and that diamond earnings are not only shielded from scrutiny but are not channeled into the state coffers. It said the Marange fields in particular are a no-go area, shrouded in secrecy and deception. The mining companies don't even buy food or services from surrounding communities, the report said.
Mugabe's government and ZANU-PF have repeatedly denied diamond revenues have been siphoned off.
But Global Witness says otherwise.
"Our research has exposed links between Zimbabwe's two largest diamond mining companies and the Zimbabwean military and other ZANU-PF insiders," said Emily Armistead, senior campaigner for Global Witness.
"It is not clear where the money is going," she added. "It appears there is a mixture of corruption enriching specific individuals and some funds going to security operations. Our concern is that it could be used to fund repression and human rights abuses."
The difficulty with monitoring diamond earnings lies in the "opaque" way the mining enterprises were formed and financed, said Zimbabwean economist John Robertson. Information on their expenditure, profits and staff levels have not been divulged, he said.
"You are not allowed to know what is going on and if you need to know that amounts to attempted espionage," Robertson said.
So far, no legal action has been taken against Masimirembwa, the man accused by Mugabe.
And despite widespread reports since September in the Zimbabwean press that other top political and military figures would likely be exposed, so far none has.
Amazon just announced its latest tablets are available for pre-order in the UK and Canada. While the updated Kindle Fire HD will begin shipping in both countries on October 24th, Canadian customers will have to wait until November 26th, almost two weeks later than their UK counterparts, to get their ...
People look at what scientists believe to be a chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteor, recovered from Chebarkul Lake near Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow.
Alexander Firsov/AP
People look at what scientists believe to be a chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteor, recovered from Chebarkul Lake near Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow.
"Live footage showed a team pull out a 1.5-metre-long (five-foot-long) rock from the lake after first wrapping it in a special covering and placing it on a metal sheet while it was still underwater.
"The fragment was then pulled ashore and placed on top of a scale for weighing, an operation that quickly went wrong.
"The rock broke up into at least three large pieces as it was lifted from the ground with the help of levers and ropes.
"Then the scale itself broke, the moment it hit the 570kg (1,255lb) mark."
It may take a while for the rock to be certified as coming from space but the curator of meteorites at London's Natural History Museum tells the BBC, the rock has all the markings of a meteorite.
RIA Novosti, the official state news agency of Russia, quotes Viktor Grokhovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences' meteorite commission, which examined other fragments, as saying: "It's a typical meteorite, judging by its appearance – [I'm] 105 percent [sure]. There's no doubt about that, [it has] a thick melted crust, while dents reveal typical structures of the Chelyabinsk meteorite."
Blood pressure drugs shown to decrease risk of Alzheimer's disease dementia
Public release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: John Lazarou jlazaro1@jhmi.edu 410-502-8902 Johns Hopkins Medicine
A Johns Hopkins-led analysis of data previously gathered on more than 3,000 elderly Americans strongly suggests that taking certain blood pressure medications to control blood pressure may reduce the risk of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD).
In a report published in a recent edition of the journal Neurology, a team of researchers found that people over the age of 75 with normal cognition who used diuretics, angiotensin-1 receptor blockers (ARBs) and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors showed a reduced risk of AD dementia by at least 50 percent. In addition, diuretics were associated with 50 percent reduced risk in those in the group with mild cognitive impairment.
Beta blockers and calcium channel blockers did not show a link to reduced risk, the scientists reported.
"Identifying new pharmacological treatments to prevent or delay the onset of AD dementia is critical given the dearth of effective interventions to date," says the author, Sevil Yasar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our study was able to replicate previous findings, however, we were also able to show that the beneficial effect of these blood pressure medications are maybe in addition to blood pressure control, and could help clinicians in selecting an antihypertensive medication based not only on blood pressure control, but also on additional benefits."
Alzheimer's disease is a rapidly increasing clinical and public health issue in the United States' aging population, and the most common cause of intellectual and social decline.
Yasar and her colleagues conducted a "post-hoc" analysis of information gathered originally in the so-called Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory Study (GEMS) study, a six-year effort to determine if use of the herb ginkgo biloba reduced AD risk. That study , a double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial of 3,069 adults without dementia, aged between 75 and 96 years, began in 2000 and recruited participants from four U.S. cities: Hagerstown, Md.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Winston-Salem/Greensboro, N.C.; and Sacramento, Calif.
Yasar said that while the GEMS trial showed no benefit of ginkgo biloba in reducing incidence of dementia, information was also available among the study participants related to their use of several classes of antihypertensive drugs. Extensive studies suggest that high blood pressure is a major risk factor for dementias including AD, and there had been suggestions that drugs used to control blood pressure conferred a protective effect on the brain in addition to controlling blood pressure.
The question, she said, was which ones were associated with reduced AD dementia risk, and which were not.
Yasar and colleagues looked at 2,248 of the GEMS subjects, of them 351 reported use of a diuretic, 140 use of ARBs, 324 use of ACE inhibitors, 333 use of calcium channel blockers and 457 use of beta blockers. The average age of this group was 78.7 years, and 47 percent were women.
"We were able to confirm previous suggestions of a protective effect of some of these medicines not only in participants with normal cognition, but also in those with mild cognitive impairment," says Yasar.
"Additionally, we were also able to assess the possible role of elevated systolic blood pressure in AD dementia by placing those within each medication group in categories above and below systolic blood pressures of 140 mmHg, the standard cut-off reading for a diagnosis of hypertension," she said.
Yasar cautioned that the analysis had its limitations, owing mostly to the fact that the data collected by the GEMS trial were not gathered to directly measure the effect of the drugs, and by the fact that it was impossible to tell with certainty how well each group of participants complied with their drug treatments. Nor did the research team have information on subjects' use of drugs prior to the study period.
But, she said, "the consistent pattern we saw of reduced risk of AD dementia associated with these medications warrants further studies, including the use of brain imaging, to better understand the biologic basis of these associations." Such studies, she added, "could lead to identification of new pharmacologic targets for preventive interventions to slow cognitive decline and possibly delay progression of AD dementia."
###
Other Johns Hopkins investigators who authored the study include Jin Xia, M.S.; Wenliang Yao, Ph.D.; Qian-Li Xue, Ph.D.; and Michelle C. Carlson, Ph.D. Additional researchers include Curt D. Furberg, M.D., Ph.D.; Carla I. Mercado, Ph.D.; Annette L. Fitzpatrick, Ph.D.; Linda P. Fried, M.D.; Claudia H. Kawas, M.D.; Kaycee M. Sink, M.D.; Jeff D. Williamson, M.D.; and Steven T. DeKosky, M.D. The research team included scientists from Wake Forest School of Medicine (Winston-Salem, N.C.), University of Washington (Seattle, Wash.), Columbia University (New York, N.Y.), University of California, Irvine (Irvine, Calif.), University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.).
The study was supported by the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) Study; the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM); the Office of Dietary Supplements; the National Institute on Aging; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer's Disease Research Center; and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Yasar has been funded by NIH and received research support from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Nathan Shock Memorial Fund, the drug company Sanofi and families of grateful patients. She served as a consultant for the Charles River Company.
On the Web:
Johns Hopkins Department of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
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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.
Blood pressure drugs shown to decrease risk of Alzheimer's disease dementia
Public release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: John Lazarou jlazaro1@jhmi.edu 410-502-8902 Johns Hopkins Medicine
A Johns Hopkins-led analysis of data previously gathered on more than 3,000 elderly Americans strongly suggests that taking certain blood pressure medications to control blood pressure may reduce the risk of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD).
In a report published in a recent edition of the journal Neurology, a team of researchers found that people over the age of 75 with normal cognition who used diuretics, angiotensin-1 receptor blockers (ARBs) and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors showed a reduced risk of AD dementia by at least 50 percent. In addition, diuretics were associated with 50 percent reduced risk in those in the group with mild cognitive impairment.
Beta blockers and calcium channel blockers did not show a link to reduced risk, the scientists reported.
"Identifying new pharmacological treatments to prevent or delay the onset of AD dementia is critical given the dearth of effective interventions to date," says the author, Sevil Yasar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our study was able to replicate previous findings, however, we were also able to show that the beneficial effect of these blood pressure medications are maybe in addition to blood pressure control, and could help clinicians in selecting an antihypertensive medication based not only on blood pressure control, but also on additional benefits."
Alzheimer's disease is a rapidly increasing clinical and public health issue in the United States' aging population, and the most common cause of intellectual and social decline.
Yasar and her colleagues conducted a "post-hoc" analysis of information gathered originally in the so-called Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory Study (GEMS) study, a six-year effort to determine if use of the herb ginkgo biloba reduced AD risk. That study , a double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial of 3,069 adults without dementia, aged between 75 and 96 years, began in 2000 and recruited participants from four U.S. cities: Hagerstown, Md.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Winston-Salem/Greensboro, N.C.; and Sacramento, Calif.
Yasar said that while the GEMS trial showed no benefit of ginkgo biloba in reducing incidence of dementia, information was also available among the study participants related to their use of several classes of antihypertensive drugs. Extensive studies suggest that high blood pressure is a major risk factor for dementias including AD, and there had been suggestions that drugs used to control blood pressure conferred a protective effect on the brain in addition to controlling blood pressure.
The question, she said, was which ones were associated with reduced AD dementia risk, and which were not.
Yasar and colleagues looked at 2,248 of the GEMS subjects, of them 351 reported use of a diuretic, 140 use of ARBs, 324 use of ACE inhibitors, 333 use of calcium channel blockers and 457 use of beta blockers. The average age of this group was 78.7 years, and 47 percent were women.
"We were able to confirm previous suggestions of a protective effect of some of these medicines not only in participants with normal cognition, but also in those with mild cognitive impairment," says Yasar.
"Additionally, we were also able to assess the possible role of elevated systolic blood pressure in AD dementia by placing those within each medication group in categories above and below systolic blood pressures of 140 mmHg, the standard cut-off reading for a diagnosis of hypertension," she said.
Yasar cautioned that the analysis had its limitations, owing mostly to the fact that the data collected by the GEMS trial were not gathered to directly measure the effect of the drugs, and by the fact that it was impossible to tell with certainty how well each group of participants complied with their drug treatments. Nor did the research team have information on subjects' use of drugs prior to the study period.
But, she said, "the consistent pattern we saw of reduced risk of AD dementia associated with these medications warrants further studies, including the use of brain imaging, to better understand the biologic basis of these associations." Such studies, she added, "could lead to identification of new pharmacologic targets for preventive interventions to slow cognitive decline and possibly delay progression of AD dementia."
###
Other Johns Hopkins investigators who authored the study include Jin Xia, M.S.; Wenliang Yao, Ph.D.; Qian-Li Xue, Ph.D.; and Michelle C. Carlson, Ph.D. Additional researchers include Curt D. Furberg, M.D., Ph.D.; Carla I. Mercado, Ph.D.; Annette L. Fitzpatrick, Ph.D.; Linda P. Fried, M.D.; Claudia H. Kawas, M.D.; Kaycee M. Sink, M.D.; Jeff D. Williamson, M.D.; and Steven T. DeKosky, M.D. The research team included scientists from Wake Forest School of Medicine (Winston-Salem, N.C.), University of Washington (Seattle, Wash.), Columbia University (New York, N.Y.), University of California, Irvine (Irvine, Calif.), University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.).
The study was supported by the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) Study; the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM); the Office of Dietary Supplements; the National Institute on Aging; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer's Disease Research Center; and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Yasar has been funded by NIH and received research support from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Nathan Shock Memorial Fund, the drug company Sanofi and families of grateful patients. She served as a consultant for the Charles River Company.
On the Web:
Johns Hopkins Department of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
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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.
Like Zac Efron in the trailer for That Awkward Moment, there are a handful of legendary rock stars rockin' out with their c**ks out tonight!
Today Cleveland's Rock Hall nominated 16 talented bands and artists, including Nirvana & LL Cool J, and five of them will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014!
Oooh, what an honor! Fans can apparently vote online to choose their favorites!!!
Other AH-Mazing talents nominated include KISS, Hall & Oates, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, N.W.A., Deep Purple, & The Replacements!
OMG!!! Rappers, rockers, John Oates' amazeballz mustache — what a wonderfully diverse group!!
Hillary Clinton accepted the Elton John AIDS Foundation's first-ever Founder's Award at the organization's annual benefit in New York on Tuesday night.
Although she was honored by the accolade, Clinton echoed a theme expressed by many of the stars in attendance: that there's much more work to be done to combat the disease.
"We still have so far to go," the former secretary of state said in her acceptance speech. "There are so many challenges that confront us. If we are to continue to build on the progress, and yes, there has been progress, then we have to continue to advocate and demand for governments, international organizations, foundations, all of us, to be persistent…and ensure that we don't falter."
"If we're going to beat AIDS, we have to reach out to everyone," she added.
Elton John also received an award at Tuesday's gala, from the Harvard AIDS Initiative.
"I really hope that all of you will join me in being equally stubborn when it comes to ending AIDS because that is what will be required to end this epidemic," he told the well-heeled crowd at Cipriani Wall Street in lower Manhattan. "We're going to have to stubbornly insist on full funding for all proven methods of preventing HIV infection…Treatment for everyone. Treatment for all…We're going to have to keep yelling and screaming about the way our country treats racial and sexual minorities and, of course, the poor. We're going to have to be downright stubborn, not just this year, not next year, not the next, but for many years to come."
Indeed, John vowed to be stubborn about AIDS for the next 20 years if necessary, but he said he doesn't think it will take that long to achieve an AIDS-free generation and world.
Nevertheless, John added, "We have so much more work to do and we'll be there until the bitter end."
Other honorees at the event, which raised $3.45 million, included Food Network star Sandra Lee, John's longtime agent Howard Rose and mogul Ron Perelman, who prompted cheers from the crowd when he referred to Clinton as "the next president of the United States." Clinton looked nonchalant when the camera cut to her, but after Perelman continued to sing her praises and said the highly rumored candidate has his vote, Clinton could be seen mouthing "Oh my God," as if she couldn't believe all of the attention.
Matt Lauer was a last-minute substitute host at the event after Anderson Cooper had to go to Washington to cover the debt-ceiling crisis, which Lauer joked "sounded like a lame-ass excuse."
Earlier, The Hollywood Reporter asked Lauer what the entertainment industry could do to continue to raise awareness of AIDS and combat the disease.
"Talk, talk, talk, spread the word, get out there, come to events like this and raise money," Lauer said. "I mean, when you stop and think about what Elton has done in 20 years…a lot of it is something you can't put a price tag on, it's just a discussion and getting out there and putting his reputation on line and spreading the word that way."
Tony-winning actress Judith Light echoed Lauer's call for a continued dialogue on the issue.
"We did and we do so much in terms of the awareness, and I don't think it's just the entertainment industry that has to do something, I think it's about those of us who are committed to this issue and have been committed to this issue for a long time, talking to other people and finding ways, just like Elton has, to make it a prominent issue again, to say to people, 'This is not over,' " she said.
The former Who's the Boss star, who's performed on Broadway for the past few years, told us that she recently starred in a pilot for Amazon, making her just the latest actor to join the Internet revolution.
Meanwhile, fellow Broadway alum Jeremy Jordan, who left his starring role in Newsies after he joined the second-season cast of NBC's now-canceled Smash, said he misses the stage and hopes to "come back as soon as possible." In fact, he's doing a weeklong Stephen Sondheim show in November called A Bed and a Chair.
"It's only a week, and it's not Broadway, but it will be nice to come back to New York for a hot sec," he said.
Other celebs in attendance included Billy Joel, Alec Baldwin, Allison Williams, Courtney Love, Lisa Marie Presley and rock band Heart, who performed at the end of the night.
Amazon just announced its latest tablets are available for pre-order in the UK and Canada. While the updated Kindle Fire HD will begin shipping in both countries on October 24th, Canadian customers will have to wait until November 26th, almost two weeks later than their UK counterparts, to get their ...
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