Ex-Florida Republican Party chairman pleads guilty to grand theft

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida pleaded guilty to money laundering and theft charges on Monday, preempting a trial that threatened to reveal some potentially embarrassing details about the party that dominates politics in the state.

Jim Greer, who was indicted in 2010, entered five separate guilty pleas in an Orlando courthouse in a last-minute deal with prosecutors. Jury selection in his long-awaited trial had been scheduled to get under way a short time later.

"We had an awful lot of people that didn't want the trial to go forward," Damon Chase, Greer's defense lawyer, told reporters after the guilty pleas were entered in open court.

"Once again, James Greer is falling on his sword for a lot of other folks," he said.

Chase did not elaborate. The case against Greer, who had maintained that he did nothing criminal or unusual in his role as Republican Party chairman, centered on his creation of a company, Victory Strategies, to handle fundraising duties for the party.

While serving as the paid chairman of the party, he then contracted with it through Victory Strategies to fundraise in exchange for 10 percent of all major contributions.

Greer contended that Republican leaders, including former Governor Charlie Crist, knew about the arrangement and approved it. But in a deposition filed with the court last week, Crist denied knowing that Greer was taking a percentage of party donations for himself.

Crist testified that since one of Greer's primary duties as party chairman was to raise money, it would have been improper for him to be paid again through Victory Strategies.

Crist and other well-known Florida politicians, including a former State Senate president and former State House speaker, had been expected to testify at Greer's trial. Their testimony, and details about some of Greer's free-wheeling spending practices, threatened to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the Republican Party's expenses and fundraising tactics.

Crist, Greer's onetime ally and friend, served a single term as Republican governor of the fourth-largest U.S. state.

He unsuccessfully ran as an independent for a U.S. Senate seat in a race against rising Republican star Marco Rubio and is now widely believed to be planning a new run for governor in 2014 as a Democrat.

As part of the plea deal in court on Monday, an organized fraud charge against the 50-year-old Greer was dropped. But he could still face up to 35 years in prison. Sentencing is set for March 27.

(Editing by Tom Brown, Cynthia Johnston and Nick Zieminski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-florida-republican-party-chairman-pleads-guilty-grand-192854527.html

victoria secret fashion show SEC Championship Rick Majerus Cotto vs Trout Robin Givens Gus Malzahn hyperemesis gravidarum

Menlo?s Shervin Pishevar And Goldman?s Scott Stanford Leave Their Day Jobs To Do Something Really Vague

Menlo Ventures' Shervin Pishevar and Goldman Sachs managing director Scott Stanford have left their day jobs to build a new venture called Sherpa. The creation of the firm, which was first reported by AllThingsD, is designed around a new model for building and creating companies through a mix and match of strategic corporate partnerships and working with well-known entrepreneurs.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gkCyk614Iag/

Rise of the Guardians Pumpkin Pie Jack Taylor Apple Pie Recipe black friday How long to cook a turkey green bean casserole

Dominion Finance trio trial begins | Otago Daily Times Online News ...

The Serious Fraud Office trial of three men associated with the collapsed firm Dominion Finance is due to begin in Auckland this morning.

Dominion Finance Group (DFG) and North South Finance (NSF) were operating subsidiaries of the NZX-listed Dominion Finance Holdings (DFH). Both offered property and commercial loans.

DFG went into receivership in September 2008, and NSF went into receivership in July 2010.

DFH entered voluntary administration in October 2008 and was placed in liquidation in February 2009. It is estimated the group owes creditors $400 million.

In a case brought by the SFO, former Dominion Finance director Robert Barry Whale and former chief executive Paul William Cropp and an accused with name suppression face charges of theft by a person in a special relationship.

The trio's judge-alone trial, in the High Court at Auckland, is expected to last around four weeks.

Former Dominion director Terence Butler was facing court action with the other defendants, but was excused in late November because he has cancer.

?

Source: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/245331/dominion-finance-trio-trial-begins

zimmerman charged bonobos charles manson al sharpton actuary elon musk fox mole

PFT: Peterson undergoes sports hernia surgery

Reuters

On his first day back in the NFL after being suspended for orchestrating the Saints? bounty program, new Titans assistant coach Gregg Williams said he accepts the blame for the mess he created in New Orleans, and that he vows to do things the right way going forward.

?I met with the commissioner last week and we had a good talk, and I thank him for my reinstatement back into the league,? Williams said. ?I take full responsibility and apologize for my previous actions and I?ve used this year to reorganize my life and put focus on positive energy and positive ways to inspire, and coach, and motivate in this profession. I?m here to put my focus and my energies into working tirelessly on behalf of the Titans and making as much of a positive impact in every way possible as I can for them. I?m grateful for this opportunity and I?m looking forward with excitement to get started.?

Williams said he spent a lot of his year away doing volunteer work.

?It was a great year to travel, I?ve spoken all over the country. I visited Thailand, worked with some impoverished villages, a lot of orphanages over there. I?m a sucker for kids,? Williams said. ?I spoke to many Pop Warner, junior high, high school and college programs over the country and I did that in a way that was trying not to focus any attention on me, but on the game.?

Williams has grown a goatee and mentioned that he has lost a lot of weight during his year off, and he stressed that he?s excited and energetic about joining head coach Mike Munchak?s staff. Munchak, too, said he was excited, noting that he and Williams first worked together on the Houston Oilers when Munchak was a player and Williams was an assistant, and that they?ve also been assistant coaches together on the Titans? staff.

?I?ve known Gregg for 20 years. In 1990, when Jack Pardee came over to the Oilers, coach Williams came with him as a quality control coach. I watched him work his butt off,? Munchak said of Williams. ?He made players better than they probably should be.?

Munchak, who mentioned that Williams is on a one-year contract, said he contacted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell when he first got the idea that Williams could make a difference on his coaching staff.

?I called Commissioner Goodell and I talked to him about Gregg?s situation and he was very open about it,? Munchak said.

Williams said he was always confident that if he did the right things, he would get another chance to coach in the NFL. Now he has that chance in Tennessee.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/07/adrian-peterson-has-sports-hernia-surgery/related/

mayweather vs cotto shumpert hopkins hopkins dear john derrick rose torn acl pacers

Scientists discover how chromosomes keep their loose ends loose

Thursday, February 7, 2013

We take it for granted that our chromosomes won't stick together, yet this kind of cellular disaster would happen constantly were it not for a protein called TRF2. Now, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered key details of how TRF2 performs this crucial chromosome-protecting function. The finding represents a significant advance in cell biology and also has implications for our understanding of cancer and the aging process.

"Cells tend to interpret their chromosome ends as sites of DNA damage, and without TRF2, they would attempt to 'repair' these sites by fusing different chromosomes together," said TSRI Assistant Professor Eros Lazzerini Denchi. "The prevailing view has been that TRF2 has a passive role in hiding chromosome ends from the DNA repair machinery, but we found that it also actively suppresses the repair response."

Lazzerini Denchi is the corresponding author of the new study, which is reported in an Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature on February 6, 2013.

A Protective Cap

TRF2 is part of a protective protein cap localized at the ends of chromosomes, the telomeres. Telomeres shorten with every cellular division, and when they become too short?in aged organisms, for example?TRF2 is no longer able to localize at chromosome ends. In such cases, chromosome ends become exposed and the DNA repair response is liable to knit uncapped chromosomes to each other. This action results in strings of chromosomes fused together that are unstable and can lead to cell death or, in some cases, to uncontrolled growth leading to cancer.

In 2007, as a postdoctoral researcher at The Rockefeller University, Lazzerini Denchi found that TRF2 works in part by blocking a particular signaling pathway in the DNA damage response. In the new study, he and his laboratory colleagues at TSRI have explored TRF2's functions in more detail.

"We found that TRF2 uses a two-step mechanism to protect chromosome ends," said Keiji Okamoto, a postdoctoral fellow in Lazzerini Denchi's laboratory who was the lead author of the new study.

TRF2 is a complex protein with four functional domains (regions). Okamoto probed the specific functions of these four domains by creating artificial TRF2-like proteins?in which one or more functional domains were replaced with non-functional "dummy" domains. By studying how these artificial TRF2s functioned in cells, he could determine the separate functions of each individual domain.

Uncovering Distinct Roles

Two of these domains turned out to have distinct roles in suppressing the DNA damage response. "One domain, called TRFH, blocks localization of the DNA damage factor ?H2AX, the initial step in the DNA response pathway," said Okamoto. It may do so by inducing a structural change in telomeres that hides it from the DNA damage machinery. A distinct region of TRF2, which Okamoto dubbed iDDR (inhibitor of the DNA damage response pathway), independently and actively suppresses the transduction of the DNA damage signal downstream of ?H2AX.

Okamoto and colleagues found that the iDDR region works in part by recruiting an enzymatic activity associated with the tumor suppressor protein BRCA1. Defects in BRCA1 lead to DNA misrepairs, genomic instability and a sharp rise in cancer risk. (Certain BRCA1 mutations bring a greater than 50-percent lifetime risk of breast or ovarian cancer.) This new finding hints that BRCA1 defects may result in defects in telomere protection, too.

Lazzerini Denchi, Okamoto and their colleagues now plan to explore TRF2's functions and protein partners in further detail, in cell studies and in transgenic mice. "We want to address the BRCA1 connection more thoroughly, too, for example, to determine the importance of its association with telomeres in preventing tumors," Lazzerini Denchi said.

###

Scripps Research Institute: http://www.scripps.edu

Thanks to Scripps Research Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 38 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126676/Scientists_discover_how_chromosomes_keep_their_loose_ends_loose

Samantha Steele Espn goog Sylvia Kristel st louis cardinals Steelers Schedule tory burch Al Smith Dinner

Northeast readies for 1st major snow storm of year

With the museum grounds covered with leaves and bare of snow, J Lajik shovels the snow-covered walkway outside the National Center of Afro-American Artists after overnight flurries in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013. A midwinter storm headed to the Northeast on Friday could drop more than a foot of snow. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

With the museum grounds covered with leaves and bare of snow, J Lajik shovels the snow-covered walkway outside the National Center of Afro-American Artists after overnight flurries in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013. A midwinter storm headed to the Northeast on Friday could drop more than a foot of snow. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Tom Cwick, of Los Angeles, cross country skis on machine-made snow at the Weston Ski Track in Weston, Mass., Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013. A midwinter storm headed to the Northeast on Friday could drop more than a foot of snow. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Municipal trucks fill up with salt, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 in Portsmouth, N.H. as the Northeast prepares for a snowstorm later this week. The National Weather Service says the snow will start falling Thursday night, with the heaviest snowfall Friday afternoon and night. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Municipal trucks fill up with salt, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 in Portsmouth, N.H. as the Northeast prepares for a snowstorm later this week. The National Weather Service says the snow will start falling Thursday night, with the heaviest snowfall Friday afternoon and night. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

A pair of storms will combine off the Northeast coast, bringing heavy snow and strong winds throughout New England. Another storm will move into the West, bringing rain and high elevation snow from California through the Great Basin. (AP Photo/Weather Underground)

BOSTON (AP) ? People in the Northeast stocked up on food and supplies and road crews readied salt and sand Thursday as the region braced for a major winter storm that could bring up to 2 feet of snow to places that haven't seen significant accumulations in more than a year.

The National Weather Service said most of southern New England could see anywhere from 18-24 inches between Friday and Saturday, and some other forecasts cautioned that totals could be even higher. Suffolk County in New York was under a blizzard watch, as were parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

New York City was expecting between 4 and 6 inches of snow. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said plows and 250,000 tons of salt were being put on standby to start clearing the streets.

"We hope forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow, but you never can tell," he said, adding that if bad weather has to happen, it's better to have it on a weekend.

Meteorologist William Babcock with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass., says it's looking like it is going to be a very powerful storm. If everything falls the way it has the potential to it could be among the top 10 snowstorms in New England history.

The storm would hit just after the 35th anniversary of the historic blizzard of 1978, which paralyzed the region with more than 2 feet of snow and hurricane force winds from Feb. 5-7. The last major snowstorm in southern New England was the Halloween storm in 2011, which knocked out power to many with heavy, wet snow.

The snow will start Friday morning, with the heaviest amounts dumped on the region that night and into Saturday.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick was receiving regular updates but had not made any decisions about the state's workforce, a spokeswoman said.

The prospective timing has drawn comparisons with a powerful storm that hit in the afternoon of December 13th, 2007, and paralyzed state highways, turning 30-minute commutes into 3- to 6-hour treks.

On that day, Patrick advised state employees to leave work no later than 11:30 a.m., and private businesses were encouraged to dismiss their employees early as well. Many people, however, apparently waited longer to get on the road and by then, snow was falling at a rate of 1 1/2 inches an hour with virtual white-out conditions. The resulting traffic gridlock made it impossible for plows to clear the roads.

One place people were excited about the snow was at ski resorts in northern New England. Because they can make their own snow, they aren't as dependent on natural snowfall, but when it snows a lot in southern New England people start thinking more about winter sports, said spokesman Dave Meeker of Mount Snow in Vermont.

"When they have snow in their backyards, they're inspired," he said.

At the Dartmouth Skiway in Lyme, N.H., Dartmouth College senior Evan Diamond and other members of the school's ski team were getting ready for the college's Winter Carnival, which includes ski races.

"We're pretty excited about it because this has been an unusual winter for us," he said. "We've been going back and forth between having really solid cold snaps and then the rain washing everything away."

As much as he welcomes the snow, it could be too much of a good thing, at least for this weekend, "For skiing we like to have a nice hard surface, so it will be kind of tough to get the hill ready."

___

Ramer reported from Lyme, N.H. Associated Press writer Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-07-Northeast%20Snow/id-35c7b23d73e741b8ab41ae95b021c216

grammy nominations lil boosie bobbi kristina brown new edition austerity rihanna and chris brown back together pebble beach

Iran's president: I want to be an astronaut

By Ali Akbar Dareini, The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran ? President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that he's ready to take the risk of being the first Iranian astronaut sent into space as part of Iran's goal of a manned space flight.

"I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in an address to space scientists in Tehran.

---

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari was the first Iranian to make a journey into space, aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhastan, in September 2006.

The 40-year-old telecommunications entrepreneur paid a reported $20 million for a space station visit. Her journey became an inspiration to women in male-dominated Iran.

Iran said it?sent a monkey into space?on Jan. 28, describing the launch as a successful step toward Tehran's plan to send an astronaut into space within the next five to six years.

The monkey named "Pishgam," which means "pioneer" in Farsi, reportedly traveled 72 miles and safely returned to Earth.

In 2010, Iran said it had launched an Explorer rocket into space carrying a mouse, a turtle and worms.

Iran's space officials say Iran will launch a bigger rocket carrying a larger animal to obtain greater safety assurances before sending a human into space.

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Iran will soon send a satellite into space from its Imam Khomeini space center, which is still under construction.

The news agency didn't elaborate and did not disclose the location of the space center, but Iran already has a major satellite launch complex near Semnan, about 125 miles east of Tehran. A satellite monitoring facility is located outside Mahdasht, about 40 miles west of the Iranian capital.

Iran has said it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance in the region.

Related:

McCain compares Iranian leader to monkey; draws GOP charge of racism

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16838791-irans-president-says-hes-willing-to-be-countrys-first-man-in-space?lite

9/11 Memorial 911 masterchef Dictionary.com Chicago teachers strike september 11 2001 september 11 2001