ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? Following fatal shootings in two New York pharmacy robberies, a U.S. senator is warning that a new batch of "super painkillers" now under review could force repeats of recent violent robberies that left six people dead.
"It's tremendously concerning that at the same time policymakers and law enforcement professionals are waging a war on the growing prescription drug crisis, new super-drugs could well be on their way, flooding the market," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The FDA needs to grab the reins and slow down the stampede to introduce these powerful narcotics."
A message seeking comment from the Food and Drug Administration was not immediately returned Friday.
The Associated Press reported last month about addiction experts' fears over four drugs being tested that contain a more powerful version of one of the nation's most abused painkillers ? hydrocodone.
Schumer is particularly concerned about legalizing the drugs for prescriptions because they would be prized commodities in the black market.
Experts say painkiller addiction has been driven partly by a loophole in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act that classified pure hydrocodone ? a super painkiller ? as a strictly controlled Schedule II drug. But the law put combination products, such as pills containing hydrocodone and acetaminophen, into the less strict Schedule III.
Because of the loophole, patients can refill a prescription for a hydrocodone-acetaminophen drug like Vicodin up to five times. A prescription for a similar oxycodone product, such as Percocet, can be filled only once. Critics say the loophole has flooded American medicine cabinets with hydrocodone.
In 1999, the Drug Enforcement Administration and FDA began reviewing whether they should reschedule hydrocodone combination products. But an AP review of regulatory documents and court filings shows the agencies have repeatedly passed the rescheduling study back and forth, with no final decision made.
A New Year's Eve robbery at a Long Island pharmacy netted prescription painkillers and cash and left the robber and a federal agent dead. In June, four died in another Long Island pharmacy robbery in which 11,000 hydrocodone pills were stolen.
If the pure hydrocodone drugs are approved, Schumer wants a "robust post-market surveillance" of the drugs as they are marketed, advertised and sold.
Scientists doing their first exploring of deep-sea vents in the Antarctic have uncovered a ?world unlike anything found around other hydrothermal vents, one populated by new species of anemones, predatory sea stars, and piles of hairy-chested yeti crabs.
It was "almost like a sight from another planet," said expedition leader Alex Rogers, a professor of zoology at Oxford University.?
Even in the eye-popping world of deep-sea vents, the Antarctic discoveries stand out, with the unfamiliar species of crabs found crowded in piles around the warm waters emanating from the seafloor. Many of the animals found at the vents have never been found at hydrothermal vents in other oceans, Rogers said. "To see these animals in such huge densities was just amazing," Rogers told LiveScience.
In the dayless world of deep-sea vents, energy comes not from the sun but from the hydrothermal energy generated in the oceanic crust.
The yeti crabs seem to cultivate "gardens" of bacteria on their chests, which are covered with hairy tendrils. These bacterial mats almost certainly provides the crabs with sustenance, Rogers said. In turn, predatory seven-armed sea stars stalk the periphery of the vents, snacking on unfortunate crabs. [See video and photos from the vents]
"We were absolutely stunned to see the animal communities, because they were so different from the hydrothermal vents seen elsewhere," Rogers told LiveScience. He and his colleagues reported their results today (Jan. 3) in the journal PLoS Biology.
Discovery in the deep sea
Weird life flourishes at deep-sea vents the world over, but no one had ever found hydrothermal vents in Antarctica, explained Jon Copley, a professor of earth and ocean science at the University of Southampton who also participated in the research. That's largely because it's more difficult to do research in the harsh Southern Ocean than in temperate climes. [Extremophiles: World's Weirdest Life]
"It's only quite recently that we've been able to be bold enough, really, to head to the poles," Copley told LiveScience.
In 1999, Antarctic mapping surveys turned up hints of hydrothermal vent output in the water column over the East Scotia Ridge in the Atlantic section of the Southern Ocean, between Antarctica and South America and eastward. It took 10 years for researchers to get back for a full-blown expedition, during which they lowered cameras to two areas, 8,530 feet (2,600 meters) and 7,874 feet (2,400 m) deep, catching the first glimpses of Antarctic hydrothermal vents. Among them were "black smokers," chimney-like vents that emit dark-hued, superheated water.
Although the background temperature of the Southern Ocean in the area is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), the black smokers gushed water as hot as 721 degrees F (382 degrees C).
In 2010, the researchers returned with a remote-operated submersible vehicle (ROV) called Isis. The sub took close-up photos of the amazing vent fauna and collected samples of organisms for identification.
New world
Among the new species were the yeti crabs, crowded around the vents up to 600 per square meter.
"They're literally, in places, heaped up upon each other," Rogers said. Crabs normally don't tolerate cold temperatures well, so the vents may be a warm haven for these crabs, Copley said.
Unlike vents in other oceans, the Antarctic vents lack tube worms, mussels and shrimp. Instead they harbor new species of barnacles and anemones, as well as a large brown spiral-shelled snail. The researchers even saw ghost-pale octopuses, which seemed drawn to the lights of the ROV.
"We were completely blown away by what we found," Copley said. "I've worked at vents in the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, but these are the lushest, richest vents, in terms of life, that I've come across."
The discovery helps fill a gap in researchers' understanding of how deep-sea life disperses around the oceans, Rogers said. They had expected that the Southern Ocean would be a historical gateway for vent species to travel between the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and there do seem to be some species, such as the yeti crab, that are related to species found at other vents. Those relationships seem to reach back into geological history, Copley said, when there was a connection between the Antarctic and the eastern Pacific.
But the vast differences between Antarctic vents and vents found elsewhere suggest that the area is not a gateway but a biological region in its own right, Rogers said. The cold Antarctic waters may act as a barrier to species that start their lives as swimming, feeding larvae, he said. On the other hand, larvae that carry their own food supply with them in eggs ? known as lecithotrophic larvae ? may be able to survive and disperse in the chilly Southern Ocean.
As humans increasingly exploit the deep seas for fish, oil and mining, understanding how species are dispersed is crucial, Copley said.
"Until we understand what governs the patterns of life at deep-sea vents, how interconnected their populations, how well life disperses from vent to vent, we can't make responsible decisions about how to manage these deep-ocean resources."
You can follow LiveScience?senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience?and on Facebook.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2012) ? The rotavirus vaccine was pulled from the marketplace in 1999 after being associated with painful gastrointestinal complications, however, the updated rotavirus vaccines do not appear to increase the occurrence of these potentially fatal side effects, according to a new study by child health experts at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
The two updated versions of the vaccine, re-introduced in 2006 and 2008, prevent infection by rotavirus, which causes vomiting, abdominal pain, severe diarrhea and frequently requires hospitalization for young infants and children. Rotavirus was once the leading cause of gastrointestinal illness among children in the U.S.
The new study, published in this week's Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, shows the re-introduction of the vaccine has not caused an increase in a severe bowel obstruction called intussusception, the side effect that led to the original vaccine's withdrawal.
"We always need to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of childhood vaccines.Fortunately, our results suggest that rotavirus vaccines have not increased the rate of intussusception in the U.S.," says pediatrician Joe Zickafoose, M.D., M.S., a research fellow with the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit.
Recent international studies have shown that, among vaccinated infants, the two latest rotavirus vaccines may be associated with a small increase in cases of intussusception.
However, the re-introduction of rotavirus vaccines in the United States did not appear to increase the rate of hospitalizations for intussusception.
More than 70 percent of infants in the U.S. have been vaccinated against rotavirus. The re-introduction of rotavirus vaccines is credited with reducing the number of diarrhea-related outpatient visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations among children.
Data used in the study came from the Healthcare Cost and Utlization Project's Kids' Inpatient Database, which is a sample of 80 percent of national pediatric discharges. The study focused on children younger than 1-year-old based on previous data which showed the most cases on intussusception occur within weeks of the vaccine being administered at ages 2-months, 4-months and 6-months old.
The investigators examined data trends from the decade prior to vaccine re-introduction, 1997-2006, and then made comparisons to data after vaccine re-introduction.
When comparing data, investigators expected to see 36 intussusception-related hospitalizations per 100,000 children under 1-year-old by 2009.
Despite the re-introduction of the vaccines, there were only 33.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 children in 2009, making it very unlikely that the vaccines led to additional cases.
The latest versions of the rotavirus vaccine were licensed following studies in over 70,000 children, which showed no increased risk for intussusception among those vaccinated. However, there has been lingering concern that a small amount of risk may have been missed in these studies.
"We hope that our study provides information that will continue to reassure parents that the benefits of rotavirus vaccine outweigh the risks," says Zickafoose, lead author of the study.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan Health System.
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Journal Reference:
J. S. Zickafoose, B. D. Benneyworth, M. P. Riebschleger, C. M. Espinosa, M. M. Davis. Hospitalizations for Intussusception Before and After the Reintroduction of Rotavirus Vaccine in the United States. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2012; DOI: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.1501
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Looking past Iowa, Mitt Romney defended his conservative credentials Tuesday as he anticipated escalated attacks in New Hampshire and beyond from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.
"Perhaps people forget that I ran for president four years ago, you may recall that along with Mike Huckabee I was the conservative alternative to John McCain," Romney said on Fox News Channel. He was responding to rival Newt Gingrich, who had accused Romney of lying about his moderate record. Romney said Gingrich, who has fallen in polls in the face of negative attack ads by Romney's allies, was "apparently angry."
"I've got a record, and it's a conservative record," Romney said.
Romney has spent most of the nearly four years since he dropped out of the 2008 race trying to win over a skeptical GOP base. He's had trouble with the party's right wing, which so far has jumped from candidate to candidate as it searches for a conservative alternative to the former Massachusetts governor.
Romney said he is anticipating stepped up criticism from the Republican field in the wake of the leadoff Iowa caucuses Tuesday night.
"It's a long road, Romney told MSNBC. "I expect people to come after me. And if I do well here, I'll have a target painted on me, and so I expect other folks to come after me. And, you know, if I can't stand up to that, I shouldn't be the nominee."
In a show of force, Romney announced he was running TV ads in Florida, signaling that he has the money and the organization to wage a long-haul campaign.
Florida holds its primary at the end of the month, on Jan. 31.
The ad, which also has run in Iowa, is positive in tone and sells Romney as a candidate of "steadiness and constancy." So far, Romney hasn't aired negative TV ads. Instead, an independent organization that supports his candidacy has spent millions on ads harshly critical of rivals Gingrich and Rick Perry. The Restore Our Future super PAC is also on the air in Florida with negative ads.
Romney on Tuesday backpedaled a bit from his earlier prediction of a first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
"It's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen," he said on MSNBC. "I think I'll be among the top group."
But he was more bullish Monday night, telling hundreds of supporters in the Iowa town of Clive that he would win the caucuses ? and, eventually, the GOP nomination for president.
Still, Romney said Tuesday the top three finishers "will get a good send-off" into New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, the first three primary states.
Hours before the caucuses, Romney made a final pitch to voters in an ornate ballroom at the Temple for the Performing Arts in Des Moines.
Democrats will "poison the American spirit by pitting one American against another and engaging in class warfare," Romney said. "I believe in an America that is one nation under God, and I will keep it that way."
His chief opponents, polls show, are Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Thousands of caucus-goers remained undecided.
The former Massachusetts governor planned an evening gathering at the Hotel Fort Des Moines to await the caucus results.
Romney faces the same challenge here that he had in 2008: winning over conservatives skeptical of his moderate record, his changes on the social issues that are important to the state's many evangelical Christian voters and his Mormon faith.
But Romney faces diminished threats here from the two candidates his campaign worried most about: Perry and Gingrich. Instead of focusing on his rivals, Romney has set his sights on Democratic President Barack Obama.
Perry is skipping next week's primary in New Hampshire, where Romney is favored, to compete instead in the first-in-the-South primary in South Carolina. Gingrich's standing in polls has been badly damaged by a barrage of negative ads from Romney allies.
Romney has been ever more confident as he campaigned across Iowa after Christmas. He's been buoyed by large crowds and the excitement they've shown. And while Romney's advisers acknowledge that an Iowa win is far preferable to a second- or third-place finish, they say they're prepared to compete nationally in a way the other candidates rivals aren't.
Grant will help area students with disabilitiesPublic release date: 3-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sean Nealon sean.nealon@ucr.edu 951-827-1287 University of California - Riverside
Grant received by education professor will allow doctoral students to conduct research in Riverside and San Bernardino schools
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) -- A $1.2 million grant will allow a University of California, Riverside professor in the Graduate School of Education to fund doctoral students to conduct research and prepare teachers for students with disabilities at Riverside and San Bernardino schools.
Rollanda O'Connor, whose research focuses on reading development for children with disabilities, starts work this month on a five-year grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.
The incoming doctoral students, who will start in Sept. 2012, will develop expertise through courses, training in university-level teaching, and research in low-income public schools.
They will be able to pursue research on K-12 students with a range of disabilities or risk for developing disabilities, including learning disability, intellectual disability, autism and status as an English language learner.
Their training will be multidisciplinary and draw on expertise of special education, educational psychology, methodology, and medical faculty across the University of California system, particularly those from the UC Special Education Collaborative that includes UC San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
They will also work with other Graduate School of Education faculty whose research focuses on special education, including Lee Swanson, Jan Blacher and Michael Orosco.
The grant almost doubles the typical funding a graduate student researcher receives. It also pays for books, travel to conferences and memberships in professional societies.
O'Connor has had several similar grants in past years. The most recent one, which included $800,000 in funding, expired at the end of August. It has assisted seven students, six of whom have already earned their Ph.D. and are faculty in special education at universities.
"These grants enable the transition from doctoral student to a professional faculty role," O'Connor said. "They provide an additional level of support, mentoring, and hands-on research and teaching opportunities.
"Our goal is for all of our Ph.D. students in special education to work collaboratively with school district personnel on mutually beneficial research research that ultimately benefits the students in the Inland Empire public schools.
The just-received grant will allow O'Connor to build on the relationships she has maintained with teachers and administrators eight years at the Riverside, Alvord and San Bernardino City Unified school districts.
She recently wrapped up a four-year grant, for over $1 million that involved three years of field work in the Riverside Unified School District. The research focused on improving the reading rate of slow readers in 2nd and 4th grades.
Two of the findings from this research are important for teaching reading well.
First, when children read much slower than their classmates, their reading comprehension (how well they understand what they read) suffers. By improving their reading rate with 10 to 20 minutes of practice reading aloud, three times per week, children's reading comprehension also improved significantly. This finding was consistent with English language learners, as well as native English speakers.
Second, we sometimes believe that it is more difficult to improve children's reading skills after 3rd grade; however, the 4th grade poor readers also made very strong reading gains in rate and comprehension. The problem is that in most 4th grade classrooms, children have few opportunities to read aloud because the focus is on silent reading. To make these gains, older poor readers need consistent opportunities to read aloud to a listener (a teacher or teacher's assistant) who can help with difficult words.
The research was also valuable to students, teachers and administrators, said John McCombs, the principal at Riverside Unified's Emerson Elementary School when O'Connor did research there. (He is now principal at Madison Elementary School in the same school district.)
McCombs said O'Connor's research helped identify strategies to maximize reading comprehension and fluency. These strategies included how to group students and how much time to devote to reading.
O'Connor's work with second graders at Emerson was particularly important because at the age the students are still "learning to read," McCombs said.
After second grade they are "reading to learn." In other words, subjects such as social studies, science and math require reading to comprehend concepts.
"Second grade is very pivotal," McCombs said. "If we don't reach the kids by then they are almost destined not to meet the standards."
In addition to the work in Riverside, a second grant, for five years and nearly $2 million, involves O'Connor monitoring the reading development of about 400 children in the Alvord and San Bernardino Unified school districts as they advance from kindergarten or 1st grade to 3rd or 4th grade. When children lag behind their classmates, O'Connor's team provides small group intervention to improve their reading skills and help them to keep up.
She is tracking how the students, who are low-skilled and about 50 percent English language learners, respond to these interventions in a model of Response to Intervention (RTI), a newly popular model that provides early assistance to children having difficulty learning to read.
The results for the first two years, which have been presented at national conferences, show that this model of 'just in time' intervention reduces the proportion of children classified as poor readers in participating schools.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Grant will help area students with disabilitiesPublic release date: 3-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sean Nealon sean.nealon@ucr.edu 951-827-1287 University of California - Riverside
Grant received by education professor will allow doctoral students to conduct research in Riverside and San Bernardino schools
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) -- A $1.2 million grant will allow a University of California, Riverside professor in the Graduate School of Education to fund doctoral students to conduct research and prepare teachers for students with disabilities at Riverside and San Bernardino schools.
Rollanda O'Connor, whose research focuses on reading development for children with disabilities, starts work this month on a five-year grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.
The incoming doctoral students, who will start in Sept. 2012, will develop expertise through courses, training in university-level teaching, and research in low-income public schools.
They will be able to pursue research on K-12 students with a range of disabilities or risk for developing disabilities, including learning disability, intellectual disability, autism and status as an English language learner.
Their training will be multidisciplinary and draw on expertise of special education, educational psychology, methodology, and medical faculty across the University of California system, particularly those from the UC Special Education Collaborative that includes UC San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
They will also work with other Graduate School of Education faculty whose research focuses on special education, including Lee Swanson, Jan Blacher and Michael Orosco.
The grant almost doubles the typical funding a graduate student researcher receives. It also pays for books, travel to conferences and memberships in professional societies.
O'Connor has had several similar grants in past years. The most recent one, which included $800,000 in funding, expired at the end of August. It has assisted seven students, six of whom have already earned their Ph.D. and are faculty in special education at universities.
"These grants enable the transition from doctoral student to a professional faculty role," O'Connor said. "They provide an additional level of support, mentoring, and hands-on research and teaching opportunities.
"Our goal is for all of our Ph.D. students in special education to work collaboratively with school district personnel on mutually beneficial research research that ultimately benefits the students in the Inland Empire public schools.
The just-received grant will allow O'Connor to build on the relationships she has maintained with teachers and administrators eight years at the Riverside, Alvord and San Bernardino City Unified school districts.
She recently wrapped up a four-year grant, for over $1 million that involved three years of field work in the Riverside Unified School District. The research focused on improving the reading rate of slow readers in 2nd and 4th grades.
Two of the findings from this research are important for teaching reading well.
First, when children read much slower than their classmates, their reading comprehension (how well they understand what they read) suffers. By improving their reading rate with 10 to 20 minutes of practice reading aloud, three times per week, children's reading comprehension also improved significantly. This finding was consistent with English language learners, as well as native English speakers.
Second, we sometimes believe that it is more difficult to improve children's reading skills after 3rd grade; however, the 4th grade poor readers also made very strong reading gains in rate and comprehension. The problem is that in most 4th grade classrooms, children have few opportunities to read aloud because the focus is on silent reading. To make these gains, older poor readers need consistent opportunities to read aloud to a listener (a teacher or teacher's assistant) who can help with difficult words.
The research was also valuable to students, teachers and administrators, said John McCombs, the principal at Riverside Unified's Emerson Elementary School when O'Connor did research there. (He is now principal at Madison Elementary School in the same school district.)
McCombs said O'Connor's research helped identify strategies to maximize reading comprehension and fluency. These strategies included how to group students and how much time to devote to reading.
O'Connor's work with second graders at Emerson was particularly important because at the age the students are still "learning to read," McCombs said.
After second grade they are "reading to learn." In other words, subjects such as social studies, science and math require reading to comprehend concepts.
"Second grade is very pivotal," McCombs said. "If we don't reach the kids by then they are almost destined not to meet the standards."
In addition to the work in Riverside, a second grant, for five years and nearly $2 million, involves O'Connor monitoring the reading development of about 400 children in the Alvord and San Bernardino Unified school districts as they advance from kindergarten or 1st grade to 3rd or 4th grade. When children lag behind their classmates, O'Connor's team provides small group intervention to improve their reading skills and help them to keep up.
She is tracking how the students, who are low-skilled and about 50 percent English language learners, respond to these interventions in a model of Response to Intervention (RTI), a newly popular model that provides early assistance to children having difficulty learning to read.
The results for the first two years, which have been presented at national conferences, show that this model of 'just in time' intervention reduces the proportion of children classified as poor readers in participating schools.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK ? Revelers erupted in cheers amid a confetti-filled celebration in New York's Times Square to welcome in the new year, part of star-studded celebrations and glittering fireworks displays around the world to usher in 2012.
From New Zealand to New York, the world eagerly welcomed a new year Sunday and hoped for a better future, saying goodbye to a year of hurricanes, tsunamis and economic turmoil that many would rather forget.
In New York, hundreds of thousands gathered at the crossroads of the world to witness a crystal ball with more than 30,000 lights that descended at midnight. Lady Gaga and Mayor Michael Bloomberg led the crowd in the final-minute countdown of the famed crystal-paneled ball drop.
Matheus Campos, a law student from Brazil, threw both arms in the air as the new year began in Times Square.
"It's awesome," he said.
Revelers in Australia, Asia, Europe and the South Pacific island nation of Samoa, which jumped across the international dateline to be first to celebrate, welcomed 2012 with booming pyrotechnic displays. Fireworks soared and sparked over Moscow's Red Square, crowds on Paris' Champs-Elysees boulevard popped Champagne corks at midnight.
But many approached the new year with more relief than joy, as people battered by weather disasters, joblessness and economic uncertainty hoped the stroke of midnight would change their fortunes.
"It was a pretty tough year, but God was looking after us and I know 2012 has got to be better," said Kyralee Scott, 16, of Jackson, N.J., whose father spent most of the year out of work.
Some New York revelers, wearing party hats and "2012" glasses, began camping out Saturday morning, even as workers readied bags stuffed with hundreds of balloons and technicians put colored filters on klieg lights. The crowds cheered as workers lit the crystal-paneled ball that drops at midnight Saturday and put it through a test run, 400 feet above the street. The sphere, now decorated with 3,000 Waterford crystal triangles, has been dropping to mark the new year since 1907, long before television made it a U.S. tradition.
In Times Square, hundreds of thousands people crammed into spectator pens ringed by barricades, enjoying surprisingly warm weather for the Northeast. The National Weather Service said it was about 49 degrees in nearby Central Park ? about 10 degrees warmer than the normal high temperature.
As the country prepared for the celebration, glum wasn't on the agenda for many, even those who had a sour year.
"We're hoping the next year will be better," said Becky Martin, a former elementary school teacher who drove from Rockford, Ill., to Times Square after spending a fruitless year trying to find a job. "We're starting off optimistic and hoping it lasts."
Many expressed cautious hope that better times were ahead after a year in which Japan was ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, hurricanes wreaked havoc across the country and a debt crisis devastated Europe's economy.
"Everybody's suffering. That's why it's so beautiful to be here celebrating something with everybody," said Lisa Nicol, 47, of Melbourne, Australia.
For all of the holiday's bittersweet potential, New York City always treats it like a big party ? albeit one that now takes place under the watchful eye of a massive security force, including more than 1,500 police officers.
Dick Clark, who suffered a stroke in 2004, put in a few brief appearances mentioning that he has hosted his namesake New Year's Eve celebration for years, but said "tonight, it's better than ever." Clark, looking cheerful but struggling with his speech, introduced a performance by Lady Gaga and also assisted in the countdown. The show, hosted by Ryan Seacrest also featured a performance by Justin Bieber.
Natalie Tolli, a 13-year-old from Yonkers, said "it was the best time I ever had, especially seeing Justin Bieber in his red hat."
The father, George Tolli, said he and his wife and three daughters and son waited since 2 p.m. to get their place.
"It was a pleasant surprise, very controlled," he said. "In my 51 years, I've never been here for New Year's. But I did it for the kids. And it was worth it."
In Las Vegas, police shut down a four-mile section of the Strip to vehicle traffic six hours before midnight, letting revelers party in the street. Casino nightclubs touted pricey, exclusive bashes hosted by celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Fergie, and fireworks were expected to shoot from the rooftops of eight of the city's most famous casinos.
Atlanta welcomed thousands to its downtown, where a giant peach dropped at midnight. Fireworks were to be launched from the top of the Space Needle in Seattle; in Houston, tens of thousands were celebrating at a party with country singer Delbert McClinton.
In summer temperatures at Key West, Fla., three separate midnight drops took place. A giant facsimile of a conch shell was lowered at Sloppy Joe's Bar, Ernest Hemingway's favorite watering hole when he lived in Key West. At the Schooner Wharf Bar, the bar owner dressed as a pirate wench and dropped down from a mast of a tall sailing ship. And at the Bourbon Street Pub complex, a drag queen named Sushi descended in a glittering 6-foot red women's high heel.
The town of Eastport, Maine, lowers an 8-foot-long wooden sardine from a downtown building at midnight, in celebration of its sardine canning and fishing history.
In San Francisco, revelers were lining the waterfront for the annual fireworks show. Though the city's fickle weather and persistent fog can never be counted on to cooperate, forecasters say the skies above the city should be clear overnight.
The first worldwide celebrations started in the island nation of Samoa, which hopped across the international date line at midnight on Thursday, skipping Friday and moving instantly to Saturday.
Samoa and the neighboring nation of Tokelau lie near the dateline that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean; both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side to be more in tune with key trading partners.
In Sydney, more than 1.5 million people watched the shimmering pyrotechnic display designed around the theme "Time to Dream." In London, some 250,000 people gathered to listen to Big Ben chime at the stroke of midnight.
World leaders evoked 2011's struggles in their New Year's messages with some ambivalence.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Europe's crisis is not finished and "that 2012 will be the year full of risks, but also of possibilities."
Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of 2011 with prayers of thanks and said humanity awaits the new year with apprehension but also with hope for a better future.
"We prepare to cross the threshold of 2012, remembering that the Lord watches over us and takes care of us," Benedict said. "In him this evening we want to entrust the entire world. We put into his hands the tragedies of this world of ours, and we also offer him the hopes for a better future."
In Brazil, heavy rains didn't halt parties as upward of 2 million people gathered on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro and nearly as many on a main avenue in Sao Paulo, South America's biggest city. Massive fireworks displays and top music acts graced stages across the nation.
Brazil has seen healthy economic growth in recent years, as the country prepares to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Growth, however, has stalled in recent months, and Brazilian leaders are trying to stimulate the economy in the new year.
"This was a good year for Brazil and I think things are only getting better, it feels like we're making big advances," said Fabiana dos Santos Silva, an 18-year-old student who gathered with hundreds of thousands of others on a main avenue in Sao Paulo.
Several people preparing to celebrate the holiday in the U.S. told the AP that they would usher in the New Year hoping the Congress would become a more cooperative place. Some talked about their hopes for the presidential election. Others said they hoped to hold on to their job, or find a new one to replace one they'd lost.
An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted Dec. 8-12 found that 62 percent of Americans are optimistic that the nation's fortunes will improve in 2012, and 78 percent hopeful that their own family will have a better year. Most wrote off 2011 as a dud.
Debbie Hart, 50, of Perry, Ga., called herself the "perpetual optimist" who believes each year will be better than the one before.
"I married a farmer. `Wait until next year. Next year will be better.' That's what I've been hearing for 30 years," said Hart. "I have faith."
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Chris Hawley and David B. Caruso in New York, Oskar Garcia in Las Vegas, Bruce Shipkowski in Jackson, N.J., Dorie Turner in Atlanta, Greg Keller in Paris, Harold Heckle in Madrid, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand, Frances D'Emilio in Vatican City, Meera Selva in London, Bradley Brooks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Jack Chang in Mexico City and Melissa Eddy in Berlin.
We'll Take 'Em: U.S. Copyright's Office's Plan For Pre-1972 Recordings -- The U.S. Copyright Office has recommended that sound recordings made before February 15, 1972 be under the auspices of the federal government. The report, issued December 28, proposes provisions to address issues of copyright ownership, term of protection, termination of transfers and copyright registration.
"We believe that bringing pre-1972 sound recordings into the federal copyright system serves the interests of consistency and certainty, and will assist libraries and archives in carrying out their missions while also offering additional rights and protection for sound recording right holders," Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante said in a statement. The Copyright Office had been instructed by Congress to study on the "desirability and means" of extending federal copyright protection to pre-1972 sound recordings.
Pre-1972 recordings are currently subject to a variety of state laws until, under federal law, they fall into public domain in 2067. That creates uncertainty, argues Matthew Dames, Syracuse University's Copyright & Information Policy Adviser. In a letter to the Copyright Office, Dames explained that uncertainty created by differing state laws has threatened and stalled Syracuse archival projects.
The report acknowledges the record labels' objection that federalizing protection of pre-1972 sound recordings "would cast a cloud over existing ownership of rights in those Recordings." But the Copyright Office believes the objection is "not insurmountable" and can be address by Congress by "expressly providing that the ownership of copyright in the sound recording shall vest in the person who owned the rights under state law just prior to the enactment of the federal statute."
Under the Copyright Office's proposals, federalization would mean all rights and limitations of Title 17 of the U.S. Code covering post-1972 sound recordings would also apply to pre-1972 sound recordings. Title 17 covers public performance rights for digital transmissions, fair use, ephemeral recordings for broadcasters and transmitting organizations and safe harbor for Internet service providers, among other items. ( Library Journal)
How Social Commerce Will Reshape 2012 -- What better way to close out 2011 than with thoughts of how social commerce will help reshape 2012? Marcus Whitney, CTO of social commerce Moontoast, penned a post for VentureBeat about why the biggest retailers and affinity brands haven't "wiped the floor" with social startups like Fab.com that have quickly attracted millions of people through thematic fire sales. Is it the discounts? Is it because people like fire sales?
Whitney argues today's new breed of retailer is better at using social media to speak to consumers in the way they want to be spoken to. "The brand they are talking about is merely the subject of the conversation, not the voice initiating it," he writes. "And guess what, people react really well to messages from their friends, and even their acquaintances, when the topic is something they are genuinely interested in, something they have an affinity for. It's why Gartner predicts that 50% of sales will come from Social and Mobile by 2015?No more mindless herding of 'users' through search engine optimization, insulting advertisements and inbox overload. Today, companies with an authentic voice, the desire to be part of a conversation rather than dominate it, and a novel offering are going to put the brands that don't evolve into extinction. Why? Because the people want it that way." ( VentureBeat)
Gowalla's End -- In case you missed it, Facebook acquired the Gowalla team (its founders and some other staffers) in early December. It didn't acquit Gowalla's assets, just the team behind Gowalla. The team will continue their work at Facebook while the service will cease to exist.
Gowalla is a location-based social app in the vein of Foursquare. It rarely got the accolades that were heaped on Foursquare, but the company was active in music and worked with Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Freelance Whales and others.
Because Gowalla will be "winding down" at the end of January, users will need to take their data elsewhere. "We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well," co-founder Josh Williams writes at the company's blog. "Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla's user data." ( Gowalla blog)
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Public release date: 3-Jan-2012
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