Teenager arrested in suicide hijacking plot

Authorities have charged a teenage boy who said he planned to hijack a commercial jetliner in an attempt to commit suicide, an FBI spokesman told CNN late Thursday.

The 16-year-old was taken into custody by airport police without incident on Tuesday evening after flying from Los Angeles, California, to Nashville, Tennessee, on Southwest Airlines Flight 284.

"His stated intent was to hijack the airplane and commit suicide," said George Bolds, an FBI spokesman in Memphis, Tennessee. "He did indicate he intended to die in Louisiana. It appears he had a ticket to Louisiana."

Bolds said the boy indicated he had lived in Louisiana.

The teen wanted to crash the plane into a Hannah Montana concert in Lafayette, Louisiana, two CNN television affiliates in Nashville, WSMV and WTVF, reported, citing unnamed sources. The concert is scheduled for Friday night at the Lafayette Cajundome.

Bolds said he had no information on whether the concert may have been targeted as part of the plot.

In the teen's possession were handcuffs, duct tape and a type of rope or yarn, according to the FBI. "His plan contemplated overpowering the flight crew," Bolds said.

The teen is being held on unspecified state charges and could face federal charges as well, Bolds said. CNN affiliate WTVF reported the teen has been charged with felony terrorism and is being held at the Davidson County juvenile detention center.

"It is my understanding that at no point in time during the course of the flight there was ever any safety concern," Southwest Airlines spokesman Chris Mainz said. Bolds also said nothing threatening occurred on the flight from California to Nashville.

It was not immediately clear how police became aware of the teen's presence on the flight or his alleged suicide plans.

"Hannah Montana" is a hit Disney Channel show -- which stars 14-year-old Miley Cyrus and her country singer dad, Billy Ray Cyrus -- about a teenage girl who is a typical high-schooler by day but has a secret pop-star alter ego by night

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Caffeine Possibly Tied to Miscarriages

Too much caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risk of miscarriage, a new study says, and it suggests that pregnant women may want to reduce their intake or cut it out entirely.

Many obstetricians already advise women to limit caffeine, although the subject has long been contentious, with conflicting studies, fuzzy data and various recommendations given over the years.

The new study, to be published Monday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, finds that pregnant women who consume 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day — the amount in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea — may double their risk of miscarriage.

Pregnant women should try to give up caffeine for at least the first three or four months, said the lead author of the study, Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

“If, for whatever reason, they really can’t do it, think of cutting to one cup or switching to decaf,” Dr. Li said. “Stopping caffeine really doesn’t have any downside.”

Professional groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have not taken official positions on caffeine, representatives said.

On Friday, the March of Dimes Web site said most experts agreed that the amount of caffeine found in 8 to 16 ounces of coffee a day was safe. It noted that some studies had linked higher amounts to miscarriage and low birth weight, but stated: “However, there is no solid proof that caffeine causes these problems. Until more is known, women should limit their caffeine intake during pregnancy.”

Now, having reviewed the new study, the March of Dimes plans to change its message to advise women who are pregnant or trying to conceive to limit their daily caffeine intake to 200 milligrams or less, said Janis Biermann, its senior vice president of education and health promotion.

“Women do need good guidance,” she said.

Dr. Li’s study included 1,063 pregnant women who were interviewed once about their caffeine intake. At the time of the interview, their median length of pregnancy was 71 days. But 102 had already miscarried — not surprising, because most miscarriages occur very early in pregnancy. Later, 70 more women miscarried, for an overall miscarriage rate of 16 percent for the group — a typical rate.

Of 264 women who said they used no caffeine, 12.5 percent had miscarriages. But the miscarriage rate was 24.5 percent in the 164 women who consumed 200 milligrams or more per day. The increased risk was associated with caffeine itself and not with other known risk factors like the mother’s age or smoking habits, the researchers said.

Dr. Li said the study answered an important question that previous research had left unresolved. Women who have morning sickness are less likely to miscarry than those who do not, possibly because the same hormonal changes that cause nausea and vomiting contribute to a healthy pregnancy. But some researchers said morning sickness could lead to misleading results in caffeine studies. These researchers argued that because they feel ill, some women may consume less caffeine. That tendency may make it appear that they are less likely to miscarry because they avoid caffeine, when the real reason is actually that they started out with healthier pregnancies.

Dr. Li said he and his colleagues carefully analyzed the data, and determined that the risk from caffeine was real and could not be explained away by different rates of morning sickness.

Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and of epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center, had reservations about the study, noting that miscarriage is difficult to study or explain. She said that most miscarriages resulted from chromosomal abnormalities, and that there was no evidence that caffeine could cause those problems.

“Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here,” she said. “But it is an excellent way to scare women.”

She said that smoking, chlamydial infections and increasing maternal age were stronger risk factors for miscarriage, and ones that women could do something about.

“Moderation in all things is still an excellent rule,” Dr. Westhoff said. “I think we tend to go overboard on saying expose your body to zero anything when pregnant. The human race wouldn’t have succeeded if the early pregnancy was so vulnerable to a little bit of anything. We’re more robust than that.”

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Edmund Hillary, First on Everest, Dies at 88

Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who withTenzing Norgay , his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, died Friday in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 88.

His death was announced by Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand.

In the annals of great heroic exploits, the conquest of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund and Mr. Norgay ranks with the first trek to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen in 1911 and the first solo nonstop trans-Atlantic flight by Charles A. Lindbery in 1927.

By 1953, nearly a century after British surveyors had established that the Himalayan peak on the Nepall-Tibet border was the highest point on earth, many climbers considered the mountain all but unconquerable. The summit was 5 ½ vertical miles above sea level (up where today’s jets fly): an otherworldly place of yawning crevasses and 100-mile-an-hour winds, of perpetual cold and air so thin that the human brain and lungs do not function properly in it.

Numerous Everest expeditions had failed, and dozens of experienced mountaineers, including many Sherpas, the Nepalese people famed as climbers, had been killed — buried in avalanches or lost and frozen in sudden storms that roared over the dizzying escarpments. One who vanished, in 1924, was George Leigh Mallory, known for snapping when asked why climb Everest, “Because it is there!” His body was found in the ice 75 years later, in 1999, about 2,000 feet below the summit.

Sir Edmund and Mr. Norgay were part of a Royal Geographical Society-Alpine Club expedition led by Col. Henry Cecil John Hunt — a siege group that included a dozen climbers, 35 Sherpa guides and 350 porters carrying 18 tons of food and equipment. Their route was the treacherous South Col, facing Nepal.

After a series of climbs by coordinated teams to establish ever-higher camps on the icy slopes and perilous rock ledges, Tom Bourdillon and Dr. Charles Evans were the first team to attempt the summit, but gave up at 28,720 feet — 315 feet from the top — beaten back by exhaustion, a storm that shrouded them in ice and oxygen-tank failures.

Sir Edmund, then 33, and Mr. Norgay, 39, made the next assault. They first established a bivouac at 27,900 feet on a rock ledge six feet wide and canted at a 30-degree angle. There, holding their tent against a howling gale as the temperatures plunged to 30 degrees below zero, they spent the night.

At 6:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, cheered by clearing skies, they began the final attack. Carrying enough oxygen for seven hours and counting on picking up two partly filled tanks left by Dr. Evans and Mr. Bourdillon, they moved out. Roped together, cutting toe-holds with their ice axes, first one man leading and then the other, they inched up a steep, knife-edged ridge southeast of the summit.

Halfway up, Sir Edmund recalled in “High Adventure” (1955, Oxford University Press), they discovered soft snow under them. “Immediately I realized we were on dangerous ground,” he said. “Suddenly, with a dull breaking noise, an area of crust all around me about six feet in diameter broke off.” He slid backward 20 or 30 feet before regaining a hold. “It was a nasty shock,” he said. “I could look down 10,000 feet between my legs.”

Farther up, they encountered what was later named the Hillary Step — a sheer face of rock and ice 40 feet high that Sir Edmund called “the most formidable obstacle on the ridge.” But they found a vertical crack and managed to climb it by bracing feet against one side and backs against the other. The last few yards to the summit were relatively easy.

“As I chipped steps, I wondered how long we could keep it up,” Sir Edmund said. “Then I realized that the ridge, instead of rising ahead, now dropped sharply away. I looked upward to see a narrow ridge running up to a sharp point. A few more whacks of the ice ax and we stood on the summit.”

The vast panorama of the Himalayas lay before them: fleecy clouds and the pastel shades of Tibet to the north, and in all directions sweeping ranks of jagged mountains, cloud-filled valleys, great natural amphitheaters of snow and rock, and the glittering Kangshung Glacier 10,000 feet below.

There was a modest celebration. “We shook hands and then, casting Anglo-Saxon formalities aside, we thumped each other on the back until forced to stop from lack of breath,” Sir Edmund remembered. They took photographs and left a crucifix for Colonel Hunt, the expedition leader. Mr. Norgay, a Buddhist, buried biscuits and chocolate as an offering to the gods of Everest. Then they ate a mint cake, strapped on their oxygen tanks and began the climb down.

- New York Times

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Napster moves to MP3-only music download format

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Napster Inc, one of the largest digital music retailers, said on Monday it would start selling downloads in the MP3 format from the second quarter of this year in the latest blow to copy protection for songs bought online.

Napster had sold songs protected with Microsoft Corp's Windows-based digital rights management (DRM) to prevent buyers from illegally making multiple copies or distributing songs to other users.

But the use of DRM, originally mandated by the world's largest music companies, has proved unpopular with consumers. Many have been frustrated to find that songs they buy can only be played on certain compatible digital players or could not be moved from one computer to another.

Napster made its name in the 1990s as the first major free marketplace for DRM-free songs in the MP3 format. But it did so as an illegal service for users to share their music files, eventually being sued and closed by the music industry in 2001.

Today's incarnation of Napster operates legally after buying rights to the name in 2003. It has 750,000 subscribers who use both its music subscription and download services.

"We projected a year ago that there would be a critical mass of support for MP3, and we're pleased to see the music industry is beginning to support it," said Chief Executive Chris Gorog. "There's now enough top-tier content out there."

Major music companies including EMI Group, Vivendi's Universal Music Group and, more recently, Warner Music Group, have begun selling songs in the MP3 format.

MP3 is the most widely available digital audio format and plays on the widest range of devices, including the dominant digital music player, Apple Inc's iPod.

"There's little question that the broad adoption of MP3s will provide an uplift for the industry," said Gorog.

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

- Reuters

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Musharraf: Bhutto is responsible for own death

WASHINGTON - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf conceded that a gunman may have shot Benazir Bhutto but said the opposition leader exposed herself to danger and bore responsibility for her death, CBS News said on Saturday.

Musharraf was also quoted as telling the CBS "60 Minutes" program to be broadcast on Sunday that his government did everything it could to provide security for Bhutto, who was killed last week in a gun and suicide-bomb attack after a political rally.

"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," Musharraf said in the interview taped on Saturday morning.

Pakistan's government has said Bhutto died when she struck her head on a handle on her vehicle's sunroof — a contention widely derided in Pakistan where many people suspect Musharraf's government of complicity. The government has also blamed al-Qaida for the attack.

Musharraf was asked by CBS, which provided excerpts of the interview, whether a gunshot could have caused Bhutto's head injury. He replied, "Yes, yes."

The questioner asked, "So she may have been shot?" and Musharraf said, "Yes, absolutely, yes. Possibility."

Bhutto supporters take position
Bhutto's widower called on Saturday for a U.N. investigation of the killing.

In an opinion article in the Washington Post, Asif Ali Zardari urged that a caretaker government be named to oversee national elections that were postponed until next month and he outlined other standards for assessing their legitimacy.

"Democracy in Pakistan can be saved, and extremism and fanaticism contained, only if the elections, when they are held, are free, fair and credible," he wrote.

Zardari is the new co-chairman of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, alongside their son Bilawal.

Musharraf, a U.S. ally in its battle against terrorism, postponed the general election from January 8 to February 18, and the PPP is expected to benefit from a wave of sympathy for Bhutto.

Musharraf, whose re-election as president in October is still disputed by the opposition, will need support in the next parliament and looks likely to have to renew efforts to reach an understanding with the Bhutto's party, analysts say.

'Neutral caretaker government'
Zardari has said the PPP would take part in the vote. But the elections, he said in the Post article, must be conducted under a "new, neutral caretaker government, free of cronies from Musharraf's party."

He also called for an independent election commission, monitoring by trained international observers with access polling stations and an ability to conduct exit polls, press freedom and an independent judiciary.

He urged that the United States and Britain join the push for a U.N. probe. Britain has sent a team from Scotland Yard to help the government of nuclear-armed Pakistan investigate the killing, and Washington has endorsed the step.

However, Zardari said, "an investigation conducted by the government of Pakistan will have no credibility, in my country or anywhere else."

Bhutto had complained to an acquaintance shortly before she died that the Pakistani government was not meeting her security pleas.

CBS asked Musharraf whether he believed the government did everything possible for her security. "Absolutely," he said. "She was given more security than any other person."

- Reuters

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Can sleep trouble cause diabetes?

January 1, 2008

BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter/jritter@suntimes.com

Researchers have identified a possible new risk factor for diabetes: not getting a good night's sleep.

In a small study, University of Chicago researchers tested the theory on nine healthy young adults in a sleep lab.

For three nights, researchers prevented volunteers from getting the deepest and most restorative type of sleep.

Afterward, volunteers' bodies did not use insulin as well as before: they needed more insulin to dispose of the same amount of a sugar solution.

This reduced insulin sensitivity was comparable to the effect of gaining 20 or 30 pounds.

Earlier studies found that not getting enough sleep can increase the risk of obesity and diabetes.

The U. of C. study is the first to suggest that not getting the right kind of sleep also could increase diabetes risk.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers monitored volunteers' brain waves. As soon as volunteers started to enter deep "slow-wave" sleep, researchers sounded acoustic tones. If that didn't rouse volunteers, researchers spoke their names over the intercom or gently nudged them. Sleep was disrupted 250 to 300 times a night.

Volunteers typically had vague memories of hearing noises only three or four times. But they woke up feeling tired and cranky.

Volunteers were aged 20 to 31. But they slept like they were 40 years older. People in their 20s typically get 80 to 100 minutes of slow-wave sleep, while those over age 60 get less than 20 minutes.

If you're spending an adequate amount of time sleeping, but still wake up tired, you might not be getting enough slow-wave sleep. This often happens to people with obstructive sleep apnea.

Obesity and aging are two big risk factors for diabetes. Obesity and aging also reduce sleep quality, further increasing the risk of diabetes, researchers said.

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