The Republican presidential field may be smaller, with Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry recently dropping out, but that?s not stopping the fireworks on the campaign trail ahead of South Carolina?s primary on Saturday. NBC?s Chuck Todd takes a look at what may be next.
Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46069572/
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LOS ANGELES ? One of the world's smallest surviving babies was discharged Friday from the hospital where she spent nearly five months in an incubator ? but not before getting the Hollywood treatment.
Wearing a pink knit hat and wrapped in a pink princess blanket, Melinda Star Guido was greeted by a mob of television cameras and news photographers outside the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
"I'm just happy that she's doing well," said her 22-year-old mother Haydee Ibarra. "I'm happy that I'm finally going to take her home ... I'm just grateful."
Melinda was born on August 30 weighing just 9 1/2 ounces, less than a can of soda. She was so tiny that she fit into her doctor's hand. Melinda is believed to be the world's third-smallest surviving baby and second smallest in the U.S.
Now weighing 4 1/2 pounds and breathing through an oxygen tube as a precaution, doctors said Melinda has made enough progress to go home. Her brain scan was normal and her eyes were developing well. She also passed a hearing test and a car seat test that's required of premature babies before discharge.
It's too early to know how she will do developmentally and physically, but doctors planned to monitor her for the next six years.
"I am cautiously optimistic that the baby will do well, but again there is no guarantee," said Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan, who oversees preemies at the hospital.
Most babies as small don't survive even with advanced medical care. About 7,500 babies are born each year in the U.S. weighing less than 1 pound, and about 10 percent survive.
Melinda has come a long way since being delivered by cesarean section at 24 weeks after her mother developed high blood pressure during pregnancy, which can be dangerous for mother and fetus.
She was whisked to the neonatal intensive care unit where she breathed with the help of a machine and received nutrition through a feeding tube. Infants born before 37 weeks are considered premature.
Even after discharge, such extremely premature babies require constant care at home. Their lungs are not fully developed and they may need oxygen at home. Parents also need to watch out for risk of infections that could send infants back to the hospital. Even basic activities like feeding can be challenging.
"They may need extra help and patience while they learn to eat," Dr. Edward Bell, a pediatrician of the University of Iowa who runs an online database of the world's smallest surviving babies born weighing less than a pound.
The list features 130 babies dating back to 1936 and does not represent all survivors since submission is voluntary. Melinda was not eligible to be included until she was discharged.
Two years ago, Bell published a study in the journal Pediatrics that found many survivors have ongoing health and learning concerns. Most also remain short and underweight for their age.
There are some rare success stories. The smallest surviving baby born weighing 9.2 ounces is now a healthy 7-year-old and another who weighed 9.9 ounces at birth is an honors college student studying psychology, according to doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois where the girls were born.
Soon after birth, Melinda was treated for an eye disorder that's common in premature babies and underwent surgery to close an artery. Ibarra held Melinda for the first time after the operation in November. Her parents said the toughest part was battling traffic after work every day to see their daughter.
___
Online:
Registry: http://www.healthcare.uiowa.edu/tiniestbabies
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WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD?? A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al-Qaida was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said.
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U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone on Jan. 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.
That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas and are a key weapon in President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.
The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al-Qaida, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.
Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the U.S. official said he was.
Suspected US drone kills 4 militants in PakistanOne of the sources described Awan as an associate of al-Qaida's current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public.
"Aslam Awan was a senior al-Qaida external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaida's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians," a U.S. official told NBC News.
Several previous alleged chiefs of external operations for al-Qaida have been caught or killed in drone attacks or counter-terrorism operations, the most notorious being Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. Mohammed was captured and is being held by U.S. authorities in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility.
Because their role in arranging operations involves interacting with militants in the field, external operations chiefs of al-Qaida have found themselves more vulnerable to exposure and counter-attacks by security forces than the movement's most senior leaders, who until bin Laden's demise last year appeared to be able to move about the region and issue provocative audio and video messages with near-impunity.
A Pakistani security source based in the country's border region said that Awan was the remaining member of an al-Qaida cell Pakistani authorities have been trying to roll up since 2008.
"We thought he was very close to Ayman al-Zawahiri," the source said, referring to al-Qaida's current leader and bin Laden's long-time deputy, a former Egyptian doctor.
However, a U.S. source said that American experts did not believe that Awan was particularly close to al-Zawahiri.
Photos document alleged US drone strike victims in PakistanThe drone strike that targeted Awan was one of two such attacks last week, in what U.S. sources indicated was a resumption of the U.S. drone campaign following the eight-week pause. In the other drone strike, also in North Waziristan, a group of "foreign fighters" sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida, some of Uzbek ethnicity, were targeted on January 12.
The targeted militants were believed to be travelling, possibly in preparation for an operation near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, and some were injured or killed in the attack, the U.S. source said.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm news reports, based on claims from Pakistani sources, that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the TTP, Pakistan's most potent domestic affiliate of the Taliban movement, was also killed in the June 12 attack. Pakistani and U.S. sources said that Mehsud was not targeted in the drone strike, and one Pakistani source said: "He is alive. Hakimullah is alive."
Story: Pakistan crisis: PM appears before top court in contempt caseU.S. officials insisted that the drone strike lull did not represent an official moratorium on such operations by the Obama administration. The officials maintained that any fall-off in the pace of such operations was related to the availability of intelligence and operating conditions, such as weather.
However, some officials did privately acknowledge that the drone lull was at least in part calculated to try to improve strained relations between Washington and Islamabad, which had been on a downswing for much of last year in the wake of Pakistan's detention of a CIA operative and the secret U.S. commando raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout.
Relations plummeted to a new low following a late November incident in which 24 Pakistani troops were killed accidentally in a NATO aerial attack on border outposts.
Some U.S. and Pakistani officials say that both governments are making efforts to improve relations. As part of this process, a U.S. official said, it is possible that some permanent tweaks could be made in the U.S. drone program which could slow the pace of attacks.
NBC News and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46063325/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
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In this Jan. 18, 2012 photo, a real estate sign is displayed in front of a home in Little Rock, Ark. Home sales rose in December to the highest pace in nearly a year. The gain coincides with other signs that show the troubled housing market improved at the end of last year. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
In this Jan. 18, 2012 photo, a real estate sign is displayed in front of a home in Little Rock, Ark. Home sales rose in December to the highest pace in nearly a year. The gain coincides with other signs that show the troubled housing market improved at the end of last year. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Home sales in December reached their highest pace in nearly a year. The gain coincided with other signs that the troubled housing market improved at the end of last year.
Analysts cautioned that sales remain historically low and that it will take years for the home market to return to full health.
Still, the third straight monthly sales increase was encouraging. And economists noted that conditions are in place for further gains this year:
Prices have declined. Mortgage rates have never been lower. Homebuilders are slightly more hopeful because more people are saying they might be open to buying this year. And home construction picked up in the final quarter of last year.
"There's no denying that home sales are still very low and will remain low for a few years," said Paul Dales, an economist with Capital Economics. "But after having risen in each of the last three months ... it is clear that a housing recovery is now well under way."
Sales of previously occupied homes rose 5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.61 million in December, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. It's the best level since January 2011.
For all of 2011, sales totaled only 4.26 million. That's up slightly from 4.19 million in the previous year. But it's far below the 6 million that economists equate with healthy housing markets. In 2005, at the peak of the boom, 7.1 million homes were sold.
Hiring has improved, which is critical to a housing rebound. Fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week than at any time in nearly four years, evidence of far fewer layoffs. The unemployment rate fell in December to its lowest level in nearly three years.
"With layoffs slowing sharply, hiring rising and consumers' confidence rebounding, the pre-conditions for a sustained recovery are falling into place," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "Sales and starts will keep rising; prices should stabilize, more or less."
The median sales price of a previously occupied home ticked up 0.3 percent from November to December to $164,500.
The supply of homes has declined, though it's still historically high at 2.38 million. At last month's sales pace, it would take nearly seven months to clear those homes.
If the supply continues to fall, prices could rise, more sellers would put homes on the market and more people would likely consider buying, said Pierre Ellis, an analyst at Decision Economics.
Still, the industry appears years away from fully recovering from its bust four years ago. Since the bubble burst, sales have slumped under the weight of foreclosures, tighter credit and falling prices.
Fewer first-time buyers, who are critical to a recovery, are in the market for a home. Purchases among that group fell last month to just 31 percent of sales. That's down from 35 percent in November. In healthy markets, first-time buyers make up at least 40 percent.
Homes at risk of foreclosure made up a third of sales last month. In strong markets, they make up only about 10 percent of sales.
And many deals are collapsing before they close. One-third of Realtors say they've had at least one contract scuttled in December, November or October. That's up from 18 percent in September.
Among the reasons why contracts have been canceled: Banks have declined mortgage applications. Home inspectors have found problems. Appraisals showed that a home was worth less than the bid. Or a buyer suffered a financial setback before the closing.
Still, sales rose across the country in December. They rose on a seasonal basis by more than 10 percent in the Northeast, 8.3 percent in the Midwest, 2.9 percent in the South and 2.6 percent in the West.
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My Dad used to take me to Long's Bookstore on the OSU campus when I was young - I'd say this was during the 1980s and very early 1990s although in my mind these afternoons spent on campus are tinged with a 1970s wash out of color, as if I were remembering my time in Kansas before Oz. We'd rumble through the stacks, picking out used titles from the basement that were beaten and worn by years of the students' buy/read/return-for-a-pittance cycle so common at universities. Most of the books there were, obviously, but Long's stocked quite a bit of ephemera including my favorite Mad Magazine digests and sci-fi. Long's is now a Barnes & Noble, its handsome neon sign taken down during a massive restructuring of OSU's student core. Most of the old book stores are gone. The local head shop, Monkey's Retreat, turned into a Taoist center. Long's and its competitor, the University Book Exchange, are gone. Even Larry's, where I went to poetry readings as a petulant high-schooler is gone. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, they paved paradise and put up a Quizno's.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ktwF743cmu4/
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PHILADELPHIA ? Investigators pleaded Tuesday for witnesses to come forward and searched for surveillance footage of the men who beat to death a young man they apparently thought was yelling at them ? not at the taxi that wouldn't give him and his friends a lift in the city's historic district.
Police are seeking four men and offering a reward in the beating of recent college graduate Kevin Kless, 23, early Saturday after he shouted at the cab while he, his girlfriend and a female friend looked for a ride after leaving a bar, authorities said.
Three men got out of a car behind the cab and started kicking and punching Kless, who fell to the sidewalk, severely injured. The men, who have not been found or identified, may have been acting on the mistaken belief that Kless was yelling at them, according to police.
Police are also seeking the driver of the car, believed to be a maroon sedan.
Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman, said officers were re-interviewing Kless' companions, whose identities were not disclosed, and are trying to find other pedestrians who may have been around at the time.
They are looking for any good surveillance video of the attack, which might have been caught by cameras at stores or other businesses nearby. The attack took place near the historic Second Bank of the United States, not far from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, in an area home to many bars and restaurants that are popular hangouts for young adults.
"We're just pleading with anybody," Little said. "Any leads at this point would be helpful."
The city and the Fraternal Order of Police announced a combined $15,000 in reward money for arrests and convictions, and Mayor Michael Nutter took to Twitter to condemn the killing: "Encourage ANYONE who knows or saw anything about this incident to give us info, we need to catch these people, asap!"
The attack was the latest in a string of killings in the City of Brotherly Love, where there have been 20 homicides so far in 2012, up from 12 at the same point last year. Last week, a 30-year-old man with a long arrest record was charged with gunning down a carload of seven teenagers who had been feuding with his stepsons. Three of the boys died.
Investigators have little information in Kless' killing, which happened as he tried to stop the cab a few blocks from Lucy's Hat Shop, a bar that he and his friends had just left.
When the cab stopped, police said, Kless got in a conversation with the cab driver, who then drove off. The suspects, who were in a car behind the cab, apparently thought Kless was yelling at them, according to police. Three of them got out and began beating Kless.
Kless, a May 2010 graduate of Temple University who had studied risk management, had recently returned to the city to work at an insurance firm after spending time working in Harrisburg.
The youngest of three brothers, he grew up in Warwick, N.Y., and spent his whole life there before going to college in Philadelphia, said his mother, Kendall Kless.
"Kev was returning to Philly with this job and thrilled to be back among his friends," said Kless, who described her son as a very social person with a huge circle of friends who have been offering condolences. "It's what is holding us up right now."
One of Kless' professors described him as a good student and a pleasant and easygoing person who was rising in his field.
"He was a good, solid ambassador for our program," said R.B. Drennan, associate professor and chairman of Temple's Department of Risk, Insurance and Health Care Management. "He was well on his way."
His mother said Kless, who had a knack for making people laugh, dreamt of making an impact on the world.
"If anything has come from this that I didn't realize was how loved his was," she said. "He made everybody laugh. He made everybody happy."
There are simply no answers to explain a killing that can only be described as senseless, Kless said.
"There is no sense in it," she said. "There is nothing that makes sense about this."
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