Selena Gomez, Nat Wolff Fall Into 'Racy Behavior' In 'Behaving Badly'

'It's this wild, dark comedy involving mafia and strippers and dead people,' Wolff tells MTV News.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by James Lacsina

Nat Wolff
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709665/selena-gomez-nat-wolff-behaving-badly.jhtml

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stroke in China and the United States

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

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

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

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

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

Increased Risk of Subsequent Stroke

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

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

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

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

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

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High court gay marriage decisions due Wednesday

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court is meeting to deliver opinions in two cases that could dramatically alter the rights of gay people across the United States.

The justices are expected to decide their first-ever cases about gay marriage Wednesday in their last session before the court's summer break.

The issues before the court are California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies legally married gay Americans a range of tax, health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.

The broadest possible ruling would give gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. But several narrower paths also are available, including technical legal outcomes in which the court could end up saying very little about same-sex marriage.

If the court overturns California's Proposition 8 or allows lower court rulings that struck down the ban to stand, it will take about a month for same-sex weddings to resume for the first time since 2008, San Francisco officials have said.

The high court rulings are arriving amid rapid change regarding gay marriage. The number of states permitting same-sex partners to wed has doubled from six to 12 in less than a year, with voter approval in three states in November, followed by legislative endorsement in three others in the spring.

At the same time, an effort to legalize gay marriage in Illinois stalled before the state's legislative session ended last month. And 30 states have same-sex marriage bans enshrined in their constitutions.

Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry, in 2004. Same-sex marriage also is legal, or soon will be, in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Roughly 18,000 same-sex couples got married in California in less than five months in 2008, after the California Supreme Court struck down a state code provision prohibiting gay unions.

California voters approved Proposition 8 in November of that year, writing the ban into the state constitution.

Two same-sex couples challenged the provision as unconstitutional and federal courts in California agreed.

The federal marriage law, known by its acronym DOMA, defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits. Another provision not being challenged for the time being allows states to withhold recognition of same-sex marriages from other states.

DOMA easily passed Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the year of his re-election.

Several federal district and appeals courts struck down the provision. In 2011, the Obama administration abandoned its defense of the law but continued to enforce it. House Republicans are now defending DOMA in the courts. President Barack Obama subsequently endorsed gay marriage in 2012.

The justices chose for their review the case of 83-year-old Edith Windsor of New York, who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her partner of 44 years died in 2009.

Windsor, who goes by Edie, married Thea Spyer in 2007 after doctors told them Spyer would not live much longer. She suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Spyer left everything she had to Windsor.

Windsor would have paid nothing in inheritance taxes if she had been married to a man.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/high-court-gay-marriage-decisions-due-wednesday-071439132.html

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Scott looking for a big week to find British grove

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) ? The one thing that keeps Adam Scott from getting overly frustrated with his recent play is a green jacket in his closet.

That win at the Masters will make this a memorable year no matter what happens the rest of the way. Scott made it clear Wednesday, however, that he isn't satisfied with one major championship, and he's certainly not satisfied with how he has been playing.

He was three shots out of the lead at The Players Championship going into the weekend until a 75-71 finish. He was on the periphery of contention at the Memorial until a 73 on the last day. He started beautifully in the U.S. Open until a bad finish to his rain-delayed first round, and it didn't get much better the rest of week at Merion.

That's what made last week in the Bahamas so important.

"I really felt like last week the focus went back on when I was on the range at home, and it was really productive again," Scott said. "And it felt like it did before winning the Masters. I think, somewhat understandably, you can get lost a little bit ? not lost, but you can just float along. I was playing OK, but it just wasn't quite the same as beforehand. And now there's a purpose again, for sure."

Scott highlights the field at Congressional when the AT&T National, a tournament that already has lost host Tiger Woods because of an elbow injury and Justin Rose because he was wiped out from winning the U.S. Open and then playing the following week.

Congressional is as pure a test as the PGA Tour offers, not surprising because it has hosted four majors, including the 2011 U.S. Open that Rory McIlroy won with a record score in soft conditions. Scott won on this course nearly a decade ago, and it's what brings him back ? that and a chance to get his game pointed in the right direction with the British Open a month away.

"I've certainly enjoyed being the Masters champion for the past couple of months," Scott said. "I haven't been too harsh on myself for my performances in the last three events since the Masters. Like I said, I got home after the U.S. Open and I was disappointed. Because after starting so great Thursday, I really just squandered away into the back of the pack. And that was the first time I'd done that in a major in a long time.

"So when I got back on the range that that, the focus came back, and the purpose came back to my practice."

This will be his final event before the next major, and it figures to be quite a test.

Woods won a year ago in a wild week that featured extreme heat, a bizarre storm that toppled trees across the golf course and kept fans from attending on Saturday, and a late surge to get past Bo Van Pelt for a two-shot win at 8-under 276.

Only five other tournaments had a higher winning score last year, a list that includes the Masters and U.S. Open.

"Congressional can stand on its own two feet," Van Pelt said. "If you'd have played here two weeks ago, you probably could have had a U.S. Open if you wanted to. You know that coming in, and guys either like that and want to come play here, or they take this week off."

Woods is not taking this week off by choice. He hurt his left elbow a month ago, and doctors have advised rest and treatment to allow it to heal before the next two majors. Even so, the world's No. 1 player didn't want to miss out on defending his title on a course that has shown to identify some stout players.

"It's frustrating for me because I want to play, and I know how the golf course is set up right now, too, and I like the setup of it," Woods said. "The years that it's set up this way, I've done well."

It's the kind of test that Jason Day did not want to miss. Day has only one PGA Tour win, though the Australian has been thriving on tough courses in recent years. He finished two shots back at the Masters twice in the last three years, and he was two shots behind Rose at Merion. Day also was runner-up to McIlroy in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, though he was eight shots behind.

"This course ... it kind of feels like a U.S. Open again," Day said. "It's got some length to it, and the rough is pretty dense out there."

Asked later if he preferred the harder courses, Day's eyes lit up and he said, "Tough, yes."

"Just takes out the riff-raff, I guess," he said.

It was a reference to games, not names. This is not a place where players can get by without their best stuff.

Scott won the now-defunct Booz Allen Classic the one year it was held at Congressional. Since the AT&T National began in 2007, the list of winners is K.J. Choi, Anthony Kim and Woods the last two times.

Scott said Congressional was the primary reason he put the AT&T on his limited schedule. Now he hopes to see something good come out of the week.

"This is the time of the year where I play, and I need to be ready and play myself into form," Scott said. "Especially after the U.S. Open, I feel a result is needed, just some kind of result to keep the confidence high and move over to Europe feeling like I'm ready to compete. I want to contend. It's been since the Masters that I've really been in contention. So getting those feelings would be nice again."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/scott-looking-big-week-british-grove-222531291.html

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Republican battles over Medicaid turn to God and morality

By David Morgan

(Reuters) - Ohio's Republican governor, John Kasich, is no fan of President Barack Obama's health reform law. But he has become an unlikely proponent of one element of Obamacare - expansion of Medicaid healthcare coverage for the poor - and he has a warning for his fellow party members about the moral consequences of blocking it.

"When you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he's probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small, but he's going to ask you what you did for the poor. You'd better have a good answer," Kasich, a Christian conservative, says he told one Ohio lawmaker last week.

"I can't go any harder than that. I've got nothing left."

Most Republicans oppose Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a costly, ineffective and unnecessary expansion of government. But some Republican governors, like Arizona's Jan Brewer and Michigan's Rick Snyder, have broken ranks to embrace the law's Medicaid expansion as a practical way to help the poor while infusing their state budgets with billions of dollars in federal funding to pay for it.

Kasich has gone further. His message of morality goes straight to the Republican Party's allegiance to traditional American values including charity, and should resonate with religious conservatives within its influential Tea Party faction.

"Those groups are important to the Republican Party these days, and thus religious appeals may well help GOP governors win approval from their colleagues in the legislature," said John Green, political science professor at the University of Akron in Ohio.

The visibly frustrated Ohio governor offers no evidence that his fellow Republicans are responding to his comments. But political analysts say moral arguments by Kasich and others could eventually help them win over Republican lawmakers who otherwise fear an electoral backlash for propping up part of Obama's health reforms.

"They're trying to appeal to the more conservative side of that community of primary voters," said Robert Blendon, who tracks the politics of healthcare for the Harvard School of Public Health.

"These state legislators are going to face primaries in less than a year, and on the Republican side, many of the people who turn out to vote will be very anti-Obamacare but also deeply religious," he said.

In neighboring Michigan, Governor Snyder's voice breaks a little when he talks about the potential human toll of not expanding Medicaid to more residents.

"How are you going to feel if you have to go into an emergency room?" he asked after fellow Republicans who control the state Senate left for the summer last week without a vote. "You'll walk in there, and see chair after chair of working poor people - hard-working people - knowing that's their healthcare system, when we could have given them a better answer."

MILLIONS MAY GET SHUT OUT

Allowing Medicaid to cover nearly everyone with incomes of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line is central to Obama's goal of providing health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans. On those terms, the effort is failing: Almost a year after the U.S. Supreme Court gave each of the 50 states the choice of opting out of the Medicaid provision, only 23 have committed to expand, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

As a result, more than 6.3 million people living below the poverty line - $11,490 for an individual and $23,550 for a family of four - are in danger of losing the opportunity to have health coverage next year, according to a Reuters analysis of data from states and the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research group. That's because they live either in 21 states, which have failed to move forward with the Medicaid expansion on ideological or financial grounds, or in six others that are still debating the issue: Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The health reform law allows people with incomes at or above the poverty line to purchase federally subsidized private insurance through new online marketplaces in each state. But the Supreme Court left the law with no provision for helping those below the poverty line.

Analysts say Americans tend to believe falsely that most poor people are covered by the current Medicaid program, which was created in the 1960s and is jointly funded by states and the federal governments with oversight from Washington. But Medicaid covers only 29 percent of working-age people living below the poverty line, according to the Urban Institute. In many states, benefits are restricted to narrowly defined groups including pregnant women, children and the severely disabled.

Arizona's Brewer raised hopes for the Medicaid expansion to go forward in "red states" after overcoming opposition from her own party members by calling a special legislative session and threatening to veto other bills until lawmakers approved the expansion.

Some states have sought to overcome impasses by striking political agreements that would impose new costs on would-be beneficiaries. But negotiations have not always borne fruit, and the federal government has yet to approve any innovations. In Michigan, Senate Republicans declined to vote on a compromise measure that would require new Medicaid enrollees to pay 5 percent of their income on medical expenses, rising to 7 percent after four years.

Other states have considered proposals to make the expansion temporary or use federal Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance plans that could require the poor to meet deductibles and co-pays.

The Obama administration is leaving the door open for states to reconsider their Medicaid position on a quarterly basis in hopes that more will sign on.

2014 PROSPECTS SLIPPING

Meanwhile, Kasich and Snyder are struggling to make sure healthcare benefits are available for more than 820,000 people who live below the poverty line in their states - 474,000 in Ohio and 350,000 in Michigan, according to state estimates.

But the prospects for coverage in 2014 are slipping. Ohio lawmakers nixed Kasich's Medicaid expansion proposal from the new state budget. Snyder says a decision for Michigan needs to come within the next few weeks, but the state's Senate Republican leader, Randy Richardville, has said lawmakers will spend the summer reviewing the issue.

Kasich acknowledges that the Medicaid expansion may have to wait but believes his message will get through. "I will not give up this fight until we get this done, period, exclamation point," he recently told reporters in a hallway briefing in Columbus. "This is not a support of Obamacare. This is a support of helping our communities, our healthcare systems - the poor, the disabled, the addicted and the mentally ill."

The real change may come only after midterm elections for Congress next year, as state leaders wait to see whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives and gain control of the Senate.

"If Republicans get control of the Senate and the House, they'll dramatically try to limit this bill. If they don't get control, many of the states saying no to Medicaid will actually start saying yes," said Harvard's Blendon.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Peter Henderson Douglas Royalty)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-battles-over-medicaid-turn-god-morality-051235647.html

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'Devious Maids' Criticism: Lifetime Series Continues To Draw Cultural Backlash For Latina Stereotypes (VIDEO)

?Devious Maids? may have made history with its all Latina cast on Sunday, but critics refuse to budge insisting that the show?s portrayal of Hispanic women perpetuates stereotypes and is ?disappointing.?

On Wednesday, critics and supporters of the Lifetime series joined host Marc Hill on HuffPost Live to discuss whether ?Devious Maids? cements stereotypes of Latinas in the United States or broadens the cultural diversity of Primetime television.

With five Latina stars comprising the main cast --Edy Ganem, Ana Ortiz, Dania Ramirez, Judy Reyes and Roselyn S?nchez -- the show has been praised by some within the Hispanic community for its cultural breakthrough. Yet the series, created by Marc Cherry (?Desperate Housewives?) and Executive Produced by actress Eva Longoria, received a slew of backlash leading up to its official June 23 premiere.

?I think that the bigger problem is that unfortunately because this is consistently the only way that Latinas are represented, this stereotype has become reality for many Americans,? Media Consultant Galina Espinoza told Hill during the segment, referring to the characters? jobs as maids for Beverly Hill?s wealthiest residents. ?And this was an opportunity for someone who is a leader in the community [Longoria] to really show who Latinas are today and to show us as not being that. And it is, I don?t know if I would call it a wasted opportunity, but it is certainly disappointing.?

Supporters of the show, like Entertainment editor Lee Hernandez, point out that the characters? jobs don?t make their stories any less important within the community.

?I think that when you say Latinas are just maids or why are Latinas playing maids or can?t we be something better, I actually think there?s a lot of snobbery attached to that because let me tell you something I knew a lot of maids and I know a lot maids,? Lee told Hill. ?What I?m saying is why not tell their stories??

In response to those who support ?Devious Maids? because it showcases Latina talent for the first time on Primetime, author Alisa Valdes pushed back with her own previous experience working with Lifetime. Valdes recounted the process of producing and writing a show based on her book ?The Dirty Girls Social Club,? a novel about six Latina professionals living in Boston.

?I was told that the pilot wasn?t believable because it read just as if it was about ?me and my friends.? And it needs to be more ?Latina.? I said ?the six lead characters are Latina, what more do you want?? and she said ?let?s have them doing something that I know you guys do, like Black women do?,? Valdes told Hill. ?This is exactly what she told me, ?and I said like what?? and she said ?can we please open the show with the girls debating whether to date men in prison because I know that you guys talk about things like that?.?

Valdes not only criticized the series? creators and producers for being unable to present a less stereotypical portrayal of Latinas but questioned the motives behind the support some Hispanic groups have given ?Devious Maids.?

?It?s absolutely despicable that these so-called Hispanic watchdog groups are defending this network, sickening they could not put a show on the air about professional women,? Valdes continues. ?Eva Longoria is cynically choosing to play by the rules that exist. I would ask the media group that?s here whether they?ve ever received any money from Eva Longoria.?

Executive Vice President of the National Hispanic Media Coalition Inez Gonzalez chimed in to respond to Valdes.

?I am very insulted with the insinuation and disregard for 27 years of Civil Rights work.?

Check out highlights of the HuffPost Live segment above and the full segment below. Take our poll and let us know what you think of ?Devious Maids? in the comments.

Quick Poll

"Devious Maids" is...

Share your vote on Facebook so your friends can take this poll

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/devious-maids-criticism-_n_3506174.html

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Human activities threaten Sumatran tiger population

June 26, 2013 ? Sumatran tigers, found exclusively on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are on the brink of extinction. By optimistic estimates, perhaps 400 individuals survive. But the exact the number and locations of the island's dwindling tiger population has been up for debate.

Virginia Tech and World Wildlife Fund researchers have found that tigers in central Sumatra live at very low densities, lower than previously believed, according to a study in the April 2013 issue of Oryx -- The International Journal of Conservation.

The findings by Sunarto, who earned his doctorate from Virginia Tech in 2011, and co-researchers Marcella Kelly, an associate professor of wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, and Erin Poor of East Lansing, Mich., a doctoral student studying wildlife science and geospatial environmental analysis in the college, suggest that high levels of human activity limit the tiger population.

Researchers studied areas and habitat types not previously surveyed, which could inform interventions needed to save the tiger.

"Tigers are not only threatened by habitat loss from deforestation and poaching; they are also very sensitive to human disturbance," said Sunarto, a native of Indonesia, where people typically have one name. "They cannot survive in areas without adequate understory, but they are also threatened in seemingly suitable forests when there is too much human activity."

The smallest surviving tiger subspecies, Sumatran tigers are extremely elusive and may live at densities as low as one cat per 40 square miles. This is the first study to compare the density of Sumatran tigers across various forest types, including the previously unstudied peat land. The research applied spatial estimation techniques to provide better accuracy of tiger density than previous studies.

Sunarto, a tiger and elephant specialist with World Wildlife Fund-Indonesia, collaborated on the paper with Kelly, Professor Emeritus Michael Vaughan, and Sybille Klenzendorf, managing director of WWF's Species Conservation Program, who earned her master's and doctoral degrees in wildlife science from Virginia Tech. The WWF field team collected data in partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry staff.

"Getting evidence of the tigers' presence was difficult," Kelly said. "It took an average of 590 days for camera traps to get an image of each individual tiger recorded."

"We believe the low detection of tigers in the study area of central Sumatra was a result of the high level of human activity -- farming, hunting, trapping, and gathering of forest products," Sunarto said. "We found a low population of tigers in these areas, even when there was an abundance of prey animals."

Legal protection of an area, followed by intensive management, can reduce the level of human disturbance and facilitate the recovery of the habitat and as well as tiger numbers. The researchers documented a potentially stable tiger population in the study region's Tesso Nilo Park, where legal efforts are in place to discourage destructive human activities.

The study -- "Threatened predator on the equator: Multi-point abundance estimates of the tiger Panthera tigris in central Sumatra" -- indicates that more intensive monitoring and proactive management of tiger populations and their habitats are crucial or this tiger subspecies will soon follow the fate of its extinct Javan and Balinese relatives.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/pMoeP_94iJk/130626183925.htm

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