Supporters upset by sentence
of 35 years for Manning


The military and the government have deemed U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning a lawbreaker. But supporters say he is a whistleblower, and they have spoken out after a military judge sentenced him Wednesday to 35 years in prison for giving U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks.

Shocking. Unfair. Those are the words supporters used to describe Bradley Manning's 35-year prison sentence for giving U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks. The secrets that sparked a dialogue about the activities of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, told reporters outside Fort Meade, near Washington, that the lengthy sentence brought him to tears.

"When I heard the sentence I thought to myself, I've represented hundreds of clients. My clients have ranged the full spectrum of people offenses, from people who've committed murder to people who have molested children, and those types of clients received less time than PFC Manning," said Coombs.

The military judge ordered Manning to be dishonorably discharged for his part in the biggest breach of classified documents in American history. The government has called his release of information destructive to U.S. interests.

But Manning's lawyer likened the army private's actions to anyone who legitimately exposed wartime truths. He called his case a watershed moment in press freedom that threatens the flow of information to the public.

"The loser is anybody who hopes that we will have whistleblowers in the future willing to come forward, because, as I said before, this does send a message, and its a chilling one, and it's endorsed at the very highest levels," he said.

About 20 supporters gathered outside a busy highway at the entrance of the fort ahead of Manning's sentencing.

Farah Muhsin defiantly held up a sign that read "Thank you, Bradley Manning," even as some drivers in the military town honked and shouted obscenities out of their windows.

"Bradley Manning did the right thing in my opinion. He saw war crimes, and he refused to be quiet about it," said Ms. Muhsin.

Not all in the military community disapprove of Manning's actions. Take Ken Howland, for instance. The former military medic in the Vietnam War protested at Fort Meade in support of Manning for hours. He said he, too, would have leaked information if he thought it exposed war crimes.

"Soldiers' duty, honor country, and you might add the truth. That's rather important and that's something worth fighting for, but people should know what's going on and he made an effort to do that," said Howland.

Manning's lawyer says the next step will be to appeal to the military's convening authority to try to reduce his sentence. He also is filing a request to have the president pardon Manning.

"The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them is now. The time for our president to pardon is now," said Coombs.

Manning writes in a letter read by his lawyer that if the president does not pardon him, he will serve his time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. He could be eligible for parole in about seven years.


New documents confirms
NSA grabbed 56,000 emails


U.S. intelligence officials released new documents Wednesday showing that the National Security Agency may have unintentionally collected as many as 56,000 emailed communications of Americans between 2008 and 2011.
 
The officials revealed the documents as part of an effort to explain how the NSA spotted, and then fixed, technical problems which led to the inadvertent collection of emails of American citizens without warrants.
 
The move is the Obama administration's latest response to continuing controversy over alleged electronic eavesdropping excesses by the NSA.
 
The documents included a formerly top-secret, but newly-declassified ruling by the ultra-secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in which the court itself, in an obscure footnote, estimates, based on data supplied by NSA, that between 2008 and 2011, the agency might have unintentionally collected as many as 56,000 emailed communications of Americans.
 
U.S. intelligence officials who agreed to answer questions about the documents' contents told reporters the domestic emails were collected in the execution of a program designed to target the emails of foreign terrorism suspects.
 
According to the officials and a court document which the administration released, the NSA decided to purge the material after discovering it was inadvertently collected.
 
Details about the secretive surveillance programs have been brought to light in recent months by fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents to media outlets.


Kodak slims down to plan
renewal after its bankruptcy


Eastman Kodak Co, once a mighty photography pioneer, earned court approval Tuesday for a plan to emerge from bankruptcy as a much smaller digital-imaging company.
 
The green light from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in New York puts Kodak on track to exit bankruptcy in about two weeks.
 
“It will be enormously valuable for the company to get out of Chapter 11 and hopefully begin to regain its position in the pantheon of American business,” Gropper said.
 
Kodak, based in Rochester, New York, was for years synonymous with household cameras and family snapshots. It filed a $6.75 billion bankruptcy in January 2012, weighed down by high pension costs and a years-long delay in embracing digital camera technology.
 
With the court approval, the company's exit from bankruptcy is now imminent, chief executive Antonio Perez said in a statement.
 
“Next, we move on to emergence as a technology leader serving large and growing commercial imaging markets,” he said, adding the company will have a leaner structure and a stronger balance sheet.
 
It has sold off assets, including its consumer-focused operations, and will emerge from Chapter 11 to focus mainly on commercial products such as high-speed digital printing technology and flexible packaging for consumer goods.
 
Its new structure will mean a lower public profile for Kodak's iconic name and its expected revenues, about $2.5 billion, are roughly half of what it had when it filed for Chapter 11.
 
In bankruptcy, Kodak failed to obtain significant value for its portfolio of patents, which experts said was a crucial reason it had to sell core businesses and reinvent itself. But the bankruptcy resolved a major dispute with retirees over pensions, and it has forged a restructuring plan that, while wiping out shareholders, should pay secured creditors and second-lien noteholders in full.
 
General unsecured creditors are likely to receive a marginal payout in the neighborhood of four cents to five cents on the dollar.
 
“This comes on a day when many are losing retirement benefits, and many are finding that their recovery as a creditor is just a minute fraction of what their debt is,” Gropper said. “But I cannot decree a larger payment for creditors or any payment for shareholders if the value is not there.”
 
Kodak's bankruptcy capped a protracted plunge for the company, which was founded in 1880 by George Eastman, the inventor of the hand-held camera and rolled photographic film. Kodak's market value topped $31 billion in the mid-1990s.
 
When it filed for bankruptcy, it hoped to fetch more than $2 billion for about 1,100 patents related to digital imaging. But due in part to losses in high-profile patent litigation with Apple, Inc,, the company was only able to sell the portfolio for about $525 million to a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp.
 
The company sought other ways to save money. In April, it resolved a crucial dispute with its British pension, which dropped a $2.8 billion claim against Kodak while buying the company's personalized imaging and document imaging businesses for $650 million.
 
The company reached an $895 million financing deal in June with JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp and Barclays Plc. It also plans a $406 million rights offering, selling 34 million shares, or 85 percent of the equity in the reorganized company, with proceeds going to creditors.
 

---

NASA administrator Charles Bolden formally introduced the space agency’s eight new astronaut candidates at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Wednesday.

The eight men and women who were picked by NASA to join the Astronaut Corps were chosen from more than 6,100 applicants after a rigorous selection process.

The new astronauts introduced by Bolden are Josh A. Cassada and Victor J. Glover, both lieutenant commanders in the U.S. Navy; Tyler N. "Nick" Hague, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force; Christina M. Hammock; Nicole Aunapu Mann, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps; Anne C. McClain and Andrew R. Morgan, both majors in the U.S. Army; and Jessica U. Meir.

“They not only have the right stuff…they represent the full tapestry of America,” Bolden said.  “These next generation of explorers will be among those who plan and carry out the first human missions to an asteroid or on to Mars. Their journey begins now, and the nation will be right beside them reaching for the stars.”

The new astronauts have a challenging future ahead of them.  NASA says that they will be among those who will be able to fly on the new commercial space transportation systems that are being developed and perhaps will carry out the first-ever human missions to an asteroid and Mars.

After introducing the new astronauts, representing the future of NASA, Bolden talked about future space exploration plans.
 
Bolden spoke of the updated Global Exploration Roadmap, an international effort developed by NASA and 11 other space agencies from around the world that share a global vision of space exploration.

While the space agency outlined its future today, it also is addressing its past. Officials at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida announced that they are looking for ideas on what to do with three of its historic mobile launch platforms that NASA no longer needs.

The space agency is thinking that perhaps some privately owned space companies could use the old launch facilities for their own commercial launch activity, non-space related private companies could repurpose the facilities for their own needs, or they could be used in other ways to benefit the public or environment.

The three mobile launch platforms NASA is looking to sell or lease include those that were used to hold Saturn rockets, which made their way to the moon as well as space shuttles whose program came to an end in 2011.

NASA described these launch platforms as two-story, steel structures that are almost 8 meters tall, 50 meters long, 41 meters wide and weigh around 4 kilotons.

The space agency added that each of the platforms feature a number of pathways, compartments and plumbing and electrical cabling systems.

NASA is also turning over the shuttle's runway to Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency. Space Florida, in turn, plans to make the runway and support facilities available to a variety of commercial companies, including privately owned XCOR Aerospace, which is developing a two-person, suborbital spaceship called Lynx that takes off and lands like an airplane.
 
Another potential customer is Stratolaunch Systems, an orbital space vehicle backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
 
The most contentious and highest profile piece of shuttle equipment available is a Kennedy Space Center launch pad that has attracted competing bids from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, co-founder of Paypal and chief executive of electric car company Tesla Motors.
 
Bezos and Musk, both billionaires, are vying for Launch Complex 39A. NASA intends to keep the second shuttle launch pad, 39B, for a new heavy-lift rocket under development called the Space Launch System.
 
Musk's Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, California, wants 39A to launch its Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets. The privately-owned firm, also known as SpaceX, already flies from a leased launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the Kennedy Space Center.
 
The first Falcon 9 rocket flight from a new launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is scheduled for next month. The company has a backlog of more than 50 launches, including 10 missions to fly cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.
 
SpaceX also is developing a version of its Dragon cargo ship to fly astronauts.
 
Startup Blue Origin, a Kent, Washington, firm owned by Bezos, submitted an alternative proposal to NASA to run pad 39A as a multi-user facility.
 
Both firms say they are ready to take over maintenance and operations of the launch pad on Oct. 1.
 
United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, did not bid on the shuttle's launch pad, but has publicly endorsed Blue Origin's proposals. The company, which has a lucrative monopoly on launching U.S. military satellites, is facing its first competition for the business from rival launch pad bidder SpaceX.
 
The main NASA facilities that will remain are the shuttle launch pad 39B, plus various hangars for the Orion deep space capsule to be launched by NASA's heavy lift rocket, due to begin test flights in 2017.


Jazz great Marian McPartland
broke ground for women


Marian McPartland, one of the best-known jazz artists in America, died Tuesday in Port Washington, New York. She was 95. A musician who broke ground for women instrumentalists in the 1940s and 1950s, she would later become best known as host of the long-running radio program “Piano Jazz.”

Ms. McPartland’s elegant approach to jazz gracefully spanned several major eras, from swing to bebop and beyond. Ms. McPartland brought the musical knowledge earned over decades playing in night-clubs to National Public Radio, where for more than 30 years she hosted “Piano Jazz,” a program that mixed conversation and performance with many of the world’s best musicians.

Born Margaret Marian Turner in Windsor, England, she took up piano. To her parents’ dismay, when she was 20 she left home to join a four-piano vaudeville act. On a tour playing for Allied troops during World War II she met American jazz trumpeter Jimmy McPartland. They married, and, after the war, moved to the United States. With her husband's encouragement, Ms. McPartland went on to lead her own small bands.

She landed a steady job performing at a New York City jazz club, the Hickory House. She played there for eight years, and developed a reputation not only for her fine piano playing, but for her melodic original compositions. Her songs were recorded by singers such as Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, and Peggy Lee.

At first, Ms. McPartland was so nervous about her songwriting she wouldn't take the credit for her own tunes.

"Years ago, I felt very insecure about writing songs, and I wrote one at the Hickory House," she said. "Somebody said, 'That's a nice song,' so then it was O.K. for me to say that I had written it. Isn't that sick?"

Starting in the 1960s, Ms. McPartland traveled to schools around the United States, encouraging students to develop an appreciation for jazz. She would use popular songs to introduce young listeners to the many sounds of jazz.

"I'll probably pick a tune that they know, something they've all heard, like the theme of  'M.A.S.H.,' for instance. They all know that. Then I'll do it another way, maybe like jazz, blues or something slow.  And I'll go through a whole thumbnail history of jazz. I'll do some boogie-woogie and so on, and really kind of grab them with that. But as long as you know tunes that they know, I think that helps a lot."

Ms. McPartland took that approach to the airwaves in 1979. Her weekly show, “Piano Jazz” became one of the most popular programs on public radio, airing across the United States for over three decades. Each week she would engage noted musicians in casual, relaxed interviews. She would take turns with her guests playing songs, and then would perform duets with them. Both in its music and its conversations, “Piano Jazz” expressed the core jazz virtue of improvisation.

The National Endowment for the Arts recognized Ms. McPartland as a “Jazz Master” in 2000. Four years later she won a special Grammy Award for her lifetime achievement. She continued to perform and broadcast into her 90s.


Mother's genes influence aging
of offsprings, study concludes


As humans age, body cells change and become damaged. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging have shown that aging is determined not only by the accumulation of changes during the lifetime but also by the genes acquired from the  mother. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature.

There are many causes of aging that are determined by an accumulation of various kinds of changes that impair the function of bodily organs. Of particular importance in aging, however, seems to be the changes that occur in the cell's power plant – the mitochondrion. This structure is located in the cell and generates most of the cell's supply of ATP which is used as a source of chemical energy.

"The mitochondria contains their own DNA, which changes more than the DNA in the nucleus, and this has a significant impact on the aging process," said Nils-Göran Larsson, professor at the Karolinska Institutet and principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, and leader of the current study alongside Lars Olson, professor in the institute's Department of Neuroscience. "Many mutations in the mitochondria gradually dis-able the cell's energy production," said Larsson.

For the first time, the researchers have shown that the aging process is influenced not only by the accumulation of mitochondrial DNA damage during a person's lifetime, but also by the inherited DNA from their mothers.

"Surprisingly, we also show that our mother's mitochondrial DNA seems to influence our own aging," said Larsson. "If we inherit mDNA with mutations from our mother, we age more quickly."

Normal and damaged DNA is passed down between generations. However, the question of whether it is possible to affect the degree of mDNA damage through lifestyle intervention is yet to be investigated. All that the researchers know now is that mild DNA damage transferred from the mother contributes to the aging process.

"The study also shows that low levels of mutated mDNA can have developmental effects and cause deformities of the brain," said lead author Jaime Ross of the Karolinska Institutet.

"Our findings can shed more light on the aging process and prove that the mitochondria play a key part in aging; they also show that it's important to reduce the number of mutations," said Larsson.

"These findings also suggest that therapeutic interventions that target mitochondrial function may influence the time course of aging," said Barry Hoffer, a co-author of the study from the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is also a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institutet.

"There are various dietary manipulations and drugs that can up-regulate mitochondrial function and/or reduce mitochondrial toxicity. An example would be antioxidants. This mouse model would be a 'platform' to test these drugs/diets," said Hoffer, a physcian.

The data published in the paper come from experiments on mice. The researchers now intend to continue their work on mice and on fruit flies to investigate whether reducing the number of mutations can extend their lifespan.