U.S. Franciscan friars go digital, accept prayer requests via text

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The largest group of Franciscan friars in the United States is offering the faithful a new way to pray in the digital age by accepting prayer requests via text messages.

The Friars of Holy Name Province, who staff 40 parishes and have colleges, soup kitchens and food centers along the eastern seaboard, as well as groups in Peru and Tokyo, are among a few religious groups offering this type of digital service.

Its “Text a Prayer Intention to a Franciscan Friar” initiative, which is described as faith at your fingertips, is a novel way for Roman Catholics to connect.

“People are always saying to friars, ‘Can you say a prayer for me?’ Or ‘Can you remember my mother who has cancer?’” Father David Convertino, the New York-based executive director of development for the Franciscan Friars of the Holy Name Province, said in an interview.

“I was thinking that a lot of people text everything now, even more than email, so why not have people have the ability to ask us to pray for them … by texting.”

The faithful simply text the word ‘prayer’ to 306-44, free of charge. A welcome message from the friars comes up along with a box to type in the request. When the it is sent, the sender receives a reply.

The intentions are received on a website and will be included collectively in the friars’ prayers twice a day and at Mass.

It is one of several ways the friars hope to reach a younger audience, increase the number of faithful and spread the faith. They have already renovated their website and the next step is moving into Facebook and tweeting.

“If the Pope can tweet, friars can text,” said Father David.

The friars also have a presence on LinkedIn and have been streaming some of their church services.

“We’re trying,” said Father David when asked if the friars are well into the digital age, adding that they were “rushing madly into the 19th century.”

Most of the 325 friars, whose average age is about 60, are comfortable with the technology.

“We have a friar who is 80 who was texting today,” said Father David.

The friars are following the example of 85-year-old Pope Benedict, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, whom the Vatican said had 2.1 million followers on Twitter just eight days after sending his first tweet.

The Pontiff tweets in several languages, including Arabic, and plans to add Latin and Chinese to them.

“We’re really excited about this working,” said Father David, about the new program. “I think we’ll be able to keep up (with all the intentions). That’s what we do, we pray for people.”

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: U.S. Franciscan friars go digital, accept prayer requests via text
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/u-s-franciscan-friars-go-digital-accept-prayer-requests-via-text/
Link To Post : U.S. Franciscan friars go digital, accept prayer requests via text
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Kangaroo Gets Loose at Melbourne Airport

People Pets

01/08/2013 at 08:00 PM EST

Travelers passing through Australia's Melbourne Airport on Monday may have been greeted by an unexpected baggage handler.

At around 7 a.m., a 3-year-old eastern gray kangaroo was spotted in the airport's parking garage, where it hopped around for almost two hours, giving security officers the slip in the process.

Wildlife officer Manfred Zabinskas was then called in to catch the young animal, who was tranquilized in order to be transported to safety. Analyzing the critter, Zabinskas noted he had been away from his natural habitat for some time, and that the romp through the parking garage had done some damage to his feet. Prior to being re-released into the wild, the kangaroo will be looked at by a veterinarian.

This is the second time a kangaroo has paid a visit to the Melbourne Airport. Last October, another marsupial made its way up to the fifth floor of the parking garage before being spotted.

Read More..

Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

Read More..

U.S. Supreme Court hands L.A. County a victory in water lawsuit

Los Angeles County got a reprieve in an ongoing dispute over who is responsible for pollution from storm water when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ruling won by environmentalists.

However, the court's 9-0 decision Tuesday did not deal with the larger question of how to regulate storm water and urban runoff flowing into the region's waterways.

Gary Hildebrand, assistant deputy director of the county's Department of Public Works, said the court's decision "validates the approach the flood control district has been taking to deal with water management."

The ruling allows the district to move forward with updated storm water regulations that the regional water board put in place in November, he said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper — now Los Angeles Waterkeeper — sued the flood control district in 2008 alleging that it had violated its storm water permit. The lawsuit cited high pollution readings at monitoring stations in the county's rivers.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the county was liable for pollution in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, and referred to the water flowing from the "concrete channels" into the natural part of the lower river as discharges of pollutants.

The Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit's opinion rested on a mistaken premise and reversed it. The water flowing from one "concrete" section of the river to another section cannot be deemed a "discharge" of pollutants, the court said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said "no pollutants are 'added' to a water body when water is merely transferred between different portions of that body."

Steve Fleischli, water program director and senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, said the question that the court decided was never in dispute between the parties. He called the ruling a "temporary setback" in efforts to hold the county accountable.

"It doesn't close the door on our enforcement efforts against the county, and it doesn't limit the county's obligation to comply with the Clean Water Act," he said.

County officials have also argued that the flood control district is not primarily to blame for the pollution in the rivers, because there are dozens of cities discharging polluted runoff upstream from the monitoring sites. With only one monitoring station in each river, it is difficult to find the original source of the pollution.

The Supreme Court did not weigh in on that point, but when the case was argued last month, the justices commented that the county needs a better means of monitoring storm water runoff.

In her opinion, Ginsburg noted that the renewed storm water permit put in place by the Los Angeles regional water board will include monitoring the water quality at "discharge points" where storm drains flow into the rivers, which will provide more localized data.

Hildebrand said the ruling will not have an impact on a parcel fee the county is pursuing to raise about $290 million a year for projects that would help clean up storm water pollution. A hearing on that proposal is set for Jan. 15, and the Board of Supervisors may vote then to place the proposed fee on the ballot.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

david.savage@latimes.com

Sewell reported from Los Angeles and Savage from Washington, D.C.

Read More..

Chemical Weapons Showdown With Syria Led to Rare Accord

Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

Syrians went to the aid of a man who was wounded when a missile hit the al-Mashhad district of Aleppo.

WASHINGTON — In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.

Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria’s increasingly desperate president, Bashar al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.

What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being.

But concern remains that Mr. Assad could now use the weapons produced that week at any moment. American and European officials say that while a crisis was averted in that week from late November to early December, they are by no means resting easy.

“I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war,” one senior defense official said last week. “What Assad understood, and whether that understanding changes if he gets cornered in the next few months, that’s anyone’s guess.”

While chemical weapons are technically considered a “weapon of mass destruction” — along with biological and nuclear weapons — in fact they are hard to use and hard to deliver. Whether an attack is effective can depend on the winds and the terrain. Sometimes attacks are hard to detect, even after the fact. Syrian forces could employ them in a village or a neighborhood, some officials say, and it would take time for the outside world to know.

But the scare a month ago has renewed debate about whether the West should help the Syrian opposition destroy Mr. Assad’s air force, which he would need to deliver those 500-pound bombs.

The chemical munitions are still in storage areas that are near or on Syrian air bases, ready for deployment on short notice, officials said.

The Obama administration and other governments have said little in public about the chemical weapons movements, in part because of concern about compromising sources of intelligence about the activities of Mr. Assad’s forces. This account is based on interviews with more than half a dozen military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the intelligence matters involved.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned in a confidential assessment last month that the weapons could now be deployed four to six hours after orders were issued, and that Mr. Assad had a special adviser at his side who oversaw control of the weapons, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported. Some American and other allied officials, however, said in interviews that the sarin-laden bombs could be loaded on planes and airborne in less than two hours.

“Let’s just say right now, it would be a relatively easy thing to load this quickly onto aircraft,” said one Western diplomat.

How the United States and Israel, along with Arab states, would respond remains a mystery. American and allied officials have talked vaguely of having developed “contingency plans” in case they decided to intervene in an effort to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require upward of 75,000 troops. But there have been no evident signs of preparations for any such effort.

The United States military has quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there, among other things, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was reported to have traveled to Jordan in recent weeks, and the Israeli news media have said the topic of discussion was how to deal with Syrian weapons if it appeared that they could be transferred to Lebanon, where Hezbollah could lob them over the border to Israel. But the plans, to the extent they exist, remain secret.

Read More..

Live blog: Samsung’s new gear at CES 2013

yep thats how apple works now, but can you stream network flash players thru your i pad via apple tv , answer = no , same with google tv. hook the comp directly to the comp get a wireless keayboard and an air mouse , and fyi windows media player can be streamed wirelessly from any pc all you need is a 50 dollar blue ray player , if you want to stream media from a hard drive wirelessly it just has to be one built to the standard like any wd home drive , but dont go usb get one that connects via gigabit

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Live blog: Samsung’s new gear at CES 2013
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/live-blog-samsungs-new-gear-at-ces-2013/
Link To Post : Live blog: Samsung’s new gear at CES 2013
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Justin Bartha Is Dating Trainer Lia Smith

01/07/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Lia and Justin in Hawaii New Years Day

Pacific Coast News

Justin Bartha's "mystery woman" is in fact his girlfriend, trainer Lia Smith, a source reveals to PEOPLE.

The pair recently enjoyed a cozy trip to Smith's native Hawaii and were snapped basking in the sun on Maui on New Year's Day, which got people buzzing about her identity.

"They were very cute with each other," says an eyewitness. "They had their arms around each other and were kissing."

The couple also spent time with Smith's parents on Oahu. Bartha, who currently stars on The New Normal, was previously linked to Scarlett Johansson and dated Ashley Olsen for two years before breaking up in 2011.

Read More..

Banks Win an Easing of Asset Rules

A group of top regulators and central bankers on Sunday gave banks around the world more time to meet new rules aimed at preventing financial crises, saying they wanted to avoid the possibility of damaging the economic recovery.

The rules are meant to make sure banks have enough liquid assets on hand to survive the kind of market chaos that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Meeting in Basel, Switzerland, the committee, made up of bank regulators from 26 countries, also loosened the definition of liquid assets.

The decision marks the first time regulators have publicly backed away from the strict rules imposed by the Basel Committee in 2010. The easing takes some pressure off banks, which have complained that the new guidelines would throttle lending and hurt economic growth.

Mervyn A. King, governor of the Bank of England and chairman of the group, said there was no intent to go easier on lenders. “Nobody set out to make it stronger or weaker,” he said of the rules in a conference call with reporters, “but to make it more realistic.”

Still, the decision was a public concession from the authors of the so-called Basel III rules that the regulations could hurt growth if applied too rigorously. It was endorsed unanimously by participants, including Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.

The rules were drafted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, named after the Swiss city where many of the discussions have taken place. The Basel rules are not binding on individual countries, but there is substantial international pressure for countries to comply.

Much of the debate so far has focused on increasing the amount of capital that banks hold in reserve to absorb losses. After Lehman’s collapse, trust among financial institutions evaporated and banks refused to lend to one another. Many banks discovered that they did not have enough cash or readily salable assets to meet short-term obligations. In some cases, banks that were otherwise solvent faced collapse.

The rules require banks to have enough cash or liquid assets on hand to survive a 30-day crisis, like a run on deposits or a credit rating downgrade. They will not take full effect on Jan. 1, 2015, as originally planned, but will be phased in more gradually and not take full effect until Jan. 1, 2019.

This so-called liquidity coverage ratio also defines what qualifies as liquid assets: the assets cannot be already pledged as collateral, for example, and they must be under the control of a bank’s central treasury, so it can act quickly to raise cash if needed.

On Sunday the central bankers and regulators broadened the definition of liquid assets. For example, banks will be allowed to use securities backed by mortgages to meet a portion of the requirement.

A large majority of big banks already meet the requirements, but some do not, Mr. King said. The decision reduces pressure on those banks to hold more cash or buy high-quality government bonds to meet the rules on liquid assets.

The panel said it was continuing to discuss another set of regulations aimed at preventing banks from becoming overly dependent on short-term funds. But it did not announce any new decisions Sunday.

Before the Lehman bankruptcy, some institutions made long-term loans using money borrowed for very short periods. The practice is a normal part of banking, but it can, if carried to extremes, make a bank vulnerable to market disruptions.

Depfa, an Irish bank owned by Hypo Real Estate of Germany, issued long-term loans to governments using money it borrowed in short-term money markets. The bank made a profit from the difference between what it could charge for the long-term loans and what it paid to borrow short term. But after Lehman collapsed, Depfa was no longer able to roll over its obligations by borrowing on international money markets. Its parent company required a taxpayer bailout to survive.

The new rules seek to ensure that banks have a variety of fund sources and are not overly dependent on one market or lender.

Although the Basel Committee drafts global banking rules, it is up to individual countries to write them into law. The United States has lagged countries including China, India and Saudi Arabia in putting the rules into force, according to an assessment by the Basel Committee in September. The American delay has led to some grumbling from other members.

Bank industry representatives have argued that stricter capital and liquidity requirements increase banks’ financing costs, which they must pass on to customers. One of the most vocal critics of the new regulations is the Institute of International Finance in Washington, whose members include many large American and European banks, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.

In October, the institute issued a report arguing that the rules would make banks less willing to issue longer-term loans or hold debt issued by smaller companies, whose bonds usually have lower credit ratings. The rules would also penalize banks in emerging countries, the institute said, because they have less access to low-risk assets.

Proponents of the new rules argue that banks will be able to raise money more cheaply if they are perceived as being less vulnerable, thus offsetting the cost of the new rules. They point out that American banks have generally recovered from the crisis more quickly than European banks because United States regulators forced them to raise new capital.

Read More..

Analysts predicting slow start for ‘ultra-HD’ TVs

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Ultra high definition TVs are set to be the talk of International CES, the gadget show kicking off this week, but they aren’t likely to account for much of the market even four years down the road.

That is the conclusion of analysts of the show’s host, a day before TV makers such as Samsung, LG and Sony attempt to wow conference attendees with their latest models.

Ultra-HD TVs, with four times as many pixels as HD TVs, are expected to account for only 1.4 million units sold in the U.S. in 2016, or about 5 percent of the entire market. Sales in the rest of the world are expected to be smaller.

The analysts blamed high prices and low availability for the slow start.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Analysts predicting slow start for ‘ultra-HD’ TVs
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/analysts-predicting-slow-start-for-ultra-hd-tvs/
Link To Post : Analysts predicting slow start for ‘ultra-HD’ TVs
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Jordana Brewster Is 'Enamored' with the Idea of Having Twins

01/06/2013 at 05:00 PM EST

Jordana Brewster has babies on the brain – yes, you read that right: plural.

The Dallas star, 32, who has been married to movie producer Andrew Form since 2007, tells Latina she "definitely" wants two kids and is "enamored" by the idea of having twins.

"My dad was a twin, so it runs in the family," she explains. "Fingers crossed. We're thinking about having kids but I don't know when it'll happen. I feel very ready now."

When the couple does eventually expand their family, the children will be raised in a loving home.

"We FaceTime all of the time," Brewster says, of keeping the romance alive long distance. "We love that. There are times when I just say, 'I need to see you now.' And so we FaceTime a lot, or I surprise him and visit him or he does the same. It's super important … Couples shouldn't be apart for too long. We've been married for five years now and we know how important that is because otherwise you just lose touch with each other."

A big part of their bond has come from the way Form inspires his wife on a professional level.

"It's so amazing to have a husband in the business who can challenge me and we can talk about his work and my work and understand each other in that way," Brewster says. "I love getting his feedback and he likes getting mine. And of course, that has pushed me more to consider producing in the future."

And she's not just talking about babies!

Read More..