Tests for H.I.V. Reach a Record

The number of American adults tested for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, reached a record high in 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

Nonetheless, about 55 percent of all adults — and about 28 percent of all people who are at higher risk for getting infected — have still never been tested.

Starting in 2006, the disease centers began urging doctors to order H.I.V. tests as part of routine blood work for all patients. Success has been modest; the percentage of all adults who have ever had a test rose only to 45 percent after years of holding steady at 40 percent.

Almost one-third of people who learn they are infected find out only when they fall seriously ill, the disease centers said, meaning they have presumably infected others during that time and have also missed the opportunity to get treatment.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/health/02aids.html

Eminem makes a major Grammy 'Recovery'

Eminem, who's reaped 11 Grammy Awards in the past decade, could finally nab a long-elusive marquee prize. The rebounding rapper leads the pack of Grammy nominees with 10 nods, including album of the year for Recovery and best record and song for Love the Way You Lie, his hit with Rihanna. Because Lie and Not Afraid face off in the rap song category, he can win a maximum of nine trophies. A sweep is possible, but he faces formidable competition.

Also vying for best album are Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, Lady Antebellum's Need You Now, Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream.

NOMINEES LIST: See who's up for what in most major categories

Other record contenders are B.o.B's Nothin' on You (with Bruno Mars), Cee Lo Green's F- — - You, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind and Lady Antebellum's Need You Now.

In song, awarded to composers, Lie, F- — - You and Antebellum's hit are pitted against Ray LaMontagne's Beg Steal or Borrow and The House That Built Me (sung by Miranda Lambert).

Drake and Justin Bieber, the strongest candidates for best new artist, take on Florence + The Machine, Mumford & Sons and Esperanza Spalding, leaving Susan Boyle and Ke$ha off the ballot.

The 53rd Grammy Awards air Feb. 13 on CBS. Nominations in top categories were unveiled during Wednesday's The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!! — Countdown to Music's Biggest Night. LL Cool J hosted the show, which opened with Katy Perry delivering a glam rendition of California Gurls. She was followed by performances by Miranda Lambert, Justin Bieber and B.o.B. with Bruno Mars.

Eminem, whose Recovery is 2010's best seller so far with 3 million copies, is a two-time loser in the best-album race. He lost record bids twice and song once. He's favored to take best-album honors this time.

Because the last cycle's eligibility period shrank to suit 2010's earlier show, this year's stretched 13 months, ending Sept. 30.

Bruno Mars is second in nominations with seven, trailed by Jay-Z, Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga with six each. Among the top-tier shut-outs are Sade, whose Soldier of Love was expected to garner a best-album nod, and country's Miranda Lambert.

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http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/awards/grammys/2010-12-02-grammynews02_ST_N.htm

Google Acts to Eliminate Distasteful Web Sellers

Google announced on Wednesday that it had changed the way it ranks search results so that unscrupulous merchants would find it harder to appear prominently in searches.

The change was prompted by an article in The New York Times on Sunday about Vitaly Borker, a Brooklyn-based online seller of eyeglasses. Mr. Borker claimed that he purposely shouted at and frightened some of the customers at DecorMyEyes.com because the online complaints actually worked in his favor in Google search results.

In essence, he claimed, Google’s search engine is unable to tell the difference between positive posts and withering online critiques. Therefore, the more complaints posted about Mr. Borker’s site, the more likely customers would be to find his store ranked high on a Google search, which yielded him more revenue.

In a blog posting titled “Being bad to your customers is bad for your business,” Google said that it had revised its algorithm so that it could detect Mr. Borker and “hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide extremely poor user experience.”

Google did not reveal how it had changed its algorithm, or how that change would affect online sellers like Mr. Borker. It simply said that the more it reveals about the changes it made, the easier it will be for unscrupulous sellers to game it.

“We can’t say for sure that no one will ever find a loophole in our ranking algorithms in the future,” Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, wrote on the blog post.

“We know that people will keep trying.”

With the changes, Mr. Borker has already had a harder time pushing DecorMyEyes to its previous high rankings on Google. The store once showed up on the first page of a search of “Christian Audigier” and “eyeglasses.” As of Wednesday night, it was not in the first 20 pages.

Mr. Singhal said that the change was made after the company read in The Times about the ordeal of Clarabelle Rodriguez, who bought a pair of glasses and contact lenses from DecorMyEyes in July.

When she tried to return the frames and get a refund, Mr. Borker (using one of his favorite pseudonyms, Tony Russo) commenced a campaign of phone and e-mail harassment.

That included threats of litigation and chilling statements like “You put your hand in fire. Now it’s time to get burned.”

He also sent a photograph of the front of her apartment building, and in a separate e-mail wrote “I AM WATCHING YOU.”

Ms. Rodriguez went to the police several times and on Oct. 27, Mr. Borker was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment and stalking.

He is set to be arraigned on Dec. 22.

The Internet is rife with consumer complaints about DecorMyEyes, and even the quickest search of the store’s name yields dozens of outraged testimonials.

In July, Ms. Rodriguez’s search used only the brand name of the glasses she wanted. DecorMyEyes was at the top of Google’s main search page.

“We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience,” Mr. Singhal wrote in the blog post. “Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue.”

Exactly how Mr. Borker wound up so high in Google searches has been a matter of online debate. His theory is that the great mass of grievances on all those highly regarded consumer complaint sites were the key to his success.

Google cast doubt on that idea, saying that consumer complaint sites typically include special coding along with the mentions to the companies in question so that such links do not count in the companies’ favor in search results.

At the blog Search Engine Land, Byrne Hobart also wrote in a recent posting that the review-generating strategy was not the driver of Mr. Borker’s success. His analysis found that Mr. Borker benefited chiefly from various “black-hat tricks” to improve his site’s standing, including links from what he called auto-generated spam pages. He also found that the store was frequently linked to by mainstream media sites — The Times included — when references were made to high-end eyeglasses.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/technology/02ranking.html

A December to remember? Why time may be ripe for stock gains

Performance of the Standard & Poor's 500 index over the past twelve months.

Stocks soared on the first day of December, raising hopes that the final month of the year will live up to its reputation as the best month for stock performance.

Investors drove the Dow Jones industrials up 250 points, and the broad market jumped 1.6%. Fueling the rally: a one-two punch of bullish news on jobs at home and manufacturing in the U.S. and China.

The improving tone on the economy, coupled with rising hopes that the European Central Bank will announce new measures to stem contagion caused by debt problems in Ireland and other eurozone countries, gave investors the green light to pile back into risky assets such as stocks.

December has been the No. 1 month for stock returns for the Standard & Poor's 500 index since 1950, according to the 2011 edition of the Stock Trader's Almanac. The large-company stock index has posted average gains of 1.65% in December.

The consistency of the gains in December is also impressive, with gains 77% of the time since World War II, vs. 59% for all 12 months, S&P says.

The market's ability to consistently fare well in December is due in part to the tendency of investors to stop viewing the market with a short-term lens, but instead using the end of the year to look at opportunities in stocks over a longer time period, says Sam Stovall, chief investment officer at S&P.

"By extending the forecasting time frame, it allows more time for investors' optimistic forecasts to come true," Stovall says.

The fact the winning pattern has been consistent feeds on itself, and investors buy stocks so as not to miss out on the rally. "It tends to be self-fulfilling," adds Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial.

The odds of the rally continuing are good if economic data continue to come in better-than-expected, Kleintop adds. The reason: It puts a big dent in fears of an economic relapse. The ADP Employer Services report Wednesday, for example, said private companies added 93,000 jobs in November, which suggests employment trends are improving. China's report of strong manufacturing last month reassures investors "that the major driver of global growth remains intact," Kleintop says.

The improving economic data in the U.S. have overshadowed debt problems in Europe and geopolitical risks around the globe. The better data also mean investors could soon be hearing more positive outlooks from corporate CEOs, adds Kate Warne, market strategist at Edward Jones.

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http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2010-12-02-mart02_ST_N.htm

War crimes lawyers seek arrest of Sri Lankan president in Oxford

Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been accused of war crimes during the Sri Lankan war, is due to speak at the Oxford Union on Thursday.

Lawyers working for Tamil activists are attempting to obtain a war crimes arrest warrant against Sri Lanka's president and senior member of his entourage who have arrived in Britain.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose government defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers last year amid humanitarian protests about the treatment of civilians trapped in the war zone, is due to speak at the Oxford Union on Thursday.

The visit comes as Tamil supporters claim to have acquired a video showing a former Tamil Tiger colonel being interrogated by Sri Lankan forces. His family allege he was killed after surrendering.

Rajapaksa is also expected to meet the defence secretary, Liam Fox. Last year the UK revoked a number of arms exports licences to Sri Lanka in response to the conflict.

The Sri Lankan head of state's visit, postponed from last month, is likely to trigger mass protests. Tamil demonstrators were at Heathrow airport for his arrival on Monday evening; more are expected in Oxford later this week.

Last year thousands of Tamils blockaded Parliament Square in Westminster for several weeks to draw attention to the fighting in Sri Lanka. The freezing weather may reduce the numbers involved this time. There are estimated to be as many as 300,000 people of Tamil descent in the UK.

Sen Kandiah, founder of the British Tamil Forum, an umbrella group representing Tamils in the UK, told the Guardian: "We have been working on an arrest warrant for some time. We have instructed a prominent legal firm and have spoken to former lord chancellors.

"We know that at least 40,000 civilians were killed at the end of the war. This man was the commander in chief and he's coming to speak to the Oxford Union. He should face a proper trial."

Another Tamil activist, Suren Surendiran, said that if Rajapaksa had immunity as head of state then arrest warrants would be sought against military members of his entourage. Graham Williamson of the civil rights group Act Now has called for a boycott campaign of Sri Lankan goods.

The UK accepts universal jurisdiction for war crimes offences, meaning that those accused of atrocities can be arrested in Britain wherever the offence was allegedly committed. But the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, announced in the summer that the legislation would be amended so that any prosecutions would require the assent of the director of public prosecutions.

That would effectively stop the private actions brought against visiting foreign officials that have deterred visits by Israeli officials. A similar tactic was used when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister against the former Chilean president, General Augusto Pinochet. He was arrested and held under house arrest on charges of crimes against humanity, before being released on health grounds without being charged.

Last month David Cameron endorsed calls for an independent investigation into the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. He told the Commons: "Everyone has read the papers and seen the TV footage, but we need an independent investigation" to work out whether there had been human rights abuses.

A spokesman for the public relations firm Bell Pottinger, which represents Rajapaksa, denied that he had cancelled his trip to the UK last month becuse of fears that he might face an arrest warrant.

"He had to give a keynote speech at the UN," the spokesman said, "and visit Shanghai. He had a busy international schedule. He's here now to speak to the Oxford Union."

Rajapaksa last spoke at the Oxford Union in 2008. His second visit tomorrow, according to his spokesperson, will mean that he is the first serving head of state to address the union twice.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has established a three-man committee to investigate ways of dealing with the war crime allegations.

A spokesman for Fox said: "Dr Fox will be meeting President Rajapaksa in a private capacity. This reflects Dr Fox's longstanding interest in Sri Lanka and his interest in, and commitment to peace and reconciliation there."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/sri-lanka-president-arrest-war-crimes

Obama Rallying Support for Arms Pact With Russia

President Obama appears to be building momentum for Senate approval of a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year, but it may have to come at the expense of other legislative priorities with far greater support among his liberal base.

With more Republicans signaling a willingness to vote for the so-called New Start treaty, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of finessing relationships with supporters who want him to focus more energy in the short lame-duck session on issues like immigration and gay rights while giving enough members of the opposition reason to vote for the pact.

The White House and Senate Democrats have grown increasingly optimistic that they can gather the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required for Senate consent despite resistance by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the lead Republican negotiator. Senate Republican officials said that they were hoping to find a way to make it possible for Mr. Kyl to support the treaty and that if he does, a number of his party colleagues are ready to endorse it.

But having the votes will make no difference if there is no time on the Senate calendar to debate the treaty.

The tradeoff could be other Democratic initiatives, like repealing the ban on gay members of the military serving openly and creating a path to legal residency for some illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. While the White House said all of these matters could still be addressed, some Democratic officials said they realized something might have to be sacrificed.

Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they would block consideration of any other issue until the Senate extended the Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the month and financed continuing government operations. Mr. Kyl, who is also the top Senate Republican negotiator on the tax cuts, said that issue would have to be resolved by Monday to have enough time to also address the treaty.

Mr. Kyl has sought additional assurances of Mr. Obama’s support for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex but has never ruled out a vote this year. Other Republicans have told the White House that if the president shows he is responding to every question posed by Mr. Kyl, it may make it harder for Republicans to oppose the treaty.

In that vein, Senate treaty supporters secured a letter Wednesday from the directors of the three nuclear laboratories declaring themselves “very pleased” with the administration’s plan to spend $85 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade their facilities.

The plan provides “a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base,” said the letter, signed by George Miller of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Michael R. Anastasio of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Paul Hommert of the Sandia National Laboratories.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the letter was “the nonpartisan gold standard” on the issue and showed that “the administration is making good on every promise that President Obama has made on this critical issue.” Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Kyl and other Republican senators on Tuesday.

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Mr. Kerry’s Republican counterpart and his party’s most vocal advocate of the treaty, said the word of the laboratory directors should decide the modernization issue. “I do not believe we should question their judgment,” Mr. Lugar said.

The White House brought another high-profile Republican, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, to the Oval Office on Wednesday to join Mr. Obama in lobbying the Senate. “This treaty is in the best interest of the United States of America, best interest of the world and frankly the best interest of the Russian Federation,” said Mr. Powell, a retired four-star general.

He also signed a Washington Post opinion article, posted on its Web site Wednesday, along with four other former Republican secretaries of state, Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

The full-bore press demonstrated that Mr. Obama has made the treaty his top legislative priority for the rest of the year, other than a tax-cut deal. By contrast, while he has spoken in favor of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions in the military and passing the Dream Act on immigration, he has not staged the same sort of sustained public campaign, which some took as a sign that he might sacrifice one or the other to get the treaty approved.

But that represents a complex political calculation. Gay and Hispanic Democrats make up important parts of the president’s base, while there is no domestic constituency for an arms control treaty. Moreover, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is strongly committed to passing the Dream Act after making promises to Hispanic constituents in his hard-fought re-election battle.

How Mr. Obama will navigate those crosscurrents remains unclear. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, insisted that all these issues could be addressed in the next four weeks. “There is plenty of time to get plenty of work done,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the White House had made progress on the treaty. “Last week, we were ready to pronounce Start — or two weeks ago — ready to pronounce Start dead,” he said. Now, after positive statements from some Republican senators, he said, “there’s an understanding that it’s something that’s tremendously important to do.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02start.html?src=twrhp

Hundreds of flights grounded by snow

A plane sits at a snow covered Edinburgh airport

Services were halted at Gatwick, Edinburgh, Dundee, Durham Tees Valley and Doncaster (Robin Hood) completely, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

Delays and cancellations were also reported at a number of other airports including London City, Heathrow, Leeds Bradford and Newcastle.

This was the worst disruption to British aviation since the ash crisis in April, which grounded thousands of flights across the whole of Europe.

Already bad weather elsewhere in Europe led to a number of continental airports, including Frankfurt and Geneva also being shut.

This led to thousands more passengers being stranded abroad. They are, however, entitled to claims meals and, if necessary, hotel accommodation from their airline under EU consumer protection laws.

With more bad weather forecast, it is feared that the chaos could continue for several days. Even once the skies clear, further disruption is likely with the snow having left crew and aircraft marooned abroad.

The worst problems were at Gatwick, where around 600 flights were cancelled after the runway was blanketed by snow

"We have had six inches and there is another six on the way," a spokesman said. "We are throwing everything at it, but as fast as the snow clears, more falls behind us.”

Despite deploying 80 people and 50 vehicles, the airport was unable to clear the runway.

A statement on airport’s website said: "Due to the current weather conditions, departing and arriving flights at Gatwick will be severely disrupted.

“The runway is currently closed to allow snow clearance activities to be carried out. Passengers are advised not to set out for the airport and should check directly with their airline or visit our website."

The largest operator out of Gatwick, easyJet, said passengers whose flights were cancelled should rebook either via the website or the airline’s call centre. If no date is suitable, the airline said a full refund would be paid.

However anyone, whose flight was cancelled, turning up at the airport without a confirmed booking for a flight on that day could be turned away

Passengers at the airport voiced their frustration at the grounding of flights. Cliff Booth, who had been due to return home to Aberdeen with his wife Maureen, described a “hellish 24 hours” he had endured.

"Tuesday afternoon's flight from Gatwick was cancelled because it was taking too long to de-ice and we had the same problem in the evening.

"We had to spend the night on a sofa of the Sofitel Hotel. They basically gave us our bags back and said 'good luck'.

"We get into Gatwick today and find the whole airport has been closed. And now we're just hoping to get any flight somewhere over the border from here at Heathrow.”


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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8174598/Hundreds-of-flights-grounded-by-snow.html