Air Force Tests Unmanned F-16

Air Force Tests Unmanned F-16

DOMINICAN NATIONAL SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR ROLE IN IDENTITY TRAFFICKING SCHEME

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 
Friday, September 20, 2013
Dominican National Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison in Puerto Rican Identity Trafficking Scheme

A Dominican national was sentenced today to serve 42 months in prison for her role in trafficking the identities of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens and corresponding identity documents, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Rosa E. Rodríguez-Vélez of the District of Puerto Rico; Acting Director John Sandweg of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Chief Postal Inspector Guy J. Cottrell of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS); Director Gregory B. Starr of the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS); and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Chief Richard Weber.

Arelis Abreu-Ramos, formerly of Philadelphia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gustavo A. Gelpí in the District of Puerto Rico.  In addition to Abreu-Ramos’s prison term, Judge Gelpí ordered her removal from the United States to the Dominican Republic after the completion of her sentence.

On June 13, 2013, Abreu-Ramos pleaded guilty in Puerto Rico to one count of conspiracy to commit identification fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit human smuggling for financial gain.

Abreu-Ramos was charged in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Puerto Rico on March 22, 2012.  To date, a total of 53 individuals have been charged for their roles in the identity trafficking scheme, and 42 defendants have pleaded guilty.

Court documents allege that individuals located in the Savarona area of Caguas, Puerto Rico (Savarona suppliers), obtained Puerto Rican identities and corresponding identity documents.  Other conspirators located in various cities throughout the United States (identity brokers) allegedly solicited customers and sold Social Security cards and corresponding Puerto Rico birth certificates for prices ranging from $700 to $2,500 per set.  The superseding indictment alleges that identity brokers ordered the identity documents from the Savarona suppliers, on behalf of the customers, by making coded telephone calls.  The conspirators are charged with using text messages, money transfer services, and express, priority or regular U.S. mail to complete their illicit transactions.

Court documents allege that some of the conspirators assumed a Puerto Rican identity themselves and used that identity in connection with the trafficking operation.  Their customers generally obtained the identity documents to assume the identity of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens and to obtain additional identification documents, such as legitimate state driver’s licenses.  Some customers allegedly obtained the documents to commit financial fraud and attempted to obtain a U.S. passport.

According to court documents, various identity brokers were operating in Rockford, Ill.; DeKalb, Ill.; Aurora, Ill.; Seymour, Ind.; Columbus, Ind.; Indianapolis; Hartford, Conn.; Clewiston, Fla.; Lilburn, Ga.; Norcross, Ga.; Salisbury, Md.; Columbus, Ohio; Fairfield, Ohio; Dorchester, Mass.; Lawrence, Mass.; Salem, Mass.; Worcester, Mass.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Nebraska City, Neb.; Elizabeth, N.J.; Burlington, N.C.; Hickory, N.C.; Hazelton, Pa.; Philadelphia; Houston; Abingdon, Va.; Albertville, Ala.; and Providence, R.I.

Abreu-Ramos admitted that she operated as an identity broker in the Philadelphia area, and that she was a manager and supervisor in the conspiracy.  According to court documents, in June 2011, an unauthorized alien in Arlington, Va., applied for a U.S. passport using legitimate Puerto Rico identity documents that had been supplied by Abreu-Ramos.  Law enforcement agents uncovered the fraudulent application and prevented the issuance of the U.S. passport.

Abreu-Ramos is the 29th defendant to be sentenced in this case.

The charges are the result of Operation Island Express, an ongoing, nationally-coordinated investigation led by the ICE Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) Chicago Office and USPIS, DSS and IRS-CI offices in Chicago, in coordination with the ICE-HSI San Juan Office and the DSS Resident Office in Puerto Rico.  The Illinois Secretary of State Police; Elgin, Ill., Police Department; Seymour, Ind., Police Department; and Indiana State Police provided substantial assistance.  The ICE-HSI Assistant Attaché office in the Dominican Republic and International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2) as well as various ICE, USPIS, DSS and IRS-CI offices around the country provided invaluable support.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys James S. Yoon, Hope S. Olds, Courtney B. Schaefer and Christina Giffin of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, with the assistance of the Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, and the support of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico.  The U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Northern District of Illinois, Southern District of Indiana, District of Connecticut, District of Massachusetts, District of Nebraska, Middle District of North Carolina, Southern District of Ohio, Middle District of Pennsylvania, District of Rhode Island, Southern District of Texas and Western District of Virginia provided substantial assistance.

Potential victims and the public may obtain information about the case at: www.justice.gov/criminal/vns/caseup/beltrerj.html .  Anyone who believes their identity may have been compromised in relation to this investigation may contact the ICE toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (1-866-347-2423) and its online tip form at www.ice.gov/tipline .  Anyone who may have information about particular crimes in this case should also report it to the ICE tip line or website.

SEC CHARGES THREE IN PRIME BANK OFFERING AND PONZI SCHEME

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") has charged Jenifer E. Hoffman and John C. Boschert, the former principals of Assured Capital Consultants, LLC - a now-dissolved Florida company - and Bryan T. Zuzga, the company's purported escrow agent, for their involvement in a fraudulent prime bank offering and Ponzi scheme.

According to the Commission's complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, between approximately January and September 2009, Assured Capital, through Hoffman, Boschert, and Zuzga, raised at least $25 million from investors, through false representations and fake documents. The complaint alleges that Hoffman and Boschert represented to investors that their money would be invested in Assured Capital's offshore, confidential trading program which, in turn, would invest in blocks of medium term notes. As the complaint further alleges, Hoffman and Boschert enticed investors with claims of exorbitant profits and with the illusion of safety by telling them that the investment would provide weekly returns of up to 50% and that it was performing, safe, and guaranteed. In addition, Hoffman and Boschert represented to investors their money would remain safe in an Assured Capital escrow account that would be used to secure a line of credit for investing in the company's offshore trading program. Furthermore, Hoffman, Boschert, and Zuzga told investors that Zuzga controlled the escrow account as Assured Capital's escrow agent and that he was a licensed attorney. Moreover, Hoffman provided investors with fake bank documents and a sham verification letter, notarized by Zuzga, purporting to confirm Assured Capital had $500 million at a Panamanian bank.

As the complaint alleges, none of these representations were true and the investment program was purely fictional. Zuzga was not Assured Capital's escrow agent and has never been a licensed attorney. Hoffman and Boschert used investor funds to make payments to other investors in Ponzi fashion, and stole investor funds along with Zuzga for their personal use. Assured Capital has since gone out of business.

The Commission's complaint alleges that Hoffman of Clermont, Florida, Boschert of Apopka, Florida, and Zuzga of Coldwater, Michigan, all violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The Commission is seeking financial penalties, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest, and permanent injunctions against all the defendants.

CARBON SINK

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
Tropical forest carbon sink hinges on 'odd couple'

A unique housing arrangement between a specific tree species and carbo-loading bacteria may determine how well tropical forests can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, says new research today in an advance online publication of the journal Nature.

The findings suggest that the role of tropical forests in offsetting the atmospheric buildup of carbon from fossil fuels depends on tree diversity, particularly in forests recovering from exploitation.

Tropical forests thrive on natural nitrogen fertilizer pumped into the soil by trees in the legume family, a diverse group of plants that includes beans and peas, the researchers report.

"Fast-growing nitrogen-fixing trees are not common outside of the tropics, but are found in surprisingly high diversity there," said Henry Gholz, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

"These findings place the trees' ability to capture atmospheric nitrogen and to use it to stimulate growth in the context of long-term tropical forest development," Gholz said. "This process not only allows these trees to get out of the gate quickly after a disturbance, but to maintain dominance decades to centuries later."

The researchers studied recovering forests in Panama that had been exploited five to 300 years earlier.

The presence of legume trees ensured rapid forest growth, and thus a substantial carbon sink, in the first 12 years of recovery.

Tracts of land that were pasture only 12 years before had already accumulated as much as 40 percent of the carbon found in fully mature forests. Legumes contributed more than half the nitrogen needed to make that happen.

These fledgling woodlands had the capacity to store 50 metric tons of carbon per hectare, which equates to roughly 185 tons of carbon dioxide, or the exhaust of some 21,285 gallons of gasoline.

That much fuel would take the average car in the United States more than half a million miles.

Though the legumes' nitrogen fertilizer output waned in later years, the species nonetheless took up carbon at rates that were up to 9 times faster than non-legume trees.

The legumes' secret is a process known as "nitrogen fixation" carried out in concert with infectious bacteria known as rhizobia, which dwell in small pods, known as root nodules, inside the tree's roots.

As a nutrient, nitrogen is essential for plant growth, but tropical soil is short on nitrogen and surprisingly non-nutritious for trees.

Legumes use secretions to invite rhizobia living in the soil to infect their roots, and the bacteria signal back to initiate nodule growth.

The rhizobia move into the root cells of the host plant and--in exchange for carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis in the tree--convert nitrogen from the air into fertilizer plants need.

Excess nitrogen from the legume eventually creates a nitrogen cycle that benefits neighboring trees.

By nurturing bigger, healthier trees that take up more carbon, legumes have a newly realized importance when it comes to influencing atmospheric carbon dioxide, said paper co-author Lars Hedin of Princeton University.

Scientists recently assigned numbers to track how much carbon forests as a whole absorb, suggesting that the world's forests took up 2.4 quadrillion tons of carbon from 1990 to 2007.

"Tropical forests are a huge carbon sink," said Hedin.

"If trees could just grow and store carbon, you could have a rapid sink, but if they don't have enough nitrogen they don't take up carbon," he said, adding that nitrogen-fixing trees are uncommon in temperate forests such as those in most of North America and Europe.

"Legumes are a group of plants that perform a valuable function in tropical forests, but no one knew how much they help with the carbon sink," Hedin said. "This work shows that the level of biodiversity in a tropical forest determines the size of the carbon sink."

First author Sarah Batterman of Princeton said that legumes, or "nitrogen-fixers," are especially important for forests recovering from agricultural use, logging, fire or other human activities.

The researchers studied 16 forest plots that were formerly pasture and are maintained by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).

Forest degradation, however, comes with a loss of biodiversity that can affect nitrogen-fixers, too, even though legumes are not specifically threatened, Batterman said.

If the number and diversity of nitrogen-fixers plummet, the health of the surrounding forest would likely be affected for a long time, she said.

"This study shows that there is an important place for nitrogen-fixation in these disturbed areas," Batterman said.

"Nitrogen-fixers are a component of biodiversity and are important for the function of these forests, but we don't know enough about how this valuable group of trees influences forests. While some species may thrive on disturbance, others may be sensitive to human activities."

The researchers found that the nine legume species they studied did not contribute nitrogen to surrounding trees at the same time.

Certain species were more active in the youngest forests, others in middle-aged forests, and still other species went into action mainly in 300-year-old tracts, though not nearly to the same extent as legumes in younger plots.

The researchers found that individual trees reduced their fixation as nitrogen accumulated in soils, with the number of legumes actively "fixing" nitrogen dropping from 71 to 23 percent between 12- and 80-year-old forests.

"The diversity of species present in the forest is critical because it ensures that there can be fixation at different time periods of forest recovery," Batterman said.

"If you were to lose one of those species and it turned out to be essential for a specific time period, fixation might drop dramatically."

Such details can improve what scientists know about future climate change, Batterman said.

Computer models that calculate the global balance of atmospheric carbon dioxide also must factor in sinks that offset carbon, such as tropical forests.

And if forests take up carbon differently depending on the abundance and diversity of legumes, models should reflect that variation, she said.

"Other researchers can now put this role of nitrogen-fixation into their models and improve predictions about the carbon sink," Batterman said.

Batterman and Hedin worked with Michiel van Breugel and Jefferson Hall at STRI, Johannes Ransijn at the University of Copenhagen and Dylan Craven at Yale University.

The work was also supported by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; and the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science and the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, both at Princeton University.

-NSF-

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S REMARKS AT UN LUNCHEON

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE PRESIDENT  
Remarks by President Obama at a Luncheon Hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
United Nations
New York, New York

1:37 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Ladies and gentlemen, as is always the case with these lunches, I exceeded my time this morning, and so you've heard enough from me.  (Laughter.)  But as President of the host country, I do simply want to say thank you to all of you and express my appreciation for Secretary Ban for his principled leadership as well as the extraordinary hard work of his team.

Mr. Secretary-General, you continue to provide the moral vision that we seek from the United Nations as well as a practical sense of how we can achieve that vision.  And so on behalf of all of us, we want to say thank you very much.

I also want to salute all who help sustain our United Nations, often unseen and unheralded.  This includes the dedicated U.N. inspectors in Damascus who set out into battlefield conditions.  They braved sniper fire.  They worked diligently with great professionalism.  They uncovered the truth, and they have the thanks of the world.  Meanwhile, we see thousands of peacekeepers in blue helmets standing watch around the world from Haiti to the DRC to Cyprus, so that people in countries recovering from conflict and strife can have the chance to build a more hopeful life.

After the Yalta Conference, shortly before the United Nations was founded, President Roosevelt spoke of what it would take to achieve a lasting and durable peace.  "The structure of world peace," he said, "cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation.  It cannot be an American peace or a British, a Russian, a French, or a Chinese peace.  It cannot be a peace of large nations or of small nations.  It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world."  These words are more true today than ever, whether it's preventing the spread of deadly weapons, promoting democratic governance, or fighting daily battles against poverty and hunger and deprivation.  International peace, development, and security will not be achieved by one nation or one group of nations.  It must be the work of all of us.

So I want to propose a toast to our host and great friend, Secretary-General Ban, to all those here in New York and around the world who help sustain the United Nations, and to the spirit that we need the cooperative effort of the whole world.  Cheers.  Salud.

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The White House

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The White House

DOD PREPARES FOR GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 
Memo Prepares DOD Employees for Government Shutdown
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2013 - Although Defense Department officials believe a government shutdown can be avoided when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, they want DOD employees to be prepared for the possibility, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a memo issued to the workforce today.

The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, and Congress has not passed a budget. If Congress does not approve a budget or pass a continuing resolution, the portions of the government funded via appropriated funds will be forced to close.

"The department remains hopeful that a government shutdown will be averted," Carter wrote in the memo. "The administration strongly believes that a lapse in funding should not occur and is working with Congress to find a solution."

Congress still can prevent a lapse in appropriations, but "prudent management requires that we be prepared for all contingencies, including the possibility that a lapse could occur at the end of the month," the deputy secretary wrote.

The absence of funding would mean a number of government activities would cease. "While military personnel would continue in a normal duty status, a large number of our civilian employees would be temporarily furloughed," Carter said. "To prepare for this possibility, we are updating our contingency plans for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by a lapse in appropriations."

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel understand the hardships such a shutdown could cause civilian employees, the deputy secretary wrote.

"The administration strongly believes that a lapse in funding should not occur and is working with Congress to find a solution," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told reporters today. "The secretary has made it clear that budget uncertainty is not helpful for us in executing our budget efficiently, and a shutdown would be the worst type of uncertainty. A shutdown would put severe hardships on an already stressed workforce, and is totally unnecessary."

Carter vowed to provide more information as it becomes available. T

NAVY RECOMMENDS SECURITY CHANGES FOLLOWING NAVY YARD SHOOTING

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

Navy Recommends Security Changes in Wake of Navy Yard Tragedy

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2013 - The Navy has recommended three changes to security procedures following the Washington Navy Yard shooting Sept. 16 in which a Navy contractor killed 12 people at the facility.

Juan M. Garcia, the assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs, studied the service record of the shooter – Aaron Alexis – to see how his conduct "did or did not meet the threshold for the sustainment of his security clearance and fitness for Naval duty."

One recommendation, which must go to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for approval, is that all Office of Personnel Management investigative reports include any available police documents related to the subject being backgrounded.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has already approved two other recommendations. The first will require command security manager responsibilities be assigned to executive officers or other senior members of commands. Currently, junior officers hold those responsibilities.

The second is to "require senior-level accountability on all detachment of individual evaluations/fitness reports."

A senior Navy official discussed the timeline of Alexis' service and what the Navy knew about security problems during a Pentagon background briefing. Alexis' service went from 2007 to 2011.

"Looking individually at the events, as we knew them at the time, it's very difficult to see a glaring indicator that there is any kind of potential for the events that took place last week, the senior Navy official said.

Many questions were raised about how Alexis, a former sailor and Navy contractor at the time of the shootings, received a secret security clearance. Three years prior to his enlistment, Alexis shot out the tires of a construction worker's vehicle in Seattle. No charges were filed.

Upon entering the Navy Reserve in 2007, OPM initiated an investigation. The check turned up Alexis' fingerprints in the FBI system and investigators became aware of the incident in Seattle. OPM sent investigators to speak to Alexis at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Ill. There was no mention of the incident involving firearms in the OPM report to the Navy.

The OPM report to the Department of the Navy Central Adjudication Facility determined Alexis was eligible for a secret clearance with one caveat – he had negative credit information.

During his Navy service, Alexis received a non-judicial punishment for an unauthorized absence during service with VF-46 in Atlanta, Ga. His unauthorized absence coincided with a brief stay in jail after being arrested for disorderly conduct outside a nightclub.

There were other incidents, but there were no further Article 15s. In one, Alexis discharged a firearm in his quarters. He stated he accidently discharged the weapon while cleaning it.

His commander initiated actions to administratively separate Alexis from the service, but once the charges were dropped, that process stopped.

On December 2, 2010, Alexis requested separation from the service in accordance with a reduction-in-force program. On Jan. 31, 2011, he received an honorable discharge with a reentry code of RE-1 – the most favorable code.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT EQUAL FUTURES PARTNERSHIP MEETING

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at a Meeting of the Equal Futures Partnership

Remarks

John Kerry
Secretary of State

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

New York City

September 23, 2013

---

SECRETARY KERRY: (In progress) and to the distinguished ministers, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for being here, all of you, very, very much. We appreciate it.

As Cathy mentioned, this is the third high-level meeting of the Equal Futures Partnership, and we’re delighted to have former heads of state as well as some other distinguished leaders, foreign ministers. All of you are so (inaudible) to this mission.

Some of you may not be sports aficionados, (inaudible), but I’ll tell you, I can tell you from just common sense that no team can ever win if half of its players are on the bench. And that is effectively where we are in so many parts of the world with respect to women and women’s ability, opportunity, capacity to be able to take part and share in all aspects of society. We know that a country’s economic competitiveness increases as the gender gap decreases, and that’s clear to us in health and education, political participation, and in economic inclusion. And while we’ve made remarkable progress in the first two areas, health and education, I think everybody understands that we’re still far from where we need to be when it comes to civic involvement and also economic opportunity for women. Even here in our country, we still have a huge differential in pay for the same work – the same work, less pay. Those are the barriers that we need to try to continue to break.

And the State Department, which I am very proud to say, has been led by smart, capable, female diplomats for many of the past years – Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright, my immediate predecessor Hillary Clinton. Indeed, I joked that when I came into the building, that part of my task was to prove that a man could still do the job. (Laughter.) But each of those individuals are clear examples of the very powerful impact that women who are involved in civic enterprise and government can have throughout the world. And I’m proud to say my wife here, Teresa Heinz, is here, who is one of the champions of that notion and has been for a long period of time.

The same is true in business. When researchers from the Harvard Business Review conducted a global study of business leadership, they found that women were rated by their peers in fully 12 of the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership ahead of men. And despite this fact – pretty good ratio, 12 out of 16 – despite that fact, the study also found that more than 60 percent of business leaders are still men. And the higher you go up the career ladder, the more men you find.

In joining Equal Futures, our nations have committed to taking bold steps to close the gender gap and to sharing the progress that we make with each other so that local practices can be replicated all over the world. And we’ve taken a commitment to try to increase our work with private and public sector partners to remove the obstacles that make it harder for women to get an equal seat at the table.

President Obama and I share powerfully – if you look at our families, we both have two daughters, and two strong wives. I firmly believe, as he does, that the opportunities for women in all of our countries, as they grow, so will the possibility for prosperity, for stability, and most importantly, if you look around the world, for peace. That’s exactly what this partnering here is all about.
And today, I am very pleased to welcome Japan – Fumio, Fumio Kishida, the Foreign Minister of Japan here – thank you very much, Fumio; Italy – Emma Bonino, the Foreign Minister – thank you for being here, Emma; Switzerland, and Mexico. We are delighted to have everybody aboard. These are the newest nations to join this effort, and I know that each of our member countries are going to significantly benefit from your participation.

I also want to welcome Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who – did I get it close to --

MS. MLAMBO-NGCUKA: Close.

SECRETARY KERRY: Close? All right. (Laughter.) Ngcuka – that’s how you say it – who recently became the Executive Director of UN Women, and Dr. Jim Kim, who is the head of the World Bank. And both organizations play really critical roles in the work of the Partnership, and their insights are going to be particularly important as we chart the future for the program.
We are particularly interested in examining how we can better address sexual and gender-based violence. Up to seven of every 10 women in the world report having experienced physical or sexual assault sometime in their lives. Think about that – seven out of 10. It’s plain and simply, flatly unacceptable. It’s an insult. And for women and girls to take advantage of new opportunities, first and foremost they must be able to live free from the fear of violence.
With that goal in mind, I’m proud to announce today, on behalf of President Obama, a new U.S. initiative called Safe from the Start. And our initial commitment of $10 million will help the ICRC, the UNHCR, and other organizations to hire staff to develop new programs to protect women and girls in the face of emergencies and implement these programs as quickly as possible. And I hope this will be one more initiative which brings us all together and that we can all cooperate on.

I want to emphasize that high-level meetings like this are critical to our ability to be able to identify where and how we can generate systemic change. It helps all of us to organize and coordinate our energies to that end. And so I regret that, because of the schedule, I’ll be leaving here to go – I’m meeting shortly with President Obama – but I ask that all of you to feed in in the course of this meeting so that we can have your sense of direction as to how we can best implement this and support the work of Equal Futures over the course of the next months and years.
We look forward very, very much to working to develop a strategic plan for the partnership and to create working groups that break out and pull together a roadmap, if you will, for all of us to embrace and work on over the course of these days. And I – it goes without saying that I think all of us who have come here with this one purpose long for the day when our daughters’ dreams are just as valued as our sons’.
Let me introduce Valerie Jarrett, who has led an extraordinary career through her life. She was the chairman of a business called Habitat Chicago. She was the Commissioner of Planning and Development for the city of Chicago. She was the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor. And somehow, in the course of all of that, she found time to be at two law firms and a whole bunch of other things. Everybody knows she is a very close friend of the President – more importantly, perhaps, in terms of this work, a huge collaborator and leader with respect to these issues, and it’s my privilege to introduce her now.
Thanks, Valerie.

MS. JARRETT: Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry. I want to begin by showing my appreciation for your commitment and strong leadership in promoting the role of women and girls around the world. And good afternoon, everyone. It’s just a pleasure to be here with all of you. It’s good to be back.

This time last year, many of you would recall that I was here with Secretary Clinton, and together we announced Equal Futures with just 12 original nations. And so I’m so happy to return after a year of collective progress and to welcome now 23 additional nations. I’m delighted to report that the United States has made great headway since we gathered at the World Bank in April, and I look forward to hearing about the tremendous work being done by all of our member countries.

It has been a true pleasure for me to work with the President, who really understands the value of empowering women and girls. Whether assessing complex social policy, public safety, or setting economic priorities, President Obama understands the importance of women and girls not just as a President, but as Secretary Kerry alluded to, but as a husband, a loving father of two little girls, and as a son of a single mother. That is why he formed the White House Council on Women and Girls, which I am so proud to chair, and why he is committed to the success of Equal Futures.

Today, I’d like to begin by announcing that in addition to the Safe from the Start initiative just announced by Secretary Kerry, that there are several new efforts that will be launched by the United States to strengthen our Equal Futures commitments and to move us closer to our collective goals.

First, I am thrilled to announce that next spring, President Obama will convene a summit on working families at the White House. In preparation, we are already holding discussions with working families, employers, business leaders, economists, and advocates to seek new ideas for ensuring fair pay for women – women in the United States still only earn 77 cents on the dollar, far less for women of color – encouraging family-friendly workplaces, increasing productivity, and strengthening our economy, all of our goals for the working family summit. Our summit will be an important event, and I’m confident, will lead to bold, concrete actions to strengthen opportunities for working families.

On other fronts, Girls Inc. and Discovery Education are working together to help girls receive science, technology, engineering, and math education that they will need to prepare for high quality, high-paying jobs in the future. NASA and the National Science Foundation are also working in pursuit of this important goal.

Our federal agencies are supplying survivors of domestic violence with the support and the tools that they need to achieve economic independence and regain their lives. The federal government along with our civil partners from George Washington University and MissRepresentation.org are working together to ensure women and girls receive the education and training they need to reach the highest ranks of leadership in government and in elected office.

Private sector partners are also stepping up, and we’re excited to announce a few of those new partnerships here today. Just this month, USAID and the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, signed a Global Memorandum of Understanding committing to work together in support of women’s economic empowerment. The partnership will kick off in Bangladesh, helping 40,000 women farmers there play a more prominent role in agricultural production and marketing.
The Cherie Blair Foundation – and I see Cherie Blair is here with us, thank you for being here – WEConnect International, Intel, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and the Bluedrop Performance Learning company will help women obtain education, training, and mentoring that they need to start and grow their own businesses in many Equal Future partner countries, including right here in the United States.
I’d like to ask all of our private sector and civil society partners to please stand so that we can recognize you and show our thanks. Please stand. Thank you. (Applause.)
We sincerely look forward to your continued partnership and to the growth of this group as more and more governments and private sector stakeholders commit and invest in the political and economic empowerment of women and girls. I want to thank you all for an impressive first year, and I cannot wait for the years to follow.

And now I’d like to turn it back over to Secretary Kerry.

SECRETARY KERRY: Again, my apologies. I really would like to be here. I think Teresa’s going to stay here and represent me and come back with all the goodies that you’re going to put on the table. But I generally appreciate the expansion of this group in a short period of time and the commitment that has been made here. And to our friends from Mexico and Bangladesh and Belgium and elsewhere, thank you so much for being part of this.
With that, I need to join the President for a meeting, but thank you very much.

MS. JARRETT: Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Madam Ambassador, it’s yours and Valerie’s. Thank you. (Applause.)

FDA Teams Prepare for Biological Threats

FDA Teams Prepare for Biological Threats

HHS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR "AFTER THE STORM"

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Nicholas Garlow with HHS HealthBeat.

We often hear about how to get prepared for natural disasters: Make a plan, have a kit, practice it. But what about after the storm? When you pick up the pieces and start to recover, be ready to face situations you didn’t see coming.

Dr. Nicole Lurie is HHS’ assistant secretary for preparedness and response.

“Have you let your friends and loved ones know that you’re okay? Plan to text or email, or use social media to let everybody know you’re okay. Have you found out if your friends and loved ones themselves are okay?”

How are the kids doing? Talk to them about stress, and limit their TV watching, if it involves images of the storm and devastation.

And recognize that it may take some time for your life to return to normal.

“Do what you can to get you and your family back to a normal routine.”

Society of Air Force Nurses Join Vietnam War Commemoration

Society of Air Force Nurses Join Vietnam War Commemoration

Kosmonaut ESA Andreas Mogensen se připravuje na stav beztíže

Kosmonaut ESA Andreas Mogensen se připravuje na stav beztíže

SEC CHARGES TD BANK & FORMER EXEC WITH VIOLATION OF SECURITIES LAWS IN FLORIDA-BASED PONZI SCHEME

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged TD Bank and a former executive with violating securities laws in connection with a massive South Florida-based Ponzi scheme conducted by Scott Rothstein, who is now serving a 50-year prison sentence.

The SEC alleges that TD Bank and its then-regional vice president Frank A. Spinosa defrauded investors by producing a series of misleading documents and making false statements about accounts that Rothstein held at the bank and used to perpetuate his scheme.  Spinosa falsely represented to several investors that TD Bank had restricted the movement of the funds in these accounts when, in fact, Rothstein could transfer investor money however he desired.  Spinosa also orally assured investors that certain accounts held balances totaling millions of dollars, but each account actually held zero to $100.

TD Bank agreed to settle the SEC’s charges in an administrative proceeding and pay $15 million.  The SEC filed a complaint against Spinosa in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

“Financial institutions are key gatekeepers in the transactions and investments they facilitate and will be held to a high standard of accountability when their officers enable fraud,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Co-Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.  “TD Bank through a regional vice president produced false documents on bank letterhead and told outright lies to investors, failing in its gatekeeper role.”

Eric I. Bustillo, Director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office, added, “Spinosa played a key supporting role in Rothstein’s Ponzi scheme by providing false comfort to investors that their money was safe and secure in the accounts at TD Bank.  He enabled Rothstein to con investors into believing he couldn’t move their money when he could, and that the bank was holding money that it wasn’t.”

In previous enforcement actions, the SEC has charged two feeder funds to the Rothstein Ponzi scheme.

According to the SEC’s order and complaint, Rothstein claimed to represent plaintiffs who had reached purported legal settlements that were confidential and payable over time by large corporate defendants.  He claimed that the purported plaintiffs were willing to sell their periodic payments to investors at a discount in exchange for one lump-sum payment.  The legal settlements were fake and the plaintiffs and defendants were not real.  Rothstein told investors that the purported defendants had deposited the entire settlement amounts into attorney trust accounts.  Rothstein opened 22 such accounts at Commerce Bank and TD Bank (the two merged in 2008) from November 2007 to October 2009.

The SEC alleges that as Rothstein’s scheme began to unravel in the fall of 2009, Spinosa made false statements to investors about the safety of their investments that enabled Rothstein to continue raising funds for the scheme.  Spinosa executed so-called “lock letters” from TD Bank purporting to irrevocably restrict Rothstein’s trust accounts.  Under these conditions, TD Bank could only distribute funds in the accounts to the investor’s bank account designated in the lock letter.  However, the representations were purely false as Spinosa did not apply any procedures to block the accounts or implement any system to restrict Rothstein from moving money out of the trust accounts.  Spinosa also misrepresented to Rothstein’s investors that the lock letters were commonplace at TD Bank when, in fact, they were never previously used by the bank.  In fact, when Spinosa instructed his assistant to prepare the letters on TD Bank letterhead, she questioned whether it was even permissible because she had never seen such a letter before.  Spinosa confirmed that she should prepare the letter for his signature anyway.  Later, a vice president and branch manager who reported to Spinosa noted to him shortly after the first lock letter went out in August 2009 that the “lock” instructions put onto an account would have no practical effect because Rothstein could still transfer the money without bank officials being alerted.  Spinosa dismissed those concerns.

The SEC further alleges that Spinosa provided false assurances to two different groups of investors that certain trust accounts held the multi-million dollar balances claimed by Rothstein.  On Aug. 17, 2009, Spinosa participated in a conference call with Rothstein and representatives of an investor group who asked how much money was in a particular account.  Spinosa responded that it held $22 million – the amount the investor was expecting to hear.  Spinosa had full access to the account information to know the actual account balance was no more than $100.  The following month, Spinosa met with the same group after it made additional investments with Rothstein, and falsely assured the investors that their money was safe because the provisions of the lock letter restricted the movement of their money.  Also in September 2009, a different investor group bought a purported $20 million settlement from Rothstein, and one of the investor group’s representatives obtained a TD Bank deposit slip that indicated a $0 balance as of that morning for the account that purportedly held the investor’s $20 million.  Rothstein falsely stated that the funds were indeed in the account, but the funds would not appear “available” on the deposit slip because they were in TD Bank’s “federal wire queue.”  Rothstein and representatives from the investor group met with Spinosa on Sept. 14, 2009, and Spinosa falsely represented that the $20 million did not appear as available funds for the same reason provided by Rothstein.  Spinosa falsely represented that the lock letter restricted the movement of their money.  In reality, TD Bank was not holding the money in such a queue, and the account didn’t contain the $20 million.

TD Bank consented to the entry of an administrative order finding that it violated Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933.  Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, TD Bank agreed to pay $15 million and cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act.

The SEC’s complaint against Spinosa charges him with violating Sections 17(a)(1), 17(a)(2), and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  Spinosa also is charged with aiding and abetting Scott Rothstein’s violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5.  The complaint seeks disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, financial penalties, and a permanent injunction.

The SEC coordinated the filing of its cases with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which today announced their own actions against TD Bank.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Steven J. Meiner, D. Corey Lawson, and Tonya E. Tullis under the supervision of Chad Alan Earnst in the Miami Regional Office.  The SEC’s litigation against Spinosa will be led by Amie Riggle Berlin.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service.

SEC CHARGES FILMMAKER WITH INSIDER TRADING

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Manhattan-based independent filmmaker with insider trading on confidential information about impending takeovers of two biotechnology companies.

The SEC alleges that Lawrence Robbins reaped illicit profits by trading Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Sepracor Inc. securities based on confidential information that he received from his business partner John Michael Bennett in advance of the acquisition announcements by the two companies.  Bennett had received the inside information from his friend Scott Allen.  The SEC previously charged Bennett and Allen for their roles in the scheme.

Robbins, who lives in New York City, has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying more than $1 million.

“Robbins plotted with his business partner to perpetrate an insider trading scheme that enabled him to invest a portion of his illegal profits in their film production company,” said Sanjay Wadhwa, Senior Associate Director for Enforcement in the SEC’s New York Regional Office.  “Their plot, however, did not account for the real world consequences of being caught by the SEC.”

According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Allen learned confidential information in advance of the two acquisitions through his job at a global consulting firm that was advising the acquiring company in each deal.  Based on the information that Allen leaked, Robbins and Bennett collectively spent tens of thousands of dollars acquiring call options in the companies.  They made more than $2.6 million in illicit profits following public announcements of the deals, and Robbins used a portion of his proceeds to fund the independent film production business that he shared with Bennett.

The SEC alleges that Allen communicated with Bennett about the Millennium and Sepracor transactions through phone calls or in-person meetings, some of which were tracked through their simultaneous use of Metrocards at subway stations in New York City as well as large ATM and bank cash withdrawals made by Bennett prior to the meetings.  Allen first obtained non-public information about the Millennium transaction in mid-February 2008 when his firm began advising Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical Company during its negotiations with Millennium.  On February 27, Allen tipped Bennett with inside information about Takeda’s impending cash tender offer, and Bennett then tipped Robbins.  Starting on February 29 and continuing up until the week before the public announcement of the acquisition, Robbins and Bennett spent tens of thousands of dollars amassing Millennium call options.  Additionally, Robbins purchased Millennium shares and sold Millennium put options.  After the deal was publicly announced on April 10, the price of Millennium shares increased more than 48 percent, and that afternoon Robbins began liquidating his holdings of Millennium securities for ill-gotten gains of more than $1.12 million.  Bennett liquidated his Millennium holdings for illicit profits of more $602,000.

The SEC further alleges that in May 2009, Allen participated in due diligence work for the Japanese firm Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd. (DSP) in connection with its impending acquisition of Sepracor.  Allen again tipped Bennett with inside information about the upcoming transaction, and Bennett again shared the information with Robbins.  In the months leading up to the September 3 public announcement that DSP had agreed to acquire Sepracor, Robbins and Bennett purchased more than $350,000 worth of call options in Sepracor.  Additionally, they sold tens of thousands of dollars of Sepracor put options, and Robbins purchased Sepracor shares.  Following the public announcement, Sepracor's stock price rose more than 26 percent, and both Robbins and Bennett liquidated their entire positions in Sepracor for ill-gotten profits of more than $388,000 and $516,000 respectively.

The SEC’s complaint charges Robbins with violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5, and Section 14(e) of the Exchange Act and Rule 14e-3.  Robbins has agreed to pay $865,000 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and a $150,000 penalty.  The settlement, which is subject to court approval, takes into account Robbins’s current financial condition.  Without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint, Robbins also agreed to be permanently enjoined from future violations of these provisions of the federal securities laws.

The SEC’s case continues against Allen and Bennett, who have now pled guilty in parallel criminal actions filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Charles D. Riely of the SEC’s Market Abuse Unit in New York and Layla Mayer, Sandra Yanez, and Amelia A. Cottrell in the New York Regional Office.  The SEC acknowledges the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Options Regulatory Surveillance Authority, and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

GSA SAYS IT IS WORKING TO TRANSFORM THE GOVERNMENT WORKPLACE TO SAVE MILLIONS

FROM:  GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION 
GSA Transforming the Government Workplace, Saving Agencies Millions
Initiative to do away with “Mad Men” style offices, modernize the federal government

Full service offerings include design, technology, furnishings to cut office space, reduce costs and increase collaboration

Washington, DC -- Today, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) launched a comprehensive service to create a 21st century workplace throughout the federal government. GSA’s Total Workplace initiative provides resources and expertise to help federal agencies reduce their office space, foster collaboration, better manage IT spending, and increase energy efficiency. In a time of shrinking budgets, the initiative is already saving taxpayer dollars and helping customer agencies better serve the American people. The U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have announced today that they have joined the Total Workplace program and are on their way to realizing significant savings and reducing their real estate footprint. The effort will also help agencies meet Obama Administration goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs, including the freeze the federal footprint directive.    

GSA has been meeting with agencies throughout the federal government to lay out the benefits of this program. Here's how GSA’s Total Workplace is already delivering savings and cost avoidance for federal agencies and the American people:

-   At DHS, a reduction of rented space with subleasing, increased teleworking and the adoption of desk sharing, has allowed the agency to begin   reducing its real estate footprint, resulting in a projected savings of $55 million in office real estate costs.

-   USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will reduce its footprint from 43 state offices across the country to 12 regional locations which will create significant savings. Through the efforts to-date, the agency is projected to save more than $700,000 in annual real estate costs.

-   HHS will improve space efficiencies, reduce the agency’s footprint, and save the federal government more than $15 million in real estate costs over a ten year lease.

GSA’s Total Workplace will also allow FWS to eliminate 72,200 square feet, saving taxpayers more than $3 million in annual real estate costs.
                                                                                                                                                                                                         
“We are replacing buildings built around hierarchies from an era where people used the telegraph with workspaces more suited to today’s world,” said GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini. “The kind of open office environment that Total Workplace creates encourages collaboration and cooperation that in turn leads to better services for the American people. By using our space more efficiently, we also save valuable taxpayer dollars.”

“Total Workplace gives federal workers access to the technology they need to accomplish their missions not only effectively, but also efficiently. Today’s workforce demands the tools necessary to work anywhere, anytime. Reducing the federal footprint gives agencies appropriate work spaces to get the job done together, while encouraging mobility,” said Charles Hardy, GSA’s Chief Total Workplace Officer.

GSA is leading workplace transformation with the renovation of its own headquarters in Washington, DC. GSA was able to collapse a number of leases in the region and bring those employees into the renovated headquarters, allowing it to go from 2,200 to 3,300 employees. By consolidating GSA employees into a single facility, the agency is eliminating $24.4 million in annual lease payments. The renovation also includes high-performance green building initiatives, such as photovoltaic rooftop arrays; an underground cistern to recapture and reuse rainwater/grey water; a green roof; solar hot water panels; high efficiency mechanical systems; and daylight harvesting.

SEC CHARGES OWNER NY ADVISORY FIRM WITH INSIDER TRADING IN ADVANCE OF MERGERS

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the owner of a New York-based advisory firm with insider trading in his own account and client accounts based on non-public information in advance of a merger announcement by pharmaceutical companies.

The SEC alleges that Tibor Klein, who lives on Long Island and is president of Klein Financial Services, learned confidential information about Pfizer Inc.'s planned acquisition of King Pharmaceuticals. He misappropriated the information and traded in advance of the public announcement for illicit profits of more than $300,000 for himself and his clients.

The SEC also charged Klein's close friend Michael Shechtman, a stockbroker living in South Florida who was tipped by Klein and traded on the non-public information for more than $100,000 in illegal profits.

According to the SEC's complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Klein learned material, non-public information about the impending merger in August 2010 from one of his clients - an attorney who works on matters for King Pharmaceuticals. On August 16 - the first day that the markets opened after he learned the confidential information - Klein began purchasing large amounts of King Pharmaceuticals' stock. Klein had not purchased so many securities of an individual stock for so many clients in such a short time period in 2010 as he did when he made these purchases.

The SEC alleges that Klein then went one step further and tipped his best friend, Shechtman, with the non-public information about King Pharmaceuticals. Klein and Shechtman speak often but rarely more than once a day. But Klein called Shechtman six times on August 16, when Shechtman submitted an application to open an options trading account and handwrote "Please expedite ASAP" at the top of the form. Shechtman had never before traded in options. On August 18, Klein called Shechtman 11 more times as Shechtman purchased 2,500 shares of King Pharmaceuticals stock and 300 call options in his personal account, and 2,400 shares in his wife's Roth IRA account.

According to the SEC's complaint, the public announcement was made on Oct. 12, 2010. King Pharmaceuticals stock subsequently rose 39 percent and trading volume increased by more than 12,000 percent from the previous day. Following the announcement, Klein sold his King Pharmaceuticals stock and generated profits of $328,375.02 for himself and his clients. Shechtman sold his shares and his wife's share in King Pharmaceuticals stock and options for profits of $109,040.53.

The SEC's complaint charges Klein and Shechtman with violations of Sections 10(b) and 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5 and 14e-3. The SEC seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, financial penalties, and permanent injunctive relief against Klein and Shechtman to enjoin them from future violations of the federal securities laws.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Rachel K. Paulose and supervised by Elisha L. Frank in the Miami Regional Office. The SEC's litigation will be led by Robert K. Levenson. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

FROM DEFIBRILLATOR TO "LIGHT HEART"

Photo Credit:  CDC

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
Researchers envision switching a heart beat on and off with light

With a few flicks of a light switch--on-off-on-off--Stanford University's Oscar Abilez is one step closer to changing the lives of millions.

Why? Because as a focused speck of light turns on and off in Abilez's lab, a cluster of heart cells begins to expand and contract. He demonstrates that he can control the rhythm of a heart using just light.

Currently, 4 million Americans suffer from some degree of cardiac arrhythmia, wherein a person's heart beats too slowly, too quickly or at irregular intervals. Such heart rhythm problems can cause a shortness of breath, fainting and, in worst-case scenarios, death.

The good news is devices like pacemakers and defibrillators allow doctors to introduce electrical signals to set patients' hearts at regularly timed beats. But these small mechanical devices come with risks.

"It's like using a cannon to kill an ant," says Leon Esterowitz, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Engineering's Biophotonics program, which funds this research through the Living Matter Lab at Stanford, under the direction of Ellen Kuhl, a professor of engineering at Stanford.

Patients must undergo invasive surgical procedures to permanently implant the devices, which can cause cardiac tissue damage. There are other challenges too, such as lifestyle limitations and the occasional battery malfunction.

Doctors and patients agree there must be a better solution.

"I think progress has to happen," says Ryan Aleong, a leading University of Colorado Denver cardiologist who diagnoses and treats the heart's electrical irregularities. "I think we all realize there's going to be a move for more translational medicine to solve some of these problems."

Dr. Light to the rescue

That's where Abilez, a cardiovascular physician with a doctorate in bioengineering, comes in. He's working with a team of Stanford scientists to develop a novel biological pacemaker--one that controls the human heart with light.

The project, Optogenetic Control of the Human Heart--Turning Light into Force, received $600,000 from NSF last year. The Biomechanics and Mechanobiology program and the Mechanics of Materials program in NSF's Engineering Directorate co-fund the research along the Biophotonics program.

It was one of 40 new projects funded during the first round of NSF's INSPIRE initiative, which addresses complicated and pressing scientific problems that do not fit neatly into any one traditional scientific field or domain.

Abilez's research suits that characterization. It involves two seemingly disconnected and developing technologies: optogenetics and stem cells.

At first glance optogenetics seems more like a magic trick than science, using just flashes of light to control a targeted group of cells.

But, not so fast. Optogenetics uses techniques from both optics and genetics to control the activity of individual neurons in living tissue.

Only a few organisms, such as algae, have naturally light-sensitive cells. In 2002, however, scientists in Germany were able to isolate the genes for the proteins--called opsins--responsible for cells' light sensitivity and modify the genetic code of other cells so that they, too, would produce opsins.

Once produced, the opsins act like small hatches on the surface of a cell. When light shines on them, the hatches either open or close, depending on the type of opsin they are. If the hatches open, electrical signals are able to flow through the cell and be translated into some action, such as regulating a heart. In 2005, Karl Deisseroth and colleagues, also at Stanford, were able to genetically introduce opsins into neurons and control these cells with light; this work and subsequent work has led to the field of optogenetics.

Optogenetics has huge implications for medicine. Researchers, for example, already have shown that they can stop a seizure, cure anxiety and even implant fake memories into the minds of mice using the technology.

Shining a light on someone's chest

Abilez's grand vision is to take stem cells from a person suffering from cardiac arrhythmia and convert the cells into light-sensitive cardiomyocytes--cells that constitute cardiac muscle and are responsible for pacemaker functions in the heart. The cardiomyocytes would then be grafted onto a person's heart, thus allowing doctors to control the whole heart's rhythm using light.

"The applications can be of very high reward," says Natalia Trayanova, director of John Hopkins University's Computational Cardiology Lab.

Current high-energy defibrillation is painful, traumatic and has been associated with a higher rate of mortality, she says. Trayanova also works on cardiac optogenetics.

"Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shine a light on someone's chest and defibrillate them painlessly?"

Abilez has already successfully grown light-sensitive cardiomyocytes. His next step is to test whether the lab-grown cells are accepted when coupled with a larger body of non-stem-cell derived heart cells.

If they are, then Abilez will be on his way to creating a less-invasive, longer-lasting and glitch-free treatment for arrhythmias.

Moreover, Abilez also will have paved the way for optogenetic success in other fields. If he can successfully couple light-sensitive cells with normal cells, then his method of creating light-sensitive stem cells could be used by other researchers to grow any type of light-sensitive cell they wanted, from neurons to pancreatic cells, magnifying the applications of optogenetics in an unprecedented way.

Optogenetic hurdles

At a time when many medical treatments, from prescription drugs to surgeries, can result in a laundry list of complications, it may be difficult to trust that cardiac optogenetics offers a relatively complication-free treatment for patients.

In a way, the mistrust is valid, say researchers. There still are risks involved in cardiac optogenetics. Such risks, however, exist not with the treatment itself but with the feasibility of its development. That is to say, there are still major hurdles to overcome before any applications can be realized.

Ronald Berger, professor of medicine at John Hopkins University, is concerned that biological pacemakers might not be able to coordinate electrical activity between the atria and the ventricles.

Abilez acknowledges such risk, saying that there is a chance the team will discover that their light-sensitive stem cells cannot control the heart as well as they hoped. A large part of the research's difficulty is that the team is in uncharted waters--they have no prior research on which to base their efforts.

"We have to invent things along the way. We don't have any precedent," Abilez says.

Computer models reduce uncertainty

Ellen Kuhl, director of Stanford's Living Matter Lab is helping to take out some of the uncertainty by creating computer models that simulate the heart under different conditions.

With her models, Kuhl has been able to predict optimal configurations for the gene expression of opsins, how much light needs to be shined on the cardiomyocytes and where in the heart cells should be implanted. She can predict all of this for hearts of varied sizes and ages.

"Computational models can help interpret observations in the complex cardiac setting and can guide future developments," says Emilia Entcheva, a biomechanical engineering professor at Stony Brook University in New York and a colleague of Trayanova.

More immediately, however, Kuhl says, "We can make physical or experimental models of arrhythmia and use those as a platform to test drugs to see which drugs are effective in stopping arrhythmias." In fact, companies are looking into using the technology for such drug testing purposes now.

The computational models used for cardiac optogenetics are a product of a new way of practicing medicine--one that involves not only biology and chemistry, but also engineering, mathematics and computer science.

While the applications of cardiac optogenetics are far-reaching, the field has been slow to develop. This is in part because interest in the technology started just as the scientific community began to feel the effects of the recession, says Entcheva.

"NSF support will be a great incentive for more cardiac researchers to focus on fundamental questions that can elevate the use of optogenetics in electrophysiology and cell signaling," she says.

The researchers estimate the main applications of cardiac optogenetics will be realized in the next 10-15 years.

JOHN KERRY'S REMARKS TO UN ON DISABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks at a High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Disability and Development
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
United Nations
New York City
September 23, 2013

Good morning. And it’s a great pleasure for me to be able to be here with all of you, an honor to be here for my first high-level meeting at the United Nations General Assembly as Secretary of State.

Before we begin, I want to just reiterate that we are monitoring very closely and with great concern the situation in Kenya. Ruthless and valueless terrorists remain a serious challenge everywhere in the world, as we all know, whether it’s in downtown Manhattan or in a mall in Nairobi or anywhere else in the world, and all of us have a responsibility to remain vigilant. We stand with the Kenyan people. The President has talked to their President; I’ve talked to their Foreign Minister. They are a resilient people, and they will need the world’s support in the coming difficult days.

But the bottom line is that this tragedy is a reminder, a terrible reminder, to all of us that we all share a stake in one another. And that is especially important to keep in mind as the international community prepares to renew the development goals for 2015 and beyond. What happens in one country, we are reminded day to day, matters to many others, to all of us. And what matters in one culture has to be considered elsewhere. That is a bottom line with respect to the topic that we are discussing here today. The way we treat people of all backgrounds, including how we treat disabled and non-disabled alike, this is how we demonstrate our values, and it’s how we define who we are.

Through our development agenda, we have a very important opportunity to show the world that we value everyone’s contributions, and that we leave no one behind, including those with disabilities. It is clear, and we have seen here in the United States over the last years, that we can make an enormous number of lives better in that process.

The principle behind this is really very, very simple: Our societies, all of our societies, are stronger when every single one of our citizens, able bodied and disabled alike, all get to live up to their full potential. And that’s why here in our country, many states have established standards, and they steadfastly enforce them – laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which we passed in 1990 and we believe is really a gold standard with respect to how we treat people and how we open up the world for opportunities. We encourage the international community to look at, study, and, hopefully, emulate this law.

Thanks to laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, nearly one in five Americans are now protected from disability-based discrimination, and all Americans benefit from the contributions of our fellow citizens with disabilities. We see this every day in everyday life in the workplace, in schools, in education all across our nation.

Thanks to other groundbreaking non-discrimination laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, nearly 60 percent of students with disabilities are in general education classrooms for 80 percent or more of their school day. Nearly 350,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families now receive early intervention services. And more than 6.6 million children and youth receive special education and related services designed to meet their individual needs.

This year the Federal Communications Commission issued the first-ever National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program in order to help meet the needs of deaf-blind individuals. And since then, hundreds of deaf-blind individuals have gained access to communication technologies through this program, allowing them to lead independent lives and stay connected with their family members and their friends.

In too many countries, however, we still see the rights and the dignity that we have been blessed to be able to now almost take for granted, that it is not existent in many of those places. So as we work to ensure equal access to public spaces, communications technology, education, and more, and though we’ve seen progress internationally, everybody here knows that we still have a lot to do.

Though disabled persons comprise 15 percent of the world, 8 in 10 live in developing countries. And there’s obvious reasons for that. And in those developing countries, 9 out of 10 children with disabilities don’t go to school. Compared with 5 or 10 years ago, many more countries now have laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability, and many more countries require buildings to be accessible. But all countries, we believe, can work harder to enforce these laws, and to ensure that disabled people have as much right and ability to access their local supermarket or their school or even election booths.

Frankly, this is as much an economic issue as it is a human rights issue. But it is also profoundly a family issue, a personal issue, and a moral issue. None of the change that is needed is possible without the partnerships that we’re building at the international level, including meetings like this, where the world can come together to learn from each other’s experience of how we can make rights a reality for disabled people. No one can forget, however, that the most important partnerships we build are, in the end, those that we build with persons with disabilities themselves. We cannot afford to forget that disabled individuals are not only the beneficiaries of development efforts and investments, but they are also leaders, and they are the agents of progress. And they do so on an equal basis with others.

I’m honored today to be joined by Judith Heumann and Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, who are well known to you all as longtime leaders in the international disability movement. We’re honored that they have brought their expertise and leadership into our government to guide United States policy and practice that leaves no one behind in our diplomacy or in our development, including persons with disabilities.

So we’re here because we see the possibilities of diplomacy, the promise of development, and the potential of every single person. And in fact, I think all of us understand and we have learned gracefully in our country that the possibilities are, frankly, unlimited. So I hope everyone will leave here with a commitment to do everything that we can to make sure that we are pursuing the policies of inclusivity and that we mean it when we say we will not leave anyone behind. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

FTC ANNOUNCES SHUTDOWN OF PAY TO OBTAIN PRIZE SWEEPSTAKES SCAM

FROM:  FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal court has halted a massive sweepstakes scam that has taken more than $11 million from consumers throughout the United States and dozens of other countries throughout the world, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. The FTC seeks to permanently end the allegedly illegal practices that have continued for seven years and return money to victims.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Liam O. Moran, a resident of Ventura, California, and his companies, mass mail personalized letters to millions of consumers telling them that they have won a large cash prize, typically more than $2 million with bold, large-type statements such as “Over TWO MILLION DOLLARS in sweepstakes has been reserved for you.” Consumers are told that they can collect the prize by sending in a small fee of approximately $20 to $30. The letters often indicate that recipients are “guaranteed” to receive the prize money if they pay the fee, and they create a sense of urgency by stating that it is a limited-time offer.

In “dense, confusing language,” often on the back of the letters, there are statements in direct conflict with the bold claims of major winnings. A very careful reader might learn that they in fact have not won, and that the defendants do not sponsor sweepstakes but instead claim only to provide consumers with a list of available sweepstakes. Consumers frequently fail to see or understand this language and send money to the defendants. The FTC alleges that this language does not appear designed to correct deceptive statements, but exists mainly as an attempt to provide a defense to law enforcement action. Consumers get nothing of value in exchange for their payment.

The defendants have sent more than 3.7 million letters during the past two years, including nearly 800,000 letters to people in 156 countries in the first half of 2013. They have collected more than $11 million from consumers since 2009. The vast majority of the victims of this scam appear to be over 65.

The court order temporarily stops the illegal conduct, freezes the operation’s assets, and appoints a receiver over the corporate defendants while the FTC moves forward with the case.

Moran’s co-defendants are Applied Marketing Sciences LLC; Standard Registration Corporation, also doing business as Consolidated Research Authority and CRA; and Worldwide Information Systems Incorporated, also doing business as Specific Monitoring Service, SMS, Specific Reporting Service, SRS, Universal Information Services, UIS, Compendium Sampler Services, and CSS.

The FTC would like to thank the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Vancouver Police Department, the Metropolitan Police in the United Kingdom, the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for their assistance in this case.

To learn how to avoid these kinds of scams, read the FTC's Prize Offers: You Don't Have to Pay to Play.

The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 4-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.