It had to happen, people: The Lego Movie is coming with its own set of never-before-seen minifigs. It includes William Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln, which are two of my favorite minifigs in history already. These, like the rest of these minifig series, will become collector items.
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Returning to her Disney roots, former Mouseketeer Britney Spears donned a Snow White costume for Halloween and seven of her dancers played her seven dwarves in a cute Instagram shot.
PHOTOS: 2013 celebrity Halloween costumes
While Spears, 31, went all out with a wig and sexier take on the iconic princess' blue, red, and yellow dress, the dancers merely wore beanie hats with the dwarves names on them.
PHOTOS: Britney Spears and other divas with demands
It's surprising the group had time to pose for a picture at all. Spears' eighth studio album, Britney Jean, hits stores on Dec. 3 and the Grammy-winning pop star is currently preparing for a Las Vegas residency starting on Dec. 27.
PHOTOS: Britney Spears and Kevin Federline and other quick celebrity engagements
Spears' latest single and music video, "Work Bitch" caused plenty of buzz and features the crooner in sexy ensembles with plenty of dance moves.
Tell Us: What do you think of Britney's Snow White outfit?
TORONTO (AP) — Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
Police said they did not have enough evidence to file charges against the mayor, who had claimed the video didn't exist and vowed not to resign, repeating the pledge Thursday.
Voters could have the final word on the strange career of the populist mayor whose travails have captivated and embarrassed Canadians for months. Ford has promised to run for a second term next year.
"I have no reason to resign," Ford told reporters with a smile, as his office welcomed visitors to check out its Halloween decorations Thursday.
The embattled mayor, who has been the butt of jokes on U.S. late night television, said he couldn't defend himself because the affair is part of a criminal investigation involving an associate, adding: "That's all I can say right now."
Ford faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a glass crack pipe. Two reporters with the Toronto Star said they saw the video, but it has not been released publicly. Ford maintained he does not smoke crack and that the video did not exist.
Ford was elected mayor three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs. Since then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on conflict-of-interest charges and has appeared in the news for his increasingly odd behavior.
But the pressure ramped up on Thursday with all four major dailies in the city calling on Ford to resign.
Cheri DiNovo, a member of Ontario's parliament, tweeted: "Ford video nothing to celebrate Addiction is illness. Mayor please step down and get help?"
Police Chief Bill Blair said the video, recovered after being deleted from a computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges against Ford.
Blair said the video of the mayor "depicts images that are consistent with those previously reported in the press."
"As a citizen of Toronto I'm disappointed," Blair said. "This is a traumatic issue for citizens of this city and the reputation of this city."
Blair said the video will come out when Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug charges. Lisi now also faces extortion charges for trying to retrieve the recording from an unidentified person. Blair did not say who owned the computer containing the video.
Blair said authorities believed the video is linked to a home in Toronto, referred to by a confidential informant as a "crack house" in court documents in Lisi's drug case.
The prosecutor in the Lisi case released documents Thursday showing they had rummaged through Ford's garbage in search of evidence of drug use. They show that they conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring the mayor and Lisi following drug use allegations.
The documents show that friends and former staffers of Ford were concerned that Lisi was "fuelling" the Toronto mayor's alleged drug use.
The police documents, ordered released by a judge, show Ford receiving packages from Lisi on several occasions.
"Lisi approached the driver's side of the Mayor's vehicle with a small white gift bag in hand; he then walked around to the passenger side and got on board," reads one document dated July 30, 2013. "After a few minutes Lisi exited the Escalade empty handed and walked back to his Range Rover."
Another dated July 28 says Lisi "constantly used counter surveillance techniques" when he met with Ford that day.
On August 13 documents say Lisi and Ford met and "made their way into a secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour."
Ford recently vouched for Lisi in a separate criminal case, praising his leadership skills and hard work in a letter filed with the court. The letter was part of a report prepared by a probation officer after Lisi was convicted of threatening to kill a woman.
Ford said previously that he was shocked when Lisi was arrested earlier this month, calling him a "good guy" and saying he doesn't abandon his friends.
The documents also say that Ford met Lisi through Payman Aboodowleh, a volunteer football coach at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coached the team while also serving as mayor. He told police he was "mad at Lisi because he was fuelling the mayor's drug abuse," the document says.
Ford's controversies range from the trivial to the serious: Walking face-first into a TV camera. Falling down during a photo op while pretending to play football. Being asked to leave an event for wounded war vets because he appeared intoxicated, according to the Toronto Star. Being forced to admit he was busted for marijuana possession in Florida in 1999, after repeated denials. Making rude gestures at Torontonians from his car.
"The mayor has said there wasn't a video," Toronto councilor Paula Fletcher said. "He has said there is a conspiracy against him. With Chief's Blair's press conference I think that's put to rest."
Councilor Joe Mihevc said he continues to be shocked by the "depth and revelations that are coming out."
"The mayor has to come clean and do it as soon as possible," Mihevc said. "He needs to talk honestly about his use of illicit drugs."
The Oct. 31 Deal of the Day is the Qmadix S Series Cover for Motorola Droid MAXX. This hard case features a hard polycarbonate outer shell and a shock absorbent TPU underneath for double the protection against impacts. The back of the S Series Case has a glossy finish while the sides provide softer edging for a comfortable grip. Comes in black, red and white.
The Qmadix S Series Cover is available for just $14.49, 42% off today only. Backed by our 60-day return policy and fast shipping.
Check out our entire selection of Motorola Droid MAXX cases at ShopAndroid.com!
Canada Deal of the Day
Today Only: $7.95 + Buy One Get One Free!
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Mika Ono
mikaono@scripps.edu
858-784-2052
Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CAOctober 31, 2013Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope proteinlong considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new findings provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing viruss complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits; but weve needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine, said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI, and a senior author of the new research with biologists Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings are published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, currently infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and perhaps ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIVs envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
Envs structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for the atomic-resolution imaging necessary to understand it.
It tends to fall apart, for example, even when its on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable, said Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRIs Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
Illuminating Infection
In the current work the Weill Cornell-TSRI team was able to engineer a version of the Env trimer (three-component structure) that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all the structures found on native Env.
Using cutting-edge imaging methods, electron microscopy (spearheaded by graduate student Dmitry Lyumkis) and X-ray crystallography (led by Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson lab), the team was then able to look at the new Env trimer. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
It has been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps team on this project, said Moore on behalf of the Weill Cornell group. Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies an effective vaccine is going to need.
###
Other contributors to the studies, Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, and Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, included TSRIs Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Medical Colleges Rogier W. Sanders (also at Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam), Albert Cupo and Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, CHAVI-ID UM1 AI100663, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the US NIH NIGMS Biomedical Research Technology Program (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium and Center.
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Mika Ono
mikaono@scripps.edu
858-784-2052
Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CAOctober 31, 2013Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope proteinlong considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new findings provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing viruss complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits; but weve needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine, said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI, and a senior author of the new research with biologists Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings are published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, currently infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and perhaps ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIVs envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
Envs structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for the atomic-resolution imaging necessary to understand it.
It tends to fall apart, for example, even when its on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable, said Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRIs Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
Illuminating Infection
In the current work the Weill Cornell-TSRI team was able to engineer a version of the Env trimer (three-component structure) that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all the structures found on native Env.
Using cutting-edge imaging methods, electron microscopy (spearheaded by graduate student Dmitry Lyumkis) and X-ray crystallography (led by Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson lab), the team was then able to look at the new Env trimer. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
It has been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps team on this project, said Moore on behalf of the Weill Cornell group. Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies an effective vaccine is going to need.
###
Other contributors to the studies, Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, and Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, included TSRIs Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Medical Colleges Rogier W. Sanders (also at Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam), Albert Cupo and Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, CHAVI-ID UM1 AI100663, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the US NIH NIGMS Biomedical Research Technology Program (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium and Center.
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — As cannons thundered and mortar shells exploded nearby, the young Syrian woman in a slinky dark dress and stylish bob performed a song by pop star Adele, taking refuge behind a microphone from the civil war raging outside.
Performing with a guitarist at a cafe in the heart of the historic Old Town of Damascus, Reem Khunsar lost herself in the lyrics. About a failed love, they also struck a chord closer to home: "Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"
While most people in the Syrian capital lock themselves fearfully in their homes at night, young Syrians dressed in tight jeans and designer clothes go wild at the handful of clubs still operating in a city once renowned for its nightlife.
"The war can't stop life," declared Oday Al-Khayyatt, as he took in the music scene at the Roma cafe. "You hear bad news in Syria, dangers, war and death. But in our reality, we are still alive."
Such revelries show the human side of a conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people as the Syrian civil war grinds into its third year.
The Damascus nightclub scene often gets mentioned by the Syrian state news agency SANA on its English-language Twitter feed, drawing ridicule from observers outside the country. But people still brave the dangers to come to the cafes to take their mind off what is happening.
At the Roma Cafe, couples smiled as they danced on the black-and-white checkered dance floor. Some smoked flavored tobacco from water pipes. Women, some in big hair and low-cut dresses and others wearing headscarves, chatted as they mingled by the bar. There were no liquor bottles in sight, though some patrons were able to buy alcohol.
"There is a big difference between now and before the war," conceded Titar Sahinian, another young singer. "People are afraid to come out of their houses ... but they still come.
"Of course, it's all devastating. We can't pretend that nothing is happening. But at the same time we can't stop living," she said.
As she spoke, the sound of government cannons pounding rebels just a few miles away echoed down the stone walls of the ancient quarter. Nearby, so-called Popular Committees, local hard-line militiamen brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, threw up impromptu roadblocks, searching cars for bombs.
They also kept a close watch on the young revelers, many of whom said they believe the militiamen, die-hard supporters of President Bashar Assad and his embattled government, don't approve of the Damascus nightlife.
"We were afraid of being attacked" by the popular committee militiamen, Roma cafe owner Rami Dahbour said. "We were threatened once. But nothing happened, and we are no longer affected by the threat."
Several mortars launched from rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus have rained down near the cafe. Still, the singing goes on.
Khunsar said she feels like she is giving hope to the people who come to listen.
"Here in Syria we have not given up," she said. "We hope that everything will go back to where it was before."
As she threw herself into the Metallica classic, "Nothing Else Matters," those in the cafe joined in: "Life is ours and we live it our way, I don't just say, and nothing else matters."
___
Associated Press writers Darko Bandic and Dusan Vranic contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrians-lose-themselves-music-war-rages-184727305.htmlEmployees of Google, Oracle and Red Hat have joined the U.S. government's effort to fix the ailing HeathCare.gov, officials said Thursday.
"Dozens" of workers have come aboard the project in recent days, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HealthCare.gov, where U.S. residents without health insurance are supposed to be able to shop for coverage, has been plagued with slow load times, time outs and other problems since its Oct. 1 launch.
[ Also on InfoWorld: How federal cronies built -- and botched -- Healthcare.gov. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]
The site was also down overnight Wednesday and during part of last weekend. The site was up since Thursday morning and seeing significant traffic, said Julie Bataille, director of the CMS Office of Communications.
Asked exactly how many people have come aboard in recent days, Bataille would only give "dozens" as an answer to reporters during a press briefing Thursday. Experts in site reliability and scalability, including a site stability expert from Google, have come to the project, she said.
The dozens of additions, including federal workers and contractors, are supplementing the existing teams working on the site, she said.
Outsiders coming to help fix the website are being paid by contractors, Bataille said.
CMS has confidence that the team in place will be able to meet a Nov. 30 goal set by HHS officials to have the site working smoothly for the large majority of users, Bataille added. "We believe that we have the right team in place that is going to enable us to meet that timeline," she said.
HHS has so far committed about US$630 million to the HealthCare.gov project, Bataille said.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is grant_gross@idg.com.
