As 10,000 watch, opera giants battle to draw

MUNICH, Germany (AP) ? It's a question that has long prompted heated arguments among devoted opera fans: Who was the greater composer, Richard Wagner or Giuseppe Verdi?

Both were born exactly 200 years ago, and so in this year of their bicentennials, the Bavarian State Opera decided to settle the question once and for all. Sort of.

Even though the two men never met in real life, they came face to face on Friday night in the form of giant puppets wearing boxing gloves, cheered on by a crowd estimated by police at nearly 10,000 spectators in Max Joseph Platz next to the National Theater.

The puppets ? Verdi in top hat and Wagner wearing a beret ? were the centerpieces of an extravaganza featuring more than three dozen aerial acrobats, fireworks, a chorus line and two wind orchestras and two brass bands totaling about 240 musicians.

The show was one of a series of free events being organized in the square as part of the annual Munich Opera Festival, which runs to the end of July. It was staged by La Fura dels Baus, a maverick theatrical troupe from Barcelona that has also created opera productions for the company.

After introductory music by local composer Moritz Eggert, the puppets, who had marched through town followed by crowds of admirers, launched into a heated debate over who was superior. Wagner claimed the intellectual advantage, while Verdi insisted that people responded more to the emotion in his melodies.

The hour-long performance then became a back-and-forth contest of greatest hits, the puppets all the while changing colors from purple to red to green to yellow. At one point, the "Entrance of the Guests" from Wagner's "Tannhaeuser" was rudely interrupted by the "Triumphal March" from "Aida." And Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" was similarly obliterated by the "Dies Irae" from Verdi's "Requiem."

During the "Wedding March" from "Lohengrin," Wagner sprouted a bridal veil and a bouquet of flowers. When the band played "Va Pensiero," the famous chorus of Hebrew slaves from Verdi's "Nabucco," many in the crowd sang along to words flashed on a giant screen.

At the end, the voice of Euterpe, muse of musical art and poetry, announced that the contest was a tie and proposed transplanting Verdi's heart into Wagner and Wagner's brain into Verdi. Perhaps disappointingly, the two puppets never came to actual blows.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-000-watch-opera-giants-battle-draw-102725419.html

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Did a bird bring down F-16?

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) ? The pilots flying an F-16 fighter jet that went down near Luke Air Force Base in suburban Phoenix reported hitting a bird shortly after takeoff, the Air Force general who commands their base said Thursday.

The two pilots, who were practicing landings and takeoffs at the base Wednesday evening, ejected safely and the fighter crashed in a farm field near the base.

"Shortly before the accident the pilot reported a bird strike," Brig. Gen. Mike Rothstein told reporters at the base 15 miles west of Phoenix.

The plane had just taken off when the pilots reported hitting a bird and the engine in the plane malfunctioned, 56th Operations Group commander Col. John Hanna said. They had little time to react.

"It sounds like they did a good job, the airplane didn't hit anybody or anything and they both survived with what I know is no injuries," Hanna told The Associated Press. "It's about as good as it gets when you have any kind of accident where you destroy an airplane."

Base spokeswoman Lt. Candice Dillitte said there's nothing to indicate a fleet-wide problem with the jets, but the Air Force will investigate the cause. The Air Force has more than 1,000 of the single-engine fighters.

The base, 15 miles west of Phoenix in Glendale, is the world's largest F-16 pilot training base and had 138 F-16s before Wednesday's crash. An instructor and a student were flying the jet that crashed.

The base is getting ready to transition to the military's new F-35 fighter. The Air Force announced Thursday it would receive three additional squadrons, bringing the total to 144 within about 10 years. The first plane is set to arrive next spring.

Witnesses said they heard the jet's engine sputtering and popping just before the plane went down. Photos posted on Twitter showed civilians helping two male pilots alongside a freshly plowed field.

Rothstein said the fact that the jet came down in farmland wasn't an accident. Glendale and other nearly cities have worked with the state to maintain open space around the base despite the rapid urbanization of the area.

Any engine problem shortly after takeoff is extremely dangerous and the pilots needed to react quickly, Hanna said.

"Certainly low altitude ejections are some of the more harrowing things that can happen, because you're close to the ground and a lot of things have to happen in a hurry in order for all of the ejection process to occur successfully," Hanna said. "You end up on the ground, able to stand, gather your gear and walk to the nearest pickup truck that's got some water sitting in it. So this worked out pretty well."

Bird strikes can severely damage jet engines. US Airways Flight 1549 lost both engines shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport after hitting birds in January 2009 but landed safely on the Hudson River.

An inspector general's audit last year criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for not doing enough to stop bird strikes. The report cited a five-fold increase in bird strikes over the last two decades, from 1,770 reported in 1990 to 9,840 reported in 2011, due in part to growing bird populations. The strikes have led to at least 24 deaths and 235 injuries in the United States since 1988.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bird-may-brought-down-f-16-arizona-192912803.html

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How the Dow Jones industrial average did Thursday

Encouraging news about the U.S. economy sent the stock market to its third straight gain Thursday.

Consumer spending rose last month as incomes increased, claims for unemployment benefits fell last week and the number of pending home sales jumped in May to the highest level in more than six years. Investors were also encouraged after the yield on the 10-year Treasury note stabilized below 2.50 percent after surging earlier in the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 114.35 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,024.49.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 9.94 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,613.20.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 25.64 points, or 0.8 percent, to 3,401.86.

For the week so far:

The Dow is up 225.09 points, or 1.5 percent.

The S&P 500 is up 20.77 points, or 1.3 percent.

The Nasdaq composite is up 44.61 points, or 1.3 percent.

For the year so far:

The Dow is up 1,920.35 points, or 14.7 percent.

The S&P 500 is up 187.01 points, or 13.1 percent.

The Nasdaq composite is up 382.35 points, or 12.7 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dow-jones-industrial-average-did-215644889.html

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Android Apps of the Week: WiFiKill Downloader, Imgur, and More

This week was a little light on Android app quantity, but the quality of the ones we do have for you is pretty fantastic. Perhaps not entirely, well, 100% ethical in a certain WiFiKiller's case?but fantastic nonetheless.

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Imgur: Imgur, everyone's favorite super simple image hosting site, finally has an app. And it's certainly taken them long enough. You can do virtually everything you'd be doing on the web: browse images, comment, upload, and manage your account. It's simple, easy, and everything you already love about imgur. [Free]

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WiFiKill Downloader: Although this has the potential to be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands (re: any hands that aren't your own), it can also be an invaluable one if used wisely. Essentially, you'll be holding the power to take away anyone's WiFi on the network you're currently on. So if you're hanging out in a public hotspot and you notice that things seem to be lagging a little more than you'd?er?prefer, you can take matters into your own hands. Just try not to be a jerk. [Free/Pro version with donation]

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Bike Doctor: For the beginning (or even experienced) cyclist, making your own bike repairs can seem like a daunting task. Most bike repair guides you'll find around the ol' internet can be complicated labyrinths of instruction that end up doing more harm than good. But taking your wheels to a pro can come with a major price tag. Bike Doctor wants to give you the knowledge you need to save a trip to the shop?but in an easy, digestible form that's useful to all walks of the bicycle world. [$5]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/android-apps-of-the-week-wifikill-downloader-and-more-613531459

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A woman for the Governor?s Mansion (Offthekuff)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315320260?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Swell Launches A Personalized App For News Radio Listening

Swell, a new app launching today, is quickly becoming my favorite way to listen to spoken-word content. There are other apps focusing on that kind of content ? for example, when we wrote about Stitcher's growth last year, we said it was starting to sound like "the Pandora of talk radio." Stitcher, however, actually follows more of an on-demand model ? you choose what you want to listen to (although there are also content recommendations). Swell, on the other hand, is closer to the Pandora experience, where you just open the app, hit play, and interesting content should immediately start streaming.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4141EHh6YYc/

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Simple two-drug combination proves effective in reducing risk of stroke

June 26, 2013 ? Results of a Phase III clinical trial showed that a simple drug regimen of two anti-clotting drugs -- clopidogrel and aspirin -- lowered the risk of stroke by almost one-third, compared to the standard therapy of aspirin alone, when given to patients who had minor or transient stroke symptoms to prevent subsequent attacks.

Described this week in the New England Journal of Medicine (July 4, 2013 print issue), the clinical trial was conducted at multiple sites in China and designed in partnership with a physician at UC San Francisco.

The trial involved 5,170 people who were hospitalized after suffering minor ischemic strokes or stroke-like events known as transient ischemic attacks, or TIAs, in which blood flow to the brain is briefly blocked. All patients were randomized into two groups and treated for three months with either aspirin alone or aspirin plus clopidogrel, which is marketed as Plavix. The three-month period following stroke is considered the most critical for medical intervention.

Overall, 8.2 percent of patients taking both drugs suffered subsequent strokes in the three months of follow-up compared to 11.7 percent of patients taking aspirin alone.

"The results were striking," said S. Claiborne Johnston, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology and associate vice chancellor of research at UCSF who was a senior author on the study.

The Chinese trial, called CHANCE (Clopidogrel in High-risk Patients with Acute Non-disabling Cerebrovascular Events), is nearly identical to a National Institutes of Health-sponsored trial that is already enrolling patients in the United States, including at UCSF, called POINT (Platelet-Oriented Inhibition in New TIA and Minor Ischemic Stroke).

"If POINT confirms CHANCE, then we're done -- the two-drug combination becomes the standard of care," said Johnston. "Anybody with a transient ischemic attack or minor stroke will get clopidogrel plus aspirin."

The POINT trial is important, said Johnston, because genetics, risk factors, and medical practice differences could all lead to differences in trial results in China compared to other countries. Johnston is the principal investigator of the POINT trial.

Stroke in China and the United States

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.

More than 795,000 people in the United States have strokes every year, and, in 2008 alone, some 133,000 cases were fatal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 300,000 people in the United States have TIAs each year.

Many strokes are minor -- shorter in duration than a full-blown stroke and usually have no lingering health impacts. In China, for instance, about 3 million new strokes occur every year, and about 30 percent of them are minor.

The protocol for the CHANCE trial was developed by Johnston and colleagues at Tiantan Hospital in China. The lead author of the study was Yongjun Wang, MD, of Beijing Tiantan Hospital.

China has many times more people who have strokes every year than the United States because of the size of the population and higher stroke rates, which allowed investigators to screen 41,561 patients in just three years at the 114 clinical sites, and enroll 5,170 patients in the trial.

Increased Risk of Subsequent Stroke

The reason for minor attacks is much the same as a full-blown stroke: a blood clot causes a blockage in the blood vessels that feed oxygen-rich blood to the brain. But in patients with TIAs and many minor strokes, the clot quickly goes away, usually in a few minutes, due to the natural mechanisms in the human body that are designed to deal with such clots.

However, in the weeks following a TIA or minor stroke, there is great risk that another clot will form, causing additional strokes -- potentially major ones. About 10 to 20 percent of people who have a TIA or minor stroke go on to have a subsequent stroke within three months.

Because of this risk, the first 90 days after a stroke or TIA is the most critical window for medical intervention. Currently, people who have minor strokes or TIAs are initially treated with aspirin alone. The purpose of the CHANCE trial was to determine whether clopidogrel with aspirin was more effective than aspirin alone in this intervention.

The drugs basically work the same way. They are "antiplatelet" agents, which target clotting agents found in the bloodstream know as platelets, preventing their aggregation. The combination is used commonly in patients who have heart attacks, but there has been no adequate clinical data to suggest it would work in stroke.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/df9E4AC9RSc/130626184021.htm

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