Founders of Internet gambling companies PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were among 11 people charged by the U.S. in a case that seeks at least $3 billion in forfeitures and penalties. A revised indictment issued yesterday includes charges of bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. It is the latest in a series of criminal cases against Internet gambling companies brought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan. PokerStars, based on the Isle of Mann, Ireland’s Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker of Costa Rica are the leading online poker sites doing business with U.S. customers, according to the indictment. gucci outlet The charging documents name two principals from each company and others who allegedly worked with them to illegally process payments. “These defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits,” Bharara said today in a statement. “To circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud.” Prosecutors allege that after the U.S. enacted a law in 2006 barring banks from processing payments to offshore gambling websites, PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker worked around the ban to continue operating in the U.S. $5.1 Billion Market The Internet poker market was $5.1 billion last year, 7.1 percent higher than 2009, according to U.K.-based H2 Gambling Capital, which supplies data on the industry. The global online gambling market now is about $30 billion. None of the poker company principals indicted are in the U.S. and they haven’t been arrested, Bharara’s office said. Those charged include Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate of PokerStars; Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt Poker; and Scott Tom and Brent Beckley of Absolute Poker. Michele Clayborne, a spokeswoman for Full Tilt, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message left at her office seeking comment. An e-mail sent to Absolute Poker’s spokesman, David Clainer, was returned as “undeliverable” and a telephone number posted on the company’s website was inoperable. Jennifer Roberts, a spokeswoman for PokerStars, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail left at her office after regular business hours. Tricked Banks The poker companies named in the indictment are accused of using fraudulent means to circumvent federal laws and “trick” banks into processing the payments on their behalf. In one instance, after U.S. banks and financial institutions detected and shut down multiple fraudulent bank accounts used by the betting websites in late 2009, Scheinberg and Bitar developed a new processing strategy that didn’t involve lying to banks, prosecutors said. They allegedly concealed the money they received from gamblers by disguising it as payments to hundreds of non- existent online merchants purporting to sell items online such as jewelry and golf balls. Of the billions of dollars in payment transactions that the poker companies tricked the U.S. banks into processing, about one-third of the funds went directly to the poker companies as revenue for so-called “rake” charges to players on almost every poker hand played online, prosecutors said. PokerStars, Full Tilt and their payment processors persuaded the principals of a few, small local banks facing financial difficulties to engage in such processing in return for multimillion dollar investments in the banks, the U.S. said. Civil Complaint The indictment and a related civil complaint filed by Bharara’s office seek at least $3 billion in money laundering penalties and forfeiture from the poker companies and the defendants. A federal judge has seized about 76 bank accounts in 14 countries which the U.S. says contained the proceeds of the charged offenses. A judge has also ordered the seizure of five domain names used by the poker companies to operate their illegal online businesses in the U.S., Bharara’s office said. In September, Sportingbet Plc (SBT) agreed to forfeit $33 million in proceeds that the company provided to U.S. customers. The U.K. Internet gambling company said it would maintain a permanent restriction on providing Internet gambling services to U.S. customers unless the law changes, according to the agreement reached with Bharara’s office to avoid prosecution. The same month, a Canadian charged with laundering $350 million for foreign Internet gambling companies was sentenced to six months of house arrest after pleading guilty to processing offshore bets of U.S. citizens. Douglas Rennick, who faced as long as 12 months in prison, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York to forfeit $17 million.

The radiation gauge beeped, signaling that isotopes were in the atmosphere. As our SUV followed a line of electricity towers marching across deserted farmland, we made an agreement: If the dosimeter hit 15, we'd turn around. The device inched up to 12, its faint beep seeming more like a scream. Each time, edgily, we called out the number. Thirteen. The ventilation was off and the windows were sealed tight, even though the afternoon was warm. With our heads covered and our mouths sheathed in breathing masks, the SUV became a sauna as we bumped along roads with cracks as wide as a man's head. The minutes ticked by. Fourteen. Miles past a police checkpoint, we finally saw it. In Japanese and English, a large blue sign. Fukushima, the place where no one else in the world wanted to be. We — two journalists, air max an interpreter and a driver — wanted to see the villain at the center of Japan's nuclear nightmare. As we pulled up to the gate, we knew that somewhere in the near distance, scores of workers were scrambling to bring the damaged reactors under control. But those efforts were as invisible as the nuclear threat itself. Suddenly, as we approached the main gate, security guards were upon us, two figures who'd seemingly stepped out of "Star Wars," menacing in their dual-intake respirator masks and head-to-toe white hazmat gear. Peering into the SUV, expressions obscured, they shook their heads as they waved us off, refusing to answer questions, repeating the dismissive circular hand motion for a U-turn. They noted our license plate as we turned around and slowly embarked along a side road, briefly trailed by guards in another vehicle. A hundred yards away, several mysterious towers shone white in the afternoon sunlight, hiding their secrets. It was difficult to get a bead on the place; trees seemed to have been placed strategically to prevent a full-on view of things. To the side, we saw a sign posted by the nuclear plant's safety committee. It carried an announcement: "This month's safety slogan: Make sure to check everything and do the risk assessment. The goal is zero disasters for this year." In the weeks since the March 11 tsunami destroyed Fukushima's emergency cooling system, people as far away as California have fretted over full nuclear meltdown at the plant 155 miles north of Tokyo. Explosions in four of Fukushima's six reactors have spewed dangerous radioactive isotopes of iodine, cesium and strontium, which can cause bone cancer and leukemia. Most residents within 18 miles have evacuated, leaving behind a post-apocalyptic landscape and a decades-old plant that's now sick and dying. We traveled to Fukushima with questions. What does it look like? Smell like? Would they let us inside? So far, the few pictures have come from aerial fly-bys that showed smoking reactors in a soulless industrial setting. As we neared the coastal plant, we peered out the SUV windows, trying to create a lasting mental image of a place many say will one day be sealed off in concrete to protect against nuclear poisoning. The best description of the scene: silence. We mostly stayed inside the vehicle, but once in a while, we opened a window, or briefly jumped out to take a picture. And we listened. They say that following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the birds stopped singing. At Fukushima, we didn't hear birds, or anything else. No children shouting, no car horns honking, not even the waves on the too-distant shore. Just the wind. Fukushima translates as "fortunate isle," and it once signified purity, used to brand fruit and vegetables. Now it carries the whiff of Armageddon. This week, officials raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to a maximum level 7, a threshold reached only once before in the history of nuclear power, at the now-shuttered Chernobyl reactor. We didn't make the decision to go to Fukushima lightly. We brought along the dosimeter, which gives an accumulated total of radioactivity exposure. The device was loaned to us by a scientist who assured us it was safe to travel near the reactor as long as there was no explosion. Otherwise, our exposure would be equivalent to what we might get on a cross-country flight. In other words, not that much — a level people experience daily. (An exam later at a nearby center confirmed it: We tested negative for radiation.) Still, our interpreter was worried at first. A 22-year-old college student, she wants to have children one day. The driver, on the other hand, never blinked. Also 22, he had on a previous trip to the hot zone worn a shirt that read, "It is a good day to die." In the end, we didn't merely leave the plant; we fled. On the rise of a hill, we looked back a last time at the complex, but we saw nothing except the trees that shelter it from prying eyes.

Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau didn't want to talk about the Indiana Pacers before the regular season ended, but that didn't mean he wasn't preparing for the first-round playoff opponent. The Bulls reported to the Berto Center for a late afternoon practice where they received phonebook-size scouting reports on the Pacers. The No. 1 seed Bulls play host to No. 8 seed Indiana at noon at the United Center. "If y'all could see the playbook we had at the beginning of the year, it's the same thickness," Ronnie Brewer said. "And this is just for one team." Would Brewer need a suitcase to lug it home? "It's like college,air max all-your-classes thick," Brewer said. "It's pretty funny when I saw it, because if you know Thibs, he's really down to detail and really focuses in. I guess we're going to be hitting our books tonight." Except, perhaps, for Derrick Rose, who didn't meet with the media, as he prepared to meet President Obama at Navy Pier for a re-election fundraiser that was slated to start at 7 p.m. The team's light practice, which consisted mostly of watching tape, started around 4 p.m, and lasted less than an hour. Thibodeau's preparedness has reached legendary status among his players. The team's NBA-best 62-20 record attests to how the Bulls have taken to their coach, and the playoffs mean he and his staff have more time to focus on one opponent. "That made me excited," Brewer said of the scouting encyclopedia. "The preparation that he had, that pretty much speaks of how we're going to approach it. We're going to take it one game at a time and focus on every single person and how we're going to slow them down, shut them down. We gotta know our opponents better than they know us and that's what we intend to do." Indiana was the only Central Division foe to beat the Bulls this season, with a 115-108 overtime win on March 18. In its three wins over the Pacers this season, Chicago outscored them by an average of 100.3 to 82.7. The Bulls went 13-1 after that loss and have won nine in a row. No team in NBA history has gone undefeated in their division since the league expanded to a four-division format in the 1970-71 season. "We talked about it," Brewer said. "We're trying to make history and going undefeated in our division would've been huge for us. But you have games like that, where things don't go our way. I think we showed a lot of character by fighting and getting it to overtime; we just came a little short. We still remember that game. We hold a chip on our shoulder and we look forward to playing Game 1." Thibodeau resisted the idea that the Bulls should shut down guys after they clinched the No. 1 seed, though he did limit some minutes in the regular-season finale. The San Antonio Spurs (61-21) fell to the Phoenix Suns after the Bulls beat New Jersey on Wednesday night, giving Chicago home-court advantage over every team in the playoffs. "It doesn't guarantee you anything," Thibodeau said. "You try to win as many games as you can, to try and put as many things in your favor as possible. It doesn't really do anything for the Indiana series and that's what's in front of us right now. That's the only thing we're thinking about." Thibodeau praised the play of Indiana forward Danny Granger, who received attention for saying he'd rather play the Bulls than the Celtics, who have more championship-style experience. But the coach added he wasn't concerned with his opinions. "I don't concern myself with what Danny Granger is saying," he said. "That was his opinion so that's fine. We're just getting ready for the Pacers." Brewer said the team doesn't post up "bulletin board" material. "If you need stuff like that to get motivated," Thibodeau said, "there's something wrong with you. This is the playoffs. You should be able to get ready." Brewer missed the last game after spraining a ligament in his left thumb Tuesday night in New York. He received treatment Thursday and did some light shooting while wearing a brace. "I came in early and got some shots up, handled the ball a little bit," Brewer said. "It's a little sore, but you got to play through pain and that's what I intend to do."

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced on Wednesday that the promotion they have planned for their six midweek home games this season no longer will include half-price alchoholic beverages, a decision clearly made as part of a series of measures being taken by the club -- including an increased police presence around the stadium -- in an attempt to ensure the safety of fans following the assault that took place in the parking lot after the team's season opener on March 31. All other planned aspects of the promotion remain in effect, including half-price food and non-alcoholic beverages, and fans can still purchase a ticket package for the six games at half price. Additionally, supra the Dodgers will wear throwback jerseys during those games like the ones the Brooklyn Dodgers wore during the 1940s. The first of those games is scheduled for April 21 against the Atlanta Braves. Three San Francisco Giants fans were assaulted in the Dodger Stadium parking lot after the season opener between the two teams by two suspects who, according to witnesses, were dressed in Dodgers apparel. Those suspects remain at large despite a total of $150,000 in reward money being offered by several entities, including $25,000 by the Dodgers. Bryan Stow, 42, of Santa Cruz, was injured so badly in the attack that he remains hospitalized in Los Angeles and in a medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling. The Dodgers plan to hold a news conference at 4 p.m. on Thursday -- three hours before they open their second homestand of the season against the St. Louis Cardinals -- to discuss all the additional security measures being put into place at the ballpark in response to the attack on Stow and two companions.

Barry Bonds had virtually no peers in his chosen sport, but in the court of law he had 12 of them. On Wednesday, those peers convicted Bonds of one count of obstruction of justice, which will stay with Bonds forever. This huge decision, with three other counts ending in a hung jury, points to Bonds’s evasiveness about the use of a needle, that is to say, cheating, involving his line of work. He was probably convicted of that one count because of the words and also the tears of a female confidante, his personal shopper, Kathy Hoskins, who clearly did not want to be in that courtroom in San Francisco. “Barry was like, air max ‘Just do it right here,’ ” Hoskins testified last week, saying she had seen Bonds with his personal trainer, Greg Anderson. “Barry just lifted his shirt up and he said: ‘This is Katie. She’s my girl. She’s not going to say nothing to nobody.’ ” Hoskins said that Anderson then gave Bonds an injection in the abdomen and that Bonds told her: ‘That’s a little somethin’, somethin’ when I go on the road. You can’t detect it.” Bonds, 46, will appeal and try to avoid prison time, which is his right, but baseball also has to figure out what to do about the slugger who retired after the 2007 season. Even the one count of obstruction implicates the entire industry, for engaging in omertà during the home run frolics of the late 1990s and early in this decade. Yes, the country has bigger problems, and yes, the trial was expensive, but people should care about this one conviction because of Bonds’s denial of the needle. There are rules against performance-enhancing drugs in sport, partly to ensure a level playing field and partly because those drugs can be unhealthy for young people. By his own behavior, Bonds acted as if he knew he was breaking rules. He did not care, but we must. There are precedents for prominent people in sports who break rules. George M. Steinbrenner was suspended for several years for making illegal campaign contributions and narrowly escaped jail. Pete Rose is ineligible for the Hall of Fame because he lied about gambling while managing the Reds. Baseball now has a legal reason for making Bonds ineligible for the Hall. It’s a shame, in a way, because Bonds was one of the greatest mixtures of speed and power ever to put on a baseball uniform. He was on his way to a Hall of Fame career in his mid-20s, long before he bulked up and began hitting home runs at a record pace. Baseball is now stuck with more than a guilty verdict for Barry Lamar Bonds. It is also stuck with a stretch limousine full of the biggest sluggers of this generation: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and that admitted partaker of steroids, Alex Rodriguez, who was 146 homers behind Bonds going into Wednesday, to say nothing of Manny Ramirez, who retired last week facing a 100-game suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball cannot very well negate Bonds’s 762 career home runs or his 73 homers in 2001. He hit them. This is not one of those N.C.A.A. deals in which a basketball team “vacates” its place in the Final Four for one violation or another. Besides, Bonds undoubtedly hit some of those home runs off pitchers who were bulking up — although none off Roger Clemens, the great pitcher who got himself in trouble in 2008 when he testified in front of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. Perhaps lulled by the blatant fawning by some members of the committee, Clemens came off as a blowhard as he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. Apparently, the counsels later advised committee members that Clemens’s story did not add up: he was indicted in 2010 and he will go to trial in July. There is some commonality between Bonds and Clemens, in that both relied on a trainer. Bonds’s man, Greg Anderson, chose to go to jail rather than testify, whereas Clemens’s man, Brian McNamee — once lauded as a genius who knew how to get Clemens and his sidekick Andy Pettitte into great shape — has been encouraged to sing against his old pal. Bonds and Clemens also seem to have learned the lesson of big-time sports, which is that athletes tend to feel they are above the standards of ordinary citizens. This ambiguous verdict on Bonds comes six years after a Congressional hearing at which Mark McGwire fumbled around with the question of whether he had used illegal steroids or another disreputable substitute. He has since admitted he juiced up — but only for health and recuperation, never for an edge — and has not come close to being voted into the Hall of Fame. On Wednesday evening, Commissioner Bud Selig released a statement praising baseball’s rules and testing for drugs but referring only obliquely to “allegations about the conduct of former players.” This was no allegation; this was a conviction of the career home run leader for obstruction of justice. Major League Baseball will have to deal with it. Barring some further ruling, both Bonds and Clemens become eligible for the Hall after the 2012 season, when they will have been retired five seasons. They must receive 75 percent of the votes from certified baseball writers. With that mixed decision on Wednesday, Barry Bonds’s career may be judged by the testimony of a friend with tears in her eyes, who said she saw him injected by his trainer. One needle, one count, one reputation.

Jamy Garden's house began to rumble with the approach of a tornado. Then the windows shattered, spraying her with glass. Using her cellphone as a flashlight, she fled to the basement. She returned home Sunday, wandering her backyard in a blood-splattered sweatshirt, her right hand and left knee bandaged. Around her lay a tangle of tree branches, twisted siding, broken glass and a canoe that wasn't hers. The tornado damaged more than half of Mapleton, a town of 1,200 in western Iowa, air yeezy Mayor Fred Standa said Sunday. He estimated that about 20% of the town was "almost flat." The huge, centuries-old trees that gave the town its name had been pulled out of the ground and tossed on top of houses and cars, Standa said. In one case, a huge motor home had been flipped on its side. "It's not a pretty sight," Standa said. "It's something nobody has seen in this town." Garden's house was intact, but everything inside was tossed around. Her two dogs were safe, but she hadn't found her cat. The tornado destroyed 12 to 15 blocks when it struck about 7:20 p.m. Saturday, Monona County Sheriff Jeff Pratt said. About 100 homes were destroyed and 500 to 600 residents displaced, he said. The tornado was on the ground for 3 1/2 miles and measured three-quarters of a mile wide at one point, according to the National Weather Service office in Valley, Neb. It carried wind speeds of 136 to 165 mph. The tornado was one of several reported in Iowa. The weather service said it had confirmed four smaller twisters that touched down near the towns of Early and Nemaha, damaging several homes. In Mapleton, the roof was blown off a high school, power lines were downed and homes and buildings were destroyed. Pratt said two people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The weather service said it had reports of 14 to 16 injuries, the most severe a broken leg. Tamara Adams, 37, piled branches on the curb next to the 30-foot tree that rested atop her house. She said she had closed her outside basement door just as the tornado tore the roof off a store that sits across from her house. "That sound, I'll never get it out of my head," she said. "It had a life. You could hear it breathing and growling."

As the deadline for a government slowdown approaches, liberals are leading the charge to blame the budget impasse on the Tea Party movement. This progressive political strategy serves a two-fold objective. First, by assigning responsibility for the failing budget negotiations on the Tea Party, liberals hope to avoid any culpability in the morass.2011 air max Second, if there is a government slowdown, they want any public hardships blamed on anyone but themselves. After years of trying to label the Tea Party movement as extremist, liberals now hope that shuttered museums, national park closures and concerns about grandma not getting her Social Security check next month, will turn public opinion against the social movement responsible for ending liberals’ virtual monopoly on political power in Washington. With the potential loss of the Senate and executive branch next year, liberals are looking for the political equivalent of kryptonite to weaken the relative superpower of the Tea Party movement. Given the high stakes of a government slowdown and an opportunity to exploit the crisis for political gain, it was not shocking to hear about the liberal’s strategy to blame the Tea Party coming straight from the mouth of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.In a recent conference call with Senate colleagues in which he unknowingly laid out the strategy to reporters who were also on the call, Schumer instructed that the spin was to blame the Tea Party movement for conservative Sen.s sticking to legislation already passed in the House of Representatives that cut a mere $61 billion in spending. “I always use the word ‘extreme,’” he said. “That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.” Schumer followed his marching orders as dutifully as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Durbin, commenting about House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “And he has to tell his Tea Party ‘roughriders’ to put their horses in the barn. Save this argument for another day.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can’t open his mouth these days without slamming the Tea Party movement. The irony, of course, is that it’s not the Tea Party’s fault that in April 2011 Congress is sill haggling over the budget due in September 2010. The accountability for not having a budget resides fully with President Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill, who controlled the legislative agenda with a vast majority until this past January. Like Obamacare, liberals could have used their political advantage to ram a budget through Congress and Obama could have signed it. But the budget was not a priority. Instead, Obama and his progressive congressional allies spent their political capital and time having the government take over our nation’s health care system and trying to legislate fossil fuels out of existence through a “cap-and-trade” scheme. A budget just didn’t fit into this busy progressive agenda. Liberals’ failure to act left it up to the new congressional leadership. The conservative House passed a budget in February, but the Senate — still controlled by liberals — has yet to pass anything similar. Words can lie, but numbers don’t. In context, cutting $61 billion — or the $100 billion wanted by the Tea Party — from a federal budget expected to spend $3.8 trillion is far from extreme. The sheer fact that liberals are threatening a government slowdown over a mere 1.6 percent cut in the total budget just reeks of political shenanigans. As opposed to the last government slowdown, liberals are misplaying their hand. Clinton-era slowdowns hurt conservatives, and that’s what the liberals expect this time. What they are not considering is that debt was not a concern back then. Fear of the exploding national deficit — a key Tea Party rallying point — is on virtually everyone’s mind these days. Moreover, progressive demonization of the Tea Party movement is not working. It didn’t work when they tried to marginalize and discredit the movement by calling its members racists and it’s not working now as they try to blame the Tea Party movement for the lack of a budget deal. More problematic for Obama and company is that more Americans are siding with the Tea Party, and this rise seems to correlate with increasing frustration over Congress.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would furlough 62% of its staff if the federal government shuts down, officials said. Agencies focusing mostly on administrative and regulatory work, such as the FDA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), would send nearly all of their staffs home. On the other hand, units that provide direct clinical services, such as the Indian Health Service, would retain most personnel, according to a guidance posted on HHS's website. Funding for the federal government for fiscal 2011 runs out just after midnight on Friday and negotiations appeared to be at a standstill. Democrats are saying they've gucci outlet agreed with Republicans on much to cut from federal spending for the remainder of the year, and that the only thing blocking a deal is the GOP's insistence to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Republicans, meanwhile, have countered that there is no such agreement on a dollar figure. Obama administration officials said two types of federally funded activities will not be affected by the government shutdown: those that receive funding from sources other than the federal government, such as user fees; and those that are necessary to protect life or property, such as law enforcement as well as clinical health services. With the possiblity of a shut-down just hours away, federal agencies are firming up their plans, and it seems governmental stand-still would have a big impact the nation's government-funded public health, research, and medicine programs. FDA According to an FDA spokeswoman, only 2,000 employees out of 13,000 would continue their work at the agency in the event of a government shutdown. About half of those work for the FDA's Office of Regulatory Affairs, many of which are out in the field inspecting food, drug, and medical facilities. Medical device and drug reviewers would be furloughed, meaning applications for new drugs and devices would collect dust during a shutdown. Although FDA operations are funded in part with user fees from drug and device companies, those funds have already been exhausted because it's so late in the year, an FDA spokeswoman told MedPage Today. She said the fiscal 2011 appropriations are therefore crucial for uninterrupted review of medical products, The deadlines for when FDA is expected to hand down approval decisions on drugs and devices, known as PDUFA dates, will all be adjusted if the government shuts down. For example, if the government is shut down for five days, drug and device companies can expect to wait at least an additional five days longer beyond the currently scheduled PDUFA date, the spokeswoman said. The one agency at the FDA that is funded entirely through user fees -- the Center for Tobacco Products -- will run at full-speed and not furlough a single employee, the spokeswoman said. In addition, if the government shuts down, there will be no advisory committee meetings. A meeting scheduled for next week, on everolimus tablets (Afinitor) to treat advanced gastrointestinal, lung, or pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, would be cancelled. CDC The vast majority of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be furloughed if the government ceased operations, said an HHS spokesman. Because the CDC tracks new public health threats such as disease outbreaks, the worst-case scenario during a shutdown would be a massive outbreak of a food-borne illness or other communicable disease. The CDC's emergency operation center -- a command center for monitoring and coordinating CDC's emergency response to public health threats in the United States and abroad -- will remain open. The center is currently working on responses to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But responses may be delayed, the spokesman said. "If a state were to call us and say 'We need help,' we may not be able to respond quickly," the spokesman said. While emergency workers will continue their jobs, the staff who work to "get people out the door," by booking travel and facilitating meetings, won't be working. "This would prevent us from responding as quickly as we'd like," the spokesman said. In addition, the CDC's ability to detect an outbreak could be jeapordized, he said. "We have a lot of disease surveillance networks. If those are scaled back to just the staff that monitor those networks, it could conceivably lead to us not being able to detect an outbreak as quickly as we'd like to. We simply won't have the manpower we have right now," the HHS spokesman said. Investigations of an ongoing disease outbreaks will continue, and organisms in labs will be looked after. Localities that receive CDC grant money for public health or surveillance research could continue their research, but any new studies, experiments, or surveys scheduled to start would be cancelled. In the event of a shutdown, the CDC won't publish any surveys, studies, or reports, such as its closely watched Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. CDC would continue to implement global health programs abroad, such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which were funded through prior-year appropriations.

Following an attack in the parking lot of Dodger stadium that left a visiting fan with brain damage, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday announced they would dramatically increase the number of police patrolling the facility. "You are going to see a sea of blue. And it’s not going to be Dodger blue. It’s going to be LAPD blue," Beck said of the police presence at the team’s next home game April 14. Beck said he would “expend whatever resources necessary to keep fans safe at Dodger stadium. This is going to be a game-changer. supra People will be awed by the response of the Los Angeles Police Department to this because we will not suffer this as a city again. People have a right to enjoy the American pastime and we are going to assure that right.” The chief and mayor were joined at a press conference by City Councilmember Ed Reyes, who represents the Elysian Park area that includes the stadium. Reyes on Wednesday pushed through the council a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the two men suspected of beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow after the two teams met on opening day last week. Along with money ponied up by the two teams and others, the city’s reward brought the total offer to $100,000. LAPD Deputy Chief Jose Perez said police were inundated with over 80 tips from callers responding to composite sketches of the attackers. As detectives continue to track down leads, Reyes said he hoped reward money would entice people who know the attackers to come forward with their names. “To the cowards who did this: I know you’re watching. We will find you. It would be better for you to turn yourselves in,” Reyes said. Beck declined to discuss specifics of the plan to beef up security at the stadium, but said in a brief interview that it would be “at the absolute minimum” a doubling of the 30 to 40 uniformed officers who typically work at games. Beck said his staff was still working to determine the number of officers needed to provide more comprehensive patrol coverage inside and outside sprawling facility. He emphasized that plainclothes officers would be deployed as well. LAPD officers who work at Dodger Stadium are typically off-duty from their normal patrol assignment, so it is unlikely the added deployment will strain staffing at area police stations. The stadium is one of a handful of high-profile locations that has an agreement with the city to use uniformed, off-duty officers for security. When asked whether the cost of adding additional officers would be passed on to Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Beck said he expected the Dodgers would foot the bill. Villaraigosa declined to say whether he had a formal commitment from McCourt to pay what could quickly become a six-figure cost, depending on how big the response and how many games it lasts. Discussions with McCourt and his staff to reach an agreement are ongoing, Villaraigosa said. The mayor and Beck said they had told McCourt they disagree with the team’s policy of not allowing off-duty police officers to carry their weapons into the stadium. With much being made about McCourt’s decision Wednesday to hire Beck’s predecessor William Bratton to assess security measures at the stadium, Beck made clear that Bratton would have no say over how LAPD officers are deployed during games. He said the pair had spoken by phone several times since Bratton was brought on board to discuss the issue.

DNA may play a large role in determining how much caffeine people consume in beverages such as coffee, tea, and soda and food such as chocolate, new research indicates. Scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute, and other institutions say they have discovered two genetic variations that influence the metabolism of caffeine and are associated with how much caffeine people consume. People with particular variations of two specific genes are more likely to consume caffeine, and to drink more of it when they do,gucci outlet study leader Marilyn C. Cornelis, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, tells WebMD. Genes and Coffee The genes are identified as CYP1A2, long known to play some role in caffeine metabolism, and another called AHR, which affects regulation of CYP1A2. All people have both genes, but the study, involving more than 47,000 middle-aged Americans of European descent, finds that people with the highest-consumption variant for either gene consumed about 40 milligrams more caffeine than people with the lowest-consumption gene varieties. Forty milligrams is the equivalent of 1/3 cup of caffeinated coffee or one can of soda. Cornelis says her own father may carry the variations that correspond to higher caffeine consumption because he drinks “at least 10 cups” daily. “He’s not trying to achieve pleasurable effects,” she tells WebMD. “Rather, he’s trying to maintain levels as a means to avoid the withdrawal symptoms. Without a cup he’d wake up in the middle of the night with a headache.” That suggests he “could possibly have the genetic profile of a fast caffeine metabolizer,” she says in an email. The researchers say it’s likely that genetics plays a major role in other behaviors, such as alcohol consumption and smoking.The researchers say in a news release that their conclusions are based on an analysis of five studies conducted between 1984 and 2001. Average caffeine consumption via coffee, tea, caffeinated sodas, or chocolate was recorded. About 80% of the caffeine intake among participants involved in the analysis was from coffee, similar to the adult caffeine consumption in the U.S. “We propose that those with the genotype corresponding to ‘higher caffeine consumption’ are metabolizing caffeine at a different rate vs. those with the ‘lower caffeine consumption’ genotype, and so require a different level of intake to maintain or achieve physiological caffeine levels that produce pleasurable effects,” Cornelis tells WebMD. So what does this mean? “Clearly these genetic variants are affecting how our body processes caffeine,” she tells WebMD. Caffeine is implicated in a number of medical and physiological conditions. Caffeine affects mood, sleep patterns, energy levels, and mental and physical performance. “Caffeinated products, particularly coffee, have long been implicated in various health conditions.” She says that “studying the effects of caffeine, say, on the cardiovascular system, would be challenging if the group of subjects we’re studying process caffeine differently.”This genetic knowledge could be used “to advance caffeine research and potentially identify subgroups, defined by genotype, of the population most susceptible to the effects of caffeine,” Cornelis tells WebMD. “More research on the precise function of these variants is needed, however, and there are likely more ‘caffeine genes’ to be identified.” She tells WebMD that her team’s findings “demonstrate that our search approach -- scanning the entire human genome -- works.” Also, it shows for the first time that genetics may be responsible for inherited differences in how people drink coffee.