Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant


On Facebook, he describes himself as a "wounded warrior...very wounded."


Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he's received a double-arm transplant.


Those new arms "already move a little," he tweeted a month after the operation.


Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.


Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.


"Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little," Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.


Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: "dude I can't tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over."


The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.


The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.


Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.


"He was the first quad amputee to survive," and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.


The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.


Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.


"I wouldn't change it in any way. ... I feel great. I'm still the same person," he said.


The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.


Lee led three of those earlier operations when he worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.


Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms.


"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.


While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the immune-suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand-transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well, and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.


Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants.


Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new immune-suppression approach.


Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been fitted with prosthetic legs and had learned to walk on his own.


He had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."


The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.


Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from the tube that was in his throat during the long surgery and decided he sounded like Al Pacino. He soon started doing movie lines.


"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.


___


Associated Press Writer Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this report.


___


Online:


Army regenerative medicine:


http://www.afirm.mil/index.cfm?pageid=home


and http://www.afirm.mil/assets/documents/annual_report_2011.pdf


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .


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S&P 500 eases, ends longest winning run in eight years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eased slightly on Monday after an eight-day run of gains, while the Nasdaq edged higher as Apple shares rebounded.


The index remained above 1,500, however, after closing above that level on Friday for the first time in more than five years. The S&P 500's eight sessions of gains was its longest winning streak in eight years.


Caterpillar shares helped limit losses on the Dow industrials even as the company posted a 55 percent drop in quarterly profit due to a charge connected with accounting fraud at a Chinese subsidiary and weak demand among its dealers. Caterpillar's shares, down 2.2 percent in the past three sessions, rose 2 percent Monday to $97.45.


"I think this multi-year high is really something that's in play both for shorter-term traders and with folks with money on the sidelines," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.


Bargain hunters lifted Apple after the tech giant's stock dropped 14.4 percent in the previous two sessions. With Apple's stock up 2.3 percent at $449.83, the iPad and iPhone maker regained the title as the largest U.S. company by market capitalization as Exxon Mobil fell 0.7 percent to $91.11 and slipped back to second place.


On the down side, Boeing fell 1.4 percent to $74 on worries about the potential hit from delays in its 787 Dreamliner program.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 14.05 points, or 0.10 percent, at 13,881.93. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 2.78 points, or 0.18 percent, at 1,500.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 4.59 points, or 0.15 percent, at 3,154.30.


Investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record, research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said.


"What we have seen this year is, it appears the individual investor is allocating some 401(k) money to equities. Hopefully that's a decision that will be with us for a while," Hellwig said.


Data on Monday pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand.


U.S. durable goods orders jumped 4.6 percent in December, a pace that far outstripped expectations for a rise of 1.8 percent. Pending home sales, however, unexpectedly dropped 4.3 percent. Analysts were looking for an increase of 0.3 percent.


Corporate earnings so far have mostly been stronger than expected. Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 150 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 67.3 percent have beaten analysts' expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.


After the bell, shares of Yahoo rose 4.4 percent to $21.21 following the release of its results.


During the regular session, Hess Corp shares shot up 6.1 percent to $62.48 after the company said it would exit its refining business, freeing up to $1 billion of capital. Separately, hedge fund Elliott Associates is looking for approval to buy about $800 million more in Hess stock.


Stocks have also gained support from a recent agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power. On Monday, Fitch Ratings said that agreement removed the near-term risk to the country's 'AAA' rating.


Volume was roughly 6.1 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 4 to 3, while advancers beat decliners on the Nasdaq by about 7 to 5.


(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal and Nick Zieminski)



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French seal off Mali's Timbuktu, rebels torch library


GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops retook control of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, on Monday after Islamist rebel occupiers fled the ancient Sahara trading town and torched several buildings, including a library holding priceless manuscripts.


The United States and the European Union are backing a French-led intervention in Mali against al Qaeda-allied militants they fear could use the West African state's desert north as a springboard for international attacks.


The recovery of Timbuktu followed the swift capture by French and Malian forces at the weekend of Gao, another major town in Mali's north that had been occupied by the alliance of jihadist groups since last year.


The two-week-old mission by France in its former Sahel colony, at the request of Mali's government, has driven the Islamist rebels northwards out of towns into the desert and mountains.


Without a shot being fired, 1,000 French soldiers and paratroopers and 200 Malian troops seized Timbuktu airport and surrounded the town on the banks of the Niger River, looking to block the escape of insurgents.


In both Timbuktu and Gao, cheering crowds turned out to welcome the French and Malian troops.


A third town in Mali's vast desert north, Kidal, had remained in Islamist militant hands. But Malian Tuareg MNLA rebels, who are seeking autonomy for their northern region, said on Monday they had taken charge in Kidal after Islamist fighters abandoned it.


A diplomat in Bamako confirmed the MNLA takeover of Kidal.


A French military spokesman said the assault forces at Timbuktu were avoiding any fighting inside the city to protect the cultural treasures, mosques and religious shrines in what is considered a seat of Islamic learning.


But Timbuktu Mayor Ousmane Halle told Reuters departing Islamist gunmen had four days earlier set fire to the town's new Ahmed Baba Institute, which contained thousands of manuscripts.


UNESCO spokesman Roni Amelan said the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency was "horrified" by the news of the fire, but was awaiting a full assessment of the damage.


Ali Baba, a worker at the Ahmed Baba Institute, told Sky News in Timbuktu more than 3,000 manuscripts had been destroyed. "They are bandits. They have burned some manuscripts and also stole a lot of manuscripts which they took with them," he said.


Marie Rodet, an African history lecturer at Britain's School of Oriental and African Studies, said Timbuktu held one of the greatest libraries of Islamic manuscripts in the world.


"It's pure retaliation. They (the Islamist militant rebels) knew they were losing the battle and they hit where it really hurts," Rodet told Reuters. "These people are not interested in any intellectual debate. They are anti-intellectual."


ISLAMISTS "ALL FLED"


The Ahmed Baba Institute, one of several libraries and collections in Timbuktu containing fragile documents dating back to the 13th century, is named after a Timbuktu-born contemporary of William Shakespeare and houses more than 20,000 scholarly manuscripts. Some were stored in underground vaults.


The French and Malians have encountered no resistance so far in Timbuktu. But they will now have to comb through a labyrinth of ancient mosques, monuments, mud-brick homes and narrow alleyways to flush out any hiding fighters.


The Islamist forces comprise a loose alliance that groups Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) with Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA.


They have retreated in the face of relentless French air strikes and superior firepower and are believed to be sheltering in the rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountain range, north of Kidal.


The MNLA Tuareg rebels who say they now hold Kidal have offered to help the French-led offensive against the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamists. It was not clear, however, whether the French and Malians would steer their offensive further towards Kidal, or hold negotiations with the MNLA.


FRANCE: MALI "BEING LIBERATED"


The world was shocked by Timbuktu's capture in April by Tuareg fighters, whose separatist rebellion was later hijacked by Islamist radicals who imposed severe sharia (Islamic law).


Provoking international outrage, the Muslim militants - who follow a more radical Salafist brand of Islam - destroyed dozens of ancient shrines in Timbuktu sacred to Sufi Muslims, condemning them as idolatrous and un-Islamic.


They also imposed a strict form of Islamic law, or sharia, authorizing the stoning of adulterers and amputations for thieves, while forcing women to go veiled.


On Sunday, many women among the thousands of Gao residents who came out to celebrate the rebels' expulsion made a point of going unveiled. Other residents smoked cigarettes and played music to flout the bans previously imposed by the rebels.


Hundreds of troops from Niger and Chad have been brought to Gao to help secure the town.


"Little by little, Mali is being liberated," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France 2 television.


Speaking at a news conference in Paris, French President Francois Hollande said French troops would take a step back once the job of retaking key towns was complete, and Malian and other African troops would take over the task of hunting the rebels.


"They are the ones who will go into the northern part, which we know is the most difficult because that's where the terrorists are hiding," Hollande said.


As the French and Malian troops thrust into northern Mali, African troops for a U.N.-backed continental intervention force for Mali, expected to number 7,700, are being flown into the country, despite severe delays and logistical problems.


Outgoing African Union Chairman President Thomas Boni Yayi of Benin scolded AU states at a weekend summit in Addis Ababa for their slow response to assist Mali while former colonial power France took the lead in the military operation.


Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Niger and Chad are providing soldiers for the AFISMA force. Burundi and other nations have pledged to contribute.


AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said these regional troops could play a useful "clean-up" role once the main military operations against the Islamist rebels end.


Speaking in Addis Ababa on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the U.N. was "actively considering" helping the troop-contributing African countries with logistical support.


(Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis in Sevare, Mali, Bate Felix and David Lewis in Dakar, Maria Golovina in London, Alexandria Sage, Vicky Buffery and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako, Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Niamey, Richard Lough and Aaron Masho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Andrew Heavens)



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Yahoo revenue rises on search advertising






(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc posted a 4 percent gain in net revenue to $ 1.22 billion in the fourth quarter, when an increase in search advertising sales offset weakness in the Web portal’s display ad business.


The company forecast net revenue — which excludes fees shared with partner websites — of $ 1.07 billion to $ 1.1 billion in the current quarter, trailing the $ 1.1 billion that Wall Street analysts expect on average.






Shares in Yahoo, which is trying to stave off declines across much of its business and revive growth, were up 1.5 percent in after hours trade. They had risen 4.5 percent before the revenue projections were disclosed on an analysts’ conference call.


“We got the revenue acceleration we were hoping for. Display was down, but search is doing better” said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley Caris.


“As long as in the near-term things are not bad, I think the stock will generally act positively while we wait for Marissa Mayer to deliver,” said Sinha.


The company said on Monday its fourth-quarter net income was $ 272.3 million, or 23 cents per share, versus $ 295.6 million, or 24 cents per share in the year-ago period.


Excluding certain items, Yahoo said it had earnings per share of 32 cents, versus the average analyst expectation of 28 cents according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is moving to revive the company’s fortunes after several years of declining revenue. Yahoo’s stock has risen roughly 30 percent since she became CEO, reaching its highest levels since 2008.


Yahoo said it repurchased $ 1.5 billion worth of shares during the fourth quarter. Shares in the company were up 1.5 percent at $ 20.61 in extended trading from a close of $ 20.31 on the Nasdaq.


(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Claire Danes Says Son Cyrus Is 'Getting Fat!'









01/27/2013 at 08:40 PM EST



Actresses don't usually like to talk about weight gain, but Claire Danes was more than happy to Sunday evening. Of course, the topic of discussion was her 6-week-old son Cyrus Michael Christopher.

"He's six weeks and getting fat. It's very exciting. All that time on the boob is starting to result in growth," the Homeland star, 33, told Giuliana Rancic on E!'s Live from the Red Carpet at the SAG Awards.

"He's getting rolls ... thank goodness they've arrived. He's starting to smile a little bit and he kind of knows I exist," she added. "That's reassuring – that feedback is amazing."

Nominated for best actress in a TV series – drama for her role as Carrie Mathison, a Central Intelligence Agency officer, the new mom said her marriage to Hugh Dancy helps her step out of character once filming is done.

"I'm able to disassociate," the actress, wearing a one-shouldered Givenchy dress, said. "There are all these unconscious rituals that help me engage and disengage – like taking my wedding ring on and off helps free me up. I wouldn't be able to sustain it otherwise."

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West


New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.


Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.


There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.


___


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/


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Nikkei rises as yen extends loss to new lows

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese equities rose on Monday as the yen extended losses to fresh lows, further improving earnings prospects for exporters as Japan's corporate reporting season enters full swing this week.


Global investor sentiment improved on Friday due to brighter prospects for the European economy and its debt crisis as well as solid U.S. corporate earnings.


Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> traded 0.7 percent higher after jumping 2.9 percent on Friday to log an 11th straight week of gains, its longest such run since 1971. <.t/>


Against the yen, the dollar hit 91.26 early on Monday, its highest level since June 2010 while the euro touched 122.91, its highest point since April.


New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for aggressive monetary easing and huge fiscal spending to beat deflation. The yen has fallen some 13 percent since mid-November when he began making those calls as part of his election campaign.


"The potent mix of Abenomics and strong risk appetite abroad is continuing to soften the yen, which means investors will still be buying stocks," said Masayuki Doshida, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities.


South Korean shares <.ks11> fell 0.7 percent, after closing on Friday at an eight-week low, weighed by caution ahead of fourth-quarter earnings and a stronger won hitting exporters.


U.S. stocks extended a rally to an eighth day, their best run since late 2004, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> both closing at their highest in more than five years on solid U.S. corporate earnings.


The improving global macroeconomic environment has curbed interest in safe haven assets such as gold.


Spot gold steadied around $1,658.54 an ounce on Monday, still below its 200-day moving average. As riskier equities rallied on Friday, bullion saw its biggest weekly drop this year on Friday.


U.S. crude inched up 0.1 percent to $95.94 a barrel.


Investors pumped $5.65 billion into stock funds worldwide in the latest week, with most of the sum flowing into emerging market stock funds, data from EPFR Global showed on Friday.


The euro hovered near an 11-month high of $1.3480 hit on Friday. The Australian dollar stumbled to an eight-month low against the euro early on Monday.


The European Central Bank said on Friday banks will repay 137.2 billion euros ($185 billion) in 3-year loans, more cash than expected, in a sign at least parts of the financial system are returning to health. The ECB lent banks a total of more than 1 trillion euros in twin 3-year, ultra-cheap lending operations in December 2011 and February 2012, easing funding concerns.


German Ifo business morale index improved for a third consecutive month in January to its highest in more than half a year, further evidence that Europe's largest economy is gathering speed again after contracting late last year.


European shares scaled fresh multi-month peaks on Friday, led by Frankfurt's DAX index <.gdaxi> scaling five-year highs.


Data on Sunday also showed profits earned by China's industrial companies rose 17.3 percent in December from a year earlier to 895.2 billion yuan ($143.9 billion).


Investors will focus this week on the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee statement on Wednesday and U.S. nonfarm payrolls due on Friday.


(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul and Sophie Knight in Tokyo; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)



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Nightclub fire kills 233 in Brazil


SANTA MARIA, Brazil (Reuters) - A nightclub fire killed at least 233 people in southern Brazil on Sunday when a band's pyrotechnics show set the building ablaze and fleeing partygoers stampeded toward blocked exits in the ensuing panic.


Most of those who died were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the crowded club after sparks from pyrotechnics used by the band for visual effects set fire to soundproofing on the ceiling, local fire officials said.


"Smoke filled the place instantly, the heat became unbearable," survivor Murilo Tiescher, a medical student, told GloboNews TV. "People could not find the only exit. They went to the toilet thinking it was the exit and many died there."


Firemen said one exit was locked and that club bouncers, who at first thought those fleeing were trying to skip out on bar tabs, initially blocked patrons from leaving. The security staff relented only when they saw flames engulfing the ceiling.


The tragedy in the university town of Santa Maria in one of Brazil's most prosperous states comes as the country scrambles to improve safety, security and logistical shortfalls before the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics, both intended to showcase the economic advances and first-world ambitions of Latin America's largest nation.


In Santa Maria, a city of more than 275,000 people, rescue workers and weary officials wept alongside family and friends of the victims at a gymnasium being used as a makeshift morgue.


"It's the saddest, saddest day of my life," said Neusa Soares, the mother of one of those killed, 22-year-old Viviane Tolio Soares. "I never thought I would have to live to see my girl go away."


President Dilma Rousseff cut short an official visit to Chile and flew to Santa Maria, where she wept as she spoke to relatives of the victims, most of whom were university students.


"All I can say at the moment is that my feelings are of deep sorrow," said Rousseff, who began her political career in Rio Grande do Sul, the state where the fire occurred.


It was the deadliest nightclub fire since 309 people died in a discotheque blaze in China in 2000 and Brazil's worst fire at an entertainment venue since a disgruntled employee set fire to a circus in 1961, killing well over 300 people.


'BARRIER OF THE DEAD'


Local authorities said 120 men and 113 women died in the fire, and 92 people are still being treated in hospitals.


News of the fire broke on Sunday morning, when local news broadcast images of shocked people outside the nightclub called Boate Kiss. Gradually, grisly details emerged.


"We ran into a barrier of the dead at the exit," Colonel Guido Pedroso de Melo, commander of the fire brigade in Rio Grande do Sul, said of the scene that firefighters found on arrival. "We had to clear a path to get to the rest of those that were inside."


Pedroso de Melo said the popular nightclub was overcrowded with 1,500 people packed inside and they could not exit fast.


"Security guards blocked their exit and did not allow them to leave quickly. That caused panic," he said.


The fire chief said the club was authorized to be open, though its permit was in the process of being renewed. But he pointed to several egregious safety violations - from the flare that went off during the show to the locked door that kept people from getting out.


"The problem was the use of pyrotechnics, which is not permitted," Pedroso de Melo said.


The club's management said in a statement that its staff was trained and prepared to deal with any emergency. It said it would help authorities with their investigation.


One of the club's owners has surrendered to police for questioning, GloboNews TV reported.


When the fire began at about 2:30 a.m., many revelers were unable to find their way out in the chaos.


"It all happened so fast," survivor Taynne Vendrusculo told GloboNews TV. "Both the panic and the fire spread rapidly, in seconds."


Once security guards realized the building was on fire, they tried in vain to control the blaze with a fire extinguisher, according to a televised interview with one of the guards, Rodrigo Moura. He said patrons were trampled as they rushed for the doors, describing it as "a horror film."


Band member Rodrigo Martins said the fire started after the fourth or fifth song and the extinguisher did not work.


"It could have been a short circuit, there were many cables there," Martins told Porto Alegre's Radio Gaucha station. He said there was only one door and it was locked. A band member died in the fire.


CELL PHONES STILL RINGING


TV footage showed people sobbing outside the club before dawn, while shirtless firefighters used sledge hammers and axes to knock down an exterior wall to open up an exit.


Rescue officials moved the bodies to the local gym and separated them by gender. Male victims were easier to identify because most had identification on them, unlike the women, whose purses were left scattered in the devastated nightclub.


Piles of shoes remained in the burnt-out club, along with tufts of hair pulled out by people fleeing desperately. Firemen who removed bodies said victims' cell phones were still ringing.


The disaster recalls other incidents including a 2003 fire at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and a Buenos Aires nightclub blaze in 2004 that killed nearly 200. In both incidents, a band or members of the audience ignited fires that set the establishment ablaze.


The Rhode Island fire shocked local and federal officials because of the rarity of such incidents in the United States, where enforcement of safety codes is considered relatively strict. After the Buenos Aires blaze, Argentine officials closed many nightclubs and other venues and ultimately forced the city's mayor from office because of poor oversight of municipal codes.


The fire early on Sunday occurred in one of the wealthiest, most industrious and culturally distinct regions of Brazil. Santa Maria is about 186 miles west of Porto Alegre, the capital of a state settled by Germans and other immigrants from northern Europe.


Local clichés paint the region as stricter and more organized than the rest of Brazil, where most residents are a mix descended from native tribes, Portuguese colonists, African slaves, and later influxes of immigrants from southern Europe.


Rio Grande do Sul state's health secretary, Ciro Simoni, said emergency medical supplies from all over the state were being sent to the scene. States from all over Brazil offered support, and messages of sympathy poured in from foreign leaders.


(Additional reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Gustavo Bonato, Jeferson Ribeiro, Eduardo Simões, Brian Winter and Guido Nejamkis.; Writing by Paulo Prada and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Todd Benson, Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)



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Apple will reportedly launch its fifth-generation iPad in October






Although previous reports indicated that Apple (AAPL) would release its fifth-generation iPad alongside a new iPad mini with Retina display in March, a new report from Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge, claims the newest iPad will be announced in October instead. Horwitz said that he “had the opportunity to inspect a supposedly accurate — and seriously intriguing — physical model of the completely redesigned fifth-generation iPad.” He noticed that the design of the new tablet takes many cues from the iPad mini, which others have reported as well, and includes “virtually no left or right bezels.”


[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]






Horwitz added that it will have “the same chamfered edges and curves” as the iPad mini, only stretched, and will likely include Sharp’s IGZO display technology and smaller chip components.


[More from BGR: The Boy Genius Report: Apple’s iMac takes desktop crown]


He also reported details about the iPhone 5S, which he claims will look similar to the iPhone 5, although it will include a larger rear flash. Horwitz said the smartphone will launch this year, as will a “low-cost” plastic-bodied iPhone, which is being developed with China Mobile in mind.


Lastly, Horwitz reported that another early prototype with a 4.7-inch display has been floating around, however it is not expected to be released in 2013.


“It might never make it to market, and plenty could change before it does,” he said, “Consider it Apple’s ‘just in case / Plan B’ hedge against ever-growing Android phone screen sizes.”


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Guy Fieri Says His Beef Sandwich Recipe Is 'the Bomb!'















01/26/2013 at 07:00 PM EST







Guy Fieri's Beef Sandwich


Andrew Purcell; Inset: Michael Tran/Getty


After crossing the nation on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy Fieri knows a thing or two about what makes a sandwich spectacular.

The co-host of Food Network's Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off shares one of his all-time favorite recipes – his beef sandwich.

"The rye bread, the horseradish, the onions – it's the bomb!" he says.

Guy Fieri's Beef Sandwich

Ingredients
•1 ¾ tsp. fine sea salt, divided
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 ½ tsp. onion powder
• 1 ½ tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 ½ tsp. paprika
• ½ tsp. chili powder
• 1 ¼ lb. beef top round
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ¼ cup mayonnaise
• ½ tsp. lemon juice
• ¼ cup hot horseradish
• ½ tsp. minced garlic
• 8 slices rye bread, lightly toasted
• 1 white onion, sliced paper-thin

Instructions
1. Combine 1 ½ tsp. sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, 1 ½ tsp. onion powder, 1 ½ tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. dried oregano, 1 ½ tsp. paprika, and ½ tsp. chili powder in a resealable 1-gallon plastic bag. Add meat and shake it around in the bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours.
2. In a medium bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, horseradish, garlic, ¼ tsp. sea salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate for at least four hours.
3. Remove meat from refrigerator 20 minutes before grilling. Pre-heat grill or large grill pan to high. Grill for 15 minutes (7½ minutes per side) for medium rare. Cover meat and let rest 10 minutes. Slice paper-thin. Divide meat among four bread slices. Top with sauce, onion slices and remaining bread.
    

 
 

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