CNN - Dead athletes' brains show damage from concussions

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Dead athletes' brains show damage from concussions

For years after his NFL career ended, Ted Johnson could barely muster the energy to leave his house.

"I'd [leave to] go see my kids for maybe 15 minutes," said Johnson. "Then I would go back home and close the curtains, turn the lights off and I'd stay in bed. That was my routine for two years.

"Those were bad days."

These days, the former linebacker is less likely to recount the hundreds of tackles, scores of quarterback sacks or the three Super Bowl rings he earned as a linebacker for the New England Patriots. He is more likely to talk about suffering more than 100 concussions.

"I can definitely point to 2002 when I got back-to-back concussions. That's where the problems started," said Johnson, who retired after those two concussions. "The depression, the sleep disorders and the mental fatigue."

Until recently, the best medical definition for concussion was a jarring blow to the head that temporarily stunned the senses, occasionally leading to unconsciousness. It has been considered an invisible injury, impossible to test -- no MRI, no CT scan can detect it.

But today, using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

CTE has thus far been found in the brains of five out of five former NFL players. On Tuesday afternoon, researchers at the CSTE will release study results from the sixth NFL player exhibiting the same kind of damage.

"What's been surprising is that it's so extensive," said Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, and co-director of the CSTE. "It's throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it's deep inside."

CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young -- some as early as their 30s or 40s.

McKee, who also studies Alzheimer's disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.

"I knew what traumatic brain disease looked like in the very end stages, in the most severe cases," said McKee. "To see the kind of changes we're seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of."

The damage affects the parts of the brain that control emotion, rage, hypersexuality, even breathing, and recent studies find that CTE is a progressive disease that eventually kills brain cells.

Chris Nowinski knows well the impact of concussions. He was a football star at Harvard before wrestling professionally with World Wrestling Entertainment.

In one moment, his dreams of a long career wrestling were dashed by a kick to his chin. That kick, which caused Nowinski to black out and effectively ended his career, capped a career riddled with concussions.

"My world changed," said Nowinski. "I had depression. I had memory problems. My head hurt for five years."

Nowinski began searching for studies, and what he found startled him.

"I realized when I was visiting a lot of doctors, they weren't giving me very good answers about what was wrong with my head," said Nowinski. "I read [every study I could find] and I realized there was a ton of evidence showing concussions lead to depression, and multiple concussion can lead to Alzheimer's."

Nowinski decided further study was needed, so he founded the Sports Legacy Institute along with Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon and co-director of the Neurologic Sports Injury Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The project solicits for study the brains of ex-athletes who suffered multiple concussions.

Once a family agrees to donate the brain, it is delivered to scientists at the CSTE to look for signs of damage.

So far, the evidence of CTE is compelling.

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, along with other research institutions, identified traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of late NFL football players John Grimsley, Mike Webster, Andre Waters, Justin Strzelczyk and Terry Long.

Grimsley died of an accidental gunshot wound to the chest. Webster, Long and Strzelczyk all died after long bouts of depression, while Waters committed suicide in 2006 at age 44.

"Guys were dying," said Nowinski. "The fact of the matter was guys were dying because they played sports 10 or 20 years before."

So far, around 100 athletes have consented to have their brains studied after they die.

Ted Johnson was one of the first to sign up. He said he believes that concussions he suffered while playing football explain the anger, depression and throbbing headaches that occasionally still plague him.

Johnson said he played through concussions because he, like many other NFL athletes, did not understand the consequences. He has publicly criticized the NFL for not protecting players like him.

"They don't want you to know," said Johnson. "It's not like when you get into the NFL there's a handout that says 'These are the effects of multiple concussions so beware.' "

In a statement, the NFL indicated that their staffs take a cautious, conservative approach to managing concussions.

While they support research into the impact of concussions, they maintain that, "Hundreds of thousands of people have played football and other sports without experiencing any problem of this type and there continues to be considerable debate within the medical community on the precise long-term effects of concussions and how they relate to other risk factors."

The NFL is planning its own independent medical study of retired NFL players on the long-term effects of concussion.

"Really my main reason even for talking about this is to help the guys who are already retired," said Johnson. "[They] are getting divorced, going bankrupt, can't work, are depressed, and don't know what's wrong with them. [It is] to give them a name for it so they can go get help."

"The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone," said Nowinski. "We know we can't do that anymore. This causes long-term damage."

Portfolio Mobile - Last Bytes: Ballmer's Still Sweet on Yahoo

Last Bytes: Ballmer's Still Sweet on Yahoo





Google logged a whopping 68 percent profit loss, but an 18 percent revenue gain. Ouch? Yay?  [WSJ]

The Obama administration is busy dusting the cobwebs off the Bush White House's tech infrastructure. [Valleywag]

Believe it or not, Ballmer's crush on Yahoo persists. [Bits]

Broadband isn't for everyone; two-thirds of those who don't have it say they don't miss it. [Ars Technica]
Related Links
First Bytes: Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel, Obama
Last Bytes: Steve Jobs' Health, Yahoo, and Google
Last Bytes: Bebo, Yahoo, Google, McCain





(c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.

Reuters - Pfizer to buy Wyeth for $68 billion, cuts dividend

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Pfizer to buy Wyeth for $68 billion, cuts dividend

Monday, Jan 26, 2009 12:25PM UTC

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc, the No. 1 drugmaker, said on Monday that it would acquire U.S. rival Wyeth for about $68 billion in a move to diversify its revenue base.

The world's largest drugmaker, which raised $22.5 billion in debt from a consortium of banks to finance the deal, also cut its dividend.

The deal helps Pfizer cope with a major gap in revenue in 2011, when its blockbuster Lipitor cholesterol treatment will begin to face U.S. generic competition. Next year, Wyeth loses patent protection on its own top drug, the anti-depressant Effexor XR.

Still, the deal would help Pfizer diversify into vaccines and injectable biologic medicines by adding Wyeth's big-selling Prevnar vaccine for childhood infections and Enbrel rheumatoid arthritis treatment. Pfizer would also realize major cost savings by streamlining areas that overlap.

For each share of Wyeth, Pfizer will pay roughly $50.19 -- $33 in cash and 0.985 of a share of its stock.

Based on Wyeth's 1.33 billion shares outstanding as of October 31, the deal would be valued at about $66.8 billion. Including Wyeth's stock options, the deal would be worth $68 billion, sources said.

At $50.19 per share, the deal would mark a 15 percent premium over Wyeth's closing stock price of $43.74 on Friday. Wyeth's stock had surged 12.6 percent on Friday on news of the possible deal.

The deal is expected to add to Pfizer's adjusted diluted earnings per share in the second full year after closing and to result in cost savings of $4 billion by the third year.

CONSOLIDATION WAVE?

Pfizer typifies many large drugmakers, which have struggled to produce new blockbusters to replace those on which they lose exclusivity.

A merger of Pfizer and Wyeth could trigger a wave of consolidation in the cash-rich pharmaceutical sector as drugmakers look to diversify revenues in the face of competition from generic-drug rivals, analysts said.

"The outlook for the industry has steadily waned, (with) industry P/E multiples declining under the combined onslaught of price pressure, aggressive generic competition and low R&D productivity," Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note.

"The result is that many leading companies face a decline in revenues and earnings next decade, as profitable products reach the end of their patented lives and are not replaced by new drugs," the analysts said.

They said AstraZeneca could be a target, although there were also reasons a deal might not happen.

In sealing the Pfizer deal, Wyeth went ahead and ended talks to buy Dutch vaccine firm Crucell. Crucell shares plummeted 21.1 percent to 12.23 euros.

The deal is subject to Pfizer's financing sources not backing out due to a material adverse change in Pfizer's financial health or due to the company's failure to maintain a certain credit rating. Pfizer and Wyeth expect the transaction to close at the end of the third quarter or during the fourth quarter 2009.

Pfizer shares fell to $16.70 in trading before the market opened from Friday's close of $17.45, while Wyeth rose to $45.90 from $43.74.

(Reporting by Edward Tobin and Lewis Krauskopf in New York and Jessica Hall in Philadelphia; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

2009

CNN - 'Hillside Burglar' suspect held; L.A.'s rich relieved

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'Hillside Burglar' suspect held; L.A.'s rich relieved

For three years, the thieves crept into some of the poshest homes in the most exclusive enclaves in the nation.

Police said they finally have a break in the case, and wealthy residents of Los Angeles, California, are breathing a sigh of relief.

"These guys were real good," said L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss, who oversees Bel Air where some of the burglaries were committed. "They were professionals."

The thieves hauled away more than $10 million worth of valuables and cash from 150 homes in upscale neighborhoods such as Bel Air, Pacific Palisades and Beverly Hills, police said.

Homes of Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes and multimillionaires were hit. According to CNN affiliate KABC, country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing were among the victims.

DNA evidence led the LAPD to suspected ringleader Troy Corsby Thomas, 45, of Los Angeles. He was arrested near L.A. International Airport last weekend.

Police say Thomas led a gang dubbed the "Hillside Burglars" that targeted the neighborhoods overlooking Sunset Boulevard.

"It's a very euphoric, satisfying feeling that we got this person," said the police Lt. David McGill. "It's a very frustrating feeling to tell the victims, 'I'm sorry I don't have any news for you.' Finally when we got some good detective work and breaks, things started lining up."

Police are looking for more suspects linked to the three-year spree but are not naming them.

Thomas is being held on $2 million bail, according to the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. He is likely to stay in custody because he must reveal the origin of any funds used to pay the bail, authorities said.

At a court appearance Tuesday, Thomas pleaded not guilty to two charges of residential burglary, one in January 2006 and another in March 2008. The preliminary court date for Thomas will be set on January 29 and additional charges are expected to be filed, according to CNN affiliates KABC and KTLA.

Police will not comment on Thomas' background. The Los Angeles Times reported that Thomas told police he had been working as an auto broker.

The Hillside Burglars have not struck since Thomas' arrest, police said.

"Hallelujah!" said L.A. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. "Even a crafty crook does make his mistake and that's what happened to this one."

Some residents are cautiously optimistic.

"We're delighted," said Robert René, president of Brentwood Homeowners Association, which represents about 800 homes. "We are very fortunate to have the due diligence of the Westside LAPD."

Harvey I. Saferstein, president of the Bel Air Association, agreed, "We are all obviously thankful and relieved."

The financially strapped LAPD created a Hillside Burglars task force. People donated cameras and other equipment and police stepped up patrols. The outlay amounted to "millions of dollars," Rosendahl said.

Neighborhood watch groups formed. One in Bel Air donated $8,000 for infrared cameras that can spot burglars in the dark.

Robert Ringler, president of the Bel Air Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council, hosted a community meeting with the LAPD at the five-star Bel Air Hotel a year and a half ago. As swans swam in ponds in the background, about 150 Westside residents sipped Perrier and vented their fears.

"It had gotten to be such an epidemic," Ringler said.

The impressive mansions -- usually gated and hidden by walls and hedges -- dot the lush hillsides and canyons between the coast and the mountains. The qualities that make them so desirable also make them vulnerable.

The seclusion that appeals to upscale homeowners also appeals to thieves. Because many of the homes are tucked into the sides of mountains and canyons, behind gates, it's easy for a thief to escape unseen and hard for police to get there quickly.

"It's the perfect target," Ringler said. "You can access the property and nobody would ever see you."

Frequently, maids, pool workers and gardeners have access to the property, which allows burglars to pass as the help and slip in unchallenged.

According to police and media reports, the methods were sophisticated.

Burglars waited till homeowners went on vacation or out for the night. They used lawn furniture and ladders to creep into the second floor, which often lacked alarms. They quickly went in, looked for jewelry, safes and cash, and ducked out with the goods.

They never attacked any of the homeowners, preferring stealth to confrontation.

Residents say they learned to keep jewelry and other valuables in safety deposit boxes and out of sight. Many added alarm systems and insured their belongings.

"It's not just about money," said Robin Stevens, who lives with her husband and son in Brentwood. "A lot of people lost things of sentimental value."

Stevens, whose neighbors have been burglarized, said she feels safer knowing that police arrested Thomas, but will continue hiding her mother's antique jewelry and locking the windows.

During a two-week trip to the South Pacific last fall, Stevens made sure to e-mail her neighbors, notifying them that she would be gone so they could look out for strangers.

Other residents remain skeptical.

Pacific Palisades Community Council Chairman Richard G. Cohen said he feels relief but is waiting for a conviction. "The arrest doesn't mark the end of our concern," he said.

With the economy in a tailspin, Steve Twining, who serves on the West Los Angeles Police advisory board, believes thefts will continue.

"In these dire economic times, I don't think it's going to dissuade others from trying to do the same thing," he said. "The burglary situation will probably get worse before it gets better."

former senator clinton's replacement

CNN - Sources: Congresswoman to replace Clinton in Senate

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Sources: Congresswoman to replace Clinton in Senate

New York Gov. David Paterson has chosen Democratic Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton as U.S. Senator from New York, multiple Democratic sources told CNN Friday.

Gillibrand, 42, represents New York's traditionally Republican 20th district.

She is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of congressional Democrats who hold more conservative views than their liberal Democratic counterparts.

She is an outspoken advocate for gun rights, and she supports an extension of the Bush tax cuts. She has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

She also has a 100 percent rating from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Paterson must appoint a replacement for Clinton, who was sworn in as President Obama's secretary of state Wednesday. A special election will be held in 2010 for the remaining two years of Clinton's term. Paterson will formally announce his decision at a noon press conference in Albany, New York.

The final decision was made around 2 a.m. It came down to Gillibrand and Randi Weingarten, the dark horse candidate who is president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Among the considerations Paterson used in selecting Gillibrand were that she is a woman and she is from upstate New York, sources said. Both those factors could help Paterson when he runs for election as governor next year.

A Paterson spokeswoman, Erin Duggan, would not comment on the reports.

"The governor is making his announcement at noon today, and that is the only comment we are making at this time," Duggan said early Friday.

Caroline Kennedy, seen as a favorite to fill the vacant seat, withdrew her name from consideration Wednesday, citing personal reasons.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Steve Israel also have been mentioned as possible appointees.

Gillibrand was elected to the House of Representatives in 2006, unseating Republican John Sweeney. In the 1990s, she worked as a lawyer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development during Cuomo's tenure as housing secretary in the Clinton administration.

She was one of dozens of Democrats who joined House Republicans in voting against the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout of the financial industry in October, arguing the plan lacked proper oversight.

Kennedy, 51, cited personal reasons for her decision not to continue pursuing the Senate seat, but Paterson had no intention of appointing her, a source close to the governor told CNN.

Paterson did not think Kennedy was "ready for prime time," citing her efforts, at times awkward, to try to win the appointment, the source told CNN.

"She clearly has no policy experience and couldn't handle the pressure," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. "Why would he pick her given how badly she handled herself in recent weeks?"

A Kennedy ally, though, denied Kennedy had any indication Paterson was leaning against choosing her to fill out Clinton's term.

Kennedy had been very public in expressing her interest in the seat by meeting with state and community leaders throughout New York.

"The governor considers Caroline a friend and knows she will continue to serve New York well inside or outside of government," a statement from the governor's office read. "We wish her well in all her future endeavors."

The Blackness of The Night.

Entombed, encased and enclosed. Bask in the the throes of encapsulated tombs. Blackness envelops the cold and damp air, the temperature is wraught with contemp and fear. Tensions are taught with terrors of night, names become claims to envy and blight.

Reuters - Microsoft stuns with profit miss, to cut 5,000 jobs

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Microsoft stuns with profit miss, to cut 5,000 jobs

Thursday, Jan 22, 2009 7:0PM UTC

By Franklin Paul and Bill Rigby

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp stunned Wall Street with disappointing results that included plans to slash up to 5,000 jobs and a warning that profit and revenue will almost certainly drop over the next two quarters.

The news from the world's largest software maker, which had not been expected to report results until after the close of trading on Thursday, sent shock waves across financial markets, pulling down the Nasdaq and the dollar, and sending Treasury debt prices higher as investors sought safer assets.

Microsoft's shares dropped as much as 11 percent to its lowest level since January 1998, adding to a 40 percent decline in the past year. It blamed the miss on the weakness of the PC market and the popularity of low-cost netbook computers, which have combined to badly undercut sales of its dominant Windows operating system.

The market has become so volatile, Microsoft cautioned, that it will not issue earnings or revenue forecasts for the rest of its fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 -- other than to predict both will very likely be lower.

"It is pretty bad when things are deteriorating so fast that even the largest companies in the world don't know how rapidly it is happening," said Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert.

Microsoft posted a profit of $4.17 billion, or 47 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter ended December 31, versus a profit of $4.71 billion, or 50 cents, a year earlier. Analysts were looking for earnings per share of 49 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose 2 percent to $16.63 billion, missing the average analyst forecast of $17.1 billion.

Microsoft's elimination of 5,000 jobs -- 1,400 of which on Thursday -- amounts to about 5 percent of its estimated 96,000 work force, the biggest reduction ever by the software maker.

"Clearly business conditions are worse than people were expecting," said Richard Williams, analyst at Cross Research. "This is a substantial amount of jobs cuts. Microsoft has never had a layoff like this in my knowledge and it's sending a signal that the times are definitely changing."

The job cuts follow similar moves by other technology firms, including AT&T Inc, Dell Inc, Motorola Inc and Advance Micro Devices Inc, all of which are suffering from the global economic slowdown.

THREATENED BY NETBOOKS

Microsoft faces a shift by PC buyers to cheaper netbooks, which are small, stripped-down laptops. Netbooks can run Windows, but Microsoft makes more on each sale of Windows for a PC than it does for a netbook. Some netbooks also use the rival open-source Linux software.

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Microsoft also lost market share to Apple Inc, which on Wednesday posted surprisingly strong results.

"We are certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions," Ballmer said on a conference call. "The economy is resetting to a lower level" of spending, he said, adding that he did not expect a quick economic rebound.

However, Ballmer noted that Microsoft will be adding "thousands of jobs" in strategic areas like Internet search, where it has been lagging behind Google Inc, and that he still desires a search partnership with Yahoo Inc.

But Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said he does not expect significant acquisitions this year, despite hopes from some Yahoo shareholders for a buyout.

Shares of Microsoft were down $2.01 to $17.37, after touching an intraday low of $17.19, the lowest level since January 1998. It was the biggest single-day drop in the stock since an 11.38 percent fall on April 28, 2006.

(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Robert MacMillan and Sinead Carew in New York; Writing by Tiffany Wu and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Derek Caney)

CNN - Crowley: Balance of power trying to find balance

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Crowley: Balance of power trying to find balance

Democrats hold a strong majority in Congress, but with power comes a power struggle, and a potential headache for President Obama.

Just two days into his term, the president is already facing pushback from leaders of his own party.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have made it clear -- it's not their job to answer to Obama.

To a certain degree, the president-Congress tension is simply politics at play -- something that happens every time a new president comes in.

But this time, the Democrats have even more power than they did before the election, meaning Pelosi and Reid both have huge majorities in their respective houses.

Pelosi's biggest problem with the president's agenda is the silence she's hearing when President Obama is asked about former President Bush's tax cuts.

During the campaign season, Obama proposed repealing the Bush tax cuts on those making at least $250,000, but now it's more likely that the president will delay any tax increases on the wealthy until 2011, when the tax cuts expire.

The Obama team says that in the middle of a recession you don't, in effect, raise people's taxes.

Pelosi, however, doesn't buy that argument. She wants to see them rolled back now.

"We had campaigned in saying what the Republican Congressional Budget Office told us: Nothing contributed more to the budget deficit than the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America," Pelosi said in an interview Sunday with Fox News.

A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Pelosi's statement "false," and cited a recent fact check by the St. Petersburg Times disputing the House Speaker's claim that tax cuts for the wealthy are the biggest contributor to the budget deficit.

Pelosi said she would not seek to block the president's proposed stimulus plan over its lack of tax hikes for the rich, but she urged Obama not to simply let the tax cuts expire in two years.

"[Tax cuts on the wealthy] have to prove their worth to me as to how they grow the economy, how they create jobs," she said.

Pelosi is also pushing for an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of the Justice Department, while Obama and his aides say there are other priorities besides focusing on the administration they are succeeding.

"I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department, go unreviewed," Pelosi said last weekend. "Past is prologue."

Before becoming president, Obama made it clear that investigating the Bush administration wasn't a priority.

Over in the Senate, Reid has taken a similar stance to Pelosi's. In an interview with The Hill earlier this month, the Democrat said, "I don't believe in the executive power trumping everything. ... I believe in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government."

"If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. ... I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him," he said.

Obama, however, has made clear he's not letting any pushback slow him down. Even before his inauguration, he threatened to veto any attempts to block his access to the remaining bailout funds.

As the Obama administration gets settled in, one can expect the tug and pull between the White House and Congress to continue: It's that balance of power getting into balance under new circumstances.