Son says Paterno has treatable form of lung cancer (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? Joe Paterno was diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer the same weekend Penn State's football team played its first game without the Hall of Fame coach in nearly a half century.

His son, Scott Paterno, said Friday in a statement to The Associated Press that his father's doctors are optimistic the 84-year-old Paterno will make a full recovery.

The news came shortly after Penn State said the NCAA would look into the school's handling of a child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was fired by the board of trustees Nov. 9 for failing to do more than simply report to his superiors an abuse allegation against Sandusky.

"Last weekend, my father was diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness," Scott Paterno said in the brief statement. The medical exam came the same weekend the school played its first game since the 1960s without Paterno leading the Nittany Lions ? a 17-14 loss to Nebraska.

"As everyone can appreciate, this is a deeply personal matter for my parents, and we simply ask that his privacy be respected as he proceeds with treatment," Scott Paterno said.

Earlier Friday, The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre reported that Paterno had been seen Wednesday visiting the Mount Nittany Medical Center and was treated for an undisclosed ailment and released.

Sandusky is charged with sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years ? charges he denies. Critics say Paterno should have done more to stop his former assistant, specifically when he was told about an assault in 2002. But the longtime coach is not a target of the ongoing investigation of Sandusky.

Paterno initially announced his retirement effective at the end of the season, saying that the scandal was "one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more." The trustees fired him anyway, about 12 hours later.

Longtime defensive coordinator Tom Bradley replaced Paterno on an interim basis. He broke the news about Paterno's cancer to the Nittany Lions after the team arrived in Columbus, Ohio, for Saturday's game against Ohio State.

"I told them sometimes words pale at a time like this. I felt they should hear it from us, exactly what it was, that we were told that it was a treatable lung cancer," Bradley said. "It's just one of those things. It's a tough time for the players."

Former Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge, now an ESPN analyst, said Paterno never mentioned the illness when he visited his former coach Thursday in State College.

"In a week or so of many surprises this was another one," said Blackledge, who noted that Paterno was in good spirits when he saw him. A Penn State spokesman said that as far as he knew, Paterno never smoked.

To say health problems added to Paterno's troubles during a rough period doesn't begin to capture the last two weeks. The lurid Sandusky scandal has tarnished the reputation of a coach and a football program that once prided itself on the slogan "Success with Honor."

Paterno's 409 career victories over a 46-year career are a Division I record. In all, Paterno guided five teams to unbeaten or untied seasons and won two national championships.

Sandusky was once expected to succeed Paterno but retired in 1999 not long after being told he wouldn't get the job.

Two university officials stepped down after they were charged with lying to a grand jury and failing to report the 2002 charge to police, an assault which allegedly took place in a shower in the football building.

A grand jury report said the attack was witnessed by Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant at the time. Now the receivers coach but on administrative leave, McQueary told the grand jury he went to his father first and then to Paterno, who in turn spoke with his boss but didn't go to the police.

When the state's top cop said Paterno failed to execute his moral responsibility by not contacting police, public outrage built and the trustees acted.

Besides the criminal case against Sandusky, the university announced last week it was conducting its own probe ? and that was before the NCAA said Friday that college sports' governing body would also start an inquiry.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said in the letter to Penn State president Rod Erickson that the probe will look at "Penn State's exercise of institutional control over its intercollegiate athletics programs."

At one time, that would have never been a question with Paterno, widely regarded as college football's model for running a clean program. He placed as much pride in graduating players as getting to bowl games, and consistently had Penn State among the top-rated academic programs in the country.

Paterno has donated millions back to the university, and his name graces a campus library ? not a football facility or athletic complex.

Prior to his firing, Paterno pressed on with coaching in spite of a number of recent ailments. He often walked into news conferences fighting back sniffles, and Paterno often passed it off as nothing more than an annoying cold.

He was said to be in good health this preseason ? getting back to his routine of walking around town ? before a receiver accidentally blindsided him during preseason drills in August, leaving him with an injured right shoulder and pelvis.

Known for his stubbornness and high pain threshold, Paterno walked away from the collision and stayed on his feet for the rest of the practice period before being encouraged to get checked out by a doctor. The injuries forced him to spend most of the season in the press box.

During the 2010 offseason, Paterno scaled back personal appearances because of an intestinal issue and an adverse reaction to antibiotics prescribed for dental work.

Paterno ran practices from a golf cart in 2008 and spent much of that season in the press box after injuring his hip while trying to show players how to perform an onside kick in practice. Two years earlier, he broke his leg in a sideline collision during Penn State's game at Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium.

"Anyone who has ever been around coach Paterno knows he has tremendous drive and fight," acting athletic director Dave Joyner said in a statement. "The Penn State community will be in his corner and wishes him a speedy recovery."

Lung cancer kills 1.4 million people around the world each year. In the United States, 221,130 new cases and 156,940 deaths are expected this year. The disease is typically diagnosed in older people. About 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with lung cancer are over age 65.

"There's a significant number of people who are diagnosed in their 70s and 80s," said chief medical officer Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, who has no involvement in Paterno's treatment.

"Generally when I hear that a person has a treatable form of lung cancer, it means the person may very well benefit from surgery to remove a part of the lung," Brawley said.

While the surgery can be invasive, people who undergo the operation "can do well after that," he said.

The lights were dim Friday night at Paterno's modest ranch home next to a park near the end of a dead-end street. A few TV photographers waited across the street for any sign of the coach.

About a mile away, a steady stream of fans arrived in pairs to take pictures at the life-sized bronzed statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium. Jill Varady, 24, of York, said she found out about Paterno's illness after her aunt posted a comment on Facebook.

Despite the scandal, the school should now let Paterno "definitely let him finish the season, and then ... let him retire," Varady said. "We probably will never know everything that happened."

The illness didn't change the perception of how Paterno handled the Sandusky situation, said Tessa Drawbaugh, 26, of State College. "But as far as other than that, he's an icon," she said. "Everybody wants him to be well."

___

AP Sports Writer Rusty Miller in Columbus, Ohio, and AP writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_paterno

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Is Russia's malfunctioning Martian moon probe dangerous? [VIDEO]

If controllers are unable to repair Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe, which was intended to fly to a moon of Mars but is instead stranded in Earth's orbit, it will eventually crash back to Earth. The probe contains toxic flues as well as a small amount of radioactive material.?

Russia raced on Thursday to salvage a spacecraft bound for a moon of Mars that is stranded in the Earth's orbit, with just days left before the window closes on its first interplanetary mission in 15 years.

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So far Russian controllers have failed to establish contact with the $163-million, unmanned probe, leaving little hope of recovering the ambitious mission that was to reassert Russia's place at the front lines of space exploration.

Following the launch from Russia's Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan early on Wednesday, the Phobos-Grunt probe is stuck in a dangerously low orbit, creating a drag that could eventually send it crashing back to Earth.

Russia's space agency said it had at least three days to try to fix the problem and steer the craft on to its correct path, and will make another attempt when it passes over Baikonur later today, a spokesman said.

Failure so soon after lift off in the three-year mission to bring back soil -- "grunt" in Russian -- from the Martian moon Phobos would be a major blow to the pride of the Russian space industry, adding to a humiliating series of setbacks.

"So far all efforts to communicate with the craft have been unsuccessful," lead mission scientist Alexander Zakharov of Moscow's Space Research Institute told Reuters.

"They are trying everything including visual methods to try to assess what is wrong with it, but of course the situation doesn't inspire much hope."

Experts say the post-launch problems are linked to the craft's on board flight computer, which failed to fire two engine burns to send it on its trajectory toward Mars.

There is a small chance the software could be reprogrammed, if controllers can link with the craft. But if the troubles are hardware related, the mission is likely lost, Zakharov and other industry sources said.

Russia is relying on a single ground site to try to reach the craft once every few hours along its orbit.

"In my opinion Phobos-Grunt is lost," Vladimir Uvarov, a former chief Russian military expert on space, told the state-run Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

China also could be disappointed after entrusting its first interplanetary Mars satellite, Yinghuo-1, to piggyback on the mission.

Phobos-Grunt is also carrying bacteria, plant seeds and tiny animals known as water bears, part of a U.S. study to see if they could survive beyond the Earth's protective bubble.

The plan was for Phobos-Grunt to reach Mars' orbit next year, touch down on the larger of its two tiny moons in 2013, collect a sample from the surface and fly back to Earth in 2014.

Dust from Phobos, scientist say, would shed light on the genesis of the solar system and Mars' enduring mysteries.

If it is lost, it will join a long string of over a dozen Soviet and Russian missions to fail en route to Mars, while U.S. rovers have logged hundreds of hours on the Red Planet.

When the first post-Soviet Mars-96 probe broke up over the Pacific, it was seen as a proof of the industry's deterioration after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets.

NASA will launch a $2.5 billion rover designed to assess the planet's suitability for life later this month, toward the end of a launch window for Mars flights that comes every 780 days.

If Phobos-Grunt cannot be bounced out of orbit, the massive craft will eventually crash back to Earth with a full payload of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fuel and small cargo of radioactive cobalt-57.

It is unclear how much of it will survive the fiery plunge through the atmosphere.

(Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/kqvu4k61GFc/Is-Russia-s-malfunctioning-Martian-moon-probe-dangerous-VIDEO

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Motorola Droid XYBOARD 8.2 picture surfaces, Verizon LTE on board

XYBOARD

And the winner for the worst device name goes to (drum roll please) the Motorola Droid XYBOARD.  Previous winner Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch will present the trophy.

All kidding aside, the 8.2-inch version of the Droid XYBOARD has been pictured at PocketNow, and as expected, there's a big old LTE logo on the back.  Also known as the Motorola Xoom 8.2 Media Edition, the Droid XYBOARD should launch with Android 3.2, a 1.2 GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage.  It should prove to be a capable device, eventually get upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich, and the 8.2-inch size is sure to appeal to more than a few.  Rumors say to expect an official announcement soonish.

Source: Pocketnow

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/WE9jnD-y8NI/story01.htm

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Amazon Pays $201.70 To Build $199 Kindle Fire (NewsFactor)

A teardown of the new Kindle Fire tablet performed by IHS iSuppli researchers found that it costs Amazon $201.70 to make a device that began retailing this week for $199. "Amazon makes its money not on Kindle hardware, but on the paid content and other products it plans to sell the consumer through the Kindle," said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of teardown services for IHS.

However, the Kindle Fire hardware cost breakdown released by the analyst firm Friday only tells part of the story. Amazon had not disclosed what it is costing the online retail giant to roll out the tablet from a software perspective -- including software design, development and testing.

"We can safely assume that launching such devices from a software perspective requires a serious long-term commitment to morphing Android into what Amazon is looking for," said Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC.

According to Hilwa, a development team of a few hundred people would ultimately be needed to support an ongoing product such as the Kindle Fire, including the requisite maintenance as well as product evolution.

"I have no specific information on this, but I have always imagined that the team working on iOS at Apple, end-to-end, well exceeds a thousand people," Hilwa said. "Doing the estimates for things like that is complex because of shared resources in an organization."

Display and Touch-screen Costs

IHS iSuppli noted that its preliminary cost calculations for the Kindle Fire only account for hardware and do not include additional expenses such as software, licensing, royalties, marketing or other expenditures. However, Rassweiler compared Amazon's strategy of selling its new tablet at a loss to the business models followed by wireless carriers such as AT&T or Verizon.

"They sell you a phone that costs them $400 to $600 or more to make for a price of only $200," Rassweiler said. "However, they expect to more than make up for that loss with a two-year service contract."

According to IHS, the new Kindle Fire's single most-expensive subsystem is its display and touch screen, which has a combined cost of $87 and accounts for 46.9 percent of the device's total bill of materials. Featuring E Ink's FFS technology, the displays are being manufactured by LG Display as well as E Ink Holdings.

Semiconductor Suppliers

The dominant semiconductor supplier behind Amazon's Kindle Fire is Texas Instruments (TI), which supplies the OMAP4430 processor responsible for delivering the new tablet's core multimedia functionality as well as other parts. TI reaps $24 for every Kindle Fire sold, which is equivalent to 12.9 percent of the device's total.

TI's OMAP4430 is also found in a number of other electronic gadgets, including Research In Motion's PlayBook tablet as well as in smartphones such as the Motorola Droid Bionic XT875 and LG Optimus 3D P920. The 1-gigahertz dual-core chip features an IVA 3 hardware accelerator as well as an SGX540 3D graphics core, IHS researchers said.

The Kindle Fire's memory subsystem -- which consists of 8GB of eMMC NAND flash memory as well as 4 gigabits of low-power DDR2 DRAM memory -- costs Amazon $22.10, or 11.9 percent of the total. According to IHS researchers, Samsung is supplying the NAND flash chips while Japan-based Elpida makes the new Kindle Fire's DRAM memory components.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111118/bs_nf/81071

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US budget woes could hit European missile defense

(AP) ? A breakdown in high-stakes budget talks in Congress could threaten plans for a missile defense shield in Europe.

Negotiators have shown little sign they will be able to meet next week's deadline for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion. If they fail to agree, a new law mandates cuts throughout the federal government, including a big slice of the defense budget.

While it is not known what military spending would be cut, an expensive program aimed primarily at defending Europe is unlikely to be spared.

The U.S. sees the missile defense system, aimed at countering a threat from Iran, as part of its contribution to the NATO military alliance. With the United States often complaining that it makes a disproportionately large contribution to NATO, missile defense could be especially vulnerable to budget-cutters.

"A missile defense system for NATO? It's going to be hard to keep people committed if they think the U.S. is picking up the tab for Europe," says Kurt Volker, who was ambassador to NATO at the end of the George W. Bush administration.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that the European missile defense program could be threatened if the special negotiating panel, known as the supercommittee, should fail to work out a deal. That suggestion, though, may have been intended mostly to nudge lawmakers to resolve their differences and avoid the automatic cuts to one of their favorite programs.

It is still possible that supercommittee members could set aside intense partisan differences and reach a deal by Wednesday. And if they do not, Congress might find a way to cancel the cuts before they take effect in 2013.

That may only delay the scaling back of the U.S. military role in Europe. A decade-long expansion of military spending appears to be coming to an end, and the Obama administration has indicated it is shifting its foreign policy toward Asia, where it sees the greatest opportunities and threats of coming decades.

"Where does that leave Europe? Lower down the list," says Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Beyond missile defense, the automatic cuts could prompt the U.S. to save money by shifting some warships away from Europe but probably would not lead to fewer U.S. troops there.

The United States has already reduced its presence in Europe from more than 200,000 in 1989 to slightly more than 40,000 today. It has plans for a further pullback by 2015 but is unlikely to accelerate that simply because there are no short-term savings to be had from moving troops out of their European bases.

"We can't take the remaining bases with us," says Christopher Wiley, an analyst with the Transatlantic relations program at the Bertelsmann Foundation who is preparing a report on the impact of budget cuts on U.S. policy in Europe. "It's not a good place to save cash."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-19-US-Europe-Military%20Spending/id-0ee227bc89454b09b3de9872a5e8a6bc

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Unemployment claims drop again

Unemployment claims declined 5,000 to 388,000 "initial" from last week?s 393,000, while? ?continued? claims declined by 57,000 resulting in an ?insured? unemployment rate of 2.9 percent.

Today?s jobless claims report showed a decline to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a slight rising trend was firmly called into question for initial claims.

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'SoldAtTheTop' is not a pessimist by nature but a true skeptic and realist who prefers solid and sustained evidence of fundamental economic recovery to 'Goldilocks,' 'Green Shoots,' 'Mustard Seeds,' and wholesale speculation.

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Seasonally adjusted ?initial? unemployment declined 5,000 to 388,000 claims from last week?s revised 393,000 claims while seasonally adjusted ?continued? claims declined by 57,000 resulting in an ?insured? unemployment rate of 2.9%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored ?extended? unemployment benefit programs (the ?extended benefits? and ?EUC 2008? from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.45 million people receiving federal ?extended? unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.21 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.67 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here.To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on paper-money.blogspot.com.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/r6_CgCe0HzA/Unemployment-claims-drop-again

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Older but wiser Dan Henderson returns to UFC with eye on two titles

Older but wiser Dan Henderson returns to UFC with eye on two titles

No one leaves the UFC voluntarily. Dan Henderson broke that unwritten rule back in 2009 when he bolted for a bigger deal with Strikeforce. It appeared that he'd never fight for Dana White again, but crazy things happen in the world of MMA.

A nasty win streak combined with Zuffa's unexpected purchase of Strikeforce, has Hendo right in the middle of the mix again with the UFC. The former PRIDE middleweight and light heavyweight champ faces a fellow PRIDE veteran and former UFC 205-pound champ Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in the main event of UFC 139 tomorrow night in San Jose, Ca.

"I didn't know what to expect," Henderson told UFC.com's Tom Gerbasi. "When I left the UFC and went to Strikeforce, I didn't know what was in the future. It was always a possibility; I knew the UFC wasn't going anywhere and I know I didn't leave on bad terms at all, so it was a matter of how things worked out at Strikeforce. And (UFC President) Dana (White) missed me so much he had to go buy Strikeforce."

At the time, White thought Henderson (28-8, 5-2 UFC) wasn't worth the money he was getting from Strikeforce and that his style wasn't that crowd pleasing. Henderson changed that image by turning off the lights of Renato "Babalu" Sobral, Rafael Cavalcante and Fedor Emelianenko. Amazingly, he posted those dynamic finishes of three veteran fighters at the ages of 40 and 41.

Henderson seems to be getting better. The former Greco-Roman wrestling Olympian (1992 and 1996) says he's gotten more proficient at pinpointing what he needs to do before and during fights to counter the aging process.

"[...] Give me a week and I'll give you a list of what I used to be able to do. But the key is experience, knowing that I can relax in a lot of places where I used to not relax. I could keep going back then, but now I go when I need to go, and I put my energy and strength in the right places."

An impressive win by Henderson could put him in line for a title shot against Anderson Silva at middleweight or 205-pound phenom Jon Jones. Chael Sonnen showed holes in Silva's game. Jones is slowly earning the label of unbeatable, but Henderson doesn't agree.

"I do think that would be a fight I would enjoy. He's awkward and unorthodox and it creates something to think about and how to beat that, and that's what excites me these days," Henderson said. "I'm not one to buy into things too quickly. I've been doing this for a long time and seen a lot of guys beat a lot of tough guys really quick and then die out. I think he's going to be around a long time, he's just going to get better. But at this point he's still got a lot to improve on, and he's athletic and talented and he does learn. He's got a huge future, but I think he's got a little ways to go."

Henderson is excited about his future which could resemble a Randy Couture or Bernard Hopkins-like run down the stretch.

"I do this for the challenge as well, and not saying there's not tough guys to challenge me in Strikeforce, but the bigger fights and better matchups for me right now are in the UFC, so I think I will be retiring in the UFC, and not somewhere else," he said. "I'm not retiring soon, but I won't be going anywhere and I'll be fighting the remainder of my fights in the UFC I'm sure."

Anyone willing to bet against Henderson? With what we've seen recently, who can doubt him?

Watch UFC 139 right here on Yahoo! Sports

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Older-but-wiser-Dan-Henderson-returns-to-UFC-wit?urn=mma-wp9611

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