'Extinct' frog hops back into northern Israel (AP)

JERUSALEM ? A frog species believed to be extinct has hopped back into sight in northern Israel.

Omri Gal of Israel's Nature and Parks Authority said Thursday the Hula Painted Frog was seen for the first time in 50 years this week. He said it was declared extinct.

Gal said, "It's an amazing find, now we have a second chance to preserve the species."

The frog is native to the Hula Valley, a swamp drained in the 1950s to stop malaria.

Aquatic ecologist Dana Milstein says the frog was rare even before, and little is known about it. In the 1940s, a specimen ate a second frog, leading to speculation the species is cannibalistic.

She credited rehydration of the area for the frog sighting and said more are likely in the reserve.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_sc/ml_israel_frog_comeback

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Moon May Outshine Leonid Meteor Shower Tonight

News | Space

The best way to view the Leonids is to face the darkest part of the sky, away from the moon and the constellation of Leo

By Denise Chow and SPACE.com ?| November 17, 2011

Image: Navicore, courtesy Flickr

The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight (Nov. 17), but bright moonlight is threatening to wash out this year's light display.

The annual Leonid meteor shower is expected to reach peak activity tonight at approximately 10:40 p.m. EST (0340 GMT on Nov. 18), but a luminous third quarter moon could outshine even the brightest meteors, said Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"The moon is going to be a major interference, but we could see a rate of about 20 per hour," Cooke told SPACE.com.

Meteor showers occur when Earth orbits through clouds of particles and dust on its path around the sun. Meteors are often referred to as "shooting stars," because of how they streak across the sky, but these dazzling streaks of light are really triggered by pieces of debris that hit Earth's atmosphere and burn up.

The Leonids are leftovers of the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which travels around the sun and leaves clouds of dust in its wake. This small, dusty comet was discovered in the late 19th century, and as Earth travels through the trails of debris left behind from the comet's previous passes through our orbit, fragments impact the atmosphere and blaze across the night sky. [Most Amazing Leonid Meteor Shower Photos ]

While Leonid meteors appear to rain from the constellation of Leo the Lion, they can actually be viewed in all parts of the sky. According to the editors of StarDate magazine, a bi-monthly publication from The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory, the best way to view Leonid meteors is to face the darkest part of the sky, away from the moon and the constellation of Leo.

Every 33 years, the Leonids put on a truly spectacular display of more than a thousand meteors per hour in what is known as a meteor storm. This occurs when the comet dives close to the sun and Earth passes through the resulting thick concentration of cosmic debris.

The last Leonid meteor storm happened in 1999, but one of the most famous and most dazzling ever witnessed was the Great Leonid Storm of 1966, when skywatchers in central and western North America were treated to a hail of meteors that were too numerous to count.

Overall, Cooke said the 2011 meteor shower season has been somewhat subdued because of the brightness of the moon during many of the showers' peaks.

After the Leonids, skywatchers will be able to look forward to December's Geminid meteor shower, which is generally thought to be one of the best displays of the year. And while the shining moon may have lunar observers rejoicing, meteor shower enthusiasts can take comfort in early forecasts that show that next year's meteor shower season will be a much more dazzling affair.

"Next year will be better," Cooke said. "I think we're going to have to wait for next year to have a knock-your-socks-off meteor shower."

? 2011 TechMediaNetwork.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5977b50241ab954750231340d3aeb215

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Texas AG criticizes court's redistricting maps (AP)

AUSTIN, Texas ? The Texas attorney general has sharply criticized a federal court over proposed maps for the state House and Senate districts.

A federal court invited parties to comment on the redistricting maps on Friday. Attorney General Gregg Abbott said the San Antonio-based court overstepped its bounds. In a court filing, Abbott accused the judges of wrongfully overruling the Legislature and trying to set policy, rather than following the law.

Minority groups have challenged the Republican-drawn maps, saying they are discriminatory.

In a different case, a federal court in Washington refused to approve the legislative and congressional maps Texas lawmakers drew up and ordered the San Antonio court to draw temporary maps for the 2012 election.

Abbott has said the Legislature's maps are fair and should be respected.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_redistricting

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Vivendi posts in-line 9 month results (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? Telecoms and entertainment group Vivendi (VIV.PA) said on Wednesday the current economic gloom was not hurting its business as it posted higher adjusted profits for the first nine months, driven by growth in Brazil and in video games.

Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy also told Le Figaro newspaper that plans to buy out media group Lagardere (LAGA.PA)'s minority stake in Vivendi's pay-TV unit Canal+ were no longer on the table.

Vivendi has been on an acquisition spree this year, agreeing last week to buy EMI's recorded music arm for 1.4 billion euros to bolster its Universal music business. It is also now finalizing a deal to merge its pay-TV business in Poland with local rival media group TVN (TVNN.WA), and recently bought two free-to-air TV channels in France from Bollore Group.

Earlier this year, the Paris-based conglomerate also bought out Vodafone's (VOD.L) minority stake in French telecom operator SFR for 7.95 billion euros in a bid to gain full ownership of the business that is its main driver of group profits and cash.

After all these deals, Levy said Vivendi held 14-14.5 billion euros in debt and admitted that left little room to do further acquisitions.

"We won't raise the debt anymore because it is out of question that we lost out BBB credit rating," he told the newspaper. "In any case... we will propose a slight hike in the dividend this year."

Vivendi posted a 13.8 percent rise in nine-months adjusted net profit to 2.5 billion euros while revenue rose 0.8 percent to 21 billion euros, according to figures in the Figaro.

A Thomson Reuters poll of 7 analysts had expected adjusted net profit of 2.4 billion euros and revenue of 21 billion euros.

(Reporting by Leila Abboud and Dominique Vidalon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111116/bs_nm/us_vivendi

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Top shareholder cuts stake in Japan's disgraced Olympus (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) ? One of Olympus Corp's top shareholders, Nippon Life Insurance, cut its stake in the scandal-hit Japanese firm but signaled on Thursday it would remain as an investor in the company, citing its strong core business and technology.

Olympus, which makes cameras and medical equipment, is being investigated by police, prosecutors and regulators after admitting this month to hiding investment losses for decades and using payments linked to acquisitions to aid the cover-up.

Nippon Life, which cut its holding to 5.11 percent from 8.18 percent, said it had done so due to uncertainties surrounding the company but would still back the firm.

"Our basic stance is that we will continue to support Olympus due to the company's high technological strength in its core business and because it is in the public's interest," said Akira Tsuzuki, an official at Nippon Life.

Olympus, which employs nearly 40,000 people, is the global leader in endoscopes and its optical technology may have defense applications.

Olympus may sell assets to help pay down $3.4 billion in debt under a plan aimed at keeping the support of its banks, the Nikkei business daily said. Their backing is vital because the firm is relatively highly geared and is expected to have to make some hefty writedowns after its accounts are put straight.

The once-proud company put forward the debt-reduction proposal at a meeting with creditors on Wednesday, offering to cut its debt by about 260 billion yen ($3.4 billion) over the next three years, the Nikkei said.

The paper quoted a senior banker as saying Olympus did not face any imminent cash crunch.

DUBIOUS PAYMENTS

The dubious M&A payments included a huge $687 million fee paid to obscure financial advisers for Olympus's $2.2 billion purchase of British medical equipment firm Gyrus in 2008. The fee is the world's biggest, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Shares in Olympus, which have lost 70 percent of their value since the scandal broke last month, see-sawed in heavy trade on Thursday, surging by as much as 18 percent then giving up almost all of those gains to end 0.95 percent up at 747 yen.

Investors are betting that the firm will escape a delisting, although executives deemed responsible for the scandal may well face criminal charges.

Fumiyuki Nakanishi, strategist at SMBC Friend Securities, said banks were major shareholders as well as lenders to Olympus and none of them would benefit from a delisting, which would effectively cut the firm off from equity capital markets.

"The big shareholders of Olympus are the banks. They're the ones that are going to suffer if Olympus shares turn into scrap paper," said Nakanishi, noting Olympus still needed to meet a December deadline for publishing its half-year accounts.

"If Olympus does hand in its results by December 14 and there are no further uncertainties, the stock will continue its climb on a view that it will not be taken off the Nikkei 225 or be delisted."

TO DELIST, OR NOT?

The Tokyo Stock Exchange has put Olympus on a watchlist as a possible prelude to delisting.

If the firm does not meet the December 14 deadline, it would be automatically delisted. The bourse can still delist its shares depending on the scope of the misstatements. But a securities watchdog source has said it might recommend that the company be fined, a move that could decrease the risk of delisting.

"Institutions and funds are selling their holdings of Olympus, but as long as the company looks as if it might avoid delisting, hedge funds and speculator traders will keep buying it back, looking for short-term gains," said Masayoshi Okamoto, head of dealing at Jujiya Securities.

But, he added, "the rising trend could turn around quickly" if the company began to look like it might miss the deadline.

In a sign Olympus expects its core businesses to keep ticking over, the company showed creditors a tentative operating profit forecast of 35.6 billion yen for the year to March 2012, the Nikkei said. That would be significantly lower than a previous forecast of 50 billion yen announced in August, but about flat on the figure it announced for last year.

Olympus has told its creditors that its acquisition costs for Gyrus were overstated by 33.4 billion yen ($434 million) at the end of fiscal 2010, the Nikkei said, though an independent panel commissioned by Olympus was still probing the matter.

If this were the only writedown, such an amount would put a big dent in the company's equity but not destroy it.

At Wednesday's meeting, which involved about 100 bankers, two major creditors, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), said they would continue to support the firm, multiple sources told Reuters.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp is the core banking unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, and BTMU is the main unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

Olympus' interest-bearing debts stood at about 650 billion yen ($8.45 billion) on a consolidated basis as of end-March. SMFG and BTMU have total loans of over 400 billion yen to the firm, which also borrowed about 100 billion yen in syndicated loans, according to banking sources.

($1 = 76.950 Japanese Yen)

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito, Yoko Kubota, Lisa Twaronite and Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111117/bs_nm/us_olympus

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Mortgage applications fall in latest week: MBA (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Applications for U.S. home mortgages dropped last week, erasing the gains of the week before as demand for refinancing evaporated, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, dropped 10.0 percent in the week ended Nov 11.

The decline wiped out a gain of 10.3 percent the previous week.

The MBA's seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications tumbled 12.2 percent, while the gauge of loan requests for home purchases slipped 2.3 percent.

The refinance share of total mortgage activity decreased to 77.3 percent of applications from 78.6 percent.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.23 percent, up 1 basis point, from 4.22 percent the prior week.

The survey covers over 75 percent of U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111116/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_mortgages

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Encased iPads Live Through Quarter-Mile Free Falls [Video]

The last time I saw something survive a 1300-foot fall, King of the Hill was still on and Peggy was celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/cQRy0rwrkrQ/encased-ipads-live-through-quarter+mile-free-falls

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GOP hopefuls would limit federal role in education (AP)

WASHINGTON ? When it comes to education, the Republican field of presidential candidates has a unified stance: Get the federal government out of schools. How they'd do that varies.

Take the Education Department. Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul along with Texas Gov. Rick Perry want to shut it down altogether, while Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich want to shrink it. Offering student loans? Herman Cain says the department should get out of that business.

And then there's the Bush-era education accountability law, No Child Left Behind. Perry calls it a "direct assault on federalism," while former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has long expressed animosity toward the law.

Although former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has said "we need to get the federal government out of education," he has been more willing to praise certain Education Department policies.

While polls show that voters clearly care about education, it hasn't been a driving issue in the race. Instead, it percolates at times. When it does, the dialogue ? like many other issues in the race ? has been primarily focused on the general theme of limiting the federal role more than on specific education policies.

Any comments of praise of a federal education policy can lead to accusations that a candidate supports federal overreach, said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

For example, after Romney praised the Education Department's "Race to the Top" program, which has had states competing for billions in grant dollars, Perry called Romney out on it during a Sept. 22 debate saying, "Being in favor of the Obama `Race to the Top,' that is not conservative."

Generally, the candidates support more school choice options for students.

Limiting the federal government's role in education isn't a new argument among conservatives, many of whom disagreed with the decision to create a Cabinet-level department during the Carter administration.

President George W. Bush took a different view. He campaigned heavily in 2000 on the passage of No Child Left Behind and the need for tough assessment standards, specifically to help low income and minority children. Under No Child Left Behind, which was signed in 2002 with widespread bipartisan support, students are tested annually and schools that don't meet proficiency requirements face sanctions. The law, however, has become increasingly unpopular with critics saying it's too rigid, led to schools being unfairly deemed as "failures" and to teachers teaching to the test.

Many other Republicans went along ? at least early on.

Santorum voted for the law.

When Texas' plan on No Child Left Behind was approved in 2002, Perry proudly said that "Texas was a model" for the national law and that the approval meant Texas would receive almost $400 million in new federal funding.

And in 2005, Romney testified on Capitol Hill in praise of the law. "I do look to the federal government to help set the benchmark where we can compare to how well we are performing, and, if we are not performing, to insist that we do the job or that we suffer the consequences at the state or local level," Romney said.

The candidates' records on education are revealing.

Bachmann has said she was driven to first run for office because of concerns over the education her more than 20 foster children were receiving. Two years ago, Gingrich hit the road with the Rev. Al Sharpton, a liberal civil right advocate, on a listening tour on education that Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined.

Huntsman, as Utah governor, signed a law in 2005 that defied the No Child Left Behind Act by giving the state's education standards priority over the federal requirements.

Perry has refused to have Texas adopt curriculum standards adopted by nearly every state or have his state compete in the Race to the Top competition, saying it "smacks of a federal takeover of public schools." Perry's positions helped earn him a rebuff by Duncan that he felt "very, very badly for the children" of Texas.

Romney used to support closing the Education Department, but in 2007 he said he'd come to see the value of the federal government's role.

In recent months, President Barack Obama has brought education back into the national political realm. He announced states could apply for waivers around many of the proficiency requirements in No Child Left Behind if they met certain requirements. He advocated for the passage of a jobs creation bill rejected by the Senate that included $30 billion to hire educators.

And, Obama announced he was using executive authority to allow potentially millions of qualified students and college graduates to consolidate their loans and accelerate a program that based payment options on income.

The announcement on student loans sparked some discussion among the GOP candidates at a forum. Bachmann said Obama's effort was an "abuse of power" that will give people incentives to dodge debt. Gingrich said government loans should be reprivatized before Obama bankrupts the entire country "by promising to every young person you will not have to pay your student loan as a student."

And Cain said that, "I do not believe it's the responsibility of the federal government to help fund college education."

Margaret Spellings, who served as education secretary under Bush, said the anti-federal talk on education among GOP candidates concerns her. She said the candidates should be speaking primarily about the needs of kids over adults and better ways to close achievement gaps and educate poor and minority kids ? things she said she's not hearing about as much as she'd like. She said she wonders what would happen to important programs under a dissolved Education Department, such as educating disabled children.

"The federal role in education has always been around the needs of poor and disadvantaged kids, so I'd like to see the focus on that, I'd like to see talk of accountability," Spellings said.

___

Kimberly Hefling can be followed at http://twitter.com/khefling

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_candidates_education

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Gas pipe deal for India, Pakistan imminent - Turkmen minister (Reuters)

ASHGABAT (Reuters) ? Turkmenistan expects soon to sign a long-delayed agreement to sell natural gas to Pakistan and India and has "no doubts" that an ambitious project to build a pipeline through Afghanistan will be realised, a senior energy official said on Friday.

Oil and Gas Minister Bayramgeldy Nedirov said the proposed Turkmenistan to India pipeline, known as TAPI, would require 1 trillion cubic metres of Turkmen gas to be pumped over a 30-year period.

"Preparations are under way for the imminent signing of an agreement on the sale and purchase of natural gas," Nedirov told an international investment forum.

"There are no doubts that this project will be realised."

He did not give further details about the signing or who the counterparts would be.

Turkmenistan, a Central Asian republic sitting on the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves, wants to build the pipeline as part of its plans to diversify sales from Soviet-era master Russia to energy-hungry markets in Asia and Europe.

The idea of the 1,700-km (1,056-mile) TAPI pipeline was first raised in the mid-1990s, but has never been realised.

Pakistan and India, which would consume most of the gas supplied via the pipeline, have previously said they are close to signing a supply deal with Turkmenistan. Previous timeframes have passed without an agreement being struck.

The security of a route that would run through Taliban heartlands in southern Afghanistan mean security will be a major challenge to the project, which proposes annual supplies of 33 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Turkmen gas.

An intergovernmental agreement signed in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat in December contained no specific provisions for security, volumes or gas prices. The partners must also secure funding for the pipeline.

Turkmenistan envisages that gas for the pipeline would be supplied by its South Iolotan field, ranked by British auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates last month as the second-largest in the world behind Iran's South Pars deposit.

The auditor said South Iolotan contained between 13.1 trillion and 21.2 trillion cubic metres of natural gas.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on the sidelines of the forum that Turkmenistan also planned to sign another gas supply deal with China.

"Signing could take place during an official visit by President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to Beijing, which could take place in the near future," he said, without giving further details.

Turkmenistan has said supplies to China could rise to 17 bcm in 2011 and 20 bcm in 2012. The countries plan eventually to raise annual supplies to 60 bcm, equivalent to more than 60 percent of China's domestic gas output in 2010.

(Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Anthony Barker)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/india/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/india_wl_nm/india603258

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