Medicines Co. Licenses Rights to Cholesterol Drug

The drug, known as ALN-PCS, inhibits a protein in the body known as PCSK9. Such drugs might one day be used to treat millions of people who do not achieve sufficient cholesterol-lowering from commonly used statins, such as Lipitor.

The Medicines Company will pay $25 million initially and as much as $180 million later if certain development and sales goals are met, under the deal expected to be formally announced Monday. It will also pay Alnylam, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., double-digit royalties on global sales.

That is small payment for a drug with presumably a huge potential market, probably reflecting that Alnylam is still in the first of three phases of clinical trials, well behind some far bigger competitors.

The team of Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is already entering the third and final stage of trials with their PCSK9 inhibitor, as is Amgen. Pfizer and Roche are in midstage trials.

ALN-PCS is different from the other drugs. It uses a gene-silencing mechanism called RNA interference, aimed at shutting off production of the PCSK9 protein. The other drugs are proteins called monoclonal antibodies that inhibit the action of PCSK9 after it has been formed.

Alnylam and the Medicines Company hope that turning off the faucet, as it were, will be more efficient than mopping the floor, allowing their drug to be given less frequently and in smaller amounts.

But that has yet to be proved. No drug using RNA interference has reached the market.

The Medicines Company, based in Parsippany, N.J., generates almost all of its revenue from one product — Angiomax, an anticlotting drug used when patients receive stents to open clogged arteries.

Dr. Clive A. Meanwell, chief executive of the company, said that PCSK9 inhibitors are likely to be used at first mainly by patients with severe lipid problems under the care of interventional cardiologists, the same doctors who use Angiomax. “It really is quite adjacent to what we do,” he said.

The Medicines Company licensed Angiomax from Biogen Idec, where the drug was invented and initially developed under a team led by Dr. John M. Maraganore, who is now the chief executive of Alnylam.

“It’s a bit like getting the band back together,” Dr. Maraganore said.

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Al-Qaida-Linked Militants Free 2 Filipino Hostages

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Abu Sayyaf gunmen have freed two Filipino members of a Jordanian TV journalist's crew who were kidnapped by the al-Qaida-linked militants last year as they set out to interview the extremists in their jungle lairs in the southern Philippines, police said Sunday.

Policemen found frail-looking cameraman Ramel Vela and audio technician Roland Letriro late Saturday and brought them to a hospital in southern Sulu province, where they were kidnapped in June along with Jordanian Baker Abdulla Atyani, provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra said.

Atyani is believed to still be held by the gunmen in the jungles of Sulu's mountainous Patikul town, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) south of Manila.

"We're so happy. We never thought we'd make it out alive," a teary-eyed Vela said at his hospital bed, adding that he and Letriro have not seen Atyani since the Jordanian was separated from them by their kidnappers five days after they were taken hostage.

Visibly thinner, shocked and with overgrown hair and beard, the two were examined by doctors and given bread and water in the Sulu hospital, which was guarded by police and marines.

"They really lost weight because they were constantly under stress each day," Freyra told The Associated Press.

An unspecified amount was paid to secure the freedom of the two captives, according to three security officials who have been closely monitoring the kidnappings. The three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Military officials have said Abu Sayyaf militants have demanded 130 million pesos ($3.1 million) for the release of Atyani and his two crew members.

Hundreds of rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which signed a 1996 autonomy deal with the government, have also been negotiating with the Abu Sayyaf for the release of Atyani and other foreign hostages, including two European bird watchers who were abducted last year.

Moro commander Khabir Malik said his group had taken the initiative to seek the freedom of the hostages to help the government clean up the image of Sulu, a predominantly Muslim province where the Abu Sayyaf has carried out deadly bombings, kidnappings for ransom and beheadings, primarily in the early 2000s.

U.S.-backed military offensives have crippled the Abu Sayyaf in recent years, but it remains a national security threat. Washington has listed the group as a terrorist organization.

Malik said last week that he met with an Abu Sayyaf commander, Jul-Asman Sawadjaan, to seek the release of Atyani and his two crew members, who were believed being held in the jungles of Sulu's mountainous Patikul town. But the extremists refused to release their captives to the Moro rebels, Malik said.

Malik had suggested that his armed group could consider other options, including a rescue, to secure the captives' freedom from the smaller Abu Sayyaf group.

Abu Sayyaf gunmen handed the two Filipinos to still-unknown negotiators, but not to Malik's group, angering the Moro rebels, according to the three security officials.

A gunbattle erupted between Malik's forces and the Abu Sayyaf militants Sunday in Patikul's jungles, Freyra said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, and police and the military went on alert amid the fighting.

Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan has said he will not allow Malik's group to take any drastic action like a rescue that could harm the Abu Sayyaf's hostages.

Atyani was working for the Arabic satellite channel Middle East Broadcasting Corp. when he interviewed Osama bin Laden and his aides in Afghanistan about three months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He said they told him that the coming weeks would hold "important surprises that will target American and Israeli interests in the world."

He later moved to Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV as its Asia bureau chief. He traveled to Sulu to work on a documentary about the country's volatile south and possibly interview Abu Sayyaf militants in the impoverished province, Freyra and other officials said.

The other hostages being held by the Abu Sayyaf include the two European men, who were seized from nearby Tawi Tawi province in February last year and are believed to have been taken to Sulu, a Japanese treasure hunter, a Malaysian national and a Filipino resident of Sulu, officials say.

On Friday, Washington renewed a longstanding warning to Americans not to travel to Sulu "due to the high threat of kidnapping ... and violence linked to insurgency and terrorism there."

The Abu Sayyaf, which has about 380 armed fighters in Sulu and nearby islands, is an extremist offshoot of a Muslim rebellion that has been raging in the predominantly Catholic nation's south for decades. The violence has been fueled by abject poverty, corruption, proliferation of illegal weapons and weak law enforcement.

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Meet the Man Who Designed BlackBerry’s New Phones

When BlackBerry set out to design the phones that would take the company into the next decade, it faced a big challenge. The flagship device of the new BlackBerry 10 platform needed to simultaneously satisfy what today’s customers want in a smartphone while at the same time stay true to the essence of BlackBerry — which, if the company’s market over the last few years is any indication, customers didn’t want.

The man tasked with redesigning BlackBerry phones was Todd Wood, the company’s senior vice president of design. Leading industrial design at BlackBerry since 2006, Wood is a veteran of industrial design, previously doing design work for Nokia and, before that, Nortel. Mashable sat down with Wood this week while he was in town for the BlackBerry 10 launch.

[More from Mashable: Here’s a Mysterious Image From BlackBerry’s Super Bowl Ad]

Wood speaks with the same thoughtfulness of other design leaders, such as Apple’s Jony Ive, but with none of the showiness. He’s been with BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) for long enough to see its fortunes rise and fall. As he describes the Z10, you feel that he’s heard enough praise and criticism about BlackBerry’s products that it all just bounces off.

[More from Mashable: Don’t Hold Your Breath for More BlackBerry Tablets]

When I bring up the BlackBerry Storm — the company’s previous (failed) attempt to create a touchscreen phone — Wood doesn’t bristle or even acknowledge the disaster it was. He simply describes certain design elements that a similar to the BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry’s new flagship phone. And he makes them sound kind of cool.

“There’s still the ‘waterfall’ that was pronounced on Storm — these flowing surfaces,” Wood says as he points to the top and bottom of the Z10, which are ever-so-slightly sloped. “We’ve brought that with the margins [on the Z10], but it’s very subtle. There are some principles that we carry forward, but nothing’s been cut and pasted.”

As CEO Thorsten Heins described at the launch, BlackBerry faced a decision three years ago: adopt someone else’s mobile OS or go it alone. It opted for the latter, acquiring QNX software in 2010 and adapting it to build first the PlayBook, then BlackBerry 10.

Completely switching mobile platforms was risky and extremely challenging, but it was also a huge design opportunity, says Wood.

“We were starting the platform from scratch. We wanted to build on the design DNA [BlackBerry] had, and we wanted to keep certain attributes — the fit to face, fit to hand — the general comfort of the device, the build quality of the device.”

No Home Button

Key decisions about the device itself depended on how the software worked. There’s no home button on the Z10, for example — a user controls basic functions (like switching between apps) via gestures, such as swiping up from the edge of the screen.

Much of the design was influenced by the need for easy, one-handed operation.

“How can you design a system where you could multitask more elegantly?” Wood asks, rhetorically. “It’s not unlike shuffling cards. And we started to realize you can really do that with one hand and one thumb.

“Almost every phone has a UI paradigm of ‘You go home to go somewhere else.’ Here you can flow from app to app.”

Soft Touch Backside

The phone has a semi-rubberized back, a material that BlackBerry refers to as “soft touch.” The company has used it before — in the trim of the latest Bold smartphone, for example. But in the Z10, Wood’s team added a perforated pattern.

“Soft touch is a special coating that we use,” he explains. “It provides grip, and it’s very silky. What we did was add some microtexture to it, which is something that you don’t notice until you pick the phone up and run your hand across it. It’s a nice subtlety.”

Button Shapes

If you’ve ever thought the physical buttons on Samsung’s phones felt cheap, or the iPhone’s too bland, you’ll appreciate RIM’s contoured buttons for volume and media playback. The volume buttons have a slight notch on one side, and the play/pause button has a small upraised piece — all detectable by touch.

“We wanted to keep them really precise and clean,” says Wood. “We sculpted the keys so it’s always really apparent without looking, almost like braille, exactly where you are.”

Font

Wood also played a role in choosing the system font for BlackBerry 10, which is called Slate. Designed by Canadian Rod McDonald (who also designed the font for Maclean’s, one of Canada’s top national news magazines), BlackBerry chose Slate for its legibility, Wood says.

“Slate really works for screen and print, so we decided to adopt it. When you have such a high-res display, you get really accurate letterforms. When you have a really great font design, that improves productivity. You’re not squinting, and letters are not misinterpreted.”

The Q10

Of course, Wood also led the team that designed the Q10, the BlackBerry 10 phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard, coming about a month after the Z10 debuts. Although the Q10 borrows more design DNA from the BlackBerry of old, BB10 afforded some big departures as well.

For starters, the Q10′s keyboard is straight whereas most previous BlackBerry phone keyboards had a curve to them — which even led to the company calling one of its product lines the Curve.

“That is a big change,” Wood says of straightening out the keyboard for the Q10. “It was very logical, but also it signals ‘This is different.’ And there’s no performance tradeoff with it being straight — we’ve measured it.”

Besides being straight, the keyboard is larger than the ones on previous BlackBerry phones.

“What allows us to get that extra size is we’ve replaced the home key, the back key and the send/end keys, since everything in BB10 is controlled by gestures and direct manipulation of the data. Without the curve, each key is the same size, and they’re 3% larger.”

The Red LED

No BlackBerry phone would be complete without the trademark — and at times notorious — blinking red LED that indicates a message is waiting. Wood says the attribute is hard-wired into BlackBerry design at this point and at no point did the company consider ditching it.

“That’s probably the strongest, most iconic element of the DNA we carry forward,” he says. “It’s origins were ‘Let’s save on battery life,’ and it continues today. For us, we call it the spark, or the splat. It’s a hallmark of BlackBerry it makes some people excited, and it makes some people neurotic, but it’s up to end users to manage that.”

How do you like the design of BlackBerry’s new phones? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Click here to view the gallery: BlackBerry Z10 Review

Lead image by Nina Frazier, Mashable

Images by Nina Frazier, Christina Warren and Pete Pachal, Mashable

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Peterson double winner of AP NFL awards

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Adrian Peterson called it a blessing in disguise.

Strange way to describe career-threatening major knee surgery.

The Minnesota Vikings' star came back better than ever, just missing Eric Dickerson's longstanding rushing record and closing out the season with two of the top NFL awards from The Associated Press: Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year.

As sort of an added bonus, he beat Peyton Manning for both of them Saturday night.

"My career could have easily been over, just like that," the sensational running back said. "Oh man. The things I've been through throughout my lifetime has made me mentally tough.

" I'm kind of speechless. This is amazing, " he said in accepting his awards, along with five others at the "2nd Annual NFL Honors" show on CBS saluting the NFL's best players, performances and plays from the 2012 season. The awards are based on balloting from a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the NFL.

Manning's own sensational recovery, from four neck surgeries, earned him Comeback Player honors.

"This injury was unlike any other," said the only four-time league MVP. "There really was no bar or standard, there were no notes to copy. We were coming up with a rehab plan as we went."

Before sitting out 2011, Manning had never missed a start in his first 13 seasons with Indianapolis. But he was released by the Colts last winter because of his neck issues, signed with Denver and guided the Broncos to the AFC's best record, 13-3.

"Certainly you have double variables of coming off injury, not playing for over year and joining a new team. That certainly added a lot to my plate, so it was hard to really know what to expect," Manning said. "I can't tell you how grateful and thankful I am. I can't tell you how happy I am to be playing the game of football we all love so much."

Also honored were:

—Washington's Robert Griffin III, who beat out a strong crop of quarterbacks for the top offensive rookie award.

— Houston end J.J. Watt, who took Defensive Player of the Year, getting 49 of 50 votes.

— Bruce Arians, the first interim coach to win Coach of the Year after leading Indianapolis to a 9-3 record while head man Chuck Pagano was being treated for leukemia. Arians became Arizona's head coach last month.

—Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly, the league's leader in tackles with 164, who won the top defensive rookie award.

Peterson returned better than ever from the left knee surgery, rushing for 2,097 yards, 9 short of breaking Dickerson's record. He also sparked the Vikings' turnaround from 3-13 to 10-6 and a wild-card playoff berth.

He received 30 1-2 votes to 19 1-2 for Manning.

"I played my heart out, every opportunity I had," Peterson said. "The result of that is not what I wanted, which is being in the Super Bowl game. But I have a couple of good pieces of hardware to bring back and (put) in my statue area. So it feels good."

Was the knee injury the toughest thing he'd ever overcome?

"Losing my brother at 7, seeing him get hit by a car right in front of me, that was the toughest," he said. "But as far as injuries, yes."

New England QB Tom Brady was the last winner of MVP and Offensive Player in 2010.

"Trying to get two or three like Peyton, trying to get to your level," Peterson said of his first MVP award. "But I won't be there to accept it because I'll be winning with my coach, the most important award, the team award, the Super Bowl."

Dickerson predicted Peterson could get back to 2,000 yards.

"I hope he does have a chance to do it again," Dickerson said, adding with a laugh, "but do I want him to break it? No, I do not."

Wearing a burgundy and gold tie in honor of his Redskins, Griffin said his goal is to be ready for the season opener.

"It's truly a blessing to be up there — to be able to stand, first and foremost," said Griffin, who underwent knee surgery last month. He added that next season "you'll see a better Robert Griffin."

Arians moved up from offensive coordinator and helped Indianapolis make the playoffs at 10-6, making him an easy winner in the balloting.

"It's hard to put into words the feelings of this past year," he said. "This was kind of the cherry on the top, whipped cream and everything else you put on top."

Watt swatted the competition as Denver's Von Miller got the only other vote in the most lopsided balloting of all the awards.

"It sets the bar for me," Watt said. He led the NFL with 20 1-2 sacks and also blocked an astounding 16 passes. "I want to go out and do even better. I want to do even bigger things."

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

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Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

"Greed is not a crime. But the question is: where does greed lead?" said Olafur Hauksson, a special prosecutor in Reykjavik.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”

Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”

With the global economy still struggling to recover from the financial maelstrom five years ago, governments around the world have been criticized for largely failing to punish the bankers who were responsible for the calamity. But even here in Iceland, a country of just 320,000 that has gone after financiers with far more vigor than the United States and other countries hit by the crisis, obtaining criminal convictions has proved devilishly difficult.

Public hostility toward bankers is so strong in Iceland that “it is easier to say you are dealing drugs than to say you’re a banker,” said Thorvaldur Sigurjonsson, the former head of trading for Kaupthing, a once high-flying bank that crumbled. He has been called in for questioning by Mr. Hauksson’s office but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Yet, in the four years since the Icelandic Parliament passed a law ordering the appointment of an unnamed special prosecutor to investigate those blamed for the country’s spectacular meltdown in 2008, only a handful of bankers have been convicted.

Ministers in a left-leaning coalition government elected after the crash agree that the wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they call for patience, explaining that the process must follow the law, not vengeful passions.

“We are not going after people just to satisfy public anger,” said Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, Iceland’s minister of industry, a former finance minister and leader of the Left-Green Movement that is part of the governing coalition.

Hordur Torfa, a popular singer-songwriter who helped organize protests that forced the previous conservative government to resign, acknowledged that “people are getting impatient” but said they needed to accept that “this is not the French Revolution. I don’t believe in taking bankers out and hanging them or shooting them.”

Others are less patient. “The whole process is far too slow,” said Thorarinn Einarsson, a left-wing activist. “It only shows that ‘banksters’ can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Mr. Hauksson, the special prosecutor, said he was frustrated by the slow pace but thought it vital that his office scrupulously follow legal procedure. “Revenge is not something we want as our main driver in this process. Our work must be proper today and be seen as proper in the future,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting bankers, he said, is that the law is often unclear on what constitutes a criminal offense in high finance. “Greed is not a crime,” he noted. “But the question is: where does greed lead?”

Mr. Hauksson said it was often easy to show that bankers violated their own internal rules for lending and other activities, but “as in all cases involving theft or fraud, the most difficult thing is proving intent.”

And there are the bankers themselves. Those who have been brought in for questioning often bristle at being asked to account for their actions. “They are not used to being questioned. These people are not used to finding themselves in this situation,” Mr. Hauksson said. They also hire expensive lawyers.

The special prosecutor’s office initially had only five staff members but now has more than 100 investigators, lawyers and financial experts, and it has relocated to a big new office. It has opened about 100 cases, with more than 120 people now under investigation for possible crimes relating to an Icelandic financial sector that grew so big it dwarfed the rest of the economy.

To help ease Mr. Hauksson’s task, legislators amended the law to allow investigators easy access to confidential bank information, something that previously required a court order.

Parliament also voted to put the country’s prime minister at the time of the banking debacle on trial for negligence before a special tribunal. (A proposal to try his cabinet failed.) Mr. Hauksson was not involved in the case against the former leader, Geir H. Haarde, who last year was found guilty of failing to keep ministers properly informed about the 2008 crisis but was acquitted on more serious charges that could have resulted in a prison sentence.

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At War Blog: Veterans in College: Share Your Stories

“Graduate, graduate, graduate,” the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric K. Shinseki, recently implored the audience at a conference of the Student Veterans of America. But what, exactly, will it take to ensure that veterans succeed in college?

Since the post-9/11 G.I. Bill took effect in 2009, about 877,000 people, mainly veterans and their dependents, have received tuition and other college benefits costing the government $23.7 billion. More than $10 billion is expected to be spent this year alone on veterans, plus about $560 million on tuition assistance for active-duty troops.

Yet just how those thousands of veterans in college are faring remains a bit of a mystery. Many colleges do not break out graduation and retention numbers for veterans, and the federal government has not tracked the numbers. Only last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a partnership with the National Student Clearinghouse and the Student Veterans of America to collect and analyze data on veterans in school, with an eye to determining if they are succeeding — or failing — and why.

In the latest Education Life, The Times’s education supplement, two articles focus on programs intended to help veterans graduate.
One of them, “A Million Strong,” describes the panoply of programs that colleges have created to support veterans, including opening veterans centers, hiring specially trained counselors and creating veterans-only courses, orientation programs and even housing.

For traditional colleges like San Diego State University or the University of Alabama, creating brick-and-mortar centers where veterans can socialize, receive tutoring or meet counselors is one thing. But for online programs, both nonprofit and for profit, the challenge of assisting veterans and making them feel comfortable can be greater, as colleges like University of Maryland University College are finding.

The key for both traditional and online schools, says Travis L. Martin, a driving force behind a veterans studies program at Eastern Kentucky University and a veteran himself, is introducing students both to other veterans and to those who never served in the armed forces.

“I’ve learned that creating community was key for the veterans,” he said. “Those relationships will keep them in school.”

The second article, “Warrior Voices,” describes how writing workshops are providing many veterans with an alternative means of healing the psychological and spiritual wounds of war.

In writing about war, writing teachers explain, veterans must organize and analyze difficult memories, possibly gaining some control over their traumas along the way. Such was the case with Micah Owen, who served with Travis Martin in Iraq and later became his student at Eastern Kentucky.

Though Mr. Owen, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, says he has trouble talking about his war experiences, he has had no trouble writing about it. “Once the words started coming, I couldn’t stop them,” he said.

The Education Life supplement includes essays and poems from several veterans, including Mr. Martin and Mr. Owen.

Now it’s your turn.

If you are a veteran, send us your memories – about war, deployment, training or the transition to civilian life. The subject areas are wide open; we just ask that you keep your submissions under 700 words. We’ll then select some of the pieces to be published at nytimes.com.

To submit a piece, go to this site and fill out the form.

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BlackBerry 10 installed base to reach 20 million in 2013, Windows Phone to reach 45 million

Despite showing clear promise and being a tremendous upgrade compared to earlier BlackBerry software, BlackBerry 10 didn’t receive the warmest welcome when it was unveiled earlier this week. At least one leading market research firm thinks BlackBerry (RIMM) has done enough to gain some good traction in 2013, however. ABI Research released new estimates this week projecting that the BlackBerry 10 installed base will reach 20 million by the end of 2013. The firm also says Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone platform, which struggled to garner interest in its early days, will see its installed base climb to 45 million by the end of the year.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry doesn’t need to catch up with Android and iOS overnight, it needs to live to fight another day]

“2013 should be seen as relative success for both Microsoft and BlackBerry,” ABI analyst Aapo Markkanen said. ”For the end of the year, we expect there to be 45 million Windows Phone handsets in use, with BlackBerry 10 holding an installed base of close to 20 million. Microsoft will also have 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets to show for it.”

[More from BGR: GS: Ignore the chatter, BlackBerry rebound is coming]

According to ABI, these figures will be “enough to keep developers interested” as the two companies battle for the No.3 spot in the smartphone war.

“The greatest fear for both Microsoft and BlackBerry is that the initial sales of their smartphones will disappoint and thereby kill off the developer interest, which then would effectively close the window of opportunity on further sales success. Our view is that the installed bases of this scale would be large enough to keep these two in the game,” Markkanen noted. ”It will definitely also help that both firms have actively kept the developers’ interest in mind while designing and rolling out their platforms.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NFL's Goodell aims to share blame on player safety

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to share the blame.

"Safety," he said at his annual Super Bowl news conference, "is all of our responsibilities."

Not surprisingly, given that thousands of former players are suing the league about its handling of concussions, the topics of player health and improved safety dominated Goodell's 45-minute session Friday. And he often sounded like someone seeking to point out that players or others are at fault for some of the sport's problems — and need to help fix them.

"I'll stand up. I'll be accountable. It's part of my responsibility. I'll do everything," Goodell said. "But the players have to do it. The coaches have to do it. Our officials have to do it. Our medical professionals have to do it."

Injuries from hits to the head or to the knees, Goodell noted, can result from improper tackling techniques used by players and taught by coaches. The NFL Players Association needs to allow testing for human growth hormone to go forward so it can finally start next season, which Goodell hopes will happen. He said prices for Super Bowl tickets have soared in part because fans re-sell them above face value.

And asked what he most rues about the New Orleans Saints bounty investigation — a particularly sensitive issue around these parts, of course — Goodell replied: "My biggest regret is that we aren't all recognizing that this is a collective responsibility to get (bounties) out of the game, to make the game safer. Clearly the team, the NFL, the coaching staffs, executives and players, we all share that responsibility. That's what I regret, that I wasn't able to make that point clearly enough with the union."

He addressed other subjects, such as a "new generation of the Rooney Rule" after none of 15 recently open coach or general manager jobs went to a minority candidate, meaning "we didn't have the outcomes we wanted"; using next year's Super Bowl in New Jersey as a test for future cold-weather, outdoor championship games; and saying he welcomed President Barack Obama's recent comments expressing concern about football's violence because "we want to make sure that people understand what we're doing to make our game safer."

Also:

— New Orleans will not get back the second-round draft pick Goodell stripped in his bounty ruling;

— Goodell would not give a time frame for when the NFL could hold a game in Mexico;

— next season's games in London — 49ers-Jaguars and Steelers-Vikings — are sellouts.

Goodell mentioned some upcoming changes, including the plan to add independent neurologists to sidelines to help with concussion care during games — something players have asked for and the league opposed until now.

"The No. 1 issue is: Take the head out of the game," Goodell said. "I think we've seen in the last several decades that players are using their head more than they had when you go back several decades."

He said one tool the league can use to cut down on helmet-to-helmet hits is suspending players who keep doing it.

"We're going to have to continue to see discipline escalate, particularly on repeat offenders," Goodell said. "We're going to have to take them off the field. Suspension gets through to them."

The league will add "expanded physicals at the end of each season ... to review players from a physical, mental and life skills standpoint so that we can support them in a more comprehensive fashion," Goodell said.

With question after question about less-than-light matters, one reporter drew a chuckle from Goodell by asking how he's been treated this week in a city filled with supporters of the Saints who are angry about the way the club was punished for the bounty system the NFL said existed from 2009-11.

"My picture, as you point out, is in every restaurant. I had a float in the Mardi Gras parade. We got a voodoo doll," Goodell said.

But he added that he can "appreciate the passion" of the fans and, actually, "couldn't feel more welcome here."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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