NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court block of a judge's ruling that found the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy discriminated against minorities may be short lived, depending on the outcome of next week's mayoral election.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that the ruling by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin would be on hold pending the outcome of an appeal by the city, a fight that could be dropped if Democrat Bill de Blasio, who is leading the polls by 39 points, has his way.
De Blasio has said he would drop objections to the decision, which had called for a monitor to oversee major changes to the police tactic.
His Republican rival, Joe Lhota, said the city's next mayor must push forward with the appeal.
"For the next 60 days, we don't want an outsider coming in who doesn't know anything about crime fighting, putting the lives of our police officers and the lives of the public on the line," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday on his weekly WOR Radio show.
Police officers have "had their names dragged through the mud over the past year and I think they deserve a lot better than that," Bloomberg said. "We want them to understand that we support them and we are in conformity with the requirements of the law."
The topic became an election flashpoint, resonating nationwide. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was shouted down over the tactic by students during a speech at Brown University earlier in the week.
"This is indeed an important decision for all New Yorkers and for the men and women of the New York City police department who work very hard day in and day out to keep this city safe," Kelly said Thursday.
The three-judge panel also took the unusual step of removing Scheindlin from the case. It said she ran afoul of the code of conduct for U.S. judges by misapplying a related case ruling that allowed her to take the case, and by giving media interviews during the trial. It noted she had given media interviews and public statements responding to criticism of the court. In a footnote, it cited interviews with the New York Law Journal, The Associated Press and The New Yorker magazine.
In the AP interview, Scheindlin said reports that Bloomberg had reviewed her record to show that most of her 15 written "search and seizure" rulings since she took the bench in 1994 had gone against law enforcement was a "below-the-belt attack" on judicial independence. She said it was "quite disgraceful" if the mayor's office was behind the study.
Scheindlin said in a statement later Thursday she consented to the interviews under the condition she wouldn't comment on the ongoing case.
"And I did not," she said.
Scheindlin said some reporters used quotes from written opinions that gave the appearance she had commented on the case but "a careful reading of each interview will reveal that no such comments were made."
In 2007, Scheindlin told the same lawyers who had argued a similar case before her to bring the stop and frisk case to her, because she said the two were related. Not long after, the current case was filed by the attorneys.
The appeals court said a new judge would be assigned at random to handle further decisions and said it would hear arguments in March on the formal appeal by the city. That judge may choose to make alterations to Scheindlin's rulings, but it would be unlikely.
Scheindlin decided in August that the city violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics by disproportionally stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking them. She assigned a monitor to help the police department change its policy and training programs on the tactic.
Stop and frisk has been around for decades, but recorded stops increased dramatically under Bloomberg's administration to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men. Four minority men who said they were targeted because of their races filed a lawsuit, and it became a class-action case.
To make a stop, police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur or has occurred, a standard lower than the probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 10 percent of the stops result in arrests or summonses, and weapons are found about 2 percent of the time.
Scheindlin heard a bench trial that ended in the spring and coincided with a groundswell of backlash against the stop-and-frisk tactic. She noted in her ruling this summer that she wasn't putting an end to the practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the four men who sued, said it was dismayed that the appeals court delayed "the long-overdue process to remedy the NYPD's" stop-and-frisk practices and was shocked that it "cast aspersions" on the judge's professional conduct and reassigned the case.
___
Associated Press writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.
Inside the "on air" studio at Ghetto Radio in Nairobi, Kenya.
Courtesy Laura Dean
Each Friday, Roads & Kingdomsand Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazineor follow @roadskingdomson Twitter.
NAIROBI, Kenya—Henry Ohanga Jr. sits down at the table in an upscale coffee shop in one of Nairobi’s malls. He wears a bright purple baseball cap cocked to one side, and a necklace with shiny black stones in the shape of a pharaonic head around his neck. Octopizzo—as he is known to his fans—is a rising hip-hop star from Kibera, a Nairobi neighborhood whose tagline is “the biggest slum in Africa.” He is one of the ones who found a way out, and he wants to help bridge the gap between places like Kibera and the so-called uptown—the wealthier stretches of Nairobi. Though Kenya is still shaken by last month’s horrific massacre at Westgate mall, it is also true that most of Nairobi couldn’t afford a cup of coffee in any of the uptown malls. “There are people [in Kibera] who’ve never been here,” he gestures to the mall-goers around us. And the people here, he says, have “never been to Kibera.”
Octopizzo is fluent in an unexpected medium for bridging that gap: Sheng, Nairobi’s urban language. There are 42 languages spoken in Kenya—Swahili and English are the two official languages—but Sheng is overtaking them all as the language of the big-city youth. It is a Swahili-based slang, with bits of English thrown in alongside other Kenyan and non-Kenyan languages. And, remarkably, it’s catching on across all parts of society.
Sheng began its life as a slang largely used by gangs in the poorest corners of Nairobi. The widely agreed upon origin story of Sheng is that in the 1980s and 1990s, a massive migration of people from the countryside to city resulted in large numbers of young people living in close quarters with their families in low-income neighborhoods in Nairobi. “When you had all these young people living together in these very crowded areas of Nairobi, [they needed] a language of secrecy,” says Professor Mungai Mutonya, senior lecturer in socio-linguistics at Washington University in St. Louis, “where they could be able to communicate without getting the information out to their parents.”
Today it isn’t uncommon to see Sheng pop up almost anywhere—on billboards, on the radio, in political campaign ads, and public service announcements.
Now the secret is out. Today it isn’t uncommon to see Sheng pop up almost anywhere—on billboards, on the radio, in political campaign ads, and public service announcements. It has become the lingua franca of Nairobi’s youth, who make up 60 percent of the Kenyan population. Politicians, advertisers, and schoolteachers are taking notice.
Each neighborhood speaks its own variety, and the language itself changes almost weekly. “Whatever Sheng you are speaking now, the words you’re saying now, when you go like even for three months and you come back, they’re done,” says Octopizzo. The language is familiar enough that a Sheng dictionary came out recently. But dictionaries for Sheng have a short shelf life because of how rapidly the vocabulary change. “After a year,” he says, “the dictionary is expired.”
Its dynamism is one of the language’s unique features. Mutonya says that new Sheng words or phrases are often introduced by entertainers, DJs, and musicians like Octopizzo, all of whom compete to make their own original contributions. Sometimes such innovation is driven by necessity: Octopizzo invented a word for marijuana, octombeedo, so that it would get past the radio censors. Not surprisingly, words that describe illegal substances or law enforcement change most rapidly.
“It’s like a code,” says Octo, “[even] your parents don’t know what you guys are talking about.”
“It’s very secretive. That’s the best thing about it,” says Joseph, a 31-year old card dealer in a Nairobi casino. He spends long afternoons sitting at a coffee stall in the middle of a parking lot filled with large piles of gray sand and construction materials, chewing qat with his friends and chatting in Sheng. Though qat is legal in Kenya, the older generation often don’t approve, and he lists four different Sheng words for it as we talk: ketepa, jamba, veve, gomba.
Sheng allows young people to get around other cultural taboos. In 2005, a government anti-HIV AIDS campaign used Sheng to reach young people; advertisements in Sheng discussing sex appeared on billboards and radio. It was a way of not only speaking to youth, but also of avoiding the ire of older Kenyans who might have disapproved of such an overtly sexual public service announcement.
Sheng even has its own flagship radio station of sorts, Ghetto Radio, which has taken Nairobi by storm. Founded in early 2008, Ghetto Radio calls itself “the official Sheng station” and “the voice of the youth.” Joseph Lotukoi, 28, a producer for the station, who grew up in a Nairobi slum, says it’s not just the words they use, but also what they talk about—crime, joblessness, child labor, early marriage, and other issues that affect the young and the poor. “We empower [the youth] and also entertain them,” says Lotukoi.
The entrance to the Ghetto Radio studios in Nairobi, Kenya.
Courtesy Laura Dean
Ghetto Radio is the only station that broadcasts the news in Sheng. By broadcasting it across the entire city, the station simultaneously makes Sheng a bit more standardized, while trying to actively find new words. There is even a segment called “update your slang” on the morning show that brings in and explains new Sheng words from around the city.
Not everyone welcomes the spread of this organic language from Nairobi’s streets. Eunice Mlati, the head mistress of the state-run Moi Avenue Primary School, sees the language as just another obstacle to teaching the next generation of Kenyans. “Sheng actually interferes with performance of students in languages, both English and Swahili,” says Mlati. Sheng comes in, and test scores go down, she says.
Mlati has zero tolerance for it. “Teachers should stress that children shouldn’t be speaking Sheng, especially in school and even at home,” she says. “If they speak English, let them speak English, if Swahili, then Swahili.” At the heart of her complaint—besides the fact that it serves as a secret language for students that many educators don’t understand—is the fact that she believes that only languages that can be tested should be taught in school. Sheng, because it changes so rapidly, would be very difficult to test.
And yet, despite the best efforts of people like Mlati, there are children growing up all over Nairobi who speak Sheng as their first language. And that, says Mutonya, can be a good thing. Given all of Kenya’s bitter ethnic and class lines, Sheng has a “detribalizing” effect, he says. Those who are united by the language “are not Kikuyus, they’re not Luos … they are Nairobians, young Nairobians speaking Sheng.”
If you've flown into Los Angeles International Airport anytime in the last 50 years, the final segment of your journey may have taken you down a long hallway featuring a gorgeous color-blocked tile mural. Well, on your next flight to L.A., you can wear the socks to match it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate.
The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music — but not make cellphone calls.
The Federal Aviation Administration says airlines can allow passengers to use the devices during takeoffs and landings on planes that meet certain criteria for protecting aircraft systems from electronic interference.
Most new airliners are expected to meet the criteria, but changes won't happen immediately. Timing will depend upon the airline.
Connections to the Internet to surf, exchange emails, text or download data will still be prohibited below 10,000 feet. Heavier devices like laptops will have to be stowed. Passengers will be told to switch their smartphones, tablets and other devices to airplane mode.
Cellphone calls will still be prohibited.
A travel industry group welcomed the changes, calling them common-sense accommodations for a traveling public now bristling with technology. "We're pleased the FAA recognizes that an enjoyable passenger experience is not incompatible with safety and security," said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
In the light of a seemingly endless series of revelations about the NSA's multi-faceted infiltrations of just about every network there is, including the private fiber used by Google and Yahoo, more and more folks are stepping up to offer possible solutions.
But because both the Internet and encryption aren't as singular or straightforward as they could be, it isn't likely to be something that can be delivered as a single product anytime soon.
The most common analogy used about email security is that it's no better than a postcard written in pencil and sent via conventional mail. To do something about it, two big names in security, Lavabit and Silent Circle, are joining forces to create a project they call the Dark Mail Alliance.
Silent Circle, a provider of both encrypted email and phone solutions, and Lavabit, a secure email provider, both made headlines earlier this year when they voluntarily shut down their email services in the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about NSA actions against ISPs, rather than be a party to such spying. Their plan is to help create a new email system that is as resistant as technologically possible to spying.
The idea isn't to offer a product per se, but rather to create an open standard that could be freely implemented by themselves or by third parties. "1,000 Lavabits all around the world," was how Jon Callas, CTO and founder of Silent Circle, described it in a discussion with Infoworld.
This decentralized plan is both the best and worst thing about the project: Best in the sense that no one person has explicit control over it, but worst in the sense that it's also not possible to guarantee how consistently it can be delivered if it's an open project.
The technical details of Dark Mail involve taking existing email clients -- Outlook and Exchange were cited as possible targets -- and outfitting them with add-ons that would use the XMPP Web messaging protocol in conjunction with another encryption protocol developed by Silent Circle, named, appropriately enough, SCIMP, or Silent Circle Instant Message Protocol. Encryption keys are held on the end user's system and not managed by the email providers themselves, so a court order against the ISP will yield nothing. Both the message's contents and metadata (e.g., to/from headers) are encrypted.
The thing is, the technical details of encrypted email aren't themselves the real obstacle. The difficulties tend to be social -- that is, getting people to use the existing standards and projects in the first place. Many existing packages, such as Enigmail, already allow you to equip email clients with encryption without too much difficulty. But few non-technical users bother with them, in big part because in order to send someone else an encrypted message, they have to be running the same software. The lack of a common implementation, as common as a web browser, is a big stumbling block, but end user indifference is ultimately the biggest reason why most email isn't encrypted.
The other issue is something Silent Circle and Lavabit are at least attempting to tackle: Participation from common email providers. If Gmail supported the Dark Mail standard, for instance, that would provide a great many existing email users with a near-seamless way to make use of it, but so far, no third-party mail providers have piped up. That might well be a defensive measure: If they announced early on they were working on such a thing, it would give attackers all the more time to try and plan a way to subvert it.
The Snowden papers have also showed how even those who do take the pains to encrypt can have their privacy subverted by attackers who simply perform an end-run around the encryption and intercept information either before or after it's ever encrypted. Unfortunately, the only way to prevent such a thing is via such extreme measures as an air-gapped system.
So what can we expect from Dark Mail? If it's ever implemented as its creators intend, it ought to serve two functions: Give end users a way to casually encrypt email without going through a whole hassle, and make them that much more conscious of how, on the current Internet, there may not be any safe places at all.
EurekAlert! announces the recipients of the 2014 AAAS-EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jennifer Santisi jsantisi@aaas.org 212-326-6213 American Association for the Advancement of Science
This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese.
EurekAlert!, the global science news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and its sister site, EurekAlert! Chinese, are pleased to announce four recipients of the 2014 AAAS-EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters.
The fellowships are intended to help support excellence in science communication worldwide by providing science reporters with the opportunity to cover the latest research, and to network with peers from around the world. Four accomplished science journalists from China have been selected to participate in the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting (http://www.aaas.org/meetings), 13-17 February in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Sponsorship for the 2014 fellowships is provided by EurekAlert!. The fellowship pays for travel, lodging and meals at the AAAS Annual Meeting.
The recipients of the 2014 fellowships are:
Hongqiao Liu, Caixin Media
Xiao Gan, China Science Daily
Kun Huang, Xinhua News Agency
Wei Qian, China Newsweek
"The 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting will allow me to continue improving myself as a professional science reporter," said Wei Qian of China Newsweek. It's a unique opportunity for me to attend a renowned science conference, and to learn about the most important advances in science. This experience will provide me with an opportunity to connect with a network of international science journalists and address scientific news in a global context."
The fellowships were originally launched in 2004 with a seed grant from the William T. Golden Endowment Fund for Program Innovation. That year's program brought 10 reporters from China to the 2004 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Subsequent fellowships have sponsored reporters from the Middle East, China, Africa, Central and South America.
The 2014 fellows were chosen by judges from an applicant pool of reporters nominated by their editors at leading Chinese media organizations. Dr. Zixue Tai of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications, Dr. Shu-Ling Chen Berggreen of the University of Colorado School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and Ms. Xiong Lei, a guest professor at Renmin University of China and former executive editor of China Features, acted as independent judges.
"I'm looking forward to achieving a better understanding of the role that science, discovery and innovation play in the rapidly changing world, and learning how this interacts with interdisciplinary efforts to find solutions for global issues, such as the food crisis, climate change, and new communicable diseases," said Hongqiao Liu of Caixin Media.
The theme of the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting is Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation. In keeping with this theme, and the mission of both AAAS and EurekAlert!, the reporter fellowship program seeks to promote international scientific dialogue and advance the communication of science news to the public worldwide.
"I look forward to learning more about sustainable solutions that might be suitable for development of China, as sustainability is a major theme of the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting," Kun Huang of Xinhua News Agency said. "And personally, I am very interested in the Career Development Workshops, which will enhance my understanding of science journalism as a lifelong career."
More information about the 2014 fellowship winners is available at http://www.eurekalert.org/fellows. The website will also publish any meeting coverage by the fellows.
###
About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (http://www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (http://www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more.
About EurekAlert!
Founded by AAAS in 1996, EurekAlert! is an editorially independent, online news service focused on science, medicine and technology. Thousands of reporters around the globe use EurekAlert! to access news and resources from the world's top research organizations. For free access to EurekAlert!, visit http://www.EurekAlert.org.
About EurekAlert! Chinese
Organized by AAAS, EurekAlert! Chinese is the world's only source of embargoed science news catering to Chinese journalists. Universities, research institutions, corporations, scientific journals and government-sponsored research institutions post their press releases in both English and Chinese on the EurekAlert! Chinese website, often to a special section accessible only to reporters.
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EurekAlert! announces the recipients of the 2014 AAAS-EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jennifer Santisi jsantisi@aaas.org 212-326-6213 American Association for the Advancement of Science
This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese.
EurekAlert!, the global science news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and its sister site, EurekAlert! Chinese, are pleased to announce four recipients of the 2014 AAAS-EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters.
The fellowships are intended to help support excellence in science communication worldwide by providing science reporters with the opportunity to cover the latest research, and to network with peers from around the world. Four accomplished science journalists from China have been selected to participate in the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting (http://www.aaas.org/meetings), 13-17 February in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Sponsorship for the 2014 fellowships is provided by EurekAlert!. The fellowship pays for travel, lodging and meals at the AAAS Annual Meeting.
The recipients of the 2014 fellowships are:
Hongqiao Liu, Caixin Media
Xiao Gan, China Science Daily
Kun Huang, Xinhua News Agency
Wei Qian, China Newsweek
"The 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting will allow me to continue improving myself as a professional science reporter," said Wei Qian of China Newsweek. It's a unique opportunity for me to attend a renowned science conference, and to learn about the most important advances in science. This experience will provide me with an opportunity to connect with a network of international science journalists and address scientific news in a global context."
The fellowships were originally launched in 2004 with a seed grant from the William T. Golden Endowment Fund for Program Innovation. That year's program brought 10 reporters from China to the 2004 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Subsequent fellowships have sponsored reporters from the Middle East, China, Africa, Central and South America.
The 2014 fellows were chosen by judges from an applicant pool of reporters nominated by their editors at leading Chinese media organizations. Dr. Zixue Tai of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications, Dr. Shu-Ling Chen Berggreen of the University of Colorado School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and Ms. Xiong Lei, a guest professor at Renmin University of China and former executive editor of China Features, acted as independent judges.
"I'm looking forward to achieving a better understanding of the role that science, discovery and innovation play in the rapidly changing world, and learning how this interacts with interdisciplinary efforts to find solutions for global issues, such as the food crisis, climate change, and new communicable diseases," said Hongqiao Liu of Caixin Media.
The theme of the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting is Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation. In keeping with this theme, and the mission of both AAAS and EurekAlert!, the reporter fellowship program seeks to promote international scientific dialogue and advance the communication of science news to the public worldwide.
"I look forward to learning more about sustainable solutions that might be suitable for development of China, as sustainability is a major theme of the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting," Kun Huang of Xinhua News Agency said. "And personally, I am very interested in the Career Development Workshops, which will enhance my understanding of science journalism as a lifelong career."
More information about the 2014 fellowship winners is available at http://www.eurekalert.org/fellows. The website will also publish any meeting coverage by the fellows.
###
About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (http://www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (http://www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more.
About EurekAlert!
Founded by AAAS in 1996, EurekAlert! is an editorially independent, online news service focused on science, medicine and technology. Thousands of reporters around the globe use EurekAlert! to access news and resources from the world's top research organizations. For free access to EurekAlert!, visit http://www.EurekAlert.org.
About EurekAlert! Chinese
Organized by AAAS, EurekAlert! Chinese is the world's only source of embargoed science news catering to Chinese journalists. Universities, research institutions, corporations, scientific journals and government-sponsored research institutions post their press releases in both English and Chinese on the EurekAlert! Chinese website, often to a special section accessible only to reporters.
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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.
FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013 file photo, Pope Francis leaves after an audience with families in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. The Vatican is taking the unusual step of conducting a worldwide survey on how parishes deal with sensitive issues such as birth control, divorce and gay marriage, seeking input ahead of a major meeting on the family that Pope Francis plans next year. The survey reflects the pope's pledges to move away from what he called a "Vatican-centric" approach toward one where local church leaders are more involved in decision-making. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013 file photo, Pope Francis leaves after an audience with families in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. The Vatican is taking the unusual step of conducting a worldwide survey on how parishes deal with sensitive issues such as birth control, divorce and gay marriage, seeking input ahead of a major meeting on the family that Pope Francis plans next year. The survey reflects the pope's pledges to move away from what he called a "Vatican-centric" approach toward one where local church leaders are more involved in decision-making. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The Vatican is taking the unusual step of conducting a worldwide survey on how parishes deal with sensitive issues such as birth control, divorce and gay marriage, seeking input ahead of a major meeting on the family that Pope Francis plans next year.
The poll was sent in mid-October to every national conference of bishops with a request from the Vatican coordinator, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, to "share it immediately as widely as possible to deaneries and parishes so that input from local sources can be received."
The survey reflects the pope's pledges to move away from what he called a "Vatican-centric" approach toward one where local church leaders are more involved in decision-making.
Among the questions are whether gay marriage is recognized in their country and how priests minister to same-sex couples, including how churches can respond when gays seek a religious education or Holy Communion for their children. The poll also asks "how is God's mercy proclaimed" to separated, divorced and remarried couples. Additional information is sought on the pastoral care of men and women who live together outside of marriage. The survey also asks parishes whether they believe married men and women tend to follow church teaching barring the use of artificial contraception.
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent news organization, was first to report Thursday that the survey will be conducted, and it posted a copy online.
Helen Osman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, confirmed plans for the poll to The Associated Press.
"It will be up to each bishop to determine what would be the most useful way of gathering information to provide to Rome," Osman wrote in an email. In England, bishops have posted the survey online to be filled out by a wide range of Catholics, including priests, lay people, parents and nuns.
The poll findings will help set the agenda for an extraordinary synod, or meeting, of the presidents of national bishops conferences in October 2014.
The introduction to the survey lays out a broad list of concerns which the document says "were unheard of until a few years ago," including single-parent families, polygamy, interfaith marriages and "forms of feminism hostile to the church." Surrogate motherhood is lamented in the document as "wombs for hire," and the survey cites as a new challenge "same-sex unions between persons who are, not infrequently, permitted to adopt children."
Francis has said the church needs to do a better job preparing young people for marriage, lamenting that newlyweds seem to think marriage isn't a lifelong commitment but just a "provisional" one. At the same time, he has said the church process for annulling marriages isn't working and must be reviewed.
Francis' emphasis on reforming the Vatican bureaucracy and boosting the participation of local church leaders and lay people has prompted speculation about how far-reaching his changes could be.
The pope has urged pastors to focus on being merciful and welcoming rather than emphasizing only such divisive issues as abortion, gay marriage and contraception. At the same time, he has made clear his support for traditional marriage and opposition to abortion.
The introduction to the new survey extensively quotes former popes and the Catholic catechism on marriage being the union of a man and a woman for the purposes of having children.
Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, wrote in his letter that the meeting next year would be followed by another on the topic in 2015.
____
Documents posted by The National Catholic Reporter: http://www.scribd.com/doc/180575701/Letter-from-Msgr-Ronny-Jenkins-to-the-USCCB
Research finds severe hot flashes reduced with quick neck injection
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kara Spak kspak@nmh.org 312-926-0755 Northwestern Memorial Hospital
A shot in the neck of local anesthesia may reduce hot flashes by as much as 50 percent for at least six months, a recent Northwestern Medicine study found.
"We think we are resetting the thermostat in women who are experiencing moderate to very severe hot flashes without using hormonal therapies," said David Walega, MD, chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital andNorthwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Walega presented the results of the initial study at a recent American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting.
Forty women between 35 and 65 years old experiencing natural or induced menopause participated in the study. The women suffered debilitating hot flashes with more severe symptoms than the typical hot flash.
"Many of the women in our study experienced repeated drenching sweats that lessen the ability to go about a day-to-day routine, including interfering with their professional lives," said Walega. " We wanted to see if this injection could provide symptom relief without hormones, as hormone therapy has been associated with an increased risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease, and there are few other viable treatment options available right now."
To administer the treatment, the doctor used low dose X-ray to guide an injection of bupivacaine hydrochloride, a commonly used local anesthetic, into a nerve bundle called the stellate ganglion, located in the neck near the "voice box." It's a 30 second procedure that must be done by a trained physician because the injection is close to important structures like the carotid artery, the vertebral artery and the spinal nerves. Injecting any of those areas could cause a seizure, loss of consciousness or other complications.
The idea came from a pain study published in 2007 in the medical journal "The Lancet," where stellate ganglion injections were performed to try to alleviate pain. In some cases, hot flashes dissipated after the injection, independent of pain relief, leading Walega's research team to wonder if this might be a safe, effective way of treating hot flashes from menopause.
Walega's patients tracked their hot flashes for two weeks before and six months after the injection. Half the group got the anesthetic; the other a placebo injection of saline, or salt-water. Those who received the anesthetic medication reported a reduction of hot flashes by a half. The benefits lasted at least six months.
Walega is now planning a larger study to further investigate the shot's effectiveness.
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Research finds severe hot flashes reduced with quick neck injection
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kara Spak kspak@nmh.org 312-926-0755 Northwestern Memorial Hospital
A shot in the neck of local anesthesia may reduce hot flashes by as much as 50 percent for at least six months, a recent Northwestern Medicine study found.
"We think we are resetting the thermostat in women who are experiencing moderate to very severe hot flashes without using hormonal therapies," said David Walega, MD, chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital andNorthwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Walega presented the results of the initial study at a recent American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting.
Forty women between 35 and 65 years old experiencing natural or induced menopause participated in the study. The women suffered debilitating hot flashes with more severe symptoms than the typical hot flash.
"Many of the women in our study experienced repeated drenching sweats that lessen the ability to go about a day-to-day routine, including interfering with their professional lives," said Walega. " We wanted to see if this injection could provide symptom relief without hormones, as hormone therapy has been associated with an increased risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease, and there are few other viable treatment options available right now."
To administer the treatment, the doctor used low dose X-ray to guide an injection of bupivacaine hydrochloride, a commonly used local anesthetic, into a nerve bundle called the stellate ganglion, located in the neck near the "voice box." It's a 30 second procedure that must be done by a trained physician because the injection is close to important structures like the carotid artery, the vertebral artery and the spinal nerves. Injecting any of those areas could cause a seizure, loss of consciousness or other complications.
The idea came from a pain study published in 2007 in the medical journal "The Lancet," where stellate ganglion injections were performed to try to alleviate pain. In some cases, hot flashes dissipated after the injection, independent of pain relief, leading Walega's research team to wonder if this might be a safe, effective way of treating hot flashes from menopause.
Walega's patients tracked their hot flashes for two weeks before and six months after the injection. Half the group got the anesthetic; the other a placebo injection of saline, or salt-water. Those who received the anesthetic medication reported a reduction of hot flashes by a half. The benefits lasted at least six months.
Walega is now planning a larger study to further investigate the shot's effectiveness.
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