THOMAS NELSON PUBLISHERS of Nashville, which this year bought the 143-year-old Dodd, Mead company, has now purchased Everest House, a five-year-old adult trade book publisher. Everest House will become an imprint of Dodd, Mead, which will continue as a general trade publisher based in New York. Lewis W. Gillenson, founder and president of Everest House, has been named president of Dodd, Mead, succeeding S. Phelps Platt Jr., who recently retired.

Meanwhile, Sam Moore, president of Nelson, said that the company was engaged in talks with the possibility of acquiring additional trade book publishers under the Dodd, Mead banner. Dodd, Mead is the longtime American publisher of George Bernard Shaw and Agatha Christie, and its backlist includes such authors as G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud and Stephen Leacock.

Mr. Moore, an immigrant from Lebanon who sold Bibles and religious books door to door in the South in the 1950's, paid $2.6 million in 1969 for Nelson, a division of a venerable British-owned publisher. Today it is the largest publisher of Bibles in the world, one of two publicly held Biblical publishers in the United States, and about 80 percent of its $50 million annual sales are derived from the sale of Bibles, which come in some 500 styles.

Mr. Gillenson, former president and chief executive of Thomas Y. Crowell, founded Everest House in 1977 under the auspices of the Ambassador Foundation of California, which also published Quest magazine. Since its first list appeared in 1978, the company has had two best sellers: ''Danse Macabre'' by Stephen King and ''They Call Me Assassin'' by Jack Tatum. New Allegations Made Against D.M. Thomas

D.M. Thomas, the best-selling novelist and translator, has been accused by Carl R. Proffer, a professor of Russian literature at the University of Michigan, of having used many of Professor Proffer's notes ''without acknowledgment, word for word'' in Mr. Thomas's 1976 book-length translation of a poem by the late Anna Akhmatova, the foremost woman poet in modern Russian literature.

The charge comes less than two months after Mr. Thomas, author of the best-selling novel ''The White Hotel,'' was accused by another scholar of having adapted much of his recent translation of a collection of poems by Alexander Pushkin from two earlier volumes of Pushkin translations into English, rather than from the original Russian. Meanwhile, Prof. James Fennell, author of one of the two volumes of Pushkin that Mr. Thomas is accused of having used as a source, has pointed to many ''striking similarities'' between his own prose translations and Mr. Thomas's verse renderings.

Mr. Thomas vigorously denied that he had adapted rather than translated that collection, ''The Bronze Horseman: Selected Poems of Alexander Pushkin.'' Asked about the Proffer allegations, Mr. Thomas, speaking from his home in Hereford, England, said Wednesday: ''No comment. If I feel a comment is called for, I will make it in the proper way.''

The book now in dispute is Mr. Thomas's translation of Anna Akhmatova's '' 'Requiem' and 'Poem Without a Hero,' '' published by Ohio University Press in 1977. Mr. Proffer's translation of the same poem was published in Russian Literature Triquarterly in 1971, then in a book by Ardis Press (1973) and still later in ''Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems'' (Ardis, 1975), edited by Walter Arndt, professor of Russian at Dartmouth College. Ardis Press of Ann Arbor, Mich., founded in 1971 by Mr. Proffer and his wife, Ellendea, publishes books in English and Russian, and facsimile translations of Soviet works. The Proffers also edit Russian Literature Triquarterly.

In a telephone conversation, Mr. Proffer said that the Akhmatova poem ''is very allusive, so it demands annotation, and so many of the notes Thomas provided are actually my notes, stolen without acknowledgment, word for word.'' He added: ''Not all Thomas's notes were taken from my version, but a number of them were,'' including one that came from a private conversation that Mr. Proffer had had with Nadezhda Mandelstam, widow of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam and herself the author of ''Hope Against Hope'' and ''Hope Abandoned,'' both widely praised memoirs.

Professor Proffer made a somewhat similar charge against Mr. Thomas four years ago, in reviewing Mr. Thomas's translation of the Akhmatova poem. ''Thomas's notes are nearly all derivative,'' he wrote in Russian Literature Triquarterly, citing three examples. ''At the time, I got a letter from Mr. Thomas saying something to the effect that we scholars have many sources and sometimes the file cards get misplaced,'' Mr. Proffer said. 'I laughed and threw the letter away. But when I saw Simon Karlinsky's review I was stunned.''

Mr. Karlinsky's review of the Pushkin translation appeared in the Sept. 26 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Mr. Karlinsky is professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of California. Noting that Mr. Thomas acknowledged having been ''much influenced'' by the ''lucid prose'' versions of Mr. Fennell, whose anthology ''Pushkin'' contains Russian texts with plain prose translations of each poem, Professor Karlinsky said that ''influence seems hardly the right term'' to describe the author's dependence on Professors Fennell and Arndt. Professor Karlinsky continued: ''His reliance on the work of these two scholars (barely hinted at in the case of Mr. Fennell, unacknowledged in that of Mr. Arndt), is so wholesale that in all fairness Mr. Thomas ought to have at least named them as his co-translators.''

Mr. Thomas denied the charge vehemently and at length in the Oct. 24 issue of the Book Review. ''I was fired by love of Pushkin, not of his translators,'' he wrote. ''To have 'depended upon' scholars' translations would have negated my whole reason for making the translations, and killed my pleasure.'' He added that, ''where my selection overlapped Professor Fennell's - or rather, where my 'freer' forms overlapped his - some apparent dependence on the Fennell prose (I use 'apparent' and 'dependence' strictly here) was unavoidable in places. For we were both seeking the most accurate, most strightforward way of expressing Pushkin's sense.''

Mr. Fennell, professor of Russian at Oxford University and currently a visiting professor at Stanford University, has disclaimed any wish to enter into dispute with Mr. Thomas. But, he said, ''I would nevertheless like to point out that Professor Karlinsky has only mentioned a very small portion of the 'similarities'; indeed the tip of the iceberg.'' He added: ''I am not a poet and have no pretensions to be one. But now at least I feel that had I split up some of my 'plain prose' translations into lines, I might have passed them off as poetry - and even got away with it.''


06/09/2016 AT 10:00 PM EDT

, it's never too late to say sorry.

star, who is openly gay, took to Twitter on Thursday, offering a lengthy apology to

and anyone else offended by his

about coming out in Hollywood.

"The entire interview I gave to

has hurt the LGBTQ community and the industry I feel truly fortunate to be a part of," Galvin, 22, wrote in a statement shared on Twitter. "My only intention was to try and empower and promote honesty, but I fully understand that comments I made were brazen and hurtful."

Meanwhile Haynes – who was singled out by Galvin for the way in which he

– has issued his own statement in response. The actor took to Instagram on Thursday calling Galvin's comments "uncalled for and embarrassing."

"Let me just clarify, I've never met this kid, so for him to judge me without even meeting & having no idea the struggles I've been through or where I come from is absolutely uncalled for and quite frankly embarrassing on his part," Haynes wrote. "Since when is a three pg article in

not an appropriate way to come out? And since when did he become the judge of what's appropriate.

"Shouldn't we all be supporting each other? Enjoy all of your success. You're young kidâ¦hopefully you'll eventually learn a thing or two. Good luck."

that he felt he "should have made a comment or statement," after a

referencing his "secret gay" past surfaced. Haynes coyly responded to the post with, "Was it a secret?"

Galvin, however, called Hayne's comment "f---ing p---y bullsât," telling

that it was a cop out and calling the CW star "The Worst."

The young actor amended his interview, apologizing specifically to Haynes in his statement, as he recognized that there is no right or wrong way from someone to come out.

"To Colton Haynes and to the LGBTQ youth, especially those who have embraced our show, I have no right to dictate how or when anybody comes out of the closet," Galvin continued. "I know how difficult and scary the process of coming out can be, and the last thing I would ever want to do is make it scarier. For anyone."

Another point of tension mentioned in Galvin's apology was his criticism of

, who he accused of "playing a caricature of a caricature of a stereotype of a stereotype" concerning his

"Lastly, as I said in the interview, I think Eric Stonestreet is a wonderful actor. I apologize to everyone that I've hurt with my comments and understand the damage has been done," he wrote on Tuesday. "I am new to this and will certainly commit to being more thoughtful and wiser as I navigate all of this moving forward."

In a separate statement, also posted on Tuesday, Galvin apologized to openly gay director Bryan Singer for accusations – now removed from a recent interview with

– about Singer's pool parties.

"I sincerely apologize to Bryan Singer for the horrible statement I made about him in the interview I gave

. My comments were false and unwarranted," Galvin wrote. "It was irresponsible and stupid for me to make those allegations against Bryan, and I deeply regret doing so."

Of the three men Galvin has apologized to, Haynes is the only one to respond.

Summary: Galvin offered extensive apologies to a handful of Hollywood stars he called out in a recent interview


Up-and-coming Atlanta rapper Bankroll Fresh was killed Friday night outside his recording studio.

Authorities say the 28-year-old rapper, whose real name was Trentavious White, died after getting hit in a spray of bullets outside of his Street Execs studio in northwest Atlanta around 11:15 p.m. Friday.

Atlanta police say a large group of people were gathered outside the recording studio when the shots rang out and that at least one other person was hit but fled the scene in a car.

The rapper was rushed to Hughes Spalding hosiptal, but couldn't be saved.

Police recovered 50 shell casings at the scene and haven't located any suspects, local network Fox 5 reported.

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Bankroll Fresh started rapping in 2006 with the release of a series of mixtapes featuring his distinctive “crooked flow and raspy voice,” according to his Spotify bio.

The "Hot Boy" rapper collaborated with well-known artists like 2 Chainz—also from Atlanta—Whiz Khalifa, Juicy J, Big Sean and Future, some of whom who eulogized him on Twitter.

“Man I’m a fan of Bru and always will be, I’m in shock at the moment !! Senseless deaths we just got to stop it, I’m speaking up now,” 2 Chainz tweeted after hearing the news.

R.I.P. Bankroll Fresh this is so sad

“rip Fresh, feel like I lost a brother,fr...” Mike Will Made-It, who produced his mixtapes, posted on Twitter.

Bankroll Fresh, whose five-year-old nephew Bankroll PJ is an Instagram celebrity, was referred to as “one of Atlanta’s newest, truest originals” in a January Fader magazine profile of the artist.

When asked about what his life was like as a burgeoning rapper in a rough part of Atlanta in 2007, he said:

"I knew I wasn't gonna be able to make millions just running in the streets because first of all your name will get too hot, they'll try to knock you off. Or, I'll get too piped up, a n--- might try to rob me. I shoot him, he shoot me. That's just how this shit goes in Atlanta this shit real, for real," Bankroll Fresh said in a now-prophetic response.

Police are still searching for suspects and have not determined a motive in the crime.

Summary: Up-and-coming Atlanta rapper Bankroll Fresh was murdered Friday night outside his recording studio.


The United States’ latest skirmish in the battle over marijuana laws is still ongoing and, for lawmakers, it hits close to home. On Thursday, possession of a limited amount of the drug became legal for adult residents of Washington, D.C. — but, thanks to the intervention of a group of Congressmen, there’s still no way to legally buy it or sell it there, which may lead to the development of a “free weed economy.”

The legislative action taken to stop the District from developing a monetary economy for pot has broken down along party lines, with Republican lawmakers against the change in stance toward the drug and Democrats urging the city to go ahead.

It may seem like a natural thing for conservatives to be, well, conservative about changing drug laws — polls have shown that Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to support legalization —but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, there was a time during the 1970s when the nation’s leading conservative voices spoke out on behalf of legalizing marijuana, for many of the same reasons that advocates of legalization cite today.

At that time, in late 1972, a large study from the nonpartisan Consumers Union had just come out, urging legalization, as well as government-supported treatment for addictions to other substances. The report found that it was too late for law enforcement to keep pot from becoming part of American culture — and, surprisingly, its authors weren’t the only ones to think so, as TIME reported that December:

…American conservatives may have arched their eyebrows well above the hairline when they glimpsed the latest issue of William F. Buckley Jr.’s staunchly nonpermissive National Review. There on the cover was the headline: THE TIME HAS COME: ABOLISH THE POT LAWS. Inside, Richard C. Cowan, a charter member of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom, sets forth his arguments that the criminal penalties for marijuana possession and use should be stricken from the books. Cowan contends that pot is comparatively harmless, demonstrably ubiquitous and that the laws against it only alienate the young and breed disrespect for American justice.

The attitude was a shift for Buckley, who in 1971 testified against loosening penalties but wrote in 1972 that he agreed with Cowan. “It seems, in fact, that Buckley has smoked grass himself—but only on his sailboat, outside the three-mile limit,” TIME noted. “His verdict: ‘To tell the truth, marijuana didn’t do a thing for me.'”

See the full story, here in the TIME Vault: Concerning Pot and Man at The National Review

Summary: American conservatives haven't always opposed legalizing pot


Laura Allen plays a mother dealing with the loss of her son (Dylan Minette) and a wife trying to reconnect with her husband, Detective Michael Britton (Jason Isaacs), after the terrible tragedy on NBC's "Awake."

Allen got her start on the big screen in "Mona Lisa Smile" alongside Julia Roberts and Maggie Gyllenhaal. She was also featured in Disney Pictures' "Old Dogs" and in the independent film "Cherry," which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in spring 2010. Her other film credits include independent movies "From Within," "Hysteria," and "How You Look to Me" with Frank Langella.

In addition to "Awake," Allen's list of television credits includes the Shawn Ryan-produced FX series "Terriers" and the critically acclaimed FX/Courteney Cox series "Dirt" as Julia Mallory. She was also the female lead in the Spike Lee-directed film "Sucker Free City" for Showtime, and the Emmy-nominated USA Network original series "The 4400" as Lily Tyler.

A graduate of Wellesley College, Allen focused her social science studies in criminology. Upon graduation she worked with the NYPD as a domestic violence counselor before pursuing acting. She soon got involved with the downtown theater scene, volunteering at New York's prominent off-Broadway theater MCC. Shortly thereafter, she landed her first acting role in a pilot for Fox, Darren Star's "The $treet," and later was chosen for the role of Laura Kirk English on the daytime drama "All My Children."

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Allen grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington, outside of Seattle. Along with her father and two sisters, she performed throughout her childhood in community theater productions and summer stock; she continued her pursuit of live theater during college and her studies abroad in London and at Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshires.

She now resides in Venice, California with her son and husband.

Summary: Meet Laura Allen on NBC.com.


... come on dooooooown ... it's time to play ARE YOU THE FATHER???

filed a lawsuit in Georgia this month ... claiming the former Pittsburgh Steeler is the biological father of her 1-year-old daughter.

According to docs, Melanie wants Hines to admit he fathered the kid -- and if he refuses, she wants a judge to order a blood test in order to establish paternity.

The maybe baby mama is also asking Hines to start coughing up child support ... if it's determined the child is actually his.

A judge has yet to rule.

-- Hines already has one other kid, with his ex-wife Simone.

Summary: Former NFL star Hines Ward ... come on dooooooown ... it's time to play ARE YOU THE FATHER???A woman named Melanie Smith filed a lawsuit in Georgia this…


ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, June 23— The Nigerian military Government today annulled the presidential elections held 11 days ago and abandoned its promise to hand power back to elected civilians anytime soon.

The announcement was made in a decree signed by the military leader, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who said "these steps were taken to save our judiciary from being ridiculed and politicized locally and internationally."

But Western diplomats and opposition figures in Nigeria, interviewed by telephone from here, dismissed General Babangida's excuse for canceling the elections as a duplicitous attempt to wrap in legal terms what is, in effect, an indefinite extension of military rule.

For one thing, the general's critics said, the military authorities tightly controlled virtually every aspect of the planned transition to civilian rule. Not only did they limit the number of legal parties to two -- the right-of-center Republican National Convention and the left-of-center Social Democracy Party -- but they also named them, wrote the parties' platforms, appointed senior party officials, provided campaign funds and even built thousands of party offices.

"The military has only themselves to blame for this mess," said a Western diplomat with extensive experience in West Africa. He, like many Nigerians, said an orderly transition to civilian rule was doomed from the start because the military authorities were not genuinely committed to the process. Suspend Electoral Commission

In the brief announcement today, General Babangida also suspended the National Electoral Commission, which, since multiparty elections were first announced in 1986, has been the main governmental body responsible for restoring democracy.

The presidential elections, held on June 12 in Nigeria's 30 states, involved chunks of land that are in many instances more populous and wealthy than many African nations. Roughly one out of every four black Africans is a Nigerian.

And although voter turnout was light by past standards, there was no evidence of the violence and vote-rigging that marred the last round of balloting, nearly a decade ago. Foreign observers generally described the elections as free and fair.

Nonetheless, the election results had been delayed after a spate of legal challenges in the Nigerian courts. By most accounts, the most significant lawsuit was brought on behalf of the Association for a Better Nigeria, a lobbying group of wealthy businessmen, politicians and military officers who had led a highly visible campaign urging General Babangida to remain in office at least four more years.

The association had charged that the transition to civilian rule had already been compromised by widespread vote tampering and corruption. Last week the association won a court order restraining the National Electoral Commission from releasing final election results. The military authorities said today that the profusion of court cases had made a "ridiculous charade" of the elections that could eventually "culminate in judicial anarchy."

The nation's ruling body, the National Security and Defense Council, which includes General Babangida and other senior military leaders, met this morning and will meet again on Thursday.

There was no immediate reaction to the cancellation from Moshood K. O. Abiola, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, who held a sturdy lead over his opponent, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention, before counting was halted last week by the National Electoral Commission.

Tonight, according to reports monitored here, Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, was calm. Criticism From Soyinka

But leading figures in the country, including Wole Soyinka, a writer and an opponent of military rule, have warned that further attempts to block the transition to civilian rule could plunge the country into anarchy.

"A very tiny but powerful cabal is toying with the future of our nation," Mr. Soyinka said in a statement. "Any further delay in making the people's verdict official is a deliberate cultivation of chaos."

Gani Fawehinmi, a lawyer and human rights worker, said in a statement: "The nation is in danger. It is abundantly clear that the military government is leading Nigeria into a political crisis of immeasurable, chaotic proportions."

The military has been in control in Nigeria for all but nine years since the country gained its independence from Britain in 1960.

It remains to be seen how Nigerians, especially those from the Yoruba ethnic group in the populous southwest, will react to the cancellation. Many Yoruba have long resented the domination of Nigeria's political life by the mostly northern Hausa-Falani ethnic group, and were ecstatic when one of their own, Mr. Abiola, appeared to have won the recent balloting.

Moreover, there is a pervasive sense among Nigerian Christians that the military authorities favor the northern Islamic groups, who make up about half the country's 90 million people. Under Maj. Gen. Mohammed Buhari, General Babangida's predecessor, Christian schools were taken over by the state, and permits to build churches were held up while the construction of mosques increased.

Photo: Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, the military leader of Nigeria, announced the annulment of the recent presidential election. (The New York Times)


For the young staff of the Los Angeles Dodgers, this week’s road trip to Milwaukee began like any other. Players drove their expensive cars to Dodger Stadium, popped their trunks and watched staffers grab their bags as they boarded a bus headed right to the airport tarmac.

The Dodgers’ Delta Air Lines private charter, where each player gets a row of three seats to himself, lets them stretch out while enjoying a menu of grilled swordfish, beef fillet or stuffed pork chops, along with salad, fresh fruit and assorted cheeses. White linens and hot towels are also included. Upon landing, a waiting bus takes them to a luxury hotel, where porters pile their bags into a ground floor meeting room or take them right to the players’ rooms upon request.

“It’s all first class,” says Team travel manager Scott Akasaki, whose biggest headaches during the season are changing plans on the fly after rain outs, extra-inning games or last minute scheduling changes by ESPN. And when a detail goes wrong, he hears about it. Once, a team announcer berated Akasaki for mistakenly assigning him to a handicapped room where the closet rod was just three feet off the ground.

If any industry is immune to the economic ills slowing down business travel in some quarters, it’s big-time sports. Sorry, gotta cut back, say real-world bosses. Cram yourself into coach and stay at the Holiday Inn. But for players in the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball, the bubble never bursts.

Most clubs fly charter under agreements with major airlines. The typical cost, according to some estimates, is about $15,000 an hour, or seven figures annually. A handful of teams, mostly in the NBA (more legroom required), own their own jets. In the basketball teams that fly charter, bosses take a back seat to the workers–literally. Depending on the number of first-class seats available, if a coach takes one over a player, then one player, as determined by the union, is entitled to be paid the difference between the value of the first-class seat and the value of the coach seat he was forced to endure.

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement not only mandates first class jet and travel accommodations for road trips “if practicable”–any exception that has players flying coach must include a minimum of three seats per two players–but also to spring training in February and back to their off-season homes in October. Plus, each club’s player representative must be notified three months before the season on hotels that his team plans to use in each road city. If a rep doesn’t agree, it’s back to the drawing board. And no more doubling up to save money: Single rooms on the road are mandatory.

Some players take things a step further, requesting suites on the road. Many pay the difference themselves, while the more savvy types negotiate them right into their contracts. Clubs even use this perk to attract desirable free agents.

“You do what you can to give yourself an edge,” says player agent Matt Sosnick. “In addition to money, you’re telling the player he’s going to be treated special.”

The amenities most players crave, according to some team travel directors, are round-the-clock room service (lots of late post-game meals), top notch fitness facilities (bench players need to get their workouts in), and blocks of rooms segregated from the other guests (who wants to hobnob with the commoners during downtime?).

Among the most popular sports choices: Boston’s Ritz Carlton, Chicago’s Peninsula Hotel and New York’s Westin in Times Square.

For NFL teams, common areas that provide plenty of meeting space for pre-game strategy sessions are a priority. Otherwise, NFL travel itineraries are pretty straightforward. With only eight road trips a year, excluding pre-season and playoff games, NFL teams provide charter flights and a $90 per diem for the players.

Baseball players, in particular, don’t take kindly to inconvenience. Through the union, they’re entitled to hotel accommodations and their $85 per diem if their team is forced to play a home game in a ballpark other than its own. That day in 1998 when a fallen beam at Yankee Stadium forced the team to host one game eight miles away at the Mets’ Shea Stadium? That was a “road” game as far as the Players Association was concerned.

The union also took care to mandate air travel for any road trip over 200 miles (the distance between Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, according to Mapquest: 206 miles).

The Dodgers Akasaki once had to come to a player’s suite to show him where to push open the door between adjoining rooms. The player, thinking the room wasn’t a suite, was upset. “I told him, ‘it is a suite, see?’,” he says. Whew. Good thing.

Comments are turned off for this post.

Summary: Ballplayers hit the road in style no matter what-- their contracts make sure of it.


At the time, Wolseley said the reasons behind the U-turn were “a private matter between the board and Simon”.

Cobham announced on Wednesday that David Mellors, finance chief at defence research and testing business QinetiQ, would be joining it in a similar role.

He will start at Cobham by the end of the year, with Mr Nicholls - who is highly respected within the City - leaving at what the company called “an appropriate point”. According to Cobham, Mr Nicholls “remains fully committed to the business and a a smooth transition to his successor”.

Qinetiq said Mr Mellors had been “pivotal in the turnaround of the company and strengthening of its balance sheet”, adding that the hunt for his successor had already begun.

Cobham shares rose more than 5pc on the news, while QinetiQ dipped almost 3pc.

Summary: Defence and aerospace group Cobham has poached a new finance director from fellow mid-capper QinetiQ, ending the troubled company’s search for a top executive.


struck out again -- because TMZ has learned, the judge refused to lower his $500,000 bail and the Hollywood producer that was supposed to bail him out didn't have enough cash on hand to cover the bill.

As we previously reported, producer

showed up to court today in L.A. -- where he expected the judge to lower Lenny's bail amount -- but the judge refused to budge ... demanding the full $500,000 to spring Lenny from the pokey.

We're told Heap was banking on the judge to lower his number, and didn't bring enough cash to cover the $50,000 bail premium -- 10% of the full bail amount.

Heap tells TMZ, he's still committed to freeing Lenny -- and will come up with the extra cash this weekend ... to bail out Lenny next week.

Summary: Lenny Dykstra struck out again -- because TMZ has learned, the judge refused to lower his $500,000 bail and the Hollywood producer that was supposed to…


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Boeing recently announced the development of a self-cleaning bathroom it hopes to someday start using on its aircraft.

Though the type of UV light used is not considered harmful, it would only be activated at times when the lavatory is unoccupied.

Jeanne Yu, Boeing's Commercial Airplanes Director of Environment, said, "We're trying to alleviate the anxiety we all face when using a restroom that gets a workout during a flight."

"In the prototype, we position the lights throughout the lavatory so that it floods the touch surfaces ... once a person exits the lavatory. This sanitizing even helps eliminate odors."

Further testing will be performed before the feature is made available.

The aircraft maker is also exploring adding even more touchless features to airplane restrooms, including automatic soap dispensers, trash flaps and toilet lids and seats.

RELATED: Looking to travel? Try avoiding these locations

Boeing developing self-cleaning bathrooms for future flights

No. 10: The Grand Canyon

Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

No. 9: The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Photo: Hans-Peter Merten via Getty Images

No. 8: The Great Pyramids at Giza

No. 6: The ruins of Pompeii

No. 5: The rock of Gibraltar

Photo: Anita Burke via Getty Images

No. 2: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

Photo: Steven Weinberg via Getty Images

Photo: Mark Daffey via Getty Images

More from AOL.com: Researchers find way to target cancer's 'achilles heel' NASA spots methane snow on Pluto's mountains Missouri chancellor condemns pro-Hitler flyer found in dorm

Summary: According to the company, the entire space can be disinfected in just 3 seconds, thanks to a Far UV light system.


It’s becoming increasingly obvious to anyone paying attention that Apple is planning a fairly modest upgrade for the iPhone this year. As rumor after rumor emerges from Cupertino about this fall’s annual refresh, unofficially dubbed the iPhone 7, the only change is getting attention is the purported removal of the headphone jack.

The impact so far has been to depress Apple’s huge fan base along with its stock price. Shares of Apple are down almost 10% so far this year, closing on Tuesday at $94.04, with the company experiencing its first ever quarterly decline in iPhone sales. Analysts say the stock is unlikely to return to its former highs of almost $133 last reached a year ago until iPhone sales resume growing.

But Apple aapl is hardly the only company depending on iPhone sales. Apple’s many suppliers were crushed on Tuesday, as formerly bullish analysts reduced their estimates of sales for the iPhone 7 while noting the impact on companies beyond Apple. Investors paid little heed to a more bullish report from Cowen & Co. analyst Timothy Arcuri, who said that worries about the iPhone 7 are “obscuring a powder keg” that will come when the 2017 iPhone arrives.

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Shares of InvenSense, Cirrus Logic, and Skyworks Solutions, three leading chip suppliers for the iPhone, each lost 6% on Tuesday, after Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell warned of “much more disappointing” iPhone sales in the second half of 2016. He downgraded Cirrus and Skyworks to “sector weight” from “overweight.”

InvenSense invn makes sensor chips like gyroscopes that allow the iPhone to measure motion. Skyworks swks supplies wireless radio chips that allow the phone to connect to mobile networks.

Cirrus crus makes audio chips—and in theory it could actually benefit from the loss of the headphone jack, if Apple enhances the sound output with newer and more expensive digital audio features. But that wouldn’t be enough to offset overall slower iPhone sales, McConnell says.

Your iPhone Is About to Get a Longer Life

“Cirrus Logic stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries in terms of content in the iPhone 7 related to the transition to digital headsets, we ultimately don’t believe this will be enough to offset a 15% to 20% decline in iPhone 7 shipments,” McConnell wrote in a research report.

Also on Tuesday, Citigroup analyst Jim Suva reduced his forecast for iPhone sales over the next six months, writing that the trend of iPhone owners waiting longer to upgrade will get worse. He also cites another unexpected factor will cut into this year’s already slow iPhone sales—Brexit. Because of the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union a likely economic slowdown also means fewer iPhones will be sold.

Summary: Slowing iPhone sales aren't just bad for Apple.


NEW YORK — European officials approved a new agreement Tuesday that will allow some of the world’s largest companies, including Google and General Electric, to move digital information freely between the European Union and the United States.

The pact, known as the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, comes after months of political wrangling. It is aimed at allowing online data — from social media posts and search queries to information about workers’ pensions and payroll — to be transferred across the Atlantic. The agreement also provides extra privacy protections for European citizens when their information is moved to the United States.

Here’s a primer on what was announced, what happens next and how it might affect you.

Q: What is the Privacy Shield and why does it matter?

A: The pact allows more than 4,000 companies that have registered with the Department of Commerce to transfer data between Europe and the United States. The new deal became necessary after Europe’s highest court ruled last year that the previous one — known as Safe Harbor — was invalid because it did not sufficiently protect Europeans’ privacy rights.

These digital data transfers are vital for many businesses, particularly technology companies like Facebook, which rely on moving information quickly between regions to power their online advertising businesses. As much as $260 billion of trans-Atlantic commerce depends on the Privacy Shield, according to industry estimates, so politicians were under pressure to reach an agreement.

Q: What are the main points?

The pact bolsters privacy guarantees for anyone living in Europe — but not for people in the United States — when their data is shifted across the Atlantic. Many Europeans fear that their information might be used inappropriately by the US government, including its intelligence agencies, and by companies.

The new safeguards include a greater say for Europeans on how their information is used and the right to go to US courts when people think companies or the US government may have misused their data.

Q: Is everyone happy with the Privacy Shield?

A: Despite further revisions, some think the deal still does not go far enough.

Legal challenges are already being prepared, and the European Court of Justice — the same court that overturned the previous trans-Atlantic data transfer deal — is likely to review the Privacy Shield to see if it meets European standards.

Summary: It will allow some of the world’s largest companies to move digital information freely between the European Union and the United States.


01/30/2009 AT 09:00 PM EST

's father has obtained new restraining orders against her former manager, her ex-boyfriend and a lawyer, according to court documents filed Friday.

Jamie Spears and lawyer Andrew Wallet, who oversee the singer's affairs as co-conservators, allege the three men "are now working in concert to disrupt the conservatorship with utter disregard for Ms. Spears's health and well being," the papers say.

Spears's father says her cell phone records show "numerous telephone conversations" and text messages with her ex-manager Sam Lutfi and former boyfriend, paparazzo Adnan Ghalib.

"[Britney] innocently informs [Ghalib] of her destinations and that he then arranges for paparazzi to meet and film her to his financial benefit," Jamie Spears says. "[He] is harmful to Ms. Spears and to her recovery."

Her father also alleges that on Dec. 27 and 28, 2008, Lutfi tried to contact Britney through her hairdresser with the message that Lutfi was not responsible for creating the conservatorship.

He allegedly sent a text message to the hairdresser saying, "I've done everything I can to free her from this. Very close to getting her free now."

The restraining orders forbid Lutfi, 34, and Ghalib, 36, from contacting Spears or coming within 250 yards of her, her property or family members, according to the L.A. Superior Court papers.

Jamie Spears also got a restraining order against lawyer Jon Eardley, who was involved in challenging the conservatorship proceedings.

A hearing on the matter is set for Feb. 23.

Lutfi was slapped with restraining orders by Jamie Spears's lawyers before. But in July, a lawyer for the singer said they were

to renew because enough legal protection was in place.

Last October, Britney's father and Wallet were named

by the court, granting them indefinite control over her life following her two forced hospitalizations in early 2008.

Summary: He gets restraining orders against Sam Lutfi and Adnan Ghalib for allegedly trying to disrupt his control and harm Spears


Used for decades in even modest European bathrooms, heated towel racks have become increasingly popular in the U.S. Trulia says it has seen a threefold uptick from about 200 listings in 2011 to about 600 listings in 2015 touting the feature.

These heaters are essentially radiators with bars for drying dampened towels. Designers say the racks help keep bathrooms and towels dry and mildew free, while adding a touch of individuality to...

Summary: Heated towel racks, a common fixture in Europe, are increasingly found in American bathrooms, some with extra features like robe hooks and aromatherapy diffusers.


"My creations have been made by cutting into the books, cutting around some of the illustrations and removing others," said Alexander. "The composition is built only using the imagery that is already in a particular volume. The end result is a hollowed out book with a layered composition that is like the Victorian paper theatres that were hugely popular at that time.

Summary: Alexander Korzer-Robinson sculpts books to create layered artworks.


Muhammad Ali is in “grave condition” in a Phoenix-area hospital, a well-informed source tells NBC News, as the boxing legend continues to battle a respiratory condition.

PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, 1/17/13, 7:00 PM ET

Thursday is boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s 71st birthday. Rev. Al Sharpton honors a man who was never afraid to speak his mind and stood up for what he believed in, even though it cost him his championship title.

The 74-year-old former heavyweight champion was hospitalized on Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona, for what had initially been expected to be a “brief” stay, according to his spokesman Bob Gunnell.

A spokeswoman for his daughter, Laila, said, “Laila’s number one priority is her father’s well-being. She truly appreciates the outpouring of love for her family, as she spends quality time with her dad.”

Ali has been battling advanced Parkinson’s disease in recent years — an illness that experts say can lead to complications and affect the breathing of patients.

The boxing legend was previously hospitalized for several days in December 2014 and January 2015 after suffering a severe urinary tract infection initially thought to be pneumonia.

Although weakened by illness, Ali has continued to loom large on national stage.

RELATED: Muhammad Ali hospitalized in fair condition with respiratory issue

In recent months, Ali waded into the nation’s political fight after GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.

Ali, who famously joined the Nation of Islam in 1964, asked for more understanding.

“Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is,” Ali said in a statement.

But Ali has rarely been seen in public since last September, when he attended an awards ceremony by the University of Louisville honoring his prolific boxing career and legacy as a hometown hero. The Muhammad Ali Childhood Home Museum in Louisville opened earlier this month.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com.

Summary: Ali is in "grave condition" in a Phoenix-area hospital, a source tells NBC News, as the boxing legend continues to battle a respiratory condition.


Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1990. Although the nebula is shadowy in optical light, it appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths.Picture: REX/NASA

Summary: The best photos of our solar system and outer space taken in 2013.


Brad Pitt came to the rescue Monday of a young fan who looked like she was going to be crushed by a crowd of fans.

The actor, 52, was taking a break during the filming of upcoming World War II movie Allied, when he took a break to greet fans in Spain’s Canary Islands, according to ABC. The fans had become over excited and a young girl was being pushed up against a fence.

Video of the incident shows Pitt pointing to the child before rushing over to the rescue with his two bodyguards. He then lifted her over the fence and can be seen comforting her until a medical team arrived.

Summary: Pitt was greeting fans when an eager crowd came close to crushing a young girl


The Democratic national convention has had enough musicians and actors on stage (and a few in the audience) to put on a mid-sized awards show.

Hometown heroes Boyz II Men, who were popular in the 1990s, kicked off the first night. Singers Demi Lovato, Andra Day and Alicia Keys, all popular with millennials, performed, while Boomer-favorite Paul Simon sangBridge Over Troubled Water to soothe a divided party. Comedian Sarah Silverman; actresses Eva Longoria, America Ferrera and Lena Dunham spoke, as did Scandal‘s Tony Goldwyn. Hunger Games actress Elizabeth Banks appeared onstage in the cloud of a fog machine on the second night, mocking Trump’s reality show-like entrance at his own convention, then appeared in an a cappella video with other celebrities singing Clinton’s campaign theme “Fight Song” alongside songwriter Rachel Platten.

Here’s a look at photographs of some of the famous faces to grace the DNC this week.

Summary: A number of actors and musicians were on hand.


Manzano said Fuentes had treated him with the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) in 2000, 2001 and 2003 when he was with the Spanish team Kelme. Manzano testified that all cyclists in the Kelme team, except for Juan Miguel Cuenca, were involved in doping.

He also implicated two others facing trial, Kelme team manager Vicente Belda and trainer Jose Ignacio Labarta in the doping conspiracy. “The medical planning was done by Eufemiano,” he said. “The training by Labarta. They always coordinated with Belda.

“In 2001, Belda came to my room saying he would give me 'a little something to soup up my engine’. It was EPO. Fuentes and Labarta were there. If you didn’t take it they would expel you from the team.

“I took the medication because it was compulsory in the team. I never did it voluntarily. If I report them here [in Spain], I am sacked. If I did it in France, then all of Kelme would go to jail.”

Echoing the testimony of another cyclist, Jörge Jaksche, this week, Manzano said that Fuentes would provide him with powder to contaminate any urine samples given to officials in drug tests. “The white powder was put into the penis to impair the urine,” he said. “So we gave no positive EPO.”

He said the cyclists manipulated the UCI’s blood testing controls by lowering hematocrit levels with reinfused pints of human albumin. They would then be given a “square pill” to help them pass urine.

Manzano listed a cocktail of drugs he would take: EPO, cortisone, a female hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin that is produced during pregnancy, AndroGel patches containing testosterone, the stimulant Synacthen – which has been used in the horse-racing industry – and Actovegin, a drug derived from calf blood.

Manzano added that he also took Oxyglobin, a blood derivative manufactured for dogs to increase blood’s oxygen levels, during the 2003 Tour. “I injected 50ml of Oxyglobin,” Manzano said. “It was the day of my weakness.”

He blamed the drugs for his sudden collapse on the first mountain stage of the 2003 Tour. He said team officials prevented him from telling French doctors what he had taken because they could all have been arrested.

“I had taken Oxyglobin intravenously, a haemoglobin for dogs, and Belda and Labarta knew,” he said. “I attacked [French rider] Richard Virenque on a stage and I began to feel progressively worse until I fainted. In the team they asked me to not say what I had taken nor to do a test because it was in France and we would all go to jail.”

Several days later Manzano was reinfused with blood. He told the court that he suffered an allergic reaction and was so sick that his wife had to stop the train he was travelling on so he could get off.

He said the team expelled him soon afterwards once he had accused them of putting the riders’ lives at risk. He denied the suggestion that he was sacked because he breached team rules when he was found with another woman in his room before a race.

Spanish police launched their crackdown on Fuentes’ doping network in Operation Puerto in 2006, two years after Manzano had alleged systematic doping in the Kelme team in an interview with the Spanish newspaper Diario AS.

Summary: Jesús Manzano, the former Spanish cyclist whose near-death experience during   the 2003 Tour de France led directly to the Operation Puerto drug raids, has   testified how he was given dog, cattle and horse medicines so frequently by   Eufemiano Fuentes that the blood doctor told him “some days you are barking   and other days you are mooing”.


Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recently moved several senior executives into new roles, and added another from its rival, Morgan Stanley.

Tom Jessop, a senior member of the Principal Strategic Investments team that places bets on financial-technology startups, shifted to a new position within Goldman’s technology division. As global head of technology business development, he’ll help hone the commercial instincts of the firm’s software...

Summary: Goldman Sachs recently moved several senior executives into new roles, and added another from rival, Morgan Stanley.


As growing numbers of people rue the tattoos they got in their youth, a new study has found that tattoo removal is less likely to succeed if the person is a smoker, the design contains colors such as blue or yellow and is larger than 12 inches.

The study is believed to be the first research that looked at several factors—which included tattoo size and location on the body—involved with successful tattoo removal, according to the researchers.

The standard procedure for removing tattoos currently is treatment with a laser called a Q-switched laser, or QSL, applied over a number of sessions. But the technique can lose its effectiveness depending on certain variables, according to the study, published online on Monday in the American Medical Association's Archives of Dermatology.

Smoking, for instance, can reduce by 70% the chance of successfully removing a tattoo after 10 treatment sessions.

Dermatologists have long known certain colors are easier to remove than others, but the findings on the impact of smoking on tattoo removal are new.

The research was conducted at a laser-surgery center in Milan, Italy, from 1995 through 2010. There were 352 people in the study, of which 201 were men, with a median age of 30 years old.

As many as 22% of U.S. college students have at least one tattoo, according to background information in the study, and about half of people who get tattoos later try to have them removed.

In order to remove tattoos, patients must undergo about 10 laser treatments several weeks apart. The light from the laser targets pigments in the ink of the tattoo and helps the ink break down. Over time the ink is removed through the body's lymphatic system. Each treatment costs about $200 and isn't covered by insurance.

Overall, the study found about 47% of people had their tattoos successfully removed after 10 laser treatments and it took 15 treatments to remove tattoos from 75% of patients.

Black and red pigments in tattoos were most easily removed. All-black tattoos had a 58% successful-removal rate, while tattoos with black and red pigments had a 51% success rate after 10 treatments. The presence of other colors such as greens, yellows or blues reduced the chances of effective removal of a tattoo by as much as 80%, the study found. Other factors that reduced the procedure's success included a design larger than 12 inches or one located on the feet or legs.

Karthik Krishnamurthy, director of the cosmetic dermatology clinic at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., who wasn't involved in the study, explained that black and red inks absorb the wavelength of light emitted by the QSL laser better than other colors.

Older tattoos are harder to remove in part because the ink particles move deeper into the skin over time, the researchers said. And smoking is believed to hinder tattoo removal because smoking is known to hinder wound healing.

The researchers also found that the amount of time between QSL treatment sessions was important to the technique's success. Treatment intervals of eight weeks or less were found to be less effective for tattoo removal.

A separate study, also published in the Archives of Dermatology, however, suggests a different type of laser currently in development called a picosecond alexandrite laser, can remove tattoos with fewer treatments than the QSL laser.

The study involved 15 patients and was partly funded by Cynosure Inc., CYNO -2.21 % a Westford, Mass., firm that is waiting for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to clear its picosecond laser for marketing.

Most patients could have their tattoos removed with four or fewer treatments, said one of the study's authors, Nazanin Saedi, who was a fellow at SkinCare Physicians in Chestnut Hill, Mass., where the study was conducted. Dr. Saedi is now an assistant professor and director of laser surgery and cosmetic dermatology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com

Summary: A new study has found that tattoo removal is less likely to succeed if the person is a smoker, the design contains colors such as blue or yellow and is larger than 12 inches


Authorities continued their search for a second day for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared from radar en route from Paris to Cairo, battling a lack of concrete evidence and conflicting reports to puzzle out what downed the plane.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Friday said there were still no clues to explain why the Flight 804 went down in the Mediterranean early Thursday. Egyptian officials said the crash was more...

Summary: Authorities continued their search for a second day for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared from radar, battling a lack of concrete evidence and conflicting reports to puzzle out what downed the plane.


Medicare has pulled back the veil on what doctors, physician assistants, physical therapists, and other health care providers charge, letting everyone see the rates for a wide variety of procedures in advance for the first time. “This is a big step forward and will be very enlightening,” says Jean Mitchell, a health economist at Georgetown University.

Health care researchers and fraud investigators are salivating over the data—already it’s revealed that some doctors favor the most expensive in-office intravenous drug treatments, likely because Medicare pays them a percentage of the cost, says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University.

As a patient, you can use the numbers, which are from 2012, to conduct your own research into prices and practices. Even if you’re under 65, you can glean valuable insights. Head to the Medicare Physician and Other Supplier Look-Up Tool to find your doctor. You’ll see how many times he or she did a particular service and the average charges. Then here’s what to make of the information:

If you’re facing surgery See how often your doctor operates; for complicated procedures, frequency pays. “Research shows doctors who perform more than 50 hip replacements a year have fewer complications,” says Andrew Fitch of Nerdwallet Health. Yet about half of orthopedic surgeons did fewer than 20 a year on traditional Medicare patients, a Nerdwallet analysis of the data found.

The tally excludes operations on patients with private insurance or a Medicare Advantage Plan. Still, a low number compared to other MDs should prompt you to ask how often your doctor does the job, particularly for hip and knee replacements, says Fitch. If the figure is high, keep in mind that at times every physician in a group practice bills under one name.

If you’re on traditional Medicare For a price preview, calculate the difference between the “average Medicare allowed amount” and the “average Medicare payment.” That’s your share of the bill before supplemental insurance kicks in. One caveat: What you see in the Medicare database are charges per service. So ask if you’ll face other bills or a facility fee if you’re cared for at a hospital or surgical center.

If you have private insurance Check out the “average submitted charge,” which is the doctor’s full retail price. If you go outside your network, you’ll owe the difference between this amount and what your insurer deems a “customary and reasonable” rate (get that from your insurer), on top of your co-insurance.

You should negotiate with out-of-network docs, and the Medicare allowed amount is a good starting point. If the provider balks at that, go as high as 35% more, which is the national standard for a reasonable charge, says Anderson.

Summary: A quick peek into some Medicare data can help you reduce your medical bills.


Rangers have been deducted 10 points after entering administration.

And it leaves the reigning champions 14 points behind Celtic in the race for the Scottish Premier League title.

An SPL statement said: "As Rangers FC is subject to an insolvency event, a 10-point deduction has been applied to its total points in the league championship for the current season.

"In addition, Rangers FC is subject to restrictions on the registration of players whilst in administration."

The statement added that the SPL would be "seeking an early meeting with the administrators".

One item high on the agenda will be Rangers' ability to fulfil and host their next league game, at home to Kilmarnock on Saturday, although Strathclyde Police has expressed itself happy that it will be paid for policing the event.

"We have had a positive meeting with the administrators and received assurances about payment for the provision of police services at this weekend's match," said a police statement.

"We are working with the club and planning for the game as normal.

"Strathclyde Police is a public body and has a duty to make sure public resources are used appropriately."

As a first step, the administration team will ensure that Saturday's match at Ibrox will proceed as planned and all other routine club business will continue

Rangers, who are now nine points ahead of third-placed Motherwell having played a game more, also face a race to prove to the Scottish Football Association that their finances are in shape before 31 March or face expulsion from Europe next season.

Although there is no specific ban on clubs in administration playing in Europe, it would be very difficult for such a club to meet the other financial criteria needed for a licence.

Rangers owner Craig Whyte said: "It remains our firm belief that the club's future can be secured and we hope this period of administration will be as short as possible.

"As chairman and a Rangers fan, it is very painful to see the club being deducted 10 league points, but I would urge all Rangers supporters to rally round Ally McCoist and the team in these difficult times."

Whyte placed the club in the hands of the administrators following a long-running tax dispute with HMRC that he claimed could cost the Glasgow club £75m.

However, it has emerged that Rangers were forced into administration over an unpaid tax bill of £9m - accrued since Whyte's takeover.

Duff and Phelps is now likely to cut costs at Ibrox and that could include job losses among the playing staff, although that process has been ongoing in recent years.

Rangers sold top goalscorer Nikica Jelavic to Everton for £5.5m last month, the Croatia striker being one of nine departures from manager Ally McCoist's playing squad for the rest of the season.

The Ibrox club added only Sweden Under-21 winger Mervan Celik during the transfer window and there is a question mark over whether a deal to sign free agent striker Daniel Cousin has been completed in time.

Rangers' move into administration has disappointed Scottish Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan said: "I shall also be seeking a discussion with the appointed administrator in early course, to establish their intentions for the club given the wider implications for the Scottish game.

"This is a profoundly sad chapter in the history of Scottish football and we should not underestimate the potential ramifications for the image of the game as a whole.

"This season alone, we have had two of our biggest clubs, Rangers and Heart of Midlothian, experience serious financial uncertainty, with many other member clubs surviving hand-to-mouth in the current economic climate.

"At a time when there is an appetite and momentum for radical change in Scottish football, it is important that we learn lessons from this dire situation and work together to provide a platform for clubs to thrive and prosper within their means."

Summary: Rangers are deducted 10 points after entering administration to fall 14 points behind Celtic in the Scottish Premier League.


An Adelaide liquor shop has been robbed twice in one week, with thieves using scissors and a crowbar to threaten staff.

The West Richmond liquor store on Marion Road was robbed on Friday, with a man brandishing a crowbar and demanding cash, police say.

The store was also held up by a man on Tuesday, this time with a pair of scissors.

No one was injured during the aggravated burglaries but both men ran off with cash.

Summary: A liquor store in Adelaide has been robbed twice in one week, with robbers using scissors and a crowbar to threaten staff and run off with cash.


Three dogs that mauled a tradesman, leaving him with injuries to his legs, chest and back, have been put down.

The 37-year-old had gone onto the Kenthurst property on Pitt Town Road on Friday morning to do a job when he was set upon by three American Staffordshire terriers.

Police performed first aid until CareFlight paramedics arrived, and the man was then taken by ambulance to Westmead hospital in a stable condition.

Neighbour Robert Brooks told 2GB he was prompted to look over the fence after hearing "horrific screaming and yelling".

"These dogs are just attacking him and he's just helpless, and we're helpless as well," Mr Brooks said.

"The first reaction is to try to jump over and get [the dogs], but mate, there's no way. We're going to sort of get mauled ourselves.

"It was just horrific mate. We couldn't help the poor guy, you know?"

After escaping from the animals, he was assisted over the property's front fence where an off-duty nurse performed first aid before police, paramedics and a CareFlight helicopter arrived.

Mr Brooks claims the tradesman had "big puncture wounds" on his arms, back, thigh and calf.

"There was blood but there wasn't actually blood gushing out, it was actually torn down to his muscles," he said.

The property owner's daughter reportedly also suffered injuries in the attack.

One neighbour said locals were fed up with the dogs roaming around and they had asked the owners to act.

"We've asked them several times over two years. We send them text messages with photos of the dogs in our yard," Michelle Gil said.

"It was just always going to come to this."

The victim was reportedly at the property for a plumbing job.

"We ring first if we know there are dogs on site, they are supposed to be restrained before we enter," colleague Darren said.

The three dogs were seized and put down on Friday afternoon, an impounding officer at The Hills Shire council said in a statement.

One of the dogs had been subject to a nuisance order.

"One of the dogs is subject to a previous nuisance order to prevent it from wandering - however this attack occurred on the property," the statement said.

Friday's attack is the latest in a spate of NSW dog attacks.

An 81-year-old woman remains in hospital after an attack by two American Staffordshire terrier crosses on Monday that left her with serious cuts to her face and body.

Four other people - two men and two women - who came to her aid were also bitten.

In a separate attack an eight-year-old boy was taken to hospital for a suspected fractured forearm and bite marks after he was bitten by a dog on August 28 in Edgeworth, near Newcastle.

Summary: A tradie has been bitten on his legs, chest and back after being attacked by three dogs in Sydney's west.


Young backpackers were paid an average of $2 an hour to work at a Northern Territory mango business last year, the Fair Work Ombudsman alleges.

Some of the 12 international workers were allegedly paid nothing at all for weeks of work picking, weeding and pruning on farms on Darwin's outskirts last year.

The ombudsman on Friday said it would take legal action against Vinai Chaipom who formerly ran The Mango Shop even though it was registered in the name of a young Belgian backpacker. It's alleged the workers were underpaid almost $36,000 over two months in late 2015.

Summary: The Fair Work Ombudsman alleges a mango business operator in the NT exploited young overseas backpackers by paying them just $2 per hour on average.


Travel is about to get a lot more personal.

Airbnb has unveiled its biggest expansion since it was founded in 2008, moving beyond accommodation to offer travellers curated experiences and personal recommendations.

The services - available via Airbnb's updated smartphone app - let locals act as tour guides to share their city and passions.

Chief executive Brian Chesky says the company started talking two years ago about how to make people's entire travel experience better.

"For many people travel's easy but it's not natural. If you want to have an amazing trip, you end up basically on a research project," he told the launch of Airbnb Trips in Los Angeles on Thursday (local time).

"You're in line, you're lonely, you're an outsider, you're often doing things locals would never do."

The new experiences give travellers the chance to do anything from a few hours learning to fight with Samurai swords to spending three days learning how to take and print photos of shooting stars, or discovering the history of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment from his guard and cook.

"These aren't tours, you actually participate, you immerse and you join the local communities," Mr Chesky said.

And for hosts: "If you have a passion, if you have an interest, or if you have a hobby, you can share it, your community, with others in the world."

Guests can also choose to give something back to the community they're visiting by helping a non-profit. Airbnb is also working with Make-A-Wish to help one child each day realise their dream.

Airbnb's experiences and places have launched in 12 cities around the world and will expand to 50 locations in 2017.

The offerings will include Sydney and New Zealand's Queenstown and people in these cities can now apply to host an experience.

Half of the launch set of 500 experiences cost less than $200 per person.

The places offerings include insider guidebooks, audio tours and meet-ups.

Mr Chesky also used the launch to hint at what's to come as the multi-billion dollar company expands even further into the travel space: flights, car rentals, grocery deliveries and services.

But he insists everything the company does will continue to be powered by regular people and their local, insider knowledge.

"A lot of technology companies tend to talk about the magic being in the technology, making things really easy," he said.

"But the magic is, always was and always will be in the people.

"Travel has never really been about where you go but it's about who you can become."

* The writer travelled to Los Angeles as a guest of Airbnb.

Summary: Accommodation tech giant Airbnb has announced the biggest expansion since it was founded, now offering travellers curated experiences and guides.


TUCSON, Ariz. -- Arizona coach Sean Miller called it "a typical November game."

For his 10th-ranked Wildcats, that meant another blowout over an overmatched opponent.

Lauri Markkanen scored 22 points to lead six Arizona players in double figures in Arizona's 95-65 rout of Sacred Heart on Friday night.

Fellow freshman Rawle Alkins added 18 points for the Wildcats (3-0). They led by as many as 25 points in the first half and 39 in the second.

Arizona's Dusan Ristic had 13 points and a career-high 15 rebounds.

Quincy McKnight had 22 points -- 20 in the second half -- and Joseph Lopez 15 for the Pioneers (1-2).

"November is a month of learning," Miller said. "Players are learning, they're learning each other, they're learning our system, but the coaching staff is learning on what kind of combinations of players work well, who can do what, what we need to teach and do a better job of."

The game was part of the Las Vegas Invitational, as is Monday night's game against Northern Colorado. The Wildcats move on to Las Vegas to play Santa Clara next Thursday.

If a team plays four games in a tournament, it gets an extra game on its schedule.

The much bigger, quicker Wildcats never trailed and turned the game into a blowout in a hurry, despite having a miserable night from 3-point range.

The Wildcats were 1 for 15 on 3s before Markkanen made two in a row late in the second half.

Miller said the Wildcats are just now learning how good the Finnish freshman Markkanen is on offense.

"There were times when he was open and the ball didn't find him," Miller said. "Then all of a sudden it did and he went on his own personal 8-0 run. ... Lauri's efficient. He's not going to take bad shots. That was about as easy of a 22-point night as I've seen."

Miller noted his team committed seven turnovers, just one in the first half. Point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright didn't' have a turnover in his 30 minutes on the court.

A pair of Arizona newcomers got the McKale Center crowd rocking with some high-flying plays.

In consecutive plays, freshman Kobi Simmons had a backcourt steal and two-handed dunk and junior college transfer Keanu Pinder knocked the ball away in Sacred Heart's backcourt and got the dunk on a lob pass from Parker Jackson-Cartwright at the other end, and Arizona led 43-18 with 4:17 left in the first half.

Ristic had 10 rebounds in the first half, one shy of his career-best for a game. The Wildcats led 49-25 at the break.

Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina lamented his team's 17 turnovers, which resulted in 25 Arizona points.

"When you play a team that good, you can't give them free points and we did," he said. "Now, fortunately we don't play a team that good the rest of the year, unless we make the NCAA Tournament."

Sacred Heart lost last season's league MVP Cane Broome, who transferred to Cincinnati. The Pioneers have some talent but nowhere near enough to stay with Arizona on the road.

The Wildcats did what they are supposed to do. They won't really have a challenge until the Las Vegas Invitational matchups next week, when they face Santa Clara and either the winner or loser of the Butler-Vanderbilt game.

It was the first meeting between the schools and the first for Sacred Heart against a Pac-12 team since playing Washington on Dec. 22, 2004. The Pioneers lost that one 114-55.

The Wildcats pounded a Northeast Conference team for the fourth time in the last five seasons.

They beat Bryant 100-60 in the 2011-12 season, Farleigh-Dickenson 100-50 in 2013-14 and Mount St. Mary's 78-55 in 2014-15.

NBA great Shaquille O'Neal was one of those in the crowd at sold-out McKale. He was in town for a visit by his son Shareef. The younger O'Neal, a 6-foot-8 junior forward at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, is a five-star recruit. Baylor and UCLA also are chasing him.

Sacred Heart: The Pioneers make the second and final stop on their trip west when they play at Santa Clara Monday night.

Arizona: The Wildcats complete a three-game home stand against teams from lesser conferences when they face Northern Colorado on Monday night.

Summary: The bigger, quicker Wildcats never trailed and turned the game into a blowout in a hurry.


Hallmark Health System of Medford is cutting 2 percent of its workforce as part of a cost-cutting plan ahead of its planned merger with the parent company of Tufts Medical Center.

The 57 layoffs include people in administrative, managerial, and patient care positions across all of Hallmark’s locations. The system runs hospitals in Medford and Melrose.

Chief executive Alan G. Macdonald said the cuts will help Hallmark save $16 million this fiscal year and position the health system to post profits in the years ahead.

“This work is critical for Hallmark Health to successfully navigate industry-wide challenges of lower inpatient volumes, increases in overhead expenses and less reimbursement for our services,” Macdonald said in a memo to staff on Wednesday.

He added that layoffs were minimized by leaving certain positions open and reducing work hours when possible.

Hallmark is planning a merger with Wellforce, the parent of Tufts Medical Center in Boston and Lowell General Hospital. The state Health Policy Commission signed off on the deal in September. The deal has not yet closed.

Summary: The company that owns hospitals in Medford and Melrose is planning to merge with the parent of Tufts Medical Center.


Pakistan plans to rename a university centre for physicist Abdus Salam, its first Nobel laureate, after more than 30 years of all but disowning his achievements, as a member of a minority sect barred from identifying itself as Muslim.

Salam, the first Muslim to win the prize for science, was a member of the Ahmadi sect, which is considered heretical by law in Pakistan, denounced by Muslim leaders and targeted by violent extremists.

The office of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said it had given approval for the National Centre for Physics at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, the capital, to be renamed after Salam.

Salam shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for helping to pave the way to the discovery of the "God particle," one of science's greatest achievements in the last 100 years.

However, under pressure from right-wing clerics and students, Salam was banned from lecturing at public universities during his lifetime, and even after winning the Nobel.

The Ahmadi minority holds that a prophet followed the Prophet Mohammed, who founded Islam.

But that view runs counter to the Muslim religion's central belief that Mohammad was the last of God's messengers.

Killing Ahmadis earns the assailant a place in heaven, say some clerics, who distribute leaflets carrying the home addresses of sect members.

In 1974, a Pakistani law declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims and in 1984, a new law made it possible to jail Ahmadis for "posing as a Muslim" or "offending a Muslim's feelings".

Salam is buried in the Pakistani town of Rabwah, a major centre for Ahmadis, where his gravestone was defaced by local authorities who removed the word "Muslim" from an inscription that called him "the first Muslim Nobel laureate".

"All his life, Professor Salam wanted to set up an institution for physics in Pakistan but no one let him," said Saleemuddin, the Ahmadi community's Pakistan.

"They didn't honour him in his life but we are happy they have finally done so now, better late than never," added Saleemuddin, who uses only one name.

"Only when we begin to honour our true heroes will Pakistan be on the right track."

Summary: Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win the Nobel prize for science, was a member of the Ahmadi sect, which is considered heretical by law in Pakistan.


BRUSSELS—The head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said Wednesday his organization won’t yield to pressures from European lenders to water down proposed new standards which could increase capital requirements.

William Coen, Secretary-General of the Swiss-based standards setter, spoke at the European Parliament on Wednesday and said that the committee would forge ahead with the controversial plans to revise postcrisis capital rules which are still under negotiation.

“We are well on track to complete these reforms by the end of the year,” said Mr. Coen. “The weaknesses in the banking sector were transmitted to the rest of the financial system and the real economy…. Nine years after the start of the crisis, the global economy is still recovering from its effects.”

Mr. Coen’s appearance in Brussels comes as European Union officials and the bloc’s biggest lenders have scaled up their warnings about the damage the new bank-safety rules could inflict on the banking sector.

Europe’s largest banks have come out saying the reforms, dubbed “Basel IV”, would impose costly new burdens on banks’ finances and hinder lending at a time when Europe is struggling with growth.

Philippe Bordenave, chief operating officer of France’s BNP Paribas SA stressed in September that current proposals would increase the overall level of capital requirements “to an extent that would damage financial stability.”

Sylvie Goulard, a French member of the European Parliament, pointed out that the Basel reforms can no longer be detached from politics, given Europe’s weak economic situation and the delicate state of its banking sector.

“The mood in the public opinion has changed, and we see it in the American presidential election and we see it in Europe,” said Ms. Goulard. “What is at stake is much more than financial stability, it is the stability of our political systems. We need to explain to voters and citizens where the rules are coming from and who is doing what.”

Ms. Goulard added that Basel’s decisions, even though they bear no legal force, ultimately impact how the banking sector behaves.

While the Basel Committee introduced fresh rules after the 2008 financial crisis that bolstered the amount of capital banks must hold to withstand moments of economic crisis, it has since said tighter rules are required to bolster the framework. The committee said some banks could still be undercapitalized because of the varying methods banks use to calculate capital, also known as “internal models.”

To rectify this, the Basel Committee has proposed five different rules since the end of last year that would require banks to use industrywide calculations instead of their own when assessing risk. U.S. regulators argue European banks currently have an advantage because of their freedom to make risk calculations on their own. They say this allows European banks to underestimate their capitals needs.

The plans have provoked fierce reactions on the continent. Germany and France, whose leading lenders include Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas, have been the most outspoken against the proposed rules.

“It must be clear that this package must be balanced and that it must provide the same level playing field,” said German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Tuesday at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg. “And that there mustn’t be a discrimination of European banks regarding capital requirements,” he added.

EU officials and politicians argue the rules would put the region’s banks at a disadvantage to U.S. counterparts because, unlike American firms, European banks generally hold mortgage loans on their balance sheets. As a result, they have to offset more capital against those loans.

Mr. Coen firmly denies that there is a trans-Atlantic spat unfolding in the Basel Committee. “Let me point out that this isn’t debate between the European Union and the United States” he said. “There are other countries on the Basel Committee. I don’t see this as a level playing field issue,” he told lawmakers.

EU regulators, including the bloc’s financial services chief Valdis Dombrovskis, have spoken out against the plan though, specifically citing the risk of a competitive disadvantage for the EU. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has no direct say in the Basel Committee. But it decides how to implement the agreed Basel standards into EU legislation.

-- Andrea Thomas in Berlin contributed to this article

Write to Julia-Ambra Verlaine at julia.verlaine@wsj.com

Summary: The head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said his organization won’t yield to pressures from European lenders to water down proposed new standards which could increase capital requirements.


Some sobering news from the native advertising front, which many legacy publishers are looking to as a digital life raft.

Native ad renewal rates for 2016 were only 33 percent, according to Todd Krizelman, CEO of the ad-tracking firm MediaRadar.

Fully a fifth of the 1,000 publishers he tracked had renewal rates of less than 20 percent.

Native ads are sponsored content fashioned to look like editorial content.

It is not all bad news, though.

Quality native ads did better, Krizelman said, noting that top native advertisers have renewal rates of 60 percent to 80 percent.

The report also found that ad blocking has become a “diluted threat.”

Summary: Some sobering news from the native advertising front, which many legacy publishers are looking to as a digital life raft. Native ad renewal rates for 2016 were only 33 percent, according to Todd Kr…


A top former Bush administration official has endorsed Hillary Clinton, warning that Donald Trump is a “perilous” threat to the country.

Rosario Marin, appointed as the first Mexican-born person to serve as United States Treasurer by George W. Bush and a fixture of five Republican presidential campaigns, endorsed Clinton in a Univision op-ed Wednesday morning.

“I will stand up for my community against the menace of a tyrannical presidency that does not value the countless contributions of immigrants,” Marin writes. “There is too much at stake both domestically and abroad to have a thoughtless individual at the helm of the most important economy in the world.”

Despite often disagreeing with and criticizing Clinton, Marin said that the Democratic nominee understands that words spoken from the White House have consequences, and that sarcasm is not a strategy for dealing with delicate global situations — a reference to Trump’s recent comments that he was being sarcastic when he said President Obama was the founder of ISIS.

Marin was out against Trump early on, signing onto a letter last summer with other Mexican-Americans that have held elected office to send a message that his comments about Mexicans and immigrants were unacceptable. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Marin credited her long time in politics for her immediate opposition to him.

“I know a demagogue when I see one,” she said.

In the op-ed, Marin laments that despite assurances from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus that the party would make efforts to appeal to Hispanics after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss, “the party left me and my community all alone again.”

“I have come to the devastatingly painful realization that my party right now doesn’t want my vote nor that of my community,” she said.

Marin along with many other Hispanic conservatives has been a vocal Trump opponent, ripping his bombast as offensive and saying that she will not do the crucial work of acting as a surrogate for him on Spanish-language networks as she has for past Republican presidential nominees.

She twice held a press conference with other Latino Republicans before primary debates to take Trump to task, but while others who were part of the group have come around to supporting him, Marin has been a vocal holdout.

She says a common refrain from Trump supporters that he is bashing “illegal immigrants” and not Hispanics is flawed because of the way he went after a Mexican-American federal judge and because of his policy suggestion that he could force Mexico to pay for a border wall by withholding money that immigrants send back to family back home.

“There’s something evil when he’s talking about that, which would be so unconstitutional,” she said. “He didn’t say that because it was a carefully thought out policy — what it showed was this racism that he has against the Mexican community.”

Still, some Republicans feel Marin went too far, when upon Trump wrapping up the nomination in May, she went on CNN to proclaim, “I will not vote for this little orange man.”

But GOP Hispanics also say they are loath to criticize her, viewing her as a hero, because she was the first Latina to have her name appear on U.S. currency across the country.

“For someone who grew up without a pair of shoes and whose family came from nothing to get that position, it still means something,” said one Republican operative. “It’s a testament to the American dream.” In 2012, the Romney campaign created ads featuring her and her life story.

Artemio Muniz, a Texas Republican who joined Marin at the press conferences denouncing Trump, said Marin endorsing a Democrat is the end of an era.

“I love Rosario with all my heart,” he said. “I hate to see part of the George W. Bush legacy crumble like that, the last brick of the Bush legacy when it comes to Hispanic outreach.”

The Clinton campaign has made it a point to reach out to Republicans and independents who can not stomach Trump, and the number now stands at more than 50 endorsers, including Meg Whitman, and high-profile Latino Republicans like former commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

While many Republicans oppose Trump, some question the wisdom of endorsing Clinton — a decision they feel will come to haunt people like Marin, when they want to support a future Republican nominee and once again be critical of Clinton.

“I don’t understand the Republicans that are doing this kind of stuff, there will be a Republican Party when Trump loses, because he is going to lose,” a former RNC official said.

Marin countered that she knows some of her friends will be disappointed with her decision but she can not think four years into the future when there is a clear and present danger right now.

“My party and its standard-bearer leave me no choice,” she ultimately concludes on Univision. “On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Summary: Rosario Marin endorsed Clinton in a Univision op-ed because of Trump's rhetoric and policies throughout the election. "I will stand up for my community against the menace of a tyrannical presi...


Mary Ellen Mark was equally comfortable photographing the famous and what she called "the unfamous" among us. Her travels took her from international movie sets to the Calcutta missions of Mother Teresa, from vivid high school prom portraits to a homeless family struggling on the skids of Los Angeles.

Her half-century of documentary work and portraiture made Mark, who died in May at age 75, one of the most important photographers of her era. And she returned to some subjects again and again, including Tiny, a teenage girl she met living on the streets of Seattle in the 1980s and photographed over the next three decades.

"Tiny: Streetwise Revisited," an update of her 1988 monograph, was one of two books Mark completed just before her death. It is one of the most striking and moving of this season's photography books, which includes a massive volume of Andy Warhol's Polaroids and Catherine Opie's anthropological look at Elizabeth Taylor's belongings.

Over the years, Mark was frequently compared — a little too easily — to Diane Arbus, another fearless photographer drawn to the unfamous. But where Arbus was often merciless in her work, Mark showed empathy in pictures that mingled bluntness with grace.

When Life Magazine assigned Mark to photograph runaways and street kids in 1983, she ended up in Seattle, which, she wrote, had just been "voted America's most livable city." On Pike Street, teens were prostituting themselves and selling blood for cash. They slept under freeways and were dying from drugs, violence and exposure. They were, author John Irving writes in the introduction, "unloved, poor, unwanted, abused."

The book is built round Tiny but begins as the story of an entire population of street kids. One adolescent girl is photographed on the sidewalk holding a rag doll close as she drags on a cigarette, a hard look on her young face.

Soon after that initial Life assignment, Mark's husband, filmmaker Martin Bell, made an Oscar-nominated documentary about the homeless teens, "Streetwise," as Mark continued to photograph, her focus ultimately turning to Tiny. By 1985, Tiny was pregnant with the first of 10 children by multiple fathers and in the early stages of a lifelong struggle with drugs.

There is sadness and disappointment to the pictures here but also brief moments of joy. The connection between the photographer and subject was meaningful from the beginning; in the closing notes, Mark reveals that in 1983 she offered to take Tiny with her to New York on the condition that she attend school. Tiny preferred to remain on Pike Street.

The other book the photographer completed just before her death was "Mary Ellen Mark on the Portrait and the Moment," an essential text for examining a difficult world. She writes: "If your subjects have meant something to you, they live with you forever."

The work of Warhol inhabits an entirely different spectrum of experience. The acclaimed Pop artist was an obsessive photographer as well as a constant subject in front of the camera. In "Andy Warhol: Polaroids 1958-1987," he points his instant, pre-Instagram camera at a daily parade of the famous and infamous: Divine, Sylvester Stallone, Jimmy Carter, Alfred Hitchcock, Candy Darling and more.

Many are just snapshots, but others capture something deeper about Warhol's cultural moment, showing both gloss and grit in his celebrities. Some were later used for his famous silk-screen work. There are self-portraits of Warhol as a woman and still lifes of scattered knives, a spilled Coke can and more.

The earliest pictures are raw documents of his Factory life and the New York art world; by the early 1970s, Warhol had developed a distinctive style, with the Polaroid as a medium, creating a look of neon glamour and decadence that fit the time and place.

One of Warhol's Polaroid subjects was screen legend Taylor, but his high-gloss approach couldn't be further from the human-scale glamour captured by Opie in her book "700 Nimes Road." The photographer, then known for provocative portraiture, landscapes and social commentary, never met the Hollywood actress, but she was given access to her home to create a different sort of portrait focused on her accumulated personal belongings.

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Opie hoped to share what she photographed with Taylor, but the actress died before the project was finished. In part inspired by William Eggleston's pictures of Graceland six years after Elvis Presley's death, Opie dived into Taylor's closets and jewelry cases, into her living room and kitchen and hallways. What she found was not a cartoon character from tabloid America but someone "deliciously regular," as writer and critic Ingrid Sischy puts it in an afterward.

The photographs include a row of gleaming Academy Awards, a closet full of fashionable cowboy boots, purses and extremely precious jewelry in worn boxes. There is a sea of colorful fabrics from decades of gowns, and tabletops covered with framed pictures of loved ones past and present, of babies and famous friends, of husbands Mike Todd and Richard Burton, of the real life lived beyond the spotlight.

Fame requires the fuel of obsessiveness that only true fans can provide. No fanatics in all of pop culture are more intense than listeners of heavy metal, the subjects of Jacob Ehrbahn's astonishing "Headbangers."

The idea is simple: capturing portraits of metal fans at a peak moment of ear-rattling ecstasy, whipping their hair to their noise of choice. The faces frozen by the camera shutter reveal a range of extreme emotions, from brutal joy to stomping rage and something approaching nirvana.

The Danish photographer finds something of real beauty and excitement among this population too often dismissed as misfits and hard cases. Some of the faces are battered, others just young fans out for a good time. The feelings here are rabid and adoring, and reflect a depth of experience from one more corner of the unfamous.


Genzyme won federal approval yesterday to sell the first drug for Pompe disease, a rare inherited enzyme deficiency that destroys muscles and can kill infants by their first birthday.

The drug, Myozyme, is the fourth developed by Genzyme to treat a rare enzyme deficiency under the incentives provided by the federal government to develop medicines for so-called orphan diseases.

Genzyme officials said Myozyme, like the previous drugs, would cost about $200,000 to $300,000 a year on average, though significantly less for infants, who require less of the product.

At those prices, sales could reach hundreds of millions of dollars annually, even though there are fewer than 10,000 people in the world with Pompe disease. Shares of Genzyme fell 3 cents, to $61.16 yesterday.

While patients with rare diseases have generally been grateful for Genzyme's drugs, some have complained of the strain of maintaining their insurance to pay for them. Genzyme, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Mass., has said it has spent more than $500 million since 1998 to develop Myozyme and that it will provide the drug free to those who cannot otherwise pay for it.

All 18 infants given Myozyme in a clinical trial  conducted from 2003 to 2005  lived until they were at least 18 months old, or about a year after starting treatment, and most are still alive today. In the past, nearly all of those babies would have died by 18 months of age.

Still, 7 of the children needed a ventilator to breathe and 2 eventually died, one after 14 months of treatment and one after 25 months, according to the drug's labeling information. And while muscle function improved in many of the infants, it was still below normal. Myozyme can also cause life-threatening anaphylactic  or allergic  reactions, according to a warning on its label.

"We have clearly altered the natural history of the disease in the infantile population in a dramatic way, but it's not a cure," said Dr. David Meeker, president of the Genzyme division that developed Myozyme. Genzyme is offering a blood test to diagnose the disease rapidly. That could lead to earlier treatment, which might improve the outcome, he said.

Myozyme was also approved to treat Pompe disease that begins later in childhood or in adulthood, though the label says the safety and effectiveness have not yet been established for those patients.

Summary: The drug, Myozyme, is the fourth developed by Genzyme to treat a rare enzyme deficiency under incentives provided by the federal government.