– It's pretty much unanimous: Critics are in love with Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the documentary produced by Cobain's daughter, which hits theaters today before premiering on HBO next month. With interviews from his parents, Courtney Love, and more, it offers an intimate look at the star who committed suicide at 27. Here's what critics are saying: Director Brett Morgen "gives us the man instead of the myth" in a documentary that makes "Cobain's story feel not only comprehensive and fresh but revelatory," Chris Nashawaty writes at Entertainment Weekly. Some parts, including a home video of Cobain nodding off on drugs, are "uncomfortable," but "Morgen isn't interested in hagiography. He wants to show us the real Kurt Cobain, warts and all." The result is, in a word, "brilliant." "The movie creates a portrait of Cobain that’s more intimate, and more disturbing, than any that fans have witnessed before," writes Jim Farber at the New York Daily News. It "downplays commentary to stress raw evidence drawn from Cobain's deep archives." Viewers will see "a strung-out Cobain struggling to hold his infant daughter," Farber writes, and hear him speak about a high school suicide attempt. The film as a whole leaves "questions, frustrations, and a chill." "Edited from thousands of photographs, home movies, and audio clips" the "source materials alone [make] this film a must-see for any hard-core Nirvana fan," Charles R. Cross writes at the Seattle Times. The highlights come in "segments where noirish animations dramatize stories Cobain himself narrates in audio." Though the "many powerful images on screen ... begin to overwhelm the viewer," most will be left "cheering." Mike Hale describes the film as a "seamless mystery ride" that "concentrates on Cobain the writer, draftsman, and personality." Morgen "finds abundant clues and premonitions in Cobain’s writings" to suggest that "insecurity and shame" played a role in his suicide, though the truth remains elusive, Hale writes at the New York Times. His favorite part? Seeing an "angelic" Cobain as a child in the first half of the two-hour-plus film. Frances Bean Cobain recently spoke publicly about her dad.

Expand this summary.

type Movie Current Status In Season mpaa Unrated runtime 132 minutes Limited Release Date 05/02/15 performer Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love director Brett Morgen genre Documentary, Biography, Music

 We gave it an A

 In the opening moments of Brett Morgen’s devastatingly intimate documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, there’s a series of Super-8 home movies narrated by the late Nirvana frontman’s mother. “I was head over heels in love with that child,” she says as the flickering image of a towhead with bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile waves at the camera. On a hissing old tape recording, she asks her toddler son who he is. And in the tiniest, helium-pitched voice, he replies, “I’m Kurt Cobain!” It just about breaks your heart. Could the live-fast-die-young god of grunge ever have been so sweet and innocent?

 It’s been more than two decades since Cobain was found dead at age 27, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head—the intimations of which could be found in his lyrics and were known to his closest friends. In the immediate aftermath of his death, the myth-building began, as it tends to do with artists who leave us too soon. Since then, the narrative of Cobain’s life—on and off the stage and in and out of rehab—has become as familiar and ossified as gospel: the troubled Aberdeen, Wash., teen who started a garage band and vaulted to global superstardom, the sensitive soul swept up in a Sid-and-Nancy-like romance with Courtney Love, the battles with addiction, the overwhelming demands of fame, and the decision to check out. But as Morgen’s brilliant film (which also premieres May 4 on HBO) shows, the narrative was never quite that tidy. Normally I’m suspicious when a filmmaker gets into bed with his subject as Morgen has here. He had the cooperation of Cobain’s family, widow, and daughter. But that access merely allows the director to make Cobain’s story feel not only comprehensive and fresh but revelatory. Morgen gives us the man instead of the myth.

 Montage of Heck begins at the beginning, showing us the bright, happy kid who sinks into restless depression (the “teenage angst” that later “paid off well”). He’s shuttled between his divorced parents, never quite fitting in or feeling at home. Through hauntingly animated sequences that bring the young Cobain’s scribbled journals to life, we start to sympathize with the loneliness that eventually led him to form the band that would become his surrogate family. From there, we see Nirvana’s underground success with Bleach, followed by the meteoric, multiplatinum success of Nevermind and all the adulation and attention that followed. Interviews with Love, bandmate Krist Novoselic, and Cobain’s first girlfriend flesh out the portrait and hint at the inevitability of the musician’s tragic path, including the most difficult scene to watch in the film: a home movie where Cobain seemingly nods off on drugs as Love cuts their young daughter’s hair. It’s uncomfortable. It almost feels too private. And some Nirvana fans, who like their icons unblemished, may choose to look away. But it proves that Morgen isn’t interested in hagiography. He wants to show us the real Kurt Cobain, warts and all. A ||||| Frances Bean, who is now 25, was just 20 months old when her father killed himself, far too young to know him. After spending much of her life avoiding his myth and his music, she told Rolling Stone that the movie allowed her to "know" him in an unfiltered way. Through it, she discovered that her father truly loved her. ||||| “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” Brett Morgen’s family-approved documentary about the prodigiously talented and troubled leader of Nirvana, opens with a credit for its source material. Mr. Morgen was given access to Cobain’s archives — “art, music, journals, Super 8 films and audio montages” — and his exhilarating, exhausting, two-hour-plus film, both an artful mosaic and a hammering barrage, reflects years of rummaging through that trove.

 “Montage of Heck” is really a series of montages, both visual (Mr. Morgen and Joe Beshenkovsky were the editors) and aural (Cameron Frankley did the sound design). Swirls of images flash by — childhood family movies, journal and notebook entries, Cobain’s drawings and paintings, scenes of life on the road, concert footage, magazine articles, the home movies of Cobain and his wife, Courtney Love — set to an intricately layered soundtrack of Nirvana songs, archival interviews and the semiconfessional audiotapes he made as part of his diverse, constant artistic output.

 Continue reading the main story Video

 You’re never unaware of this virtuosity — “Montage” is, more than anything, an editing tour de force — or of the highly constructed nature of Mr. Morgen’s narrative. The film stops short of Cobain’s suicide in 1994, which is recounted in a one-sentence title card. But a portrait is assembled of Cobain as relentlessly self-aware and self-critical, and a theory is advanced involving insecurity and shame. And Mr. Morgen — able to choose from the archives — finds abundant clues and premonitions in Cobain’s writings and uses a full bag of film tricks to make them tell the story he wants told.

 Photo

 Ultimate answers about the suicide, or about the nature of Cobain’s relationship with Ms. Love, are still elusive, though. When it comes down to it, Mr. Morgen is faced with the opacity and the nondramatic, self-fulfilling nature of the drug addiction story. This is partly why the first hour, with its home-movie footage of an angelic, hyperactive Cobain as a child and its animated sequences of his adolescence, set to his own taped narration, is the best part of the film. (Though the later scenes of Cobain and Ms. Love living in comfortable, generally cheerful rock-star squalor have their own fascination.)

 Mr. Morgen’s reliance on Cobain’s personal material goes along with an unusual sparseness of interview subjects for a biographical documentary — just seven, including his mother, father and sister, his bandmate Krist Novoselic and Ms. Love. (The Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl was interviewed but not included in the film.) You can speculate about how complete a picture we’re getting, given that Ms. Love’s and Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was an executive producer of the film, but that’s all you can do.

 Cobain’s and Nirvana’s music is heard throughout, and there are unusual bonuses, like a shot of Cobain fiercely running through “Drain You” at a sound check or a poignant tape of him singing the Beatles’ “And I Love Her.” Oddly, we don’t really see Cobain’s development as a musician — he seems to appear fully formed, while the film concentrates on Cobain the writer, draftsman and personality. You’re not likely to mind, though, for the duration of Mr. Morgen’s seamless mystery ride. |||||


Write an article based on this summary:

– How do you get rid of a population of bugs destroying your crops? Scientists are trying out a controversial method: spreading a gene that prevents females from reproducing. Males can live with the lab-inserted gene, but females die in the larval stage—which doesn't leave a lot of options for reproduction or the future of the species, New Scientist reports. In a lab experiment, this decimated the population in 10 weeks. Scientists at English firm Oxitec want to try their method in Spain, where they're awaiting the OK from Spanish authorities to kill off certain fruit flies that destroy some 15% to 30% of the olive tree crop each year. But genetic science watchdogs have concerns about the method, fearing, for instance, that altered populations could affect creatures outside their own species, Mashable reports. A similar experiment is already happening in the wild in Brazil, where the Oxitec team has altered males of a population of dengue-carrying mosquitoes. Some 96% of dengue mosquitoes around the city of Mandacaru have been destroyed, the company says.

A British biotechnology company called Oxitec has genetically engineered a new breed of olive tree fly that could stop their natural counterparts from ravaging olive trees in Spain.

 The altered flies are implanted with a gene that causes female offspring to die in the larval stage. Males will grow old with the gene, and soon won't have anyone to mate with. In a controlled experiment conducted by the UK scientists, according to New Scientist, the population crashed in about 10 weeks.

 SEE ALSO: 9 Bug Videos That Will Make You Squirm

 Olive tree fly larvae eat through 15% to 30% of the crop each year, making them much more than a nuisance to anyone whose income depends on the fruit.

 For now, Oxitec is waiting for the go-ahead from the National Biosafety Commission in Spain. But in Brazil, a similar experiment is well under way in the wild. The scientists have engineered dengue-carrying mosquitoes around the city of Mandacaru to produce offspring that will all die before they can reproduce.

 The company claims to have killed off 96% of the dengue mosquito, but there are those who believe their method of doing so is dangerous.

 GeneWatch UK, a nonprofit dedicated to investigating how genetic science and technology affects everything from food to society in general, is concerned that this method of species control doesn't have enough oversight. They believe that the relationships this species of mosquito has with other mosquitoes have been oversimplified, meaning the insects could intermingle and cause other populations to deteriorate.

 But Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry says that its method is much more practical and safe than, say, using insecticide.

 "Insecticides will kill many species — whether the target or a beneficial insect so they can have quite a broad impact in the environment," Parry wrote in an e-mail to Mashable.

 He also suggested that his method is better for people, too.

 "The mosquito lives and breeds very close to humans — so they live in and around the home," Parry said. "So with pesticides you need frequent and total access to people’s homes to spray or fog." Many people don't want those chemicals near where they live, of course.

 Oxitec's main focus for now is on the mosquitoes, but they have developed a few more bugs for different purposes, including one that can control populations of cotton-eaters.

 Does controlling populations through genetic tweaking sound safe to you? Let us know in the comments.

 Image: Flickr, Reini68 ||||| GM insects are go. Genetically modified versions of a fly that decimates olive trees could soon be released in Spain in an attempt to control the pests. And in Brazil, GM mosquitoes are already at large as part of the biggest project yet involving engineered insects. The aim is to stamp out their natural counterparts, which carry dengue fever.

 The techniques are opposed by anti-GM groups, but advocates say they offer a real alternative to spraying insecticides, and have the potential to provide a better and more precise tool to combat agricultural pests and insects that spread human diseases.

 The olive fruit fly is a major pest to olive growers in the Mediterranean and California. Females lay their eggs in the fruit and the larvae destroy 15 to 30 per cent of the crop each year as they munch their way to freedom. To tackle this, Oxitec, a biotech company based in Oxford, UK, has submitted an application to the National Biosafety Commission in Spain to release a small contingent of male GM olive flies, in what would be the first field trial of its kind in Europe.

 The males are equipped with genes that cause any female offspring they sire to die while they are still in the larval stage, before they have had a chance to reproduce. The idea is that the male offspring inherit the lethal genes and continue to propagate them through the population, until the number of females dwindles to zero and the species crashes.

 In lab experiments, the designer flies successfully competed with non-GM males for mates and caused the population to nosedive within 10 weeks (BMC Biology, doi.org/nvd). To check this happens in the wild, the trial would involve releasing the engineered flies under six olive trees in the Tarragona province, draped in mesh netting to prevent escape.

 As the Spanish authorities mull the application, Oxitec is continuing with an even bigger trial to combat dengue fever in Jacobina, a city of 50,000 people in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The aim: to run local mosquitoes that transmit dengue out of town.

 The principle is almost the same as with the olive flies – send out an army of male mosquitoes equipped with genes that prevent any offspring, male or female, from reaching breeding age. "Our males are mating at the frequency we'd hoped," says Luke Alphey, co-founder of Oxitec.

 In a preparatory field study elsewhere, the team showed its mosquitoes reduced the native population by between 80 and 96 per cent within six months. "The new programme is less about 'does this work?', and more about the first operational roll-out of this technology," says Alphey.

 The main benefit of the GM insect method, says Tony Nolan from Imperial College, London, is that it is "strictly species-specific" as the insects only seek out mates of the same species. Controlling the pests with insecticides wouldn't be so discriminating.

 However, opponents, such as GeneWatch UK, say there are unanswered questions about the insects, whether they will spread unpredictably, for example. They also point out that sites cleared of insects would eventually be reinvaded. Alphey counters that similar work using males sterilised with radiation has shown that reinvasions can be controlled for decades by simply releasing more insects.

 This article appeared in print under the headline "Designer insects join fight against pests and disease"

 New Scientist

 Not just a website!

 Subscribe to New Scientist and get:

 New Scientist magazine delivered every week

 Unlimited online access to articles from over 500 back issues

 Subscribe Now and Save

 If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. |||||


Article:
The Iranian leadership was encouraged by what was described as Mr. Obama’s offer to conduct face-to-face talks, which they prefer to the more bureaucratic and lengthy negotiating process with a group of five major world powers, Mr. Mohebbian said.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 The one-and-a-half-page letter, which the Iranian president answered with a letter of similar length, has kindled hopes that the international charm offensive Iran began after Mr. Rouhani’s election in June may produce a genuine diplomatic breakthrough. But the differing interpretations of Mr. Obama’s letter in Tehran and Washington are a reminder of the political hurdles and the legacy of mistrust that both sides will have to overcome in negotiating a deal.

 The American official said Mr. Obama had congratulated Mr. Rouhani on his election, and characterized the vote as an opportunity for change. But on sanctions, the official said, the Iranians were inferring relief from the president’s more general pledge to resolve issues and move forward. And while Mr. Obama is open to direct talks, the official said, they will not necessarily be leader to leader.

 The Iranian reaction to the letter provides critical insight into a decisive and unexpected shift in strategy by the moderate new president as Iran struggles to restore vitality to its economy and undo years of hostile relations with most of the world under the former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 The overtures to the United States are part of a flurry of steps altering the trajectory of the Iranian state, including domestic liberalizations and returning the politically powerful military to the barracks — for now. Those actions, along with the changed diplomatic tone, have convinced some experts that the changes are more than cosmetic.

 Mr. Rouhani will present Iran’s new face to world next week with an address to the United Nations General Assembly, an evening speech to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society, and a television interviews with Charlie Rose and CNN.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 In an opinion essay published in The Washington Post on Friday, Mr. Rouhani said world leaders should “seize the opportunity presented by Iran’s recent election.”

 “I urge them to make the most of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in constructive dialogue,” he wrote.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 Skeptics were quick to point out that Mr. Obama has reached out to Iran before. Having promised as a candidate to extend an olive branch to old enemies, he sent a letter early in his first term to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proposing a new diplomatic chapter. In his reply, Ayatollah Khamenei did not take Mr. Obama up on his offer.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 Their correspondence was cut short after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June 2009 unleashed a popular uprising. The ensuing bloody crackdown all but snuffed out diplomacy for the next year. Mr. Ahmadinejad, re-elected as president, wrote a lengthy letter to Mr. Obama in 2010, but it did nothing to break the diplomatic ice.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 This time Mr. Obama’s letter found a receptive audience, which apparently, and crucially, includes for the first time Ayatollah Khamenei. Mr. Mohebbian said he had been present at an official meeting of the leadership at which the letter was read aloud and discussed by someone from “the highest levels” of Iran’s political establishment, terminology that usually describes the office of the supreme leader.

 Mr. Mohebbian, who often acts as a political commentator for foreign news media, published parts of the letter on Tuesday on one of the 20 Web sites he runs in Iran, called Secretnews.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 Mr. Mohebbian said the Iranian leadership was generally receptive to the letter except for what he said was Mr. Obama’s complimenting Mr. Rouhani as “the representative of the Iranian people, not of the totalitarian leaders.”

 Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

 This is the first time Mr. Obama has written directly to an Iranian president, and not the supreme leader, suggesting that the White House believes Ayatollah Khamenei has empowered Mr. Rouhani to seek an opening with the West.

 In a sharp break with previous letter exchanges, both presidents have publicly lauded their correspondence. Mr. Rouhani said in an NBC News interview broadcast on Wednesday that the tone of Mr. Obama’s letter was “positive and constructive.” He added, “It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future.”

 Mr. Obama, speaking to the Spanish-language network Telemundo on Tuesday, said there were indications that Mr. Rouhani “is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it.”

 In his reply to Mr. Obama, Mr. Rouhani said public opinion in Iran did not favor talks, Mr. Mohebbian said. Iran’s president urged Mr. Obama to “prepare the grounds for successful negotiations” with a gesture of good faith.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 The American official said that while Mr. Rouhani was frank about policy differences with the United States, his letter, too, had a different tone — less the list of grievances that he said characterized letters from Ayatollah Khamenei or Mr. Ahmadinejad.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 Iran’s leaders are apparently convinced that the next six months, before campaigning begins for parliamentary elections in March, represent the best opportunity to reach a nuclear agreement in over a decade, Mr. Mohebbian said.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 The leaders considered the tone of Mr. Obama’s letter a very promising sign, and paradoxically, they view what they see as America’s declining regional influence as a positive. Mr. Rouhani has publicly applauded Mr. Obama’s decision to refrain from striking Syria for its poison gas attack on its own civilians.

 Mr. Mohebbian said Ayatollah Khamenei had been growing concerned about the future of the revolution, with so many of its founders aging. In particular, he wants to settle the nuclear issue and ease tensions with the United States.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 “It is the leader who decides on the possibility, scope and extent of potential talks with the U.S.,” Mr. Mohebbian said. He emphasized that Ayatollah Khamenei was in excellent health, “but we need him to reach consensus within our system.”

 “He feels this is the moment to try and solve this problem.”

 The leadership is also desperate to escape the withering financial sanctions imposed in recent years, particularly the ban on Iranian money transfers through the Swift system. It can live without oil sales, analysts have said, but not without the ability to transfer money.

 Mr. Mohebbian said Iran is hoping that the White House will lift some sanctions as a gesture to show its seriousness about the talks. “We particularly want to be readmitted to the Swift system,” he said.

 He and other analysts warned that while Iran’s political establishment fully agreed that talks were worth trying, the consensus could break down within months if there were no results.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 “The world must know that time is not unlimited for solving the nuclear problem,” Mr. Rouhani said in his first live television interview on Iranian state television, on Sept. 10.

 At the White House, where Mr. Obama has long sought a rapprochement with Iran but been repeatedly frustrated, officials share the sense that this time may be different.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 “Rouhani is sending signals he wants to deal,” said Dennis B. Ross, a former adviser to Mr. Obama on Iran. “He wants to end the sanctions and knows he does not have a lot of time to deliver — Iranian presidents have some space in their first year and then it declines.” ||||| Hassan Rouhani is president of Iran.

 Three months ago, my platform of “prudence and hope” gained a broad, popular mandate. Iranians embraced my approach to domestic and international affairs because they saw it as long overdue. I’m committed to fulfilling my promises to my people, including my pledge to engage in constructive interaction with the world.

 The world has changed. International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities.

 The international community faces many challenges in this new world — terrorism, extremism, foreign military interference, drug trafficking, cybercrime and cultural encroachment — all within a framework that has emphasized hard power and the use of brute force.

 We must pay attention to the complexities of the issues at hand to solve them. Enter my definition of constructive engagement. In a world where global politics is no longer a zero-sum game, it is — or should be — counterintuitive to pursue one’s interests without considering the interests of others. A constructive approach to diplomacy doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s rights. It means engaging with one’s counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared objectives. In other words, win-win outcomes are not just favorable but also achievable. A zero-sum, Cold War mentality leads to everyone’s loss.

 1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × The Right’s 25 most influential, from Townhall.com View Photos The conservative website’s latest listing of the most prominent voices on the right, with a few names you may not know. Caption The conservative Web site’s latest listing of the most prominent voices on the right, with a few names you may not know. 1, Rush Limbaugh He can make news, kill legislation and sell books anytime he wants to, Townhall says. The biggest right-wing radio show host in America has spoken to a generation of conservatives. Micah Walter/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

 Sadly, unilateralism often continues to overshadow constructive approaches. Security is pursued at the expense of the insecurity of others, with disastrous consequences. More than a decade and two wars after 9/11, al-Qaeda and other militant extremists continue to wreak havoc. Syria, a jewel of civilization, has become the scene of heartbreaking violence, including chemical weapons attacks, which we strongly condemn. In Iraq, 10 years after the American-led invasion, dozens still lose their lives to violence every day. Afghanistan endures similar, endemic bloodshed.

 The unilateral approach, which glorifies brute force and breeds violence, is clearly incapable of solving issues we all face, such as terrorism and extremism. I say all because nobody is immune to extremist-fueled violence, even though it might rage thousands of miles away. Americans woke up to this reality 12 years ago.

 My approach to foreign policy seeks to resolve these issues by addressing their underlying causes. We must work together to end the unhealthy rivalries and interferences that fuel violence and drive us apart. We must also pay attention to the issue of identity as a key driver of tension in, and beyond, the Middle East.

 At their core, the vicious battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are over the nature of those countries’ identities and their consequent roles in our region and the world. The centrality of identity extends to the case of our peaceful nuclear energy program. To us, mastering the atomic fuel cycle and generating nuclear power is as much about diversifying our energy resources as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for dignity and respect and our consequent place in the world. Without comprehending the role of identity, many issues we all face will remain unresolved.

 I am committed to confronting our common challenges via a two-pronged approach.

 First, we must join hands to constructively work toward national dialogue, whether in Syria or Bahrain. We must create an atmosphere where peoples of the region can decide their own fates. As part of this, I announce my government’s readiness to help facilitate dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition.

 Second, we must address the broader, overarching injustices and rivalries that fuel violence and tensions. A key aspect of my commitment to constructive interaction entails a sincere effort to engage with neighbors and other nations to identify and secure win-win solutions.

 1 of 156 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × The best editorial cartoons of 2013 (so far) View Photos A collection of cartoons from around the country. Caption A collection of cartoons from around the country. Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

 We and our international counterparts have spent a lot of time — perhaps too much time — discussing what we don’t want rather than what we do want. This is not unique to Iran’s international relations. In a climate where much of foreign policy is a direct function of domestic politics, focusing on what one doesn’t want is an easy way out of difficult conundrums for many world leaders. Expressing what one does want requires more courage.

 After 10 years of back-and-forth, what all sides don’t want in relation to our nuclear file is clear. The same dynamic is evident in the rival approaches to Syria.

 This approach can be useful for efforts to prevent cold conflicts from turning hot. But to move beyond impasses, whether in relation to Syria, my country’s nuclear program or its relations with the United States, we need to aim higher. Rather than focusing on how to prevent things from getting worse, we need to think — and talk — about how to make things better. To do that, we all need to muster the courage to start conveying what we want — clearly, concisely and sincerely — and to back it up with the political will to take necessary action. This is the essence of my approach to constructive interaction.

 As I depart for New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, I urge my counterparts to seize the opportunity presented by Iran’s recent election. I urge them to make the most of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in constructive dialogue. Most of all, I urge them to look beyond the pines and be brave enough to tell me what they see — if not for their national interests, then for the sake of their legacies, and our children and future generations. ||||| In this 2013 photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during an interview with state television in Tehran. Rouhani is set to address the U.N. on Tuesday. (Rouzbeh Jadidoleslam/AP)

 In the often colorless realm of international diplomacy, one annual ritual has stood out for years — a provocative speech by Iran’s leader to the United Nations each September, followed by a walkout by U.S. and Israeli delegates.

 That bit of diplomatic theater may not happen this year, as a new Iranian president who has alternately pleased, intrigued and startled American observers makes his debut trip to the annual gathering of world leaders in New York.

 No one, including Obama administration officials, knows what might happen instead.

 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and President Obama are set to address the world body on Tuesday, with the tantalizing prospect of a face-to-face meeting between the leaders of two nations so long poised as enemies.

 Rouhani’s speech is expected to be the main event in nearly a week of interviews, think-tank talks and other appearances meant to showcase a newly moderate, approachable face of the Iranian government. The charm offensive included an op-ed by the Iranian leader in Friday’s Washington Post.

 “As I depart for New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, I urge my counterparts to seize the opportunity presented by Iran’s recent election,” Rouhani wrote in the op-ed. “I urge them to make the most of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in constructive dialogue.”

 U.S. officials say they have been encouraged by recent gestures from Rouhani, including the public discussion of his country’s disputed nuclear program — the crux of Iran’s standoff with the West. Obama has said he will do whatever it takes, including a military strike, to stop Iran from building a bomb. Rouhani said in a television interview this week that his country will never seek nuclear weapons.

 “There’s no question that the new Iranian government has been taking a different approach in the things that it has said about a lot of issues,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday. “It has taken some actions that suggest a new approach.”

 Carney and other U.S. officials, however, have been careful not to embrace Rouhani without reservations and have emphasized that Iran’s stated desire to improve relations with the international community needs to be followed up with concrete steps.

 “Rouhani’s comments are very positive, but everything needs to be put to the test, and we’ll see where we go,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Thursday.

 A contrast to Ahmadinejad

 The barrage of friendly Iranian gestures marks a U-turn away from the rhetoric of Rouhani’s immediate predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who for a decade regularly denounced the United States and Israel and suggested that the Holocaust was a myth.

 If Obama is to make good on his 2008 campaign promise to explore the possibility of improved relations and a nuclear rapprochement with Iran, the U.N. meeting this year appears to be his best chance yet.

 Rouhani stunned many with a Rosh Hashanah greeting to Jews this month and announced Thursday that he will bring Iran’s only Jewish member of parliament with him to New York.

 This week, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signaled a willingness to begin negotiations on the nuclear issue. Iran also released several high-profile political prisoners.

 Carney said there is no meeting scheduled between Rouhani and Obama. But Rouhani has suggested that he is open to a meeting, which would be the first such contact since 1979, when the countries broke off relations after Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

 Rouhani told NBC News that he welcomed a letter of congratulations that Obama sent him last month. “From my point of view, the tone of the letter was positive and constructive,” Rouhani said through an interpreter.

 Since taking office last month, Rouhani and his U.S.-educated foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, have offered a unified vision of Iran’s foreign policy agenda. That is in stark contrast to the hodgepodge of the Ahmadinejad years, when different centers of power competed for influence.

 Rouhani also appears to have the support of Iran’s supreme leader, who has long been the ultimate arbiter of the country’s nuclear decisions.

 That endorsement brings an air of authority to Rouhani’s calls for increased openness toward the West, said Dennis Ross, a former senior adviser on the Middle East to the Obama White House.

 “The fact that the Iranians, including the supreme leader, are publicly indicating a readiness to talk means they are preparing the ground for such engagement,” Ross said.

 High stakes for Iran, West

 Still, there is more at stake now, with Iran closer to the point at which it could build a bomb if it chose to do so and its economy wobbling under the weight of international sanctions imposed because of the nuclear dispute.

 Veterans of past negotiations with Iran said they fear that Rouhani’s team may not yet grasp the kinds of concessions that the Islamic republic would be required to make to win relief from the most painful economic sanctions, such as restrictions on banking transactions and oil sales. Iranian officials have hinted at a willingness to accept minor limits on their nuclear program, which would not prevent a quick drive for a bomb.

 “Charm alone is insufficient to achieve the kind of sanctions relief they’re looking for,” said Gary Samore, who until early this year was Obama’s principal adviser on arms control and weapons of mass destruction. “So far I haven’t seen the Iranians indicating a willingness to take the dramatic steps necessary to lift the biggest sanctions.”

 Zarif, who is well known to U.S. officials as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007, is already in New York. He hosted a closed-door luncheon for more than 100 U.N. diplomats on Thursday. A participant, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail the private session, said Zarif welcomed signs that “drums of war in the region” were going silent and vowed to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

 Kerry and Zarif may meet on the sidelines of the U.N. session, though neither side has announced any specifics.

 Samore said the best hope for progress in New York this year could be establishing a forum for direct, if low-level, talks between the U.S. and Iranian governments, building a foundation for a future nuclear accord.

 Some of the proposals floated in recent days suggest that Iran is setting the stage for a possible deal with the bloc of six nations that has engaged in intermittent negotiations with the country over several years. But Western diplomats and policy experts say the issues in contention are probably too complex for meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. conference.

 For now, Iranian hard-liners who have championed their country’s nuclear capability appear to be sidelined, said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a Tehran political analyst. If Rouhani’s overtures yield nothing, Shabani said, there will be a political and public backlash.

 “Right now, this government’s hands aren’t tied, but that won’t last forever. Right now, hands are open,” he said.

 Rezaian reported from Tehran. Colum Lynch at the United Nations and Joby Warrick in Washington contributed to this report. |||||Summary:

– Iran thinks it's poised to finally bury the hatchet with the US and strike a sanctions-ending nuclear deal—because officials believe President Obama offered that kind of rapprochement in his letter to newly-elected moderate Hasan Rouhani, a top Iranian adviser tells the New York Times. In Iran's reading, Obama offered face-to-face talks and promised to lift sanctions if Rouhani demonstrates a willingness to "keep your commitments and remove ambiguities." But Washington's interpretation is much less dramatic; an official says Obama wasn't necessarily promising leader-to-leader talks, or any specific sanction action. Rouhani wants to strike a quick deal in the next six months, before parliamentary elections begin. The normally politically powerful military is currently defanged, and Ayatollah Khamenei appears to be on board. In the meantime Rouhani's on a charm offensive. He wrote an op-ed in today's Washington Post in which he offers to "help facilitate dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition," and promises an attempt to "move beyond impasses" with regard to Iran's nuclear program. He's on the interview circuit as well, with one coming up with Charlie Rose. Next week he'll give his first UN address, and for once the US may not walk out, the Post reports. Obama is speaking the same day, so the two might even meet.


Summarize this article:

If you’re in Washington D.C., there is both ticketed and non-ticketed viewing locations for the ceremony. | Getty Everything you need to know about Donald Trump’s inauguration

 When is the inauguration?

 Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20. The ceremony is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m., with a musical prelude beforehand. Afterward, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are slated to participate in the traditional inaugural parade, which is scheduled to start at 3 p.m.

 Where can I watch the inauguration?

 If you’re in Washington D.C., there is both ticketed and non-ticketed viewing locations for the ceremony. Security gates will open at 6 a.m. Tickets were distributed by members of Congress and the inaugural committee. If you’re not in Washington, major broadcast and cable networks will show the ceremony, and POLITICO will stream the ceremony .

 The parade route will follow Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol to the White House, and much of it will be open to the public and unticketed. It will pass right past Donald Trump’s hotel in the Old Post Office.

 Who is going to be at the inauguration?

 Besides Trump, his family and the Obamas, several living ex-presidents will be in attendance. Jimmy Carter was the first to say he will attend , and so will George W. Bush. Former Vice President Dick Cheney also said he will be there. Both former President Bill Clinton and 2016 presidential election nominee Hillary Clinton are also slated to attend . A George H. W. Bush spokesman said he will not be there, citing health concerns.

 Prominent faith leaders like Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the Reverend Franklin Graham will also be there.

 Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to set an “all time record” for attendance, but planners are expecting about 800,000 people, well below President Obama’s first inaugural.

 Who is going to perform at inauguration?

 The list thus far lacks the star power of events past. Three Doors Down and Toby Keith have also been added to the lineup, joining some of the Rockettes, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and “America’s Got Talent” runner-up Jackie Evancho, who will sing the national anthem.

 For his part, Trump tweeted that he didn’t want any celebrities, writing : “the so-called �?A’ list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE!”

 Tom Barrack, the chair of the inaugural committee also told reporters that there will be a “soft sensuality” for the inauguration with a “much more poetic cadence.”

 What’s the order of the ceremony at inauguration?

 The ceremony opens with the call to order from Sen. Roy Blunt, followed by readings and invocations and music from the Missouri State University chorale. Mike Pence will then take the Vice Presidential oath of office, administered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs, and then Donald Trump takes the presidential oath of office, administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

 Trump will give his inaugural address, followed by more readings and a benediction and close with the national anthem. The complete program is here .

 What should we expect for Trump’s inauguration speech?

 Donald Trump tapped Stephen Miller to pen his much-anticipated speech. Miller frequently served as the warm-up act on the campaign trail for Trump. Early discussions of the speech focused on structural problems within the country and setting an agenda for Trump’s first 100 days and beyond.

 What about the parade?

 The inaugural committee announced the parade lineup in late December, which includes high school bands, police troops and civic groups found across the country. The statement also said that all branches of the military will be represented.

 A minor controversy broke out over the parade’s announcer. Charlie Brotman, an 89-year-old who has announced every inaugural parade since President Dwight D. Eisenhower's second term, was replaced by Trump’s inaugural committee. Brotman is instead “Announcer Chairmen Emeritus.”

 What is the rest of the inauguration weekend schedule?

 The inauguration festivities are not confined to just the day-of events. Trump will attend a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Ceremony on January 19 and then host a “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration” at the Lincoln Memorial that evening, which is open to the public. After his inauguration, Trump will attend inaugural balls that evening — but only three, a sharp decline when compared to President Obama in 2009.

 "The balls are kind of a confusing quagmire because the states themselves have their own celebratory events," Barrack told ABC News . "We'll have basically three balls. Two in the [Washington] Convention Center, one called the Commander in Chief ball, which is a traditional military ball. And then we'll have a series of private dinners." The new president will also attend a national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21.

 There’s also plenty of unofficial events taking place. Three separate pro-Trump biker groups are organizing rallies honoring the new president, and there’s a litany of unofficial inaugural balls.

 The weekend is also expected to draw a lot of anti-Trump protests. The largest is expected to be the Women’s March on Washington. Organizers of the march predicted 200,000 people will attend in a permit application . Other rallies, both pro and anti-Trump, predict anywhere from 100 to 50,000 attendees.

 What will President Obama do at inauguration?

 President Obama and Donald Trump will meet at the White House prior to the latter’s inauguration, according to Barrack. The pair will ride with their wives to the inauguration from the White House. After the inauguration, Obama and his family will take one final flight on Air Force One to an as-of-yet-announced destination, which is customary.

 I live in D.C. and want to avoid the crowds. What’s shut down during inauguration?

 Much of downtown D.C. will be closed for inauguration events. Closures in the “red zone” start at noon on January 18 and won’t reopen until the January 23. Green zone streets become restricted to D.C. residents and businesses the morning of January 19. Additional streets around Capitol Hill, the Lincoln Memorial, Union Station, the convention center and the National Cathedral will be closed at various times during the weekend for inaugural events.

 Five of the Metro’s stations - Archives, Mt. Vernon Square, Federal Triangle, Smithsonian and Pentagon, will be shut down on Inauguration Day. Metro says that there will be frequent service on all lines from opening until 9 p.m. ||||| Trump’s inaugural speech: What experts say to look for

 WASHINGTON — Having smashed convention at every step of his unorthodox path to the presidency, Donald Trump will stand before the world Friday as heir to a 228-year tradition handed down from George Washington, in a setting steeped in the most cherished rituals of American democracy.

 The centerpiece of the day is the inaugural address. Trump’s speech will be the liftoff point of his journey in office, defining its contours and tone, and setting a course for the nation.

 Trump offered a preview Wednesday, tweeting a photograph of himself holding a pen above a legal pad as he gazed sternly, from a bizarre tableau of Persian tiles and an eagle sculpture, meant to show him writing the speech himself from his “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

 Presidential scholars were at a loss to predict what Trump would say Friday. But they had ideas on what he should try to do.

 “This inaugural address will be carefully watched around the world, and the slightest little language usage could set his administration off on a very bad course,” said San Francisco State political science Professor Robert Smith. “It’s not clear he’s capable of becoming, not a politician, not a candidate, not a showman, but a statesman. The whole world is watching to see if he can at least, at the inaugural address, make the transition.”

 Here are five things experts said to watch for:

 Conciliation: Trump takes office with a record low approval rating, after losing the popular vote by 2.8 million votes, a record for a winning candidate. He instills fear among some, and has alienated many women, Latinos, African Americans, Muslims and immigrants.

 “If he wants to appear to be more presidential, he needs to try to reach out to all of America, not just to his more conservative followers,” said David Caputo, president emeritus of Pace University in New York. “That, I think, is his most difficult task, and his most difficult task during his presidency.”

 Promise keeping: At the same time, Trump must also reassure his supporters. “Most of the things he has proposed are profoundly controversial and divisive,” Smith said. “I don’t think he can abandon those promises, but he has to couch them in such a way as to ... reassure the country that he’s not going to go off in any kind of radical new way.”

 Vision: Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump will be “philosophical,” giving “a very personal and sincere statement about his vision for the country.” He also will mention infrastructure, education and manufacturing.

 “We need to see a clear message as to what his priorities are,” said James Thurber, a presidential scholar at American University. That’s because Trump’s Cabinet nominees, in congressional testimony, have contradicted many of his positions, some of which also are at odds with the GOP majority in Congress.

 Trump “is very adept at reading the mood of the country,” Caputo said. “He now has the opportunity to come up with a message and programs that meet that mood.”

 Ad libs: Trump campaigned by holding rallies where he rambled extemporaneously, dropping insults, boasts and prevarications along the way that would have sunk a normal politician. Even on a teleprompter, Trump is prone to ad lib. He speaks in the vernacular, using a limited, hyperbolic vocabulary.

 The question remains as to whether he can adapt this style to the occasion or adopt something with more heft. Aides said the speech will be short and Trump is reviewing previous inaugural speeches for style.

 “He wants to be a combination of Reagan and Kennedy,” Thurber said. “I don’t see him doing that. I see him, in fact, probably going off cue, maybe trying to wing it. If he does, it would be a major problem.”

 Foreign policy: Foreign leaders will be searching for signs of reassurance. Trump has alarmed foreign leaders around the globe with some of his statements, upsetting decades of U.S. policy on China, nuclear proliferation, NATO and other areas. “All of us are scared and so are the Europeans and so are the Asians,” said Richard Abrams, professor emeritus of American history at UC Berkeley. “He’s very unpredictable.”

 What not to look for: Trump defies comparison with previous presidents. The interesting question, Caputo said, is whether “the Trump presidency is a transition to a new type of president and a new way the executive branch functions in the United States.”

 Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com ||||| Even before his inauguration, Donald Trump has notched up at least one dubious achievement: He’ll be the first modern president to enter the White House without a honeymoon.

 Most Americans give new presidents the benefit of the doubt. In 2001, for example, a solid majority rallied behind George W. Bush despite the fact that he lost the popular vote.

 Not Trump. On Tuesday, a CNN poll found that only 40% of Americans think he’s done a good job as president-elect — well below the 61% who backed Bush in 2001, and far below the 84% who approved of Barack Obama in 2009.

 Indeed, the new poll showed that Trump has actually lost ground during his transition, normally a time when a new president’s stature improves. In November, CNN reported, 46% of the public thought Trump was doing a good job; some of those supporters have already drifted away.

 We are already seeing Trump struggle between two instincts: the yearning to unite all Americans behind him, and the urge to attack every critic.

 Trump’s reaction to the survey, and others with similar results, was predictable. The polls “are rigged just like before,” he tweeted.

 But the erosion of his support was predictable too. Trump’s standing bounced up at first, after he promised on election night to “bind the wounds of division,” and after he helped negotiate a deal saving some 800 jobs at an Indiana manufacturing plant.

 Since then, the president-elect has reverted to the truculent style of his campaign, tweeting complaints at critics from John Lewis to Meryl Streep. The news about his transition has focused on the controversy over his chumminess toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin, not his promises to create jobs.

 That makes Trump’s inaugural address on Friday an event with unusually high political stakes. It’s not only an opportunity for the new president to set out his goals in office; it’s also a chance to appeal to skeptical voters — and to renew the unifying tone of his election night remarks.

 There are signs that Trump wants to do just that. “His instruction to me was: The campaign is over. I am now president for all the people,” inaugural chair Tom Barrack told reporters. “I want you to build a bridge and tie them back in. I want to heal the wounds and I want to get back to work.”

 And a few weeks ago, Trump told historian Douglas Brinkley that he was studying the inaugural speeches of John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon to prepare.

 The Kennedy and Reagan speeches are acknowledged as classics. But Nixon?

 Actually, Nixon’s 1969 speech is the one most likely to be useful to Trump, because Nixon’s circumstances were most similar to his.

 Nixon won a three-way race with only 43% of the popular vote (less than Trump’s 46%), and was seeking to lead a country bitterly divided over racial tension and the Vietnam War. He decided that what the country wanted was fellowship, not division, and on Inauguration Day in 1969, he delivered a speech that was both generous and graceful — words not often attached to the 37th president.

 “When we listen to the better angels of our nature, we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things, such as goodness, decency, love, kindness,” Nixon said that day. “To lower our voices would be a simple thing. In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another.”

 The speech, and Nixon’s early efforts to govern from the center, launched his presidency on a wave of relative good feelings, according to John A. Farrell, author of a forthcoming biography, “Nixon: The Life.”

 “He made a serious attempt to cast himself as a unifier,” Farrell told me. “It did bring him a honeymoon.”

 That was all the more striking because Nixon, like Trump, had always been a brawler.

 “Nixon spent his entire career as a champion of the politics of grievance, and aimed it at working-class and middle-class Americans — the people he called the forgotten man,” Farrell said. “There’s at least a distant parallel with Trump there.”

 If Trump follows Nixon’s example, he may sound like a new man on Friday, a president bent on reinstalling a measure of civility in public life.

 Even so, that New Trump may not last. The New Nixon didn’t.

 “The Vietnam War got in the way,” Farrell said. “Nixon couldn’t resist going after his enemies. The Old Nixon came back.”

 We are already seeing Trump struggle between two instincts: the yearning to unite all Americans behind him, and the urge to attack every critic. That battle won’t be resolved on Inauguration Day, no matter what tone he strikes.

 doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

 Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

 Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook ||||| This will appear next to all of your comments

 This will NOT appear anywhere on Newser ||||| Play Facebook

 Twitter

 Embed What We Can Learn From Trump's Speech Patterns 2:56 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 When President-elect Donald Trump gives his inaugural address Friday, his advisers say he will outline a vision for "one America."

 But whether he can stitch together a compelling and convincing message will rely on something that has become Trump's trademark: his unique way with words.

 Putting aside partisan politics — and based on Trump's pattern of speech, his phrasings and diction — does the next president of the United States have a style that can be persuasive enough to bring Americans together?

 Trump holds a campaign rally at the Sioux City Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2016 in Sioux City, Iowa. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images, file

 Related: What to Know About Donald Trump’s Inauguration

 In theory, sure, neurolinguistic experts tell NBC News. They note that he does have a style of speech that can work in his favor: He appeals to feelings and emotions; he uses imagery in his examples; he puts people into categories that can evoke solidarity (although separation as well); and he meanders from one thought to the next, which might seem incoherent but actually allows listeners to fill in the gaps however they would like.

 But, just as effectively, Trump hammers home uncomplicated messages — "make America Great again" or "crooked Hillary" or "inner-city crime" — that regardless of their veracity stick in people's minds. He used one of his signature phrases — "believe me" — about 30 times during the 12 Republican debates and "great" to describe things 23 times during his election victory speech.

 Whether things in reality are "great" doesn't entirely matter, said New York University neuroscience professor David Poeppel.

 Play Facebook

 Twitter

 Embed Will President-Elect Trump's Inaugural Address Unite a Divided Nation? 1:41 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 If Trump ends up using a variation of the "one America" theme in his inaugural address over and over, it would play into the concept of belief fixation — or "the tenacious repetition of simple concepts and their linking."

 "If I keep saying it," Poeppel said, "it becomes it."

 People are susceptible to that type of language, he added, and pairing straightforward adjectives with negative ideas is even more powerful in the brain.

 But if Trump truly wants to cast a wide net, according to experts, it would help if he spoke in more detail. Then, Poeppel said, "his communicative style can possibly bring in a broader audience." ||||| The Inauguration ritual undertaken by Donald Trump on Friday is in some ways mostly pomp and circumstance: the Inaugural Address, the Inaugural Parade, the Inaugural Balls. But it’s also a crucial moment in American democracy, a celebration of the peaceful transfer of power even in the most divided of times.

 Inauguration Day has also been, over the years, the occasion for plenty else, from weather problems and missing Bibles to do-overs and not a few live animals. There were even some dead ones, too.

 Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

 Here’s a look back at something to know about every single Inauguration Day in American history, as well as a look at what each President said on that all-important event. (A good resource to find the full text of each inaugural address is the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.)

 The following nine swearing-in ceremonies are not included, as they were not regularly scheduled Inaugural festivities—and, in fact, were hardly festive at all, given the circumstances: John Tyler in April of 1841 following the death of William Henry Harrison, Millard Fillmore in July of 1850 following the death of Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson in April of 1865 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Chester A. Arthur in September of 1881 following the assassination of James Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt in September of 1901 following the assassination of William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge in August of 1923 following the death of Warren Harding, Harry S. Truman in April of 1945 following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson in November of 1963 following the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford in August of 1974 following the resignation of Richard Nixon. |||||

– The US begins its journey into uncharted territory Friday when Donald Trump takes political office for the first time in his life—starting at the top. He will deliver his inaugural address at 11:51am, according to the AP's timeline, and analysts say it will be one of the most closely watched in history. Advisers say that, like many predecessors, Trump will issue a call for unity and give his vision of "one America." Experts tell NBC News that Trump's unique and repetitive speaking style will drive the message home and maybe even go a little way toward unifying America. "If I keep saying it, it becomes it," says New York University neuroscience professor David Poeppel. In other coverage: The Los Angeles Times reports that Trump has said he looked to the speeches of Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon to prepare—and of the three, Nixon might be most relevant. After winning with a minority of the popular vote in the deeply divisive 1968 election, Nixon called on the "better angels of our nature" in his inaugural address, saying America had heard too much inflated and bombastic rhetoric. "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another," he said. The San Francisco Chronicle lists five things to look for in Trump's address, including efforts to reassure foreign leaders. Ad-libs are also a strong possibility, though analysts say trying to wing it could be a big mistake. The speech was largely written by incoming senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, Politico reports in its guide to inaugural events, which includes viewing tips and the order of the ceremony. The Washington Post looks at the many demonstrations that will be taking place across the capital on Friday, including a few pro-Trump events, as well as numerous "counterinaugural" protests. The "Let America Hear Us, Roar for Trump" group will be sharing Dupont Circle with a pro-marijuana group that plans to hand out 4,200 joints. Time takes a look back at every Inauguration Day in US history, and at what every president had to say on the occasion. The Times of London reports on the "security nightmare" posed by Trump's first ride in the presidential limousine, which will take him past tens of thousands of people between the Capitol and the White House. Many will be watching to see whether he chooses to walk part of the way as predecessors including Obama did. The New York Times speaks to five Trump voters from very different backgrounds to find out why they traveled to DC for the inauguration. Protests are taking place in cities across the world, but in Melania Trump's hometown in Slovenia, they're getting ready for a huge party, TMZ reports. The Atlantic reports that there will apparently be no poetry on the agenda, which is more a sign of the partisan divide than a break with tradition.


Write a summary based on this article:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel), a cell-based gene therapy, to treat adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment. Yescarta, a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, is the second gene therapy approved by the FDA and the first for certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

 “Today marks another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm for the treatment of serious diseases. In just several decades, gene therapy has gone from being a promising concept to a practical solution to deadly and largely untreatable forms of cancer,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. “This approval demonstrates the continued momentum of this promising new area of medicine and we’re committed to supporting and helping expedite the development of these products. We will soon release a comprehensive policy to address how we plan to support the development of cell-based regenerative medicine. That policy will also clarify how we will apply our expedited programs to breakthrough products that use CAR-T cells and other gene therapies. We remain committed to supporting the efficient development of safe and effective treatments that leverage these new scientific platforms.”

 Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common type of NHL in adults. NHLs are cancers that begin in certain cells of the immune system and can be either fast-growing (aggressive) or slow-growing. Approximately 72,000 new cases of NHL are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, and DLBCL represents approximately one in three newly diagnosed cases. Yescarta is approved for use in adult patients with large B-cell lymphoma after at least two other kinds of treatment failed, including DLBCL, primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, high grade B-cell lymphoma and DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma. Yescarta is not indicated for the treatment of patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma.

 Each dose of Yescarta is a customized treatment created using a patient’s own immune system to help fight the lymphoma. The patient’s T-cells, a type of white blood cell, are collected and genetically modified to include a new gene that targets and kills the lymphoma cells. Once the cells are modified, they are infused back into the patient.

 “The approval of Yescarta brings this innovative class of CAR-T cell therapies to an additional group of cancer patients with few other options – those adults with certain types of lymphoma that have not responded to previous treatments,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).

 The safety and efficacy of Yescarta were established in a multicenter clinical trial of more than 100 adults with refractory or relapsed large B-cell lymphoma. The complete remission rate after treatment with Yescarta was 51 percent.

 Treatment with Yescarta has the potential to cause severe side effects. It carries a boxed warning for cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which is a systemic response to the activation and proliferation of CAR-T cells causing high fever and flu-like symptoms, and for neurologic toxicities. Both CRS and neurologic toxicities can be fatal or life-threatening. Other side effects include serious infections, low blood cell counts and a weakened immune system. Side effects from treatment with Yescarta usually appear within the first one to two weeks, but some side effects may occur later.

 Because of the risk of CRS and neurologic toxicities, Yescarta is being approved with a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS), which includes elements to assure safe use (ETASU). The FDA is requiring that hospitals and their associated clinics that dispense Yescarta be specially certified. As part of that certification, staff involved in the prescribing, dispensing or administering of Yescarta are required to be trained to recognize and manage CRS and nervous system toxicities. Also, patients must be informed of the potential serious side effects and of the importance of promptly returning to the treatment site if side effects develop.

 To further evaluate the long-term safety, the FDA is also requiring the manufacturer to conduct a post-marketing observational study involving patients treated with Yescarta.

 The FDA granted Yescarta Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy designations. Yescarta also received Orphan Drug designation, which provides incentives to assist and encourage the development of drugs for rare diseases. The Yescarta application was reviewed using a coordinated, cross-agency approach. The clinical review was conducted by the FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence, while CBER conducted all other aspects of review and made the final product approval determination.

 The FDA granted approval of Yescarta to Kite Pharma, Inc.

 The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

 ### ||||| In 2010, Josh Feldman was on his honeymoon -- a globe-spanning trip that at one point involved swimming with humpback whales -- when he noticed a "Garbanzo-sized" lump on the back of his neck. It turned out to be lymphoma, which worsened even as he cycled through treatments: chemotherapy, the immunotherapy Opdivo, a targeted drug called Zydelig. What actually worked for the 55-year-old photographer was a radical treatment in which his own white blood cells were genetically re-engineered to kill his cancer. Compared to the other drugs, it was "a walk in the park," he said earlier this year while overlooking a mango tree on his property. "I'd like to see it become first-line therapy," he said. In September, 15 months after his treatment, he was still in remission.

 That's still a long way away. But the treatment Feldman received was just approved by the Food and Drug Administration under the brand name Yescarta, with a bracing price tag: $373,000 per patient. That doesn't include the costs of dealing Yescarta's side effects, which include life-threatening fevers triggered by the immune response the therapy creates that can mean weeks in the hospital, or other drugs patients must receive.

 FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, himself a cancer survivor, called Yescarta "another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm." David Maloney, a physician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, had this to say about Yescarta's approval in a prepared statement: "There will likely be thousands of lives saved in the next few years because of it." Louis DeGennaro, the chief executive of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which helped fund Yescarta's development, wrote in an email blast that "many patients who were out of treatment options are now in remission" because of experimental studies of the drug.

 It's no surprise that the excitement comes at a high economic price. In August, the treatment's developer, Kite Pharmaceuticals, was purchased by biotech giant Gilead Pharmaceuticals for $11.9 billion, a price which made Kite founder and chief executive Arie Belldegrun's shares worth some $600 million. The process of making the drug is laborious and expensive. But critics are likely to counter that much of the work of developing the drug was done by the National Cancer Institute, by Steven Rosenberg, a researcher there.

 Yescarta is the second treatment of its kind, called a Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell, or CAR-T, for the particular genetic modifications made to white cells. The first, Kymriah, for Novartis, was addressed at children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a small group of patients. Yescarta is being approved for a much larger population. About 24,000 Americans are diagnosed with diffuse large-cell b-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the variety Yescarta treats, every year.

 Novartis priced Kymriah at $475,000, which makes Kite's price sound significantly lower. But Novartis said it is offering insurance companies a unique, "value-based" pricing structure, in which it only pays for those patients who go into remission withing three months. For Novartis' treatment in DLBCL, that's only 45% of patients, which means at the $475,000 price, Novartis would only be receiving about $200,000 per patient. (Novartis has not said how it will price in DLBCL).

 In patients' whose disease did not shrink after chemotherapy, Yescarta shrank tumors 70% of the time. More impressively, 51% went into complete remission, meaning their cancer was undetectable. The severe fever and neurological side effects led the FDA to give the treatment a boxed warning, its most severe.

 Kite also boasts about its ability to manufacture individual CAR-T cells for each patient. "Our manufacturing success rate was 99% and the turnaround had a median of 17 days," said David Chang, Kite's chief scientific officer. "I haven’t anything close to that coming from Novartis."

 In an interview conducted before the approval, Chang also had a response for critics who point to the role that the NCI and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society had in developing Yescarta as an argument that it should cost less. He says that people don't have enough appreciation of the difficult of moving from government-sponsored research to an approved, manufactured product.

 "Look," Chang said, "Government is not in the business of making and commercializing a drug. They are more in the business of creating the innovation. And innovation has to be matched with the right private company to make sure all the right necessary steps are done. This is the underlying premise of how the credo is set. Both for the government the private sector and ultimately for the patients."

 Chang says Kite (now Gilead) is developing CAR-T treatments for other cancers. It will test a CAR-T against a target called BCMA in multiple myeloma, another targeted against cancers caused by the human papilloma virus, and a third against MAGE3, hoping to to move the technology beyond cancers of the blood. "The clinical results are really, really different from anything else that proceeded that before," Chang said. |||||

– The Food and Drug Administration has approved a second "living drug" to fight cancer—a personalized treatment that alters a patient's own cells to turn them into cancer-killers. The new "CAR T-cell therapy" has been approved for non-Hodkins lymphoma patients with few other treatment options, a group that could number around 3,500 per year, the Washington Post reports. But the innovative therapy won't come cheap: Forbes reports that the cost will be $373,000 per patient, not including the cost of treating side effects that could include dangerous fevers. A similar treatment approved for leukemia in July costs $475,000 per patient. Doctors believe the new treatment, produced by Kite Pharma under the brand name Yescarta, could save thousands of lives, the New York Times reports. In the study that led to FDA approval, 54% of 101 patients went into complete remission, and 39% of the 101 were still in remission an average of 8.7 months later. "Today marks another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm for the treatment of serious diseases," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. "In just several decades, gene therapy has gone from being a promising concept to a practical solution to deadly and largely untreatable forms of cancer." (The fight against breast cancer is also making progress.)


– Another day, another study asserting that vaccines don't cause autism: This time, researchers analyzed 67 different studies and found no evidence that immunizations cause autism. "There is a lot of misinformation out there about vaccines," a co-author tells USA Today. "With the rise of the Internet and the decline of print journalism, anyone can put anything on the Internet." The new report finds "strong evidence" that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, implicated in an increased risk of autism in a since-retracted 1998 study, is not associated with such a risk. The study also found no proof vaccines cause childhood leukemia, the AP reports, and that in general, side effects from vaccines are "extremely rare." While some vaccines, including the MMR vaccine and the flu shot, can cause an increased risk of fever-related seizures in small children, those seizures are typically benign. The most serious side effects (an intestinal blockage caused by the rotavirus vaccine and a blood disorder linked to the chickenpox and MMR vaccines) are both rare, NBC News reports. Ultimately, the study concludes, the benefits of vaccines outweigh the small risks. And, to put those risks in perspective, one expert notes, "The most dangerous aspect of giving your child vaccines is driving to the office to get them."

Expand this summary.

Study finds vaccine side effects rare, outweighed by immunization benefits.

 A nurse prepares the rotavirus vaccine to give to a baby during a program to start vaccination against the virus. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images file)

 Serious complications related to vaccines are very rare, and there is no evidence that immunizations cause autism, according to an analysis of 67 research studies.

 The analysis comes as many vaccine-preventable diseases are making a comeback, often in communities with low vaccination rates. At least 539 people across 20 states have been infected with measles this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 "This report should give parents some reassurance," says pediatrician Courtney Gidengil of Rand and Boston Children's Hospital, co-author of the study out today in Pediatrics.

 The report says there is "strong evidence" that the measles vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of autism. That myth gained popularity in 1998 because of a medical study that has been retracted. Still, the myth persists.

 "There is a lot of misinformation out there about vaccines," says co-author Margaret Maglione, also a researcher with Rand. "With the rise of the Internet and the decline of print journalism, anyone can put anything on the Internet."

 Like all drugs, vaccines can cause serious side effects. But those complications are "extremely rare" and should be weighed against vaccination's enormous benefits, Maglione says.

 In an April report, the CDC noted that vaccines given to infants and young children over the past two decades will prevent 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths over the course of their lifetimes.

 The new report notes that some vaccines, including flu shots and the combined vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, are associated with an increased risk of fever-related seizures in small children. Although these seizures can be frightening for parents, they're typically benign and cause no long-term problems.

 According to the analysis, vaccines against rotavirus – a common cause of severe diarrhea and dehydration in children – increase the risk of a serious type of intestinal blockage called intussusception, in which part of the intestine telescopes into itself. The vaccines against it, RotaTeq and Rotarix, can cause an additional one to five cases of intussusception for every 100,000 doses given, the analysis says.

 It's important to remember that rotavirus infection also causes intussusception, says pediatrician Paul Offit, chief of infectious disease at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a developer of the RotaTeq vaccine. He notes that rates of this complication are actually down slightly since the introduction of the vaccines.

 The new analysis may not convince parents who are strongly anti-vaccine. University of Utah pediatrician Carrie Byington says she hopes it will persuade doctors to promote vaccines to their patients.

 In an accompanying editorial, Byington notes that recent medical school graduates are more skeptical about the effectiveness of vaccines than older doctors, who have been around long enough to have treated children for measles and meningitis. In Washington state, a study found that more than half of medical providers were willing to consider untested, alternative immunization schedules that skip or space out vaccines.

 Doctors say it's important to put risks into perspective.

 Nearly 38,000 children under age 4 were injured in car accidents in 2012, and 523 died, according to the CDC.

 "The most dangerous aspect of giving your child vaccines is driving to the office to get them," Offit says.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1luagYx ||||| All those vaccines that children get in the early years are very safe, and adverse side-effects are very rare, a large review of vaccine safety finds. The federal government commissioned the California-based RAND Corporation to review all that’s known about the battery of childhood vaccines to reassure people who still have their doubts. “Concerns about vaccine safety have led some parents to decline recommended vaccination of their children, leading to the resurgence of diseases,” RAND’s Dr. Courtney Gidengil and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Pediatrics.

 “We found evidence that some vaccines are associated with serious adverse events; however, these events are extremely rare and must be weighed against the protective benefits that vaccines provide.” The worst adverse events include a very rare intestinal blockage called intussusception caused by the rotavirus vaccine and a rare blood disorder called thrombocytopenic purpura linked with the chickenpox and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. But there’s no evidence linking vaccines with leukemia or autism, despite persistent rumors, the researchers found.

 Sign up for top Health news direct to your inbox.

 IN-DEPTH

 - Maggie Fox ||||| The report should be reassuring to parents, the researchers say. For example, there still is no evidence the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Nor is there any proof vaccines cause childhood leukemia.

 The assessment mirrors and updates a 2011 report on vaccine safety by the U.S. Institute of Medicine. That report found vaccines can cause certain side effects but serious ones are very rare.

 Experts say such risks need to be balanced against the benefits of vaccines — the prevention of millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths annually.

 But that message seems lost on some parents. A small but growing numbers of parents have tried to get their children exempted from school attendance vaccination requirements. And one recent study found vaccine safety messages actually reduced some parents' willingness to get their kids vaccinated.

 "I don't think this report, alone, will convince parents that vaccines are safe," said Dr. Courtney Gidengil, one of the RAND Corp. researchers who did the report for federal health officials.

 But maybe it will at least influence their family doctors, she and others said.

 "Many parents look to their physicians as the ultimate sources of information," said Dr. Walter Orenstein, associate director of Emory University's Vaccine Center, adding "now it's up to them."

 The new analysis looked at dozens of medical studies completed since the 2011 report. It echoes some of those findings and included vaccines that report hadn't addressed.

 The journal Pediatrics published the report online Tuesday. Among its conclusions:

 —Newer evidence confirms a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and fever-triggered seizures. The seizures rarely cause long-term health problems, but can be frightening for parents.

 —Apparently, flu shots can also spur fevers that can trigger seizures. The seizures seem to happen more often in children who get a vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria the same day.

 —Newer vaccines against rotavirus, a severe diarrheal disease in children, slightly raise the risk of a rare bowel blockage.

 The risks of serious side effects were deemed very low. For example, the rotavirus vaccines were linked to no more than five extra cases of the blockage for every 100,000 kids vaccinated.

 ___

 Online:

 CDC vaccine info: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety |||||


In his application for disability benefits, John Caltabiano claimed he couldn’t drive, cook for himself, exercise at the gym, move around his house or even shave without help.

 The New York man, 49, said he had lost his sight in a workplace accident at a cement company in 2006 and, since then, he bumps into things and hurts himself at home.

 “I sit in the dark and listen to TV,” he wrote in his application.

 On the date of his disability hearing in Hudson, New York, last fall, Caltabiano had his girlfriend lead him into the building.

 But what he didn’t know was just a few days prior, investigators had caught Caltabiano on video appearing to be reading something. In another video, investigators had caught him driving a vehicle and then braking in time to avoid hitting a woman and child in the street.

 Courtesy of Innovative Claims Investigators

 Another video shot by investigators caught him holding the door open for someone, all unusual behavior, they said, for a person claiming to be blind.

 Disability fraud is a big problem across the United States. Last year, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) received 90,000 allegations to investigate. It also won 1,200 convictions and the return of $225 million to taxpayers last year.

 “When it comes to making an assessment of how many are out there, we know how much has been brought to our attention, and we really rely on those fraud allegations,” SSA assistant inspector general for investigations Michael Robinson said.

 So when a tip came in about Caltabiano, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian at the Department of Justice and his counterparts at the Social Security Administration quickly started looking into it. Their investigation found that Caltabiano did lose sight in one eye in a workplace incident, but there was no indication that his other eye was affected.

 Courtesy of Innovative Claims Investigators

 Caltabiano was on track to collect $1.3 million in benefits before he was caught, according to federal investigators.

 Caltabiano was sentenced in October 2015 to almost five years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, five counts of mail fraud, and theft of government property. His lawyer said he was appealing the case.

 His girlfriend is serving three years’ probation after being found guilty of fraudulently obtaining federal and state disability benefits.

 More than 7,000 cases are opened each year of suspected Americans trying to dupe the system. For anyone out there considering getting some dark glasses and a cane, assistant inspector general Robinson has a message.

 “We’re going do everything we can to ensure that those individuals who violate the public’s trust are held accountable,” he said. “So if you’re not caught now, eventually, you will.” ||||| CATSKILL, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A Catskill man was the subject of “Nightline” on Friday after being sentenced for benefit fraud.

 John Caltabiano Jr. was sentenced in April. He was previously convicted on sexual assault charges. A federal judge called his criminal history “extremely disturbing.”

 Starting in 2006, investigators said Caltabiano Jr. pretended to be blind to collect workers compensation. An in-depth piece on his case aired on “Nightline” Friday night.

 The piece highlighted how far some people will go to rob the system, and it’s happening across the Capital Region.

 “A couple years ago, it was over $1 million,” Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said. “Last year, I think it was a half-million dollars.”

 The money stolen through benefit fraud belongs to taxpayers, and it may never be given back. Benefit programs are designed to help people get back on their feet and move on.

 “They find a void and work the system, and boy do they go to work,” Apple said.

 A federal judge handed down an almost 5-year sentence to Caltabiano Jr. for disability fraud. According to court documents, in 2006, the 49-year old said a workplace accident left him blind. He started collecting workers compensation, and he played the part.

 His girlfriend would lead him into hearings, and he told investigators he couldn’t get around without help. But little did he know that investigators caught him on camera driving, shopping and going to the gym.

 Caltabiano Jr. was on track to steal more than $1 million from taxpayers. It’s a widespread program that has people financially crippling their communities.

 “It costs the county a lot of money – a lot of money,” Apple said. “And then if you start thinking about having to hire all these investigators to investigate it – paying their salary and benefits – people wonder why their taxes are so high. Well, here you go.” ||||| From the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York:

 ALBANY, NEW YORK – John W. Caltabiano, Jr., age 49, of Catskill, New York, was sentenced today to serve 57 months in prison after a jury found him guilty in October of fraudulently obtaining federal and state disability benefits. He was immediately taken into custody.

 The announcement was made by United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and Edward J. Ryan, Special Agent in Charge for the Social Security Administration ("SSA") Office of the Inspector General.

 On October 16, 2015, following a two-week trial, a jury found Caltabiano and co-defendant Colleen McCarten guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, five counts of mail fraud, and theft of government property. Between April 2008 and October 2010, Caltabiano and McCarten conspired to steal Social Security Disability and Workers’ Compensation benefits by falsely representing to the SSA, the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, and Travelers Insurance that an on-the-job injury had left him almost completely blind. In reality, as demonstrated in videos taken during the investigation and presented at trial, he was able to drive, shop, go to the gym, and otherwise move about without the assistance that a blind person would need.

 At the sentencing, Judge D’Agostino said, "And had he not been caught, I have no doubt that Mr. Caltabiano would still have someone leading him into any proceedings or any hearings as though he couldn’t see a darn thing when we all know that he was seeing well enough to carry out his ordinary activities, to drive, to go to convenience stores, all of that."

 U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian stated: "If Caltabiano had not been stopped, he would have been able to steal more than one-half a million dollars based on his life expectancy. His sentence reflects the magnitude of his fraud and sends a message that those who steal benefits face significant prison sentences. My office will continue to prosecute benefits fraud aggressively so that that taxpayer-funded government benefits go to people who truly need them."

 Edward J. Ryan, Special Agent in Charge for the SSA Office of the Inspector General, stated: "As guardians of the public trust we vigorously pursue incidents of fraud against SSA programs. We continue to investigate allegations of fraudulent disability claims to combat fraud in federal and state government sponsored disability programs. Our successful criminal prosecutions protect the SSA trust funds for those who truly deserve disability benefits. Our office greatly appreciates the continued support and the priority given to these cases by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York."

 United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino also sentenced Caltabiano to serve 3 years of post-imprisonment supervised release, and to pay $27,784 in restitution to the SSA. At today’s sentencing hearing, Judge D’Agostino described his criminal history as "extremely disturbing." She referred to Caltabiano’s many prior convictions, four of which involved his sexual assault or attempted abduction of teenage girls.

 McCarten’s sentencing is scheduled for April 20, 2016 in Albany before Judge D’Agostino.

 This case was investigated by the Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, and the Office of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Fraud Inspector General, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Coffman and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason W. White. ||||| An upstate New York man who pretended to be blind to collect worker's comp was captured on camera by investigators driving a car, going shopping and hitting the gym, new images show.

 Scammer John Caltabiano, Jr. is seen wearing shades as he sits behind the wheel of a teal pickup truck and staring at the camera as he walks without help into a store in photos that aired Friday on "Nightline."

 The incriminating photos were snapped just days before his girlfriend led him into a courthouse for a hearing in his fraud trial to fool people into thinking he was completely blind.

 John Caltabiano Jr., 49, was arrested for disability fraud after he claimed he was blinded by workplace injury. (Police Handout)

 Caltabiano, a 49-year-old Catskill native, was convicted in October along with his girlfriend, Colleen J. McCarten, 43, for faking an on-the-job-injury he claimed left him totally vision impaired in order to cash in on more social security and worker's compensation between 2008 and 2010.

 The fraudster could have raked in more than a half million dollars had investigators not caught him in his lie, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

 John Caltabiano Jr., 49, was caught on camera driving a pickup truck while faking blindess. (ABC Nightline)

 "If Caltabiano had not been stopped, he would have been able to steal more than a half a million dollars based on his life expectancy," U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian said after the pair's sentencing.

 Caltabiano, who was previously convicted of sexual assault charges for attempting to abduct teenage girls, was slapped with a five-year sentence for disability and mail fraud in February. His girlfriend was given three years probation for helping with the conspiracy.

 Caltabiano's girlfriend helped him lie about being blind by leading him in to his court hearings as if he couldn't see. (ABC Nightline)

 He was on his way to steal nearly $1 million in tax dollars over the course of almost a decade of stealing money that was set aside for workers who had become disabled on the job.

 “It costs the county a lot of money — a lot of money,” Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told ABC News 10.

 His ruse was discovered after video of his lie was uncovered by investigators caught him driving, reading and doing things impossible without eyesight. (ABC Nightline)

 Caltabiano’s girlfriend helped him play the part of a helpless blind man by leading him by the arm when he appeared publicly for court hearings in his case.

 But, unbeknownst to the conning couple, investigators caught on to Caltabiano's ruse by capturing on camera the con artist engaging in everyday activities without any help — like driving, working out at the gym, and shopping — proving his vision was intact.

 “And then if you start thinking about having to hire all these investigators to investigate it — paying their salary and benefits — people wonder why their taxes are so high. Well, here you go,” Apple said. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– John Caltabiano was collecting disability benefits for a 2006 workplace accident that he said left him blind when investigators caught him on video reading, driving, and holding a door open for someone, ABC News reports. The 49-year-old New York man had said in his benefits application that he couldn't do basic things like cook for himself, exercise, shave, or get around the house. "I sit in the dark and listen to TV," he wrote. But based on a tip, US Attorney Richard Hartunian and investigators at the Social Security Administration gave Caltabiano a closer look. He had indeed lost sight in one eye in a workplace accident, they found, but video evidence showed he wasn't homebound. Aired Friday on Nightline, the evidence helped authorities in October convict Caltabiano and girlfriend Colleen J. McCarten, 43, of fraud and theft in faking an on-the-job-injury, the New York Daily News reports. Hartunian says the New York man was on track to steal half-a-million dollars over the course of his life. In April, Caltabiano was sentenced to 57 months and McCarten to three years' probation, per a press release; his lawyer says he plans to appeal. As for his attempted fraud, it's not all that unusual. "It costs the county a lot of money—a lot of money," Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple tells ABC News 10. "And then if you start thinking about having to hire all these investigators to investigate it—paying their salary and benefits—people wonder why their taxes are so high. Well, here you go.”