China's school bus donation to Macedonia derided

BEIJING (AP) ? China's donation of school buses to tiny Macedonia has touched off derision online, where Chinese have called the gift ill-considered given their country's poor safety record and a recent crash that killed 19 preschoolers.

The Chinese government's gift of 23 buses was made Friday at a ceremony in Macedonia's capital.

The Macedonian government said in a statement on its website that each bus has 35 seats, meets all safety requirements and will be used for students primarily in rural areas. An accompanying photo showed three yellow buses with the red-and-yellow Chinese and Macedonian flags painted on the side.

News of the donation ignited a torrent of criticism, with 500,000 comments posted by Monday to China's most popular Twitter-like micro-blog service run by Sina Corp. Many asked how could China make the donation to a foreign country when Chinese schools contend with shoddy transport?

Zhang Ming, a politics professor at Renmin University, suggested the donation was a betrayal to the Chinese people.

"One does not have to go through exams to get qualifications (to be a traitor). When one climbs up there and becomes a big official, one will have them," he wrote.

Zheng Yuanjie, a children's literature writer who is often sarcastic in his postings, wrote on Sina Weibo that the foreign ministry had donated the buses to Macedonia in order to "urge local governments to give decent buses to schools" in China.

As many pointed out, the donation comes less than two weeks after the death of the 19 preschoolers drew a harsh spotlight to the condition of Chinese school buses and chronic underfunding of school systems. The 19 children died when a minivan-turned-school bus crammed with 64 people crashed into a truck.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised Sunday that new rules on school bus safety would be drafted within a month and said central and local governments will bear the cost of bringing buses up to standard.

The fracas shows how the authoritarian government gets out of step with popular sentiment, and, while that has not mattered in past decades, the government can come across as looking foolish in the Internet era.

While the statement from the Chinese Embassy in Macedonia was still available online Monday, a similar statement had been removed from the website of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Global Times newspaper said in a commentary Monday that the rhetoric of public criticism had become stronger and "sometimes even aggressive" in recent years. "Although it is hard to say whether each of these criticisms are reasonable and appropriate, the government needs to learn how to live with it," it said. "Some 'disturbance' from the public is not bad to the government" as it is necessary for quality governance," it said.

On Saturday, a school bus carrying 39 people in Liaoning province rolled over, injuring 35 students, including two 7-year-old girls with serious head injuries, the China Daily reported.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-28-AS-China-School-Buses/id-7f90e3c040a5414299d5ff1994aa77b4

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Black Friday draws crowds but spending in doubt (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Retailers were hoping for more shoppers like Shawn Elzia as the annual Black Friday bargain stampede marked the unofficial start of what is widely expected to be a middling holiday shopping season.

The Brooklyn, New York teacher, one of hundreds of thousands of shoppers jostling for deals around the country, said he ended up spending about 25 percent more than he planned, even while worrying about the state of the economy.

"I did not expect such deals," the 33-year old said as he left a Macy's store in Jersey City, New Jersey clutching bags full of clothing for himself and his family.

"It's slashed down to the bones," he said. "There were some great discounts if you showed up early."

Even as eager shoppers emerged from stores lugging big-screen TVs and bags full of video games and toys, it was far from certain that stretched consumers will be pulling out their wallets for much more than the best deals this year.

"Americans are still worried about jobs, still worried about the economy, they're still worried about debt of the country," said Mike Thielmann, group executive vice president at J.C. Penney.

"I don't think you can take for granted that they've got more money in their pocket or they're interested in buying this year or you can take your prices up," he said. "I don't think our economy or the consumer confidence is there yet."

(For a graphic on shopping trends see, http://link.reuters.com/tag35s)

Shopper-related injuries were popular topics on social networks such as Twitter. A shopper at a Los Angeles-area Walmart used pepper spray on a throng of shoppers and there was a shooting in a Walmart parking lot in the Oakland area.

In 2008, a security officer working at a Walmart on Black Friday was trampled to death by a crowd.

Competition among the retailers was fierce as it was among shoppers, with some stores pushing their openings and specials up to Thanksgiving night on Thursday.

The term "Black Friday" is generally accepted to refer to the time when retailers start to turn profitable for the year, although the phrase's origin is unclear.

What is clear is that while it is the busiest day of the year in terms of store traffic, it does not always mean that sales will soar for the season.

Despite brisk sales right after Thanksgiving in 2008 and 2009, total holiday season sales fell as the recession gripped the country.

The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year.

Yet it expects sales for the full November-December holiday season to rise just 2.8 percent, well below the pace of last year when sales rose 5.2 percent.

Shares of most retailers were flat to up slightly in early trading on Friday.

LUXURY STORES BIG WINNERS

Luxury chains such as Saks Inc and those catering to lower-income shoppers, such as dollar stores, are expected to do well this shopping season. Those in the middle are expected to have a tough time winning over shoppers without the cache of the high-end set or the deep discounts others offer.

Opening early appeared to work, judging from the long lines at stores such as Toys R Us, Best Buy, Walmart and Target.

Even after a Toys R Us in New Jersey had been open for nearly an hour, at 9:50 p.m. EST on Thursday night, there was still a line of about 300 people waiting to get inside.

"It was like 'Club Toys R Us' -- one cart out, one cart in," said Charlie O'Shea, a senior retail analyst at Moody's. "People are looking for the big ticket item, which is where they're going to get the most bang for their buck."

Overall, retail executives and analysts expect a more competitive shopping season than in 2010. Unemployment remains at 9 percent, European debt woes are weighing on the stock market, and consumer confidence remains spotty.

Walmart, Gap Inc's Old Navy, and Kmart, owned by Sears Holdings, were among the few retailers open on Thanksgiving day.

Walmart began offering Black Friday deals at 10 p.m. on Thursday, while Target, electronics chain Best Buy and department store chains Macy's and Kohl's opened at midnight, their earliest starts ever.

Marta Marchado, 46, who works in construction, arrived at The Mall at Prince Georges in Hyattsville, Maryland at 4 a.m. to buy a television.

"Target has good prices," she said, almost too tired to speak as she sat on a bench in the mall courtyard. Her boyfriend was fast asleep as he leaned on her shoulder.

Other retailers, including J.C. Penney opened early Friday morning as they did last year.

Nelson Sepulveda, a building superintendent from Manhattan, was the first person in line at the Best Buy in Union Square, having queued up at 8 p.m. on Wednesday -- 28 hours before the store opened -- to get the $200 Sharp 42-inch LCD television, Play Station 3 games and other items he wanted.

This year, the heavy push by retailers got an even earlier start, as chains such as Walmart and Toys R Us started offering holiday layaway programs as early as October.

Retailers from Amazon.com to Walmart were also offering online deals as Thanksgiving has become one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.

Some shoppers, though, said they felt as if the economy was back in a recession, making them reluctant to spend.

"Because of the recession, we are not going to shop as much," said Desiree Schoolfield, 49, a public service professional from Queens, who was shopping at the Toys R Us in Times Square.

About 1,000 people were waiting in line at the midnight opening of a Target store in Farmingdale, New York.

Those midnight openings drew online petition protests from store workers, and there were shoppers too who said they did not like the early openings.

Dwayne Dickson, a 19-year-old college student who works part time at Target, decided to stand in line to try and snag some small items, such as jewelry and clothing, before his Black Friday shift began.

"I will probably accidentally spend more this year on the holidays than I did last year," said Dickson, who, as a Target employee, gets an extra 10 percent discount.

For some shoppers, staying up late beat waking up for a 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. opening. "Nobody really has to be out so early to come into the store. I really feel like that's better," Tosha Smith, a 21-year-old hotel attendant from Queens, said while shopping at Macy's in New York.

Outside, four Occupy Wall Street activists chanted "boycott Macy's" and "stop supporting big corporations" even as about 9,000 people lined up to shop at the store.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan, Liana B. Baker and Phil Wahba in New York, Mihir Dalal in Jersey City, New Jersey, Jessica Wohl in Chicago, and Diane Bartz in Hyattsville, Maryland; Writing by Brad Dorfman in Milwaukee; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter, Phil Berlowitz)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/bs_nm/us_usa_retail_thanksgiving

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Mother says 3 arrested US students leaving Egypt (AP)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ? The mother of one of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo says they're preparing to leave Egypt.

Joy Sweeney tells The Associated Press that her 19-year-old son Derrik and two other students are expected to fly from Cairo to Frankfurt, Germany, late Friday U.S. time.

She says her son will fly from there to Washington on Saturday and then on to St. Louis, where he'll arrive late Saturday night.

Sweeney says she's "ecstatic" and plans to make her son a belated Thanksgiving dinner.

The three college students who attend the American University in Cairo were arrested Sunday on the roof of a university building near Cairo's Tahrir Square. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

An Egyptian court ordered their release Thursday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo and ordered released by an Egyptian court are in the midst of being processed by authorities there, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Friday.

Katharina Gollner-Sweet, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, told The Associated Press that Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter are being processed for their eventual release one day after a court ordered them released from police custody, according to information from Egyptian officials.

"According to the latest information that the Egyptians gave out they were ordered released in the court but they are in an administrative out-processing stage," Gollner-Sweet said. "We are continuing to provide normal consular services."

The three U.S. college students, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday.

Attorney Theodore Simon, who represents Porter, a 19-year-old student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said he spoke by phone with Porter, describing the student's demeanor as "calm and measured, demonstrating a maturity well beyond his 19 years."

"He was extremely thankful and appreciative for our efforts and the unconditional support of his mother and father," Simon said.

Porter is from Glenside, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.

Sweeney's mother, Joy Sweeney, said she is "absolutely elated" at the news of her 19-year-old son's release.

"I can't wait to give him a huge hug and tell him how much I love him," she said, adding that the news of the court order was the best Thanksgiving gift.

The 21-year-old Gates is a student at Indiana University.

His parents released a statement Thursday through the school, saying they were "extremely happy" to hear that their son would soon be released.

"This has been a difficult situation, and while we are disappointed that he will be held a few days longer to complete administrative procedures related to his release, we're confident he will be home soon," Bill and Sharon Gates wrote.

The State Department released a statement saying it was trying to independently confirm the reports of the students' release.

Earlier Thursday, Egypt officials said the Abdeen Court in Cairo had ordered their release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. They did not say when the students would be released.

Joy Sweeney said she wasn't sure when her son, a student at Georgetown University, would be returning to their home in Jefferson City, Mo.

"If he can find his passport (then he'll leave) tomorrow, if not, it won't be until Monday," she said.

She said the U.S. consul general in Egypt, Roberto Powers, recommended that her son leave Egypt as soon as possible.

"He also conveyed that that was what Derrik had conveyed to him that he wanted to do. He was enjoying his experience but (was) ready to be done with it," Sweeney said.

Derrik Sweeney interned for U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., earlier this year. Luetkemeyer's spokesman Paul Sloca, said the congressman is "extremely pleased that he's safe and coming home, especially on Thanksgiving."

Sweeney said she had not prepared for a Thanksgiving celebration, although a friend had taken her some food. She said the idea of a Thanksgiving feast had seemed "absolutely irrelevant" before the news of her son's pending freedom.

Asked what she thought her son would take away from his arrest, Sweeney said she thought he would make something useful of it.

"I'm sure that he'll put a life-lesson learning experience into a positive story," Sweeney said. "He's a writer, he will write about this experience."

___

Associated Press reporter Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report. Hadeel Al-Shalchi reported from Cairo.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_us/us_egypt_american_students

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Yemen presidential election set for February 21 (Reuters)

SANAA (Reuters) ? Yemen's vice president called presidential elections for February 21 on Saturday under a deal aimed at ending months of protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that have brought the country to the edge of civil war.

If the agreement goes according to plan, Saleh will become the fourth Arab ruler brought down by mass demonstrations that have reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East.

Saleh returned home on Saturday after signing the deal with the opposition in Riyadh on Wednesday under which he transferred his powers to Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after 33 years in office and 10 months of protests.

In a decree run on the Saba state news agency on Saturday, Hadi said Yemenis "are called on to vote in early elections for a new president of the republic starting at 8 o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, February 21, 2012."

"The early presidential election will take place under the management of the Supreme Commission For Elections and Referendum," the decree added.

Yemen has become engulfed under Saleh by political strife that has allowed free rein to northern rebels, southern secessionists and al-Qaeda.

Under the agreement, signed with the Yemeni opposition at a ceremony hosted by Saudi King Abdullah, Saleh will receive immunity from prosecution and keep his title until a successor is elected. Hadi was charged with calling the election within three months and forming a new government with the opposition.

Hundreds of people have been killed during months of protests seeking Saleh's overthrow. The political deadlock has reignited conflicts with separatists and militants, raising fears that al Qaeda's Yemen wing could take a foothold on the borders of Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.

Details of the power transfer deal - drawn up by Yemen's richer neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council earlier this year, and thwarted by Saleh on three separate occasions - were hammered out by U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar, with support from U.S. and European diplomats.

The deal has failed to appease protesters at Sanaa's Change Square, with many of them angry that it has guaranteed Saleh and his family immunity.

On Friday, opposition parties agreed to nominate the head of an alliance that led the protests, Mohammed Basindwa, to form a new government. Basindwa is a former foreign minister who leads the opposition National Council formed after the protests broke out in February.

SALAFI SITES SHELLED

Earlier on Saturday, 10 people were killed in north Yemen when Shi'ite Muslim rebels shelled positions held by Sunni Islamist Salafi fighters after the collapse of a week-old ceasefire, a Salafi spokesman said.

The conflict between the Shi'ite Houthi rebels and the Sunni Salafis is just one of several plaguing Yemen. In recent weeks, the Houthis have skirmished with Salafist fighters, leading local tribesmen to broker a truce between them a week ago.

"The Houthis broke the ceasefire and shelled the town of Damaj," said the Salafi spokesman, who identified himself as Abu Ismail, adding that 15 people were injured.

Members of the Zaidi sect of Shi'ite Islam, the Houthi rebels led an uprising based in the northern Saada province that Saleh's forces have struggled to crush, with Saudi Arabia intervening militarily in 2009 before a ceasefire took hold last year.

The Houthis, who effectively control Saada, are deeply wary of Saudi Arabia's promotion of puritanical Sunni Salafi creeds that regard Shi'ites as heretics.

Saleh Habra, a Houthi leader, has accused the Yemeni government of supplying arms to the Salafis, who he said were trying to build a military camp near the Saudi border. "We are trying to cut off their arms supplies," Habra told Reuters last week.

Separately, Yemeni aircraft bombed sites used by anti-government tribal militants in northern Sanaa, killing seven people, tribal sources said on Saturday.

Those sources said tribal fighters were seeking to surround a camp used by the Republican Guard, a unit led by Saleh's son.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Sami Aboudi; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111126/wl_nm/us_yemen_fighting

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Black Friday draws crowds but spending in doubt (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Retailers were hoping for more shoppers like Shawn Elzia as the annual Black Friday bargain stampede marked the unofficial start of what is widely expected to be a middling holiday shopping season.

The Brooklyn, New York teacher, one of hundreds of thousands of shoppers jostling for deals around the country, said he ended up spending about 25 percent more than he planned, even while worrying about the state of the economy.

"I did not expect such deals," the 33-year old said as he left a Macy's store in Jersey City, New Jersey clutching bags full of clothing for himself and his family.

"It's slashed down to the bones," he said. "There were some great discounts if you showed up early."

Even as eager shoppers emerged from stores lugging big-screen TVs and bags full of video games and toys, it was far from certain that stretched consumers will be pulling out their wallets for much more than the best deals this year.

"Americans are still worried about jobs, still worried about the economy, they're still worried about debt of the country," said Mike Thielmann, group executive vice president at J.C. Penney.

"I don't think you can take for granted that they've got more money in their pocket or they're interested in buying this year or you can take your prices up," he said. "I don't think our economy or the consumer confidence is there yet."

(For a graphic on shopping trends see, http://link.reuters.com/tag35s)

Shopper-related injuries were popular topics on social networks such as Twitter. A shopper at a Los Angeles-area Walmart used pepper spray on a throng of shoppers and there was a shooting in a Walmart parking lot in the Oakland area.

In 2008, a security officer working at a Walmart on Black Friday was trampled to death by a crowd.

Competition among the retailers was fierce as it was among shoppers, with some stores pushing their openings and specials up to Thanksgiving night on Thursday.

The term "Black Friday" is generally accepted to refer to the time when retailers start to turn profitable for the year, although the phrase's origin is unclear.

What is clear is that while it is the busiest day of the year in terms of store traffic, it does not always mean that sales will soar for the season.

Despite brisk sales right after Thanksgiving in 2008 and 2009, total holiday season sales fell as the recession gripped the country.

The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year.

Yet it expects sales for the full November-December holiday season to rise just 2.8 percent, well below the pace of last year when sales rose 5.2 percent.

Shares of most retailers were flat to up slightly in early trading on Friday.

LUXURY STORES BIG WINNERS

Luxury chains such as Saks Inc and those catering to lower-income shoppers, such as dollar stores, are expected to do well this shopping season. Those in the middle are expected to have a tough time winning over shoppers without the cache of the high-end set or the deep discounts others offer.

Opening early appeared to work, judging from the long lines at stores such as Toys R Us, Best Buy, Walmart and Target.

Even after a Toys R Us in New Jersey had been open for nearly an hour, at 9:50 p.m. EST on Thursday night, there was still a line of about 300 people waiting to get inside.

"It was like 'Club Toys R Us' -- one cart out, one cart in," said Charlie O'Shea, a senior retail analyst at Moody's. "People are looking for the big ticket item, which is where they're going to get the most bang for their buck."

Overall, retail executives and analysts expect a more competitive shopping season than in 2010. Unemployment remains at 9 percent, European debt woes are weighing on the stock market, and consumer confidence remains spotty.

Walmart, Gap Inc's Old Navy, and Kmart, owned by Sears Holdings, were among the few retailers open on Thanksgiving day.

Walmart began offering Black Friday deals at 10 p.m. on Thursday, while Target, electronics chain Best Buy and department store chains Macy's and Kohl's opened at midnight, their earliest starts ever.

Marta Marchado, 46, who works in construction, arrived at The Mall at Prince Georges in Hyattsville, Maryland at 4 a.m. to buy a television.

"Target has good prices," she said, almost too tired to speak as she sat on a bench in the mall courtyard. Her boyfriend was fast asleep as he leaned on her shoulder.

Other retailers, including J.C. Penney opened early Friday morning as they did last year.

Nelson Sepulveda, a building superintendent from Manhattan, was the first person in line at the Best Buy in Union Square, having queued up at 8 p.m. on Wednesday -- 28 hours before the store opened -- to get the $200 Sharp 42-inch LCD television, Play Station 3 games and other items he wanted.

This year, the heavy push by retailers got an even earlier start, as chains such as Walmart and Toys R Us started offering holiday layaway programs as early as October.

Retailers from Amazon.com to Walmart were also offering online deals as Thanksgiving has become one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.

Some shoppers, though, said they felt as if the economy was back in a recession, making them reluctant to spend.

"Because of the recession, we are not going to shop as much," said Desiree Schoolfield, 49, a public service professional from Queens, who was shopping at the Toys R Us in Times Square.

About 1,000 people were waiting in line at the midnight opening of a Target store in Farmingdale, New York.

Those midnight openings drew online petition protests from store workers, and there were shoppers too who said they did not like the early openings.

Dwayne Dickson, a 19-year-old college student who works part time at Target, decided to stand in line to try and snag some small items, such as jewelry and clothing, before his Black Friday shift began.

"I will probably accidentally spend more this year on the holidays than I did last year," said Dickson, who, as a Target employee, gets an extra 10 percent discount.

For some shoppers, staying up late beat waking up for a 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. opening. "Nobody really has to be out so early to come into the store. I really feel like that's better," Tosha Smith, a 21-year-old hotel attendant from Queens, said while shopping at Macy's in New York.

Outside, four Occupy Wall Street activists chanted "boycott Macy's" and "stop supporting big corporations" even as about 9,000 people lined up to shop at the store.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan, Liana B. Baker and Phil Wahba in New York, Mihir Dalal in Jersey City, New Jersey, Jessica Wohl in Chicago, and Diane Bartz in Hyattsville, Maryland; Writing by Brad Dorfman in Milwaukee; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter, Phil Berlowitz)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/videogames/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/bs_nm/us_usa_retail_thanksgiving

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Video: Countdown to Bieber fever on the plaza

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45414845#45414845

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Look for Less: Hilary Duff?s Cozy Chic

The expectant actress looks chic and cozy in her ripped Sinclair skinny jeans. Check her out, plus our look for less.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/mptBdG-9TbQ/

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Video: When did liberals become unreasonable?

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45408369#45408369

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Lenovo's diminutive Q180 HTPC dishes out multimedia for $349

Ultrabooks have been getting a lot of love from PC makers these days, and Lenovo's no exception. But laptops aren't the only machines getting slim and trim, and the Chinese firm has outed its svelte IdeaCentre Q180 home theater PC to fulfill your entertainment needs. Stuffed inside a 22mm-thin frame that makes other skinny HTPCs look downright portly, is a 2.13GHz Intel Atom dual-core CPU plus Radeon HD 6450A graphics and up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM to keep video playback buttery smooth. You can also get up to a 750GB HDD or a 128GB SSD to store all of your myriad media, and a Blu-ray drive's available for those digging disc-based content. Hooking up displays and peripherals are easy with USB 3.0, VGA and HDMI out, and wireless connectivity via Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. The Q180 starts at $349 for the base model, with prices escalating accordingly if you start adding options like a hand-held keyboard. Full PR's after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo's diminutive Q180 HTPC dishes out multimedia for $349

Lenovo's diminutive Q180 HTPC dishes out multimedia for $349 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/23/lenovos-diminutive-q180-htpc-dishes-out-multimedia-for-349/

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Crosby sparkles in season debut

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) celebrates his first-period goal during an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) celebrates his first-period goal during an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby celebrates his first-period goal during an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) scores a first-period goal over New York Islanders goalie Anders Nilsson during an NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby is surrounded by reporters at his locker after participating in a game day morning skate in preparation for his return to NHL hockey action against the New York Islanders, in Pittsburgh, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby, left, is surrounded by media at his locker after a morning skate in preparation for his return to NHL hockey action against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. Crosby will play in his first game in nearly a year since being sidelined with concussion-like symptoms. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

PITTSBURGH (AP) ? Sidney Crosby split a pair of defenders, worked the puck to his backhand and let it fly.

New York Islanders goaltender Anders Nilsson never had a chance.

Welcome back, Sid the Kid.

The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar capped his 10-month comeback from concussion-like symptoms in thrilling fashion, scoring a pair of goals to go with two assists in a 5-0 victory on Monday.

It was a storybook end to Crosby's frustratingly methodical return, one marked by numerous setbacks, rumors and questions about whether the 24-year-old former MVP would regain the form that's made him one of the league's most popular players.

The early returns were a resounding yes.

Skating onto the ice to chants of "Crosby! Crosby!" the Penguins captain wasted little time showing he was back for good.

Pittsburgh nearly scored on his first shift and he made his third one count, taking a pass from linemate Pascal Dupuis before racing through the New York defense and zeroing in on Nilsson. The gloveside backhand was good for a moment that was nearly a year in the making.

Crosby thrust his arms to the sky in triumph, letting out a guttural scream as crowd waved "Sid!" signs.

He did it again near the end of the first period, feeding Brooks Orpik on a pass to the point that Orpik turned into his second goal of the season.

It was the kind of brilliant performance reminiscent of Crosby's idol, Hall of Famer and current Penguins owner Mario Lemieux.

Super Mario notched a goal and two assists in his return from retirement in 2000.

Crosby said early Monday it'd be hard to match the moment.

It was. And Crosby may have topped it anyway.

The scintillating play was validation for Crosby, who never doubted he'd play hockey again. Never wavered as the months passed and his concussion-like symptoms stuck around. Never wondered if maybe he'd be better off hanging up his skates before his 25th birthday rather than risk the type of injury that jeopardizes more than a career.

There's no healing from the kind of shots Crosby took in back-to-back games last January. There's only dealing with a new normal.

Crosby spent nearly a year painstakingly going through the checklist, enduring test after test and blocking out rumor after rumor that he was done.

Sitting in his locker on Monday morning, the start of his seventh season finally at hand, Crosby smiled in a way he hadn't in a long, long time.

"I think now's the easy part, now you get to play," Crosby said. "When you're getting ready, that's the tough part, practicing and going through each of those steps, trying to get through each stage. That's really all the hard work. Now you've just got to go out and do it."

How, exactly, he'll do it remains to be seen.

Though Crosby has been cleared for contact since Oct. 13, he understands there's a major difference between hitting in practice and hitting in a game.

Even he wasn't sure how he'd react.

"I think that anyone who has gone through this that would be lying if they said they weren't anxious to get those first couple hits in, whether it's giving it or taking it," Crosby said. "After that it's back to normal."

Things certainly looked that way, with Crosby taking a shot from New York's Travis Hamonic on a Pittsburgh power play. Hamonic checked Crosby cleanly to the ice. In a flash he was back on his feet allowing the Penguins ? and hockey ? to exhale.

Crosby's return produced the kind of buzz normally reserved for a Stanley Cup final. The team issued more than 250 media credentials ? about four times the usual number for a late-November game ? and upper concourse seats were being scalped for $275 two hours before the puck dropped.

Though Pittsburgh has gotten along just fine this season without its captain, entering Monday night tied with Philadelphia atop the Atlantic Division, it understood things change the moment No. 87 slides off the bench and onto the ice.

In the span of a day, the Penguins went from Cup contenders to Cup favorites.

"With or without Sid we wanted to win every night and we had a chance to win every night," center Jordan Staal said. "Obviously it's going to be different with him going back and everyone fitting in and having the pieces together ... we know what we have here."

Even if they're not quite certain how it's going to look, not even to coach Dan Bylsma.

Though the Penguins have upgraded the offense since Crosby went out last January, trading for James Neal and signing Steve Sullivan, Crosby was paired with Dupuis and Chris Kunitz in his return because of a certain comfort level obtained through years of playing together.

"You just hope you don't mess up for him," Kunitz joked.

Hardly.

Crosby played with the kind of peerless ferocity that's become his trademark, the kind his teammates have seen enough of since training camp began to think the road back to spectacular play for their leader will be a short one.

"It's not going to be easy but who knows, he can make it look easy," Staal said. "You can't really do it unless you go through it, but he's talented enough that he can do some great things."

And do them in bunches. Crosby was on his way to capturing his second MVP award when he was injured.

It all changed on Jan. 6 when he was diagnosed with concussion-like symptoms that he later described as "fogginess."

He unwittingly became a case study for the effects of head shots on the game and led the NHL to crack down on such plays.

If it helps make the sport he loves safer, Crosby is all for it. That's not why he came back, however. He wanted to play, not make a statement.

"I've been working hard the last couple months to make sure when it's time to come back, I'm ready," Crosby said. "Do I expect to be where I was in January last year? Probably not, but I expect to contribute."

Even if his teammates and the entire hockey world held their breath the first time he got knocked around.

"That's just normal to be like that," Neal said. "The first hit is always like that. Hopefully he's good to go and I'm sure he will be. He's so quick and so fast and agile it's tough to hit him."

Yet Crosby knows he will get hit again. He welcomes it. He doesn't want to get treated as if he's in bubble wrap. He just wants to get after it.

"It's a relief to be back but it's not time to start gliding now," Crosby said. "It's time to get going."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-22-HKN-Crosby-Returns/id-dd37f226309149fc8a2010539f62f1f5

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Global economic outlook grim, China tells U.S. trade talks (Reuters)

CHENGDU, China (Reuters) ? Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan warned on Monday the global economy is in a grim state and the visiting U.S. commerce secretary said China would spend $1.7 trillion on strategic sectors as Beijing seeks to bolster waning growth.

Wang said an "unbalanced recovery" may be the best option to deal with what he had described on Saturday as a certain chronic global recession, suggesting Beijing would bolster its own economy before it worries about global imbalances at the heart of trade tensions with Washington.

"An unbalanced recovery would be better than a balanced recession," he said at the annual U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, or JCCT, in the southwest Chinese city of Chengdu.

The comments, echoed by Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, stopped short of suggesting China would try to boost exports as it had done during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis when it pegged the yuan to the dollar.

Instead, U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson told reporters that China had confirmed to U.S. officials that it planned to spend $1.7 trillion on strategic sectors in the next five years.

Beijing has previously said these sectors include alternative energy, biotechnology and advanced equipment manufacturing, underlining its aim to shift the growth engine of the world's No.2 economy to cleaner and high-tech sectors.

The investment amount of 10 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) is more than two times bigger than the eye-popping 4 trillion yuan stimulus package launched during the global financial crisis, plans first reported by Reuters a year ago.

"Global economic conditions remain grim, and ensuring economic recovery is the overriding priority," said Wang, the top official steering China's financial and trade policy, at the start of the second day of talks with the Americans.

His comments suggested that Beijing should attend to bolstering China's own growth before it worried about global imbalances. In other words, a strong Chinese economy that brings a continued trade deficit with the United States would be better for the world economy than a slowdown in China itself.

"As major world economies, China and the United States would make a positive contribution to the world through their own steady development," Wang told dozens of trade, investment, energy and agricultural officials from each government seated in a conference hall.

ALARM OVER ECONOMIC RISKS

Policymakers globally have voiced alarm over economic risks, which mainly stem from the euro zone debt crisis.

On Monday, Singapore and Thailand said their economies would shrink in the fourth quarter and Japan posted a bigger than expected fall in October exports. Some central banks, including those in Brazil and Indonesia, have cut interest rates.

On Saturday, Wang gave the most dire assessment on the world economy from a senior Chinese policymaker to date.

"The one thing that we can be certain of, among all the uncertainties, is that the global economic recession caused by the international financial crisis will be chronic," he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

The remarks weighed on Chinese and Hong Kong stocks, while world markets were also weak as investors fretted over the euro zone debt crisis.

China's growth slowed to 9.1 percent in the third quarter from 9.5 percent in the second-quarter and 9.7 percent in the first quarter, but the rate remains in Beijing's comfort zone.

After tightening monetary policy to fight the threat of inflation, the central bank has since loosened its grip on bank credit in a bid to support cash-starved small firms and pledged to fine-tune policy if needed as economic growth slowed down.

"It's clear now that Beijing is ready for policy fine-tuning (to support growth) at a time when the overall domestic and foreign economic situation is not optimistic," said Hua Zhongwei, an economist with Huachuang Securities in Beijing.

ON TRADE, FRICTION AND PROGRESS

U.S. officials said the discussions yielded progress on the question of forced technology transfers to Chinese companies, long a sore point for U.S. businesses.

In particular, China committed not to require foreign automakers to hand their new energy vehicle technology over to Chinese partners, or to establish Chinese brands as a condition for market access, said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

"China also confirmed that foreign-invested companies will be eligible on an equal basis for any subsidies or incentive programs for electric vehicles," said Kirk.

Although the JCCT talks do not address exchange rate policies, U.S. officials at the talks warned Wang and his colleagues that they could not ignore rising American impatience with China's trade policies and investment barriers.

U.S. gripes about China's trade-boosting policies spilled into President Barack Obama's meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday in Bali, when Obama raised China's exchange rate policies, which many in Washington say keep the yuan cheap against the dollar in order to help Chinese exports.

However, Zhong Wei, an influential economist at Beijing Normal University, said the benefits to the United States of yuan appreciation "are nearly zero."

"Cheap Chinese goods have been a subsidy for the poor in the U.S., and now the U.S. government wants to eliminate such subsidy while it's having difficulty creating jobs," he said.

At the heart of the trade friction between the two countries is a U.S. trade deficit with China that swelled in 2010 to a record $273.1 billion from about $226.9 billion in 2009.

Bryson told the talks the United States welcomed more expanded trade and investment, on balanced terms.

"But a reality also is that many in the U.S., including the business community and the Congress, are moving toward a more negative view of our trading relationship, and they question whether the JCCT is able to make meaningful progress," said Bryson.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Yao, Zhou Xin and Langi Chiang in BEIJING; Editing by Don Durfee and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111121/bs_nm/us_china_usa_economy

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Nook Newsstand getting Cond? Nast publications (except Vogue)

After all of our tablet stories, the first question people ask is "But will it run Vogue?" Fortunately for all of you who are desperate to strike a pose and let your bodies move to the music, it won't be long now. Condé Nast is bringing 17 of 18 titles to Nook Tablet, the only omission being Vogue; which is coming in early 2012. Until then, you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the publisher's stable including Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue and The New Yorker from the end of November. You can purchase individual issues or an annual subscription, print subscribers will get the digital edition free of charge and anyone who does pay will get a fortnight's trial. The only downside to the trial is that it's significantly shorter than the three months offered by the same publisher on the Kindle Fire. There's plenty more details after the break, where we've got a press release all waiting for a closeup.

Continue reading Nook Newsstand getting Cond? Nast publications (except Vogue)

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Carry Your Laptop in Recycled Plastic Bottles

This laptop bag from Plaid Doctrine is easy on the environment and on your eyes. ?The body of the Eco Laptop Tote is water- and stain-resistant high-performance fabric made from recycled bottles, and it’s trimmed with prime-grade vegetable-tanned leathers. ?The main compartment holds a laptop with up to a 15.4″ screen, and the compartment is [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/15/carry-your-laptop-in-recycled-plastic-bottles/

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Junior high app developer is a pre-teen tycoon in training (Yahoo! News)

He might not be ready to submit a college application, but Thomas Suarez of Manhattan Beach, California is already releasing apps for iOS devices. The sixth grader recently gave a talk at TEDxManhattanBeach in which he discussed his love of computers (he got into them in kindergarten), his plans for the future, and the inspiration he got from the late Steve Jobs.

Suarez has released several apps on the Apple App Store since launching his first, a fortune-telling title called Earth Fortune, in late 2010. His most popular app has been?Bustin Jieber, a Whack-a-Mole style game where players squish the disembodied head of Justin Bieber. "I created it because a lot of people at school disliked Justin Bieber a little bit," he told the TEDx crowd.

After teaching himself programming basics in Python, C, and Java, Suarez says he took up Apple's SDK and Xcode. These tools are the heart and soul of the entire App Store catalog, and while there are a wealth of tutorials around the web, learning the ins and outs of app programming can be a challenge even for seasoned developers. Suarez makes it sound easy, and his apps ? while simple and straightforward ? are popular enough to make him a success story.

"I've gotten a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs," he says. Inspired, he started an App Club at his school, because "not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program." As he sees it, "for soccer, you could go to a soccer team, and for violin, you could get a lesson from a violinist." But even parents might not be a resource, since as he rightly points out, "not many of them have written apps."

The club is working with its teacher sponsor to create iPad apps for education, which will eventually be distributed to local school districts free of charge, and sold to others. Oh, and he's even created his own company, CarrotCorp. It sounds like Suarez picked up a little entrepreneurial spirit from Jobs, as well.

(Source)

This article was written by Randy Nelson and originally appeared on Tecca

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Pelosi fires back at report on 'insider trading'

A television report that questioned whether members of Congress are making investment decisions based on insider information drew a heated response from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of those highlighted.

A report on CBS' "60 minutes" on Sunday said Pelosi was among several lawmakers ? including Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner ? who had profited from transactions that raised the possibility of conflicts of interest.

The report said Pelosi and her husband participated in a 2008 IPO involving Visa even as legislation that would have hurt credit card companies was being considered in the House. Pelosi was speaker at the time and the legislation failed to pass in that session.

In an exchange with CBS correspondent Steve Kroft, Pelosi denied that the transaction was a conflict of interest. And in a statement on Sunday, after the show aired, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the report failed to note her work for the rights of credit cardholders.

"Congress has never done more for consumers nor has the Congress passed more critical reforms of the credit card industry than under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi," Hammill said.

It is not illegal for members of Congress to buy stocks or make land deals based on information they're privy to through their positions. And the profits are often substantial.

A recent study of House members' stock transactions showed them beating the markets' return by about 6 percentage points annually from 1985 to 2001. A 2004 study involving the same authors showed senators beating the market by 12 percentage points annually.

Those results "are way outside the boundaries of random luck," said the studies' lead author, Alan Ziobrowski, a business professor at Georgia State University.

Ziobrowski said Congress is preoccupied with three things: regulation, taxes and the federal budget.

"If you know a piece of legislation is coming down the line and you can trade in that, you can make a lot of money," he told msnbc.com.

The "60 Minutes" piece was all the buzz on Capitol Hill on Monday, where House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) declined to say whether he would support a law making it illegal for members of Congress to engage in insider trading.

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"I'm not familiar with the details of the Stock Act, but I know it was mentioned in the program last night. My sense is that it requires more disclosure, I'm for increased disclosure, if there is any sense of impropriety or any appearance of that, we should take extra steps that the public's cynicism is addressed. We are not here to be hiding anything. I've always been very supportive of full disclosure," he said at a pen-and-pad discussion with reporters.

Cantor also dodged a question about whether members of Congress should be subject to the same insider trading laws as the ones restricting the finance professionals.

"I'm not as familiar with what triggers insider trading and the specifics of the laws. What I can tell you is that we are accountable to our constituents and we should be providing the kinds of information that would satisfy any kind of perception of impropriet," he said. "Many members don't actively trade in their portfolios, I don't. Full disclosure though can satisfy some of the questions; we should put that in place."

Pelosi's spokesman, Hammill, said the CBS report left out critical information. He said the legislation in question was passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on Oct. 3, 2008, the last day the House was in session before the election break that year and a time when the House was grappling with TARP. He noted that the next Congress passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights along with the Dodd-Frank legislation, which he called "a? stronger, more direct approach to addressing swipe fees."

Hammill also criticized CBS' use of one source for the report, conservative author and editor Peter Schweizer.

"It is very troubling that '60 Minutes' would base their reporting off of an already-discredited conservative author who has made a career of out attacking Democrats," Hammill said.

Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and is the editor of Bigpeace.com, a website focused on national security founded by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.

In a follow-up story on Monday, CBS News said they had verified every piece of information included in the report.

CBS noted that the "60 Minutes" report also discussed transactions of Boehner and another Republican, Rep. Spencer Bachus, who denied any impropriety.

Boehner said he leaves daily transactions to a broker. "I have not made any decisions on day-to-day trading activities in my account," Boehner told "60 Minutes."

NBC News' Luke Russert and Frank Thorp contributed to this report.

? 2011 msnbc.com? Reprints

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45287592/ns/politics-more_politics/

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Catholic bishops prepare religious liberty fight

The mood among many U.S. Roman Catholic bishops was captured in a recent speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. His talk, called "Catholics in the Next America," painted a bleak picture of a nation increasingly intolerant of Christianity.

"The America emerging in the next several decades is likely to be much less friendly to Christian faith than anything in our country's past," Chaput told students last week at Assumption College, an Augustinian school in Worcester, Massachusetts. "It's not a question of when or if it might happen. It's happening today."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets Monday in Baltimore for its national meeting feeling under siege: from a broader culture moving toward accepting gay marriage; a White House they often condemn as hostile to Catholic teaching; and state legislatures that church leaders say are chipping away at religious liberty.

Many Catholic academics, activists and parishioners say the bishops are overreacting. John Gehring of Faith in Public Life, an advocacy network for more liberal religious voters, has argued that in a pluralistic society, government officials can choose policies that differ from church teaching without prejudice being a factor.

"Some perspective is needed here," Gehring, a Catholic, wrote on his organization's blog.

Still, the bishops see themselves as more and more on the losing side of these disagreements, and they are taking steps they hope will protect the church.

In September, the conference formed a new committee on religious liberty that will meet for the first time this week in Baltimore. Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the conference, will oversee that work, which will include hiring a lobbyist. Picarello had worked for seven years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public-interest law firm based in Washington, and also served on an advisory committee for President Barack Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Among the bishops' top concerns are religious exemptions in states that legalize same-sex marriage. In Illinois, government officials stopped working with Catholic Charities on adoptions and foster-care placements after 40 years because the agency refused to recognize a new civil union law. Illinois bishops are suing the state. In New York, the bishops, along with Orthodox Jewish leaders and others, have complained that the religious exception in this year's law allowing gay marriage is too weak to be effective.

On health care, the bishops have been pressing the Health and Human Services Department during its public comment period for a broader religious exception to the provision in Obama's health care overhaul that mandates that private insurers pay for contraception. Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, which broke with the bishops to support the administration's health care plan, said a proposed exemption is so narrowly written it would only apply to "the parish housekeeper."

The conference is also battling the agency on another front: The Health and Human Services Department recently decided not to renew a contract held since 2006 by the bishops' refugee services office to help victims of human trafficking. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently suing to stop the agency from making grants to groups who "impose religiously based restrictions on reproductive health services" for human trafficking victims. The women are often raped and forced into prostitution by their captors.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the bishops, has called the decision discriminatory and a case of "ABC," meaning anyone but Catholics. Agency officials vehemently deny any bias and say the sole criteria for evaluating potential grantees was which group could best serve the victims. Administration officials note that the vast network of Catholic social service nonprofits, including the bishops' conference, receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding in amounts that have increased in the last couple of years.

Last week, Obama met with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the bishops' conference, an administration official said. The independent National Catholic Reporter said the two men discussed issues that have created tension between the administration and the Catholic hierarchy.

The closer focus on religious liberty comes as bishops are becoming more outspoken on preserving the religious identity of Catholic colleges and other institutions, and publicly calling out Catholic politicians and voters who don't follow church teaching on abortion.

Scott Appleby, a prominent religious historian at the University of Notre Dame, says many church leaders have recently adopted "a more pugnacious style, much more of a kind of culture-wars attitude." At the same time, the bishops' have been stung by their loss of public influence from the sex abuse crisis and the years of bruising revelations that many dioceses moved guilty clergy among parishes without alerting parents or police.

"The church no longer receives deference or the hands-off attitude that it once had for many years. That's gone," Appleby said.

Critics of the bishops view the closer focus on religious liberty as another sign that church leaders are turning inward and away from promoting the church's teaching on social justice.

Steven Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats, pointed to the agenda released ahead of this week's meeting, which included no public discussion of poverty despite the state of the economy. In the 1980s, the bishops issued an influential pastoral letter on Catholic principles and the economy, which church leaders reaffirmed in statements and education programs over the next decade.

"I think this certainly will represent to a vast majority of Catholics a tone-deafness on the part of many, many bishops," Krueger said.

___

Online:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://usccb.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-13-Catholic%20Bishops/id-00578dcc87e049c0b59aff3979c3cc16

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Police probe possible shots fired near White House (Providence Journal)

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Fresh Start: Scientists Glimpse Unsullied Traces of the Infant Universe

News | Space

For the first time, astronomers discover pockets of pristine gas formed in the universe's first few minutes

By John Matson ?| November 10, 2011?|

UNSULLIED STRANDS: In this simulation image, strands of gas connect to a developing galaxy. The newfound gas clouds could occur in a filament around such a galaxy. Image: Simulation by Ceverino, Dekel and Primack

By peering into the distance with the biggest and best telescopes in the world, astronomers have managed to glimpse exploding stars, galaxies and other glowing cosmic beacons as they appeared just hundreds of millions of years after the big bang. They are so far away that their light is only now reaching Earth, even though it was emitted more than 13 billion years ago.

Astronomers have been able to identify those objects in the early universe because their bright glow has remained visible even after a long, universe-spanning journey. But spotting the raw materials from which the first cosmic structures formed?the gas produced as the infant universe expanded and cooled in the first few minutes after the big bang?has not been possible. That material is not itself luminous, and everywhere astronomers have looked they have found not the primordial light-element gases hydrogen, helium and lithium from the big bang but rather material polluted by heavier elements, which form only in stellar interiors and in cataclysms such as supernovae.

Now a group of researchers reports identifying the first known pockets of pristine gas, two relics of those first minutes of the universe's existence. The team found a pair of gas clouds that contain no detectable heavy elements whatsoever by looking at distant quasars and the intervening material they illuminate. Quasars are bright objects powered by a ravenous black hole, and the spectral quality of their light reveals what it passed through on its way to Earth, in much the same way that the lamp of a projector casts the colors of film onto a screen. The findings appeared online November 10 in Science.

"We found two gas clouds that show a significant abundance of hydrogen, so we know that they are there," says lead study author Michele Fumagalli, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. One of the clouds also shows traces of deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen, the nucleus of which contains not only a proton, as ordinary hydrogen does, but also a neutron. Deuterium should have been produced in big bang nucleosynthesis but is easily destroyed, so its presence is indicative of a pristine environment. The amount of deuterium present agrees with theoretical predictions about the mixture of elements that should have emerged from the big bang. "But we don't see any trace of heavier elements like carbon, oxygen and iron," Fumagalli says. "That's what tells us that this is primordial gas."

The newfound gas clouds, as Fumagalli and his colleagues see them, existed about two billion years after the big bang, at an epoch of cosmic evolution known as redshift 3. (Redshift is a sort of cosmological distance measure, corresponding to the degree that light waves have been stretched on their trip across an expanding universe.) By that time the first generation of stars, initially comprising only the primordial light elements, had formed and were distributing the heavier elements they forged via nuclear fusion reactions into interstellar space.

But the new study shows that some nooks of the universe remained pristine long after stars had begun to spew heavy elements. "They have looked for these special corners of the universe, where things just haven't been polluted yet," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronomer Rob Simcoe, who did not contribute to the new study. "Everyplace else that we've looked in these environments, we do find these heavy elements."

The pristine quality of the gas clouds begs the question: Why did heavy elements, which should already have been relatively abundant two billion years after the big bang, fail to reach the gas clouds? There are two possibilities, Simcoe says. "Is it the case that there are no heavy elements there or that there are some, but they haven't mixed into the clouds that they see?" he asks. In some sense, he adds, it is a surprise that gas from the dawn of the universe, unsullied by heavy elements, has escaped detection for so long. "It takes a while for these elements to be fused, and it takes even longer to leak into their surroundings," Simcoe says. "There must be other regions of the universe that are like this."

Fumagalli says that his group will continue to look for quasar-lit primordial gas clouds to learn more about where they existed and how they eluded contamination. "We pretty much just started, and we immediately found these two gas clouds, so we don't know how common these clouds are," he says.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=34cef7f7d4dbda0c383ac0215c10d3d0

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