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What is Vote With Your Purse?

 Vote With Your Purse is a nationally acclaimed research study that examines trends in women’s political giving and financial power, women’s political fundraising results in election years, as well as provides concrete ideas on how to tap the “power of the purse” for the 2012 elections and beyond. She Should Run has identified a historic opportunity to fundamentally change women’s approach to political giving.

 Lesson Learned: Women, Money, and Politics in the 2010 Election Cycle.

 While women’s votes have been critical in deciding federal elections since the 1980’s, women still face significant barriers towards realizing equality in politics and public life. In 2010, our nation experienced the first backslide in electing more women to office in over 30 years. In the same year, it also experienced a decrease in women’s political giving, after securing very marginal increases in past elections.

 She Should Run, working with the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), found that women still lag drastically behind men in political giving. In 2010, women made up just 26% of recorded federal political contributions to candidates, political action committees (PACs), and party committees. More importantly, this is down from 31% in the 2008 cycle and down from 30% in the 2006 cycle.

 This report reveals a probable correlation between women’s political giving and their representation in Congress. It is telling that women’s political giving went down during the same cycle that women’s representation in Congress decreased. Our nation cannot afford these declines, given that women make up approximately 17% of Congress, yet represent over 50% of the population.

 The time is ripe for women to increase their political giving to match their economic and voting power.

 Key Findings

 Only 27% of total contributions to individual candidates were made by women, representing a 6.3% decrease from 2008

 If women voters across parties give as little as $5 to one female candidate, it would be enough to run a female candidate in every House race with a budget of over $1 million each.

 In 2010, women made 30% of the total individual contributions to Democrats and just 25% of the total contributions to Republican candidates

 Women made just 21% of the total contributions to PACs in 2010, down 1.8 percentage points from 2008

 Women made 38% of the 2010 individual contributions to the Democratic National Committee, while women made 24% of contributions to the Republican National Committee

 Despite the gender gap in political giving, female candidates are good fundraisers. In 2010, female House incumbents raised approximately $100,000 more than their male peers and female challengers raised over $74,000 more than male peers

 Why Don't Women Give?

 Data from past Vote with Your Purse reports explains women invest in political campaigns at lower rates because they do not think their money matters in showing support for a candidate and the issues they champion. Furthermore, women do not connect political leadership with positive, productive social change or view political giving as a civic responsibility.

 Based on these findings, She Should Run has developed the following suggestions for candidates working to increase contributions from women donors:

 Emphasize the impact they will have on specific issues

 Better inspire women by describing political giving as a civic or social responsibility, like voting or volunteering

 Provide multiple sources of independent information about their platform

 Include women in the process by making more transparent how the money will be used

 Provide opportunities for women donors to interact with campaign supporters and staff, and, of course, the candidate

 Download the Reports:

 Vote With Your Purse: Lesson Learned: Women, Money, and Politics in the 2010 Election Cycle

 Released: April 2012 Vote with Your Purse: Harnessing the Power of Women's Political Giving (Update)

 Released: June 2009 Vote With Your Purse:

 Harnessing the Power of Women's Political Giving for the 2008 Election and Beyond

 Released: June 2007

 Special Thanks

 Vote With Your Purse would not have been possible without our donors, including among others: ||||| Apparently it is still a man’s world when it comes to donating to political campaigns.

 A new report on political donation reveal that women lag significantly behind their male counterparts when it comes to opening their wallets for politicians and political causes.

 The report, released Tuesday by She Should Run (SSR) and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), found that women represented just 26 percent of the total given to candidates, political action committees (PACs) and party committees in 2010, down from 31 percent in 2008 and 27 percent in 2006.

 Indeed, while the last three decade have seen women’s income rise more than 60 percent, women are consistently comprising less than one-third of all political donations.

 According to Sam Bennett, president and CEO of SSR, women do not see the correlation between politics and their own desired social change in the same way men do, and they are turned off by the dirty nature of the political game.

 “Women are far more motivated to want to see changes in their neighborhood and city on a social level than men are, but they have not yet made that connection [with politics],” Bennett told The Daily Caller. “In fact, women, far more than men, see the hard, sausage-making dimension of politics as something they are not willing to be engaged in. They find it distasteful.”

 Ironically, while women are less likely to donate, female candidates are better fundraisers than their male counterparts.

 The report reveals that in 2010, on average, female House incumbents raised about $100,000 more than their male colleagues, and female challengers raised over $74,000 more than male peers.

 Bennett pointed to a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Political Science — “Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outperform Congressmen?” — to explain the discrepancy between the fundraising numbers of male and female politicians.

 “The truth of the matter is it is so rare to have a female in elected office in this country that she by definition — she by nature — is going to be a rock star. She is going to work harder by definition. She is going to be better at what she does,” Bennett said. “For her to have succeeded in the Wild Wild West of American politics, as a woman, she is a better performer, she works harder. And that is what you see in fundraising. Fundraising, counter to public belief, is not so much a reflection of talent, but of sheer hard work.”

 While women are good fundraisers, they are not raising their money from other women.

 According to the report, just four of the 2,215 candidates that ran in 2010 relied on donations from women for more than 50 percent of their campaign contributions.

 Further, when women do donate they are slightly more likely to give to more Democratic candidates or endeavors.

 Last cycle, women made up 34 percent of the contributions to Democratic committees, 23 percent of those to Republican committees and 18 percent to third party committees.

 The mission of SSR is to encourage more women to get involved and run for office. According to Bennett, the hesitation of women to get involved in politics is detrimental to their issues receiving attention.

 “When women run they win at equal rates as men, and when they run they now raise more money than men. What’s the problem? They are not running. What’s the problem? They aren’t giving politically.”

 The report explains that the best way to get women involved is to make the connection between women’s political dollars and the issues about which they are concerned.

 Bennett predicted, however, that more women will likely get involved this cycle due to the large number of pro-life bills that passed in 2011 and 2012 by state legislators, seeing the issue as motivation to get involved.

 Follow Caroline on Twitter |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Less than a third of political donations come from women, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed the money given to candidates, political action committees, and party committees in 2010 and discovered that only 26% of federal contributions came from female donors, a dip from 31% in 2008, and 27% in 2006, reports the Daily Caller. “Women are far more motivated to want to see changes in their neighborhood and city on a social level than men are, but they have not yet made that connection [with politics],” says the president of the group She Should Run, which co-released the study. “In fact, women, far more than men, see the hard, sausage-making dimension of politics as something they are not willing to be engaged in. They find it distasteful.”


Article:

The Justice Department filed suit against North Carolina on Monday, charging that the Tar Heel State’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African-Americans.

 Attorney General Eric Holder announced the lawsuit at Justice Department headquarters, flanked by the three U.S. attorneys from North Carolina.

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 “Allowing limits on voting rights that disproportionately exclude minority voters would be inconsistent with our ideals as a nation,” Holder said. “And it would not be in keeping with the proud tradition of democracy that North Carolinians have built in recent years.”

 (QUIZ: How well do you know Eric Holder?)

 Holder charged that North Carolina’s legislation wouldn’t just incidentally hurt African American turnout, but was intentionally designed that way.

 “The Justice Department expects to show that the clear and intended effects of these changes would contract the electorate and result in unequal access to participation in the political process on account of race,” the attorney general said.

 The suit, filed in Greensboro, N.C., asks that the state be barred from enforcing the new voter-ID law. However, the case goes further, demanding that the entire state of North Carolina be placed under a requirement to have all changes to voting laws, procedures and polling places “precleared” by either the Justice Department or a federal court, the source added.

 Until this year, 40 North Carolina counties were under such a requirement. However, in June the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the formula Congress used to subject all or part of 15 states to preclearance in recent decades.

 (PHOTOS: Eric Holder’s career)

 The justices’ 5-4 ruling outraged civil-rights advocates, but did not disturb a rarely used “bail in” provision in the law that allows judges to put states or localities under the preclearance requirement. Civil rights groups and the Justice Department have since seized on that provision to try to recreate part of the regime that existed prior to the Supreme Court decision.

 North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed the voter ID measure into law last last month.

 “Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote,” McCrory said at the time. “This new law brings our state in line with a healthy majority of other states throughout the country. This common-sense safeguard is commonplace.”

 A law mandating a photo ID for voting was not on the books in North Carolina during the 2012 presidential election. Such a measure passed in 2011 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat. The Legislature failed to override her veto.

 (PHOTOS: 7 controversial voter ID quotes)

 DOJ’s lawsuit objects to the law’s photo ID requirement as well as three other key provisions: the elimination of the first seven days of early voting that took place in 2012, the end to same-day voter registration during the early voting period, and the end to the option of provisional ballots for voters who show up at the wrong polling place.

 The chief of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Jocelyn Samuels, said the lawsuit argues that the law has the “purpose, intent and effect of discriminating on the basis of race.”

 A North Carolina Board of Elections study in April of this year found that more than 300,000 registered voters in the state did not have a Department of Motor Vehicles-issued ID. African-Americans accounted for 34 percent of those who did not match with the DMV records, although they account for only about 22 percent of registered voters in the state.

 Proponents of voter ID laws have argued that they prevent voter fraud, but Holder said Monday that there’s no evidence such a phenomenon is widespread.

 “The proof of that is simply not there,” Holder said. “All the studies I have seen, that are reputable, indicate this concern about vote fraud is something that is made up.”

 Holder also said some of the provisions in the North Carolina law didn’t seem to have any logical connection to fraud. “It’s hard to see how…cutting back on early voting hours has anything to do with vote fraud,” he said.

 DOJ moved in July to put Texas, which had been subject to preclearance statewide until the June Supreme Court ruling, back under preclearance requirements. That move came first in a pending lawsuit over redistricting in the state and later in another case over that state’s voter ID law.

 In the Texas cases, the Justice Department is asking that the state be put under preclearance for ten years. However, in the North Carolina case, federal government lawyers are not seeking a specific duration for the new preclearance requirement.

 Judges have yet to act on those requests. However, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, complained that the Justice Department’s demand disrespected the Supreme Court decision.

 “This end run around the Supreme Court undermines the will of the people of Texas, and casts unfair aspersions on our state’s common-sense efforts to preserve the integrity of our elections process,” Perry said in a statement.

 In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that an Indiana voter ID law was constitutional. However, the justices did not deal with the question of whether that law or a similar law in another state might violate the Voting Rights Act. Civil rights advocates have insisted that the Voting Rights Act puts a greater burden on states seeking to restrict voting when doing so disproportionately affects minority groups. ||||| The U.S. Department of Justice will file a lawsuit Monday to stop North Carolinas new voter ID law, which critics have said is the most sweeping law of its kind, according to a person briefed on the departments plans.

 Attorney General Eric Holder, who has said he will fight state voting laws that he sees as discriminatory, will announce the lawsuit at noon Monday, along with the three U.S. attorneys from the state.

 Critics said the law will disenfranchise African-American and elderly voters, while the Republican-led General Assembly in Raleigh said the law will protect the states voters from potential fraud.

 In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, which required a handful of mostly Southern states to get approval from the Justice Department before making changes to their voting laws. The entire state of North Carolina wasnt covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, though several counties were covered by the landmark law and had been subjected to additional federal scrutiny.

 Since that case, the Obama administration filed suit in August to stop a new voter ID law in Texas. North Carolina is the second state it has sued since the so-called preclearance list of Southern states was overturned by the Supreme Court.

 The North Carolina ID law, which was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory in August, goes into effect for the 2016 elections. It requires voters to show a valid, government-issued ID before casting a ballot. It also has a number of other provisions, which will be challenged in the federal lawsuit, according to the person briefed on the Justice Departments plans.

 Among them: the elimination of seven days of early voting; the elimination of same-day registration during early voting; the prohibition against counting provisional ballots that are cast when a voter shows up at the wrong polling place.

 But requiring voters to show a government-issued ID is believed to be the heart of the lawsuit. Student IDs are not allowed.

 Bob Hall, head of Democracy North Carolina, an election advocacy group, said it was important for the federal government to get involved. Hall said African-Americans are 23 percent of registered voters in North Carolina but made up 29 percent of early voters in 2012, 30 percent of those who cast out-of-precinct ballots, 34 percent of the 318,000 registered voters without state-issued IDs, and 41 percent of those who used same-day registration.

 It's important to recognize that eliminating or restricting those particular features hurt certain people, Hall said.

 State Sen. Bob Rucho, a Mecklenburg County Republican who has supported the elections law changes, said Sunday night that he had not seen the complaint and could not comment. Let's see what the complaint is first, Rucho said.

 The Rev. William Barber II, head of the state NAACP, which has filed lawsuits in federal court and the North Carolina courts, challenging the law, said Sunday that he was glad to have assistance from the federal government. We need every resource, including the federal Department of Justice, to stand against the fundamental attack on democracy, Barber said. This law went beyond the pale and all North Carolinians should be repulsed by this effort to turn the clock back on voting rights in this state.

 The federal government will charge that the state was willfully discriminatory when it passed the law. Part of that charge is a 2013 analysis by the N.C. Board of Elections, which said that more than 300,000 registered voters did not have a DMV-issued ID.

 In addition to asking that the Voter ID law be struck down, the Justice Department is seeking to have North Carolina put back on the preclearance list that requires the federal government to approve changes to voter laws.

 In the Supreme Court case that struck down the preclearance list, Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court said that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act wasnt unconstitional. Section 5 requires some states and counties to get preapproval for changes to their voting laws.

 But the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder found that the preclearance list itself  which is nearly 40 years old  was outdated and unconstitutional.

 Congress could pass a new list of states that need pre-clearance, though that is seen as unlikely in todays divided government.

 Pennsylvania passed a voter ID law before the 2012 presidential election. A state judge delayed the implementation of that law after civil rights groups sued to stop it. Pennsylvania was not subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

 Cleve Wootson contributed. |||||
What is a summary?

– North Carolina passed a controversial voter ID law in July, but if the Department of Justice has its way, the law—said to be the most sweeping of its kind in the nation—may never be enforced. The DOJ will file suit against the state today, a source tells Politico and the Charlotte Observer; Eric Holder is expected to make the announcement later today. The suit accuses North Carolina of violating the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against black voters, and asks that the state be barred from enforcing the law—which was scheduled to go into effect for the 2016 elections. It also seeks to put North Carolina back on a "preclearance" list, meaning all changes to voting laws and procedures would need to first be approved by the DOJ or a federal court. Forty North Carolina counties were subject to preclearance until June, when the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. But the DOJ can use another VRA provision to attempt to put states back under preclearance, as it is also doing in Texas. The problem with the voter ID law, as the DOJ sees it: Just 22% of registered voters in North Carolina are African American, but they make up 34% of the voters who do not have a DMV-issued ID (and thus would not be allowed to vote). The DOJ suit will also take issue with three other parts of the law: the elimination of provisional ballots for voters who go to the incorrect polling place (30% of out-of-precinct voters last year were African American); the elimination of some early voting days (29% of early voters last year were African American); and the elimination of same-day voter registration during early voting (41% of voters using same-day registration were African American).


– Another big win for the GOP establishment: Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts has defeated Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf, ending what Politico calls "conservatives' last, best hope to topple an incumbent GOP senator this year." Roberts, who has been in Congress since 1981 and a senator since 1997, had a 48% to 41% lead over Wolf with 95% of precincts reporting, according to the AP. The campaign of Wolf, a radiologist and a distant cousin of President Obama, took a hit early this year when it emerged that he had posted patient X-rays on Facebook and joked about them. "Tonight, we reaffirmed what we all knew. We are Kansas-loving conservative Republicans, and we are in charge of our own future," Roberts told supporters. "My posse did not flinch, even though there were times when their candidate—me—stepped on our message." In other GOP primaries yesterday, a Tea Party congressman in eastern Michigan was defeated by a lawyer backed by business groups, while a libertarian-leaning congressman in the western part of the state defeated a business-backed challenger, the New York Times reports.

Expand this summary.

The Republican establishment’s latest triumph over tea party activists in a Senate primary this year — Pat Roberts’ narrower-than-expected win over challenger Milton Wolf on Tuesday night — came with a big lift from party headquarters in Washington.

 Aided by national Republican forces, Roberts beat back Wolf, a radiologist and distant cousin of President Barack Obama, effectively thwarting conservatives’ last, best hope to topple an incumbent GOP senator in 2014. Assuming Sen. Lamar Alexander prevails in Thursday’s primary in Tennessee — he’s widely expected to defeat challenger Joe Carr — this will be the first cycle since 2008 when no incumbent Republican senator lost renomination.

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 Roberts defeated Wolf, 48 percent to 41 percent; a pair of minor candidates combined for the remaining 11 percent of the vote.

 Largely overlooked in the race was the fact that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is chaired by Roberts’ Kansas colleague, Sen. Jerry Moran, whom some far-right activists have threatened with a 2016 primary challenge. That made a win for the incumbent even more personal.

 (Full primary election results)

 The party made a strategic decision to focus on turning out supporters in Wolf’s home base. Wolf lives and works in Johnson County, in the suburbs of Kansas City, and he needed a healthy margin there to offset Roberts’ strength in the sprawling 1st Congressional District on the western side of the state, which he represented in the House for 16 years.

 The NRSC sent six workers to the Kansas City area for the final 10 days, and they knocked on more than 10,000 doors in Johnson County alone, a party official said. A Washington phone bank set up by the NRSC also made more than 40,000 phone calls in the final three weeks.

 Ultimately, Roberts fought Wolf to a virtual tie in Johnson County. Wolf took 45.7 percent to Roberts’ 45.4 percent, a 147-vote edge.

 (Also on POLITICO: Who's up and who's down in the latest polls?)

 Roberts said in his victory speech that his campaign reached more than 200,000 GOP households in the state through live telephone calls and door knocks, most multiple times, over the final three weeks.

 The NRSC also sent its regional political director, Brittany Belt, into Kansas for the final three weeks before the primary; she focused on the early vote and worked with the campaign on messaging in the final weeks.

 “Senator Roberts has served as a diligent check on Democrats’ push for ever expansive government and is a true conservative voice for our state,” Moran said in a statement celebrating Roberts’ win.

 (Also on POLITICO: The latest race rating projections)

 Roberts’ margin was narrower than expected. Recent polls had showed him crushing Wolf, a radiologist who attacked the incumbent from the right.

 In a post-election speech, Roberts alluded to the bruising campaign and urged Republicans to refrain from similar infighting in future elections.

 “The truth is, Republicans in Kansas and nationally cannot afford the kind of intraparty fratricide we have seen recently,” he said, according to prepared remarks. “Friends, we cannot afford to waste scarce resources and energy tearing ourselves apart. We cannot afford a fractured party. The stakes are too high.”

 Wolf spent the campaign portraying Roberts, 78, as a creature of Washington, frequently questioning whether he truly resided in the state or merely parachuted in to fight for reelection. Roberts, the son of an Eisenhower-era Republican National Committee chairman, was a longtime Hill aide before winning election to Congress in 1980.

 Wolf, a second cousin once removed of Obama, presented himself as a hard-line conservative and built his bid around an effort to undo Obamacare. His challenge to Roberts was his first run for office, and he won the backing of some conservative groups that have tried, but so far failed, to oust Senate incumbents.

 “Sometimes … the best candidate doesn’t win,” said Jenny Beth Martin, chairwoman of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, which funded a late campaign TV ad attacking Roberts. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — Three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts edged out Milton Wolf in Kansas' primary Tuesday night as mainstream conservatives dealt another blow to the tea party movement. A GOP businessman swamped a first-term Michigan congressman, upending his re-election bid.

 FILE - This, July 14, 2014, file photo shows Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in Olathe, Kan., as he speaks at rally for Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. Senate and House incumbents in Kansas, Michigan and Missouri... (Associated Press)

 FILE - This July 7, 2014 file photo shows 4th District GOP candidate Mike Pompeo in Wichita. Kansas' 4th District GOP primary pits incumbent Mike Pompeo of Wichita against the man who previously held... (Associated Press)

 Republican David Trott, a candidate for Michigan's 11th congressional district, is seen outside his voting precinct on Aug. 5, 2014 in Birmingham, Mich. Trott is running against incumbent Kerry Bentivolio... (Associated Press)

 FILE - This July 7, 2014 file photo shows 4th District GOP candidate candidate Todd Tiahrt in Wichita. Kansas' 4th District GOP primary pits incumbent Mike Pompeo of Wichita against the man who previously... (Associated Press)

 Congressman John Conyers votes at Word of Power Ministry in Highland Park, Mich. on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014. Though because of re-districting, Conyers was unable to vote for himself. Two Republican congressmen... (Associated Press)

 Milton Wolf, right, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, calls voters at his campaign headquarters on primary election day, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014, in Overland Park, Kan. Tea party-backed... (Associated Press)

 Milton Wolf, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, waves to motorists outside a polling place on primary election day, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014, in Overland Park, Kan. Tea party-backed Wolf... (Associated Press)

 With 79 percent of the precincts reporting, Roberts held a 48 percent to 41 percent advantage over Wolf, a radiologist and distant cousin of President Barack Obama who had argued that the incumbent wasn't conservative enough. Two other primary candidates combined for 11 percent of the vote.

 The Senate's establishment is on a roll, with incumbents prevailing in Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina and Mississippi, though it took six-term Sen. Thad Cochran two tries before defeating Chris McDaniel, who is challenging the outcome.

 Add Kansas to the list.

 "Tonight, we reaffirmed what we all knew. We are Kansas-loving conservative Republicans, and we are in charge of our own future," Roberts told his backers. Alluding to his stumbles, the senator said, "My posse did not flinch, even though there were times when their candidate — me — stepped on our message."

 The GOP establishment blames the tea party for costing it Senate control in 2010 and 2012 as outside candidates stumbled in the general election. Republicans need to net six seats to regain the Senate, and the party has taken no chances this election cycle, putting its full force behind incumbents and mainstream candidates.

 Tuesday also offered competitive primaries in Michigan, Missouri and Washington state. Businessman and lawyer Dave Trott easily defeated Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, 66 to 34 percent, in Michigan's 11th Congressional District, a reversal of the recent political order of tea partyers targeting an establishment favorite.

 Bentivolio, a part-time reindeer rancher, was often described as the "accidental" congressman, as he was elected in 2012 when former Rep. Thaddeus McCotter turned in fraudulent voter signatures for a ballot spot. Bentivolio became the third House incumbent to lose in the primary, joining Republican Reps. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the former majority leader, and Ralph Hall of Texas on the House casualty list.

 He was unapologetic in defeat.

 "This is only the beginning battle to take back our country and take back our party from crony capitalists," Bentivolio said in arguing that the status quo will have to change.

 "I've seen behind the curtain and I know that the ideas of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are winning," he added.

 In Kansas, Republican two-term Rep. Tim Huelskamp, who has frustrated GOP leadership and his rural constituents over his votes against the farm bill, defeated Alan LaPolice, a farmer and educator, in a close race.

 The four-state primary day launched a crowded stretch with Tennessee on Thursday, Hawaii on Saturday and Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin next week. By month's end, voters will decide the Republican Senate nominee in a competitive race against Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska and the Democratic primary between Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

 The 78-year-old Roberts, a conservative, moved even farther right as he faced a tough re-election. The senator, who backed the nomination of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be secretary of Health and Human Services, was one of the first to call for her resignation after the disastrous launch of the health care website last October. Roberts also voted against a U.N. treaty on the rights of the disabled in December 2012 despite the appeals of former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who sat in a wheelchair in the well of the Senate.

 Wolf argued that Roberts had spent too much time in Washington, owning a home in the nation's capital while merely renting in Kansas. Roberts didn't help his cause when he told a radio interviewer last month: "Every time I get an opponent — uh, I mean, every time I get a chance — I'm home."

 In an interview on Topeka radio's WIBW NewsNow at Noon on Monday, Roberts said it was the "the height of absurdity" for people who want to replace him in Washington to criticize him for spending too much time there.

 "You've got to go where the fight is," he said. "I have to work in Washington."

 Wolf eagerly disavowed the policies of his cousin Obama and cast himself as a pure conservative. He had the backing of the Senate Conservatives Fund and several tea party groups.

 But Wolf was dogged by X-rays of gunshot victims that he posted on a Facebook page with humorous comments. Wolf acknowledged the mistake and apologized, but Roberts made it an issue in campaign ads.

 Roberts will face Democrat Chad Taylor in November in the solidly Republican state.

 In one of the fiercest House GOP primaries, two-term Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo defeated Todd Tiahrt, who served eight terms in the House and was trying to return to Washington.

 Two primaries in Michigan marked a turnabout from several years of widely heralded contests in which right-flank candidates have tried — sometimes successfully — to unseat Republican incumbents they perceive as not being conservative enough.

 Bentivolio did not survive, but two-term Rep. Justin Amash did.

 In the 3rd Congressional District in the southwest part of the state, Amash, who has challenged the GOP leadership, defeated Brian Ellis, a 53-year-old Grand Rapids businessman who owns an investment advisory firm and serves on the school board.

 Amash is popular among libertarians for his challenges to the National Security Agency's surveillance of Americans.

 Five of Missouri's eight House members easily dispatched their underfunded challengers.

 In Washington state, former Washington Redskins player Clint Didier led a crowded field of 12 candidates vying to replace 10-term Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican who is retiring. The two candidates who collect the most mail-in ballots advance to the general election, setting up what could be a Republican vs. Republican contest in the heavily GOP district in central Washington. |||||


Here is a news article: Teacher who doesn't speak Spanish sues after being rejected from job teaching Spanish

 A non-Spanish-speaking teacher at Coral Reef Elementary is suing her employer for rejecting her from a job that required her to teach the language. Google Maps ||||| An English-speaking teacher says the Miami-Dade County School Board discriminated against her by not hiring her for a job. The position? Teaching an hour of Spanish per day.

 Tracy Rosner, a third-grade teacher at Coral Reef Elementary, filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida last week claiming employment discrimination on the basis of her race — which is white.

 Miami-Dade School Board attorneys have not filed a formal response in court and did not return calls for comment Thursday. We'll update this post if they provide one.

 Rosner's attorneys write that her school's students are on three tracks: college preparatory, gifted, and extended foreign language (EFL), where they receive one hour of foreign language instruction per day. In May 2015, Rosner requested to be reassigned to the EFL track, where students are taught both English and another language.

 But Rosner says the principal had an unfair policy of requiring its foreign language teachers to actually speak the language they were teaching. In a totally ¿En serio? moment, Rosner claims that she was "otherwise fully qualified" for the job and that the policy is discriminatory. Her complaint says the school could have given her the job and then just had someone else teach the foreign language component for one hour per day.

 After she was denied the job, Rosner says, the school's principal retaliated by doubling her workload and asking her to teach all the subjects instead of just reading and language arts. Rosner apparently complained to the superintendent and even made a formal complaint to the school district's civil rights office, but administrators there found no probable cause and closed the case.

 The lawsuit claims that non-Spanish speakers are a minority population in Miami-Dade County and that seeking employment solely from Spanish speakers "disproportionately affects" Rosner and others like her.

 "As a direct and proximate result of the retaliation against Ms. Rosner, and the violation of her rights... Ms. Rosner was provided a less desirable position and has damages including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, [and] loss of enjoyment of life," the lawsuit states.

 Rosner did not respond to a message from New Times seeking comment.

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A summary of this is?

– A Florida schoolteacher has filed a workplace discrimination lawsuit against her employer for turning her down for a job teaching Spanish—even though she doesn't speak Spanish, the News & Observer reports. Tracy Rosner, who teaches third grade at Coral Reef Elementary in Palmetto Bay, alleges in her federal complaint against the Miami-Dade County School Board that she applied to be reassigned to teach the extended foreign language (EFL) track—one of three tracks the school offers its students, in addition to college prep and gifted, per the Miami New Times—which would require her to teach one hour of Spanish per day. Rosner says her request was denied, even though she's "otherwise fully qualified" for the job, and that after she was rejected, the principal upped her workload in retaliation. How Rosner says she would get around that pesky fluency requirement: She'd have another Spanish-speaking teacher come in for that one hour a day to instruct her students. She notes in her suit that non-Spanish speakers are in the minority in Miami-Dade County, which "disproportionately affects" her ability to find a suitable job. "Ms. Rosner was provided a less desirable position and has damages including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, [and] loss of enjoyment of life," the suit states. It's not clear which track Rosner had previously been teaching or why she had asked for the reassignment. (The owner of a Milwaukee frozen-custard stand doesn't want any language other than English spoken at work.)


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Citation: Ordonez N, Seidl MF, Waalwijk C, Drenth A, Kilian A, Thomma BPHJ, et al. (2015) Worse Comes to Worst: Bananas and Panama Disease—When Plant and Pathogen Clones Meet. PLoS Pathog 11(11): e1005197. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197 Editor: Donald C. Sheppard, McGill University, CANADA Published: November 19, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Ordonez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Funding: This research is funded by the Interdisciplinary Research and Education Funds (INREF) of Wageningen University (grant 2012, INREF III http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Research-Results/Projects-and-programmes/INREF/Research-programmes-1.htm) and Dioraphte VSM grant 14.03.01.00. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

 Bananas: Their Origin and Global Rollout The banana is the most popular fruit in the world and ranks among the top ten food commodities for Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America [1]. Notably, the crop is largely produced by small-holder farmers, with around 85% of the global production destined for local markets and only 15% entering international trade [1]. Bananas evolved in the Indo-Malayan archipelago thousands of years ago. The majority of all edible varieties developed from specific (inter- and intra-) hybridizations of two seeded diploid Musa species (M. acuminata and M. balbisiana) and subsequent selection of diploid and triploid seedless clones [2,3]. Despite rich genetic and phenotypic diversity [4], only a few clones developed, over time, into global commodities—either as dessert bananas, such as the triploid “Cavendish” clones, or as important staple foods such as cooking bananas and plantains [4,5]. Currently, bananas are widely grown in the (sub)tropics and are consumed in nearly all countries around the world, providing crucial nutrition for millions of people. Edible bananas reproduce asexually through rhizomes, but since the early 1970s, tissue culture has enabled mass production of cultivars [6]. This facilitates the rapid rollout of genetically identical plants, which have consumer-preferred traits and outstanding agronomical performance, onto vast acreages around the world. However, the typical vulnerability of monocultures to diseases has taken its toll on banana production over the last century. In 1876, a wilting disease of banana was reported in Australia [7], and in 1890, it was observed in the “Gros Michel” plantation crops of Costa Rica and Panama [8,9]. There it developed major epidemics in the 1900s that are among the worst in agricultural history [10], linking its most prone geographical area to its colloquial name: Panama disease. It was only in 1910 that the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) was identified as the causal agent in Cuba, from which the name of the forma specialis was derived [10].

 Genetic Diversity of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense, the Causal Agent of Panama Disease Foc belongs to the F. oxysporum species complex: a suite of asexual, morphologically similar, pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains affecting a wide variety of crops [11]. Foc likely co-evolved with its host species Musa in its center of origin [12–15]. Traditionally, phenotyping has identified three Foc races (1, 2, and 4) that cause disease in different subsets of banana and plantain cultivars [5,8]. However, Foc race designations are cumbersome and hence other methods unveiling genetic diversity were developed. Vegetative compatibility group (VCG) analyses largely divide Foc into 24 unique VCGs (VCG0120 through VCG0126 and VCG0128 through VCG01224) [5,13,16]. Later, DNA markers revealed the polyphyletic origin of Foc, as some VCGs are taxonomically closer to other F. oxysporum formae speciales than to other Foc VCGs [12,14,17]. Moreover, strains belonging to diverse VCGs infect particular banana cultivars and, hence, were grouped in the same race, suggesting that pathogenicity towards a specific cultivar evolved either convergently [5,12,14] or resulted from horizontal gene transfer among members of the F. oxysporum complex [18]. Overall, Foc lineages show a remarkable dichotomy, referred to as types or clades [12–14,19–22]. High-resolution genotyping-by-sequencing analyses using DArTseq—which generates short sequence reads after a genome-wide complexity reduction through restriction enzyme digestion [23]—validate and extend these findings (Fig 1). Based on genome-wide DArTseq markers, 24 Foc strains (representing all hitherto known VCGs) split into two groups. These largely corroborate the aforementioned clades, except for VCG0123 [13,14,20,22], VCG01210 [19], VCG01212 [20], and VCG01214 [21], which were occasionally reported in opposite clades, and VCGs 01221 to 01224, which were never classified before but now clearly belong to clade 2 (Fig 1). PPT PowerPoint slide

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 larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 1. Genetic diversity of the banana pathogen F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense. Genotyping-by-sequencing analyses of the hitherto identified 24 vegetative compatibility groups (VCG) in F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense resulted in 12,978 DArTseq markers that divide Foc into two distinct clades—clade 1 and clade 2. VCG01216 is considered the same as VCG01213 [13]. The labels for race 1 isolates are based on personal communications with I. Buddenhagen and M. Dita. Although VCG01213 contains all TR4 isolates that cause the current Panama disease epidemic in Cavendish bananas, VCG0120—which has also been considered as race 4 [5]—and VCG0124 [36] have also been recovered from symptomatic Cavendish plants. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197.g001 Unfortunately, it is not well known which VCGs (the so-called Foc race 1 strains) caused the Panama disease epidemic in “Gros Michel” and, hence, their geographical dissemination is still unclear (I. Buddenhagen and M. Dita, personal communications). The current epidemic in Cavendish bananas, however, is caused by VCG01213 [5], colloquially called Tropical Race 4 (TR4).

 Panama Disease: History Repeats Itself Large railway projects in Central America in the late 1800s facilitated industrial banana production and trade [10], which was entirely based on “Gros Michel” bananas [8]. The unparalleled vulnerability of “Gros Michel” to race 1 strains drove aggressive land-claiming policies in order to continue banana production. However, this did not stop the epidemic as Panama disease was easily entering these new areas through infected planting material. Hence, by the 1960s, the epidemic reached a tipping point with the total collapse of “Gros Michel” [9]. Fortunately, there was a remedy: Cavendish bananas—maintained as interesting specimens in botanical gardens in the United Kingdom and in the United Fruit Company collection in Honduras—were identified as resistant substitutes for “Gros Michel.” A new clone was “born” that, along with the new tissue culture techniques, helped save and globalize banana production [5,8,9]. However, in the late 1960s, Panama disease emerged in Cavendish bananas in Taiwan, but TR4 was only identified as its cause in 1994 [9,24,25]. Surprisingly, this initial outbreak did not awaken the banana industry and awareness levels remained low, despite the lack of any Cavendish replacement that met market demands and the susceptibility of many local banana cultivars to TR4 [5] (see also http://panamadisease.org/en/news/26). Thus, TR4 threatens not only the export trade but also regional food provision and local economies.

 Tropical Race 4, a Single Pathogen Clone, Threatens Global Banana Production Ever since TR4 destroyed the Cavendish-based banana industry in Taiwan, its trail in Southeast Asia seems unstoppable with incursions and expansions in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, and Yunnan as well as on the island of Hainan. Since the 1990s, TR4 has also wiped out Cavendish plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia; between 1997 and 1999, it significantly reduced the banana industry near Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. It was first observed in the early 2000s in a newly planted Cavendish banana farm in Davao (on island of Mindanao, Philippines), where it currently threatens the entire banana export trade [26]. Since 2013, incursions outside Southeast Asia were reported in Jordan [27], Pakistan, and Lebanon [28], informally announced in Mozambique and Oman, and just recently noted in the Tully region of Northern Queensland, Australia. By now, TR4 may have affected up to approximately 100,000 hectares, and it is likely that it will disseminate further—either through infected plant material, contaminated soil, tools, or footwear, or due to flooding and inappropriate sanitation measures [5,29]. Clearly, the current expansion of the Panama disease epidemic is particularly destructive due to the massive monoculture of susceptible Cavendish bananas. Foc is a haploid asexual pathogen [8] and is therefore expected to have a predominantly clonal population structure [13,14,19–22]. Comparison of re-sequencing data of TR4 isolates from Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Philippines—with the publicly available reference genome sequence of Foc TR4 strain II-5 (http://www.broadinstitute.org/)—indeed shows a very low level of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (about 0.01%). This, together with a highly similar set of DArTseq markers, suggests that the temporal and spatial dispersal of TR4 is due to a single clone (Fig 2). This finding underscores the need for global awareness and quarantine campaigns in order to protect banana production from another pandemic that particularly affects vulnerable, small-holder farmers. PPT PowerPoint slide

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 larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 2. Phylogeography of F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (TR4). (A) Geographical locations of proclaimed TR4 incursions in Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Different colors indicate if and how the genetic diversity of collected isolates was assessed. (B) Limited genetic diversity between multiple Foc TR4 isolates from distinct geographical locations revealed by hierarchical clustering, based on 4,298 DArTseq markers. Countries of origin for each of the TR4 isolates are indicated by different colors. (C) Phylogenetic analysis of selected Foc TR4 isolates (highlighted in bold in panel B) and related F. oxysporum species, based on whole-genome re-sequencing data. Phylogenetic tree analysis was performed using REALPHY [37], applying the PhyML algorithm for tree constructing (Foc II5 reference genome). The F. oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici and the F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense II5 genomes, as well as Foc race 4 and race 1 genomes, are publicly available at GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/707). Robustness of the grouping was assessed by 500 bootstrap replicates, and thick branches indicate maximum support. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197.g002

 Strategies for Sustainable Panama Disease Management Any disease management eventually fails in a highly susceptible monoculture. Managing Panama disease with its soil-borne nature, long latency period, and persistence once established is, therefore, impossible without drastic strategy changes. Evidently, exclusion is the primary measure to protect banana production, which requires accurate diagnosis based not only on visual inspection, as this overlooks important aspects of its genetic diversity and epidemiology. New molecular-based diagnostics rapidly detect TR4 in (pre)symptomatic plants [30], soil, and water and, hence, can be used for surveillance and containment, which are key to avoiding an encounter of TR4 with Cavendish monocultures. Additionally, a thorough understanding of Foc epidemiology and pathology is urgently required, as this facilitates developing effective methods to destroy infected plants and (biological) soil treatments, thus reducing the inoculum quantity. Furthermore, we showed that high-throughput genome analyses unveil Foc population diversity (Figs 1 and 2), rather than lengthy and cumbersome VCG analyses, which enables resistance deployment strategies. Finally, effective disease management cannot be achieved without adequate disease resistance levels. “Cavendish”-based somaclones [31] do not satisfy local or international industry demands (apart from the epidemiological risks), as this germplasm is, at most, only partially resistant to TR4 [32]. Instead, the substantial genetic diversity for TR4 resistance in (wild) banana germplasm, such as accessions of Musa acuminata ssp. malaccensis [4], can be exploited in breeding programs and/or along with various transformation techniques [33–35] to develop a new generation of banana cultivars in conformity with consumer preferences. Developing new banana cultivars, however, requires major investments in research and development and the recognition of the banana as a global staple and cash crop (rather than an orphan crop) that supports the livelihoods of millions of small-holder farmers. Until new, commercially viable, and resistant banana cultivars reach markets, any potential disease management option needs to be scrutinized, thereby lengthening the commercial lifespan of contemporary banana accessions. The current TR4 epidemic and inherent global attention should be the wake-up call for these much needed strategy changes.

 Supporting Information S1 Table. Isolate collection at Wageningen University and Research Center used in this study. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197.s001 (XLSX) ||||| Scientists at Wageningen University have demonstrated that the same clone of the Fusarium fungus is infecting Cavendish bananas in several countries dotted across the globe. This shows that this Fusarium clone, also known as Tropical Race 4, is continuing to spread despite the quarantine measures, with disastrous results for banana growers. The results from the research appeared today in the scientific journal PLOS Pathogens.

 Panama disease is caused by the Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense fungus. One of the Fusarium strains is called 'Tropical Race 4' (TR4) and infects many local banana varieties as well as the widely exported Cavendish banana, which is very susceptible to this strain. The soil-borne fungus enters the banana plant through the root and eventually kills the entire plant. Banana-growing plots infested with the fungus remain contaminated for many years. It is then no longer possible to cultivate bananas on such a plot of land, as new banana plants become infected too. Large areas of banana plantations in countries such as Jordan, Mozambique, China, the Philippines, Pakistan and Australia are no longer suitable for banana farming, as they have become infested with the Panama disease fungus. There are currently no means of combating the disease; only quarantine measures can prevent banana plantations from becoming infested.

 DNA investigation

 The researchers at Wageningen UR analysed the DNA of many fungus specimens from eight countries where the fungus has recently been identified, including Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan, in order to trace how Panama disease has come to spread to different locations across the globe. The research highlighted that the strains of the fungus, which were collected are genetically identical. The strains are clones. Gert Kema, banana expert at Wageningen UR, says: 'This research demonstrates that the quarantine measures and information provided around the globe apparently have not had the desired effect.'

 A tale of two clones

 Not only the TR4 fungus strain is a clone: all Cavendish bananas also share the same genes. Kema explains: 'The Cavendish banana is very susceptible to TR4. Therefore, the fungus can spread easily due to the worldwide monoculture of Cavendish bananas. That's why we have to intensify awareness campaigns to reach small and large-scale growers in order to help them with developing and implementing quarantine measures preventing the fungus from continued spreading.'

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 Worldwide approach needed to stop further spreading

 To stop further spreading, Kema's team is working with a large number of partners in different locations across the globe to develop short-term solutions for Panama disease management. Kema continues: 'We are gaining more and more insight into the scope of the issue. The ability to quickly identify infected banana plants and infested soils is extremely important in this respect. However, eventually we have to come up with long-term solutions, particularly host resistance, which can only be developed in strong multidisciplinary alliances with various partners and industry.'

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 Explore further: Panama disease detected in banana plantations in Pakistan and Lebanon

 More information: Nadia Ordonez et al. Worse Comes to Worst: Bananas and Panama Disease—When Plant and Pathogen Clones Meet, PLOS Pathogens (2015). DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197

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– If you like bananas, it's time to start savoring them while you still can. A deadly fungus that's been killing the plant since the 1960s has jumped continents, moving from where it ravaged crops for decades in Southeast Asia to parts of South Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and Africa—and that's just since 2013, reports Quartz. The so-called "Panama" disease is spreading thanks to a single clone of the Fusarium fungus, also called Tropical Race 4, scientists report in the journal PLOS Pathogens. Worse still, one of the world's most popular bananas, the Cavendish, is particularly susceptible to this strain. The soil-borne fungus travels up the plant's roots, ultimately killing the plant and infesting entire banana plots, which are then contaminated for years. Entire swaths of banana plantations in Australia, China, the Philippines, Jordan, Mozambique, Pakistan, and beyond have been infested in the past two years, putting many farmers and families out of business and cutting them off from a major food source, reports PhysOrg. Right now the only way to fight the disease is through strict quarantine, so researchers are trying to spread the word about effective measures in the hopes of getting a step ahead of the fast-spreading fungus before it hits Latin America, where most of the world's bananas are grown. Once it lands there, notes Quartz, "the days of the iconic yellow fruit are numbered." (Some researchers hope it's possible to genetically modify bananas to resist the fungus.)


Police in Mexico's southern Chiapas state found 513 migrants on Tuesday inside two trailer trucks bound for the United States, and said they had been transported in dangerously crowded conditions.

 Migrants who were found in two trailer trucks bound for the United States, sit under the guard of a policeman in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, Tuesday May 17, 2011. Chiapas authorities say they rescued 513... (Associated Press)

 Some of the immigrants were suffering from dehydration after traveling for hours clinging to cargo ropes strung inside the containers to keep them upright as the trucks bounced along from the Guatemalan border, and allow more migrants to be more crammed in on the floor.

 The trucks had air holes punched in the tops of the containers, but migrants interviewed at the state prosecutors' office said they lacked air and water. The trucks were bound for the central city of Puebla, where the migrants said they had been told they would be loaded aboard a second set of vehicles for the trip to the U.S. border.

 "We were suffering, it was very hot and we were clinging to the ropes," said Mario, a 23-year-old Honduran migrant who identified himself only by his first name, for security reasons. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says thousands of undocumented migrants are kidnapped and held for ransom by drug gangs in Mexico each year.

 None of the migrants would say whether any drug gang had been involved in the mass smuggling scheme broken up early Tuesday when Chiapas state police discovered the migrants while using X-ray equipment on the trucks at a checkpoint in the outskirts of city of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

 The migrants said the smugglers were charging them about $7,000 apiece to get them into the United States. A Guatemalan migrant who identified himself as Juan said remaining in his hometown in Guatemala was not an option, noting "a lot of us are Indians, and we can't stay in our homes. There is no work, and there's nothing to eat."

 An agent for the National Immigration Institute who was not authorized to be quoted by name said it was the largest shipment of migrants detained in Mexico in recent years.

 Police also arrested four people accused of smuggling the migrants, who are from Central and South America and Asia, Chiapas state prosecutors said in a statement.

 The alleged smugglers tried to escape police but were chased down and captured, prosecutors said.

 The immigration institute said in a statement that 410 of the migrants were from Guatemala, 47 from El Salvador, 32 from Ecuador, 12 from India, six from Nepal, three from China and one each from Japan, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. There were 32 women and four children among them.

 In January, Chiapas state authorities discovered 219 migrants squeezed into a trailer truck.

 Most of those migrants were from Central America but six were from Sri Lanka and four from Nepal. ||||| Government of Chiapas, via European Pressphoto Agency

 When police ran X-ray scanners over two cargo trucks at a checkpoint in southeastern Mexico on Tuesday, they made a surprising discovery: Inside the trailer were the ghostly shadows of 513 migrants — some suffering from dehydration — packed together in near-suffocating conditions.

 The police released an image of the harrowing scan, which shows how migrants sat in tight bundles or stood clutching cargo straps for hours of clandestine travel from beyond Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

 Their capture thwarted what appeared to be one of the largest single shipments of illegal migrants found in recent years, The Associated Press reported. And it drew attention to the increasing use of X-ray scanners by border security and police officers to inspect vehicles on the road — not to mention the power of these machines to create frightful, captivating images.

 Scanners of the type used to inspect the trucks in Mexico, known as backscatter scanners, are widely employed to check cargo for weapons and drugs, and also to catch human smuggling. They are similar to the ones now frequently used at airports around the United States to screen passengers. Critics have objected that the images created by these machines — which penetrate normal clothing and can be highly detailed — are a violation of travelers’ privacy. (Remember the failed protest against the scanners last year?)

 No similar controversy attends their use on cargo, though. Fixed and mobile scanners have been used for years everywhere from Europe to the war in Iraq for that purpose.

 Here’s a video of one type of scanner inspecting trucks in Chile (the audio has been removed):

 As Andy Greenberg wrote on Forbes.com last year, “the same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.” He continues:

 American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter X-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

 Still, the image captured on Tuesday is among the starkest to surface publicly so far. It opens an eerie black-and-white window into a world where $7,000 buys a small patch of space in a cramped truck with breathing holes punched in the roof, but no guarantee of making it all the way to the United States.

 This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

 Correction: May 18, 2011

 An earlier version of this post's headline mistakenly referred to the migrants as Mexican. |||||

Write a summary.

– Mexican police saw something shocking when they aimed their X-ray scanners at a pair of tractor trailers at a checkpoint in Chiapas. The trucks were jammed full of 513 illegal migrants, many of them suffering from dehydration, the AP reports. Though air holes had been cut in the top of the trucks, the migrants said they felt suffocated as well. “We were suffering,” one said. “It was very hot, and we were clinging to the ropes.” The migrants hailed from throughout South America, Central America, and even Asia, and were bound for the US. Some said they were charged around $7,000 for the trip. Mexican authorities say it was their largest migrant smuggling bust in years. The type of scanner that spotted the migrants was, interestingly enough, similar to the devices so reviled by airline passengers, the New York Times notes.


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– No, Doritos and Skittles haven't made a baby. Doritos is declaring its support for the LGBT community with its new bag of chips, Doritos Rainbow. The chips are actually Cool Ranch-flavored but in the colors of the Pride flag: green, blue, purple, red, and orange, reports Yahoo. Don't go looking for them on store shelves, though. The limited-edition bags will be shipped free of charge only to those who donate at least $10 to the It Gets Better project, which supports LGBT youth around the world. "There's nothing bolder than being yourself," reads the chip package. (Then there's Doritos-flavored soda.)


Sotheby's is holding an auction with up to $5 million of rock memorabilia, including one of Elvis Presley's favorite stage costumes. CNBC's Robert Frank reports.

 "Once upon a time you dressed so fine, you threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?"

 They are among the most famous words in music history. And now Bob Dylan's original handwritten lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone"—scrawled on hotel stationary and filled with revisions and artistic doodles—are coming up for auction.

 Sotheby's is selling the lyrics as part of its sale Tuesday, titled "A Rock & Roll History: Presley to Punk." The lyrics from the 1965 song, which the auction house's Richard Austin said influenced everyone from The Beatles to Bono, are the top lot and could fetch between $1 million and $2 million.

 Read MoreWalt Whitman book sells for $305,000

 "They are the holy grail of lyrics," Austin said. They also offer a window into Dylan's painstaking song-writing process. Starting at 20 pages, he whittled the words down over time to four pages—which themselves are filled with alternate rhymes and lyrics. ||||| Does Elvis Presley’s sweat cure the common cold? If it’s caked into a 40-year-old smudged piece of white fabric, does Elvis sweat turn lead into gold, water to wine?

 No, it doesn’t. But is Elvis sweat still worth up to $200,000? The answer is yes, probably.

 Once in a, ahem, blue moon, some incredible memorabilia rolls through town and shakes up the collectors’ world. A Sotheby’s auction Tuesday is one of those incredible events.

 One of the items on sale is a special suit owned by Elvis Presley—that’s the King of Pop to you—that the aging star wore during his Las Vegas performances. Likely to fetch between $100,000 and $200,000, the suit has a green and blue peacock rendered in rhinestones and gold lame on the front and back, CNBC reports. As everyone knows, a bejeweled white jump suit is a nightmare to wash, so it still has Elvis Sweat Stains™ in the armpits.

 Other items include Bob Dylan’s original handwritten lyrics to “Like A Rolling Stone,” corrections and all, which could sell for up to $2 million, and John Lennon’s piano, which was also played by Elton John and David Bowie and could go for $100,000 to $200,000. Also, there are some John Lennon drawings, and Jim Morrison’s Love Her Madly lyrics.

 Rock fans, come one, come all. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||

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– Would you pay $200,000 for an old white jumpsuit with sweat stains in the armpits? No? What if said jumpsuit (and sweat) belonged to none other than the King himself? One of Elvis Presley's suits—featuring, in addition to the sweat, a bejeweled peacock and worn during his Las Vegas performances—is going up for auction tomorrow at Sotheby's, where it's expected to fetch between $100,000 and $200,000, Time reports. Presley considered the blue and green peacock—adorned with rhinestones and gold lame and stretched across the front, back, and sides of the suit—to be good luck, CNBC reports. Why the sweat stains? The suit is understandably difficult to clean. Also up for grabs at the "A Rock & Roll History: Presley to Punk" auction: Bob Dylan's original handwritten "Like a Rolling Stone" lyrics on hotel stationery; a piano played by John Lennon, Elton John, and David Bowie; and Jimi Hendrix's infamous $1 contract.


Article:
Cuba is the first country in the world to stop the transmission of the AIDS virus from mothers to their babies, the World Health Organization said Monday.

 Cuba's also stopped the transmission of syphilis from mothers to newborns -- two feats that show it's possible to control epidemics of both infections.

 "Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible," said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. "This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation."

 "Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible."

 Babies can be infected with HIV at birth or by breastfeeding if the mother is infected. If the mother gets HIV drugs before and after giving birth, and if the newborn is given drugs, the risk falls to less than 1 percent.

 But that means the mother must have been tested and know she is infected, and of course the drugs must be available.

 WHO estimates that 1.4 million women with HIV become pregnant every year. Without treatment, there's as much as a 45 percent chance that they will infect their newborns.

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 Globally, 67 percent of all pregnant women infected with HIV in low- and middle-income countries were able to get the drugs to protect their babies in 2013, WHO said. "The number of children born annually with HIV has almost halved since 2009 - down from 400,000 in 2009 to 240,000 in 2013," WHO says.

 In the U.S., testing and treatment of pregnant women has made mother-to-child transmission rates plummet by more than 90 percent. In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, 162 children were infected at birth. CDC says 14 percent of Americans with HIV don't know it.

 "It shows that ending the AIDS epidemic is possible."

 Cuba's success should encourage donors and governments to redouble their efforts, WHO said.

 "It shows that ending the AIDS epidemic is possible and we expect Cuba to be the first of many countries coming forward to seek validation that they have ended their epidemics among children," said Dr. Michel Sidibé, executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS.

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 Similarly, stopping syphilis transmission is easy if women get antibiotics to treat the infection. WHO says nearly 1 million pregnant women worldwide are infected with syphilis annually. That translated to 360,000 babies who were born dead or died soon after birth, were born prematurely or who were born infected in 2012. ||||| A nurse (L) hands out a red ribbon to a woman, to mark World Aids Day, at the entrance of Emilio Ribas Hospital, in Sao Paulo December 1, 2014.

 HAVANA The World Health Organization on Tuesday declared Cuba the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child.

 The WHO said in a statement that an international delegation that it and the Pan American Health Organization sent to Cuba in March determined the country met the criteria for the designation. In 2013, only two children in Cuba were born with HIV and five with syphilis, the statement said.

 "Cuba's success demonstrates that universal access and universal health coverage are feasible and indeed are the key to success, even against challenges as daunting as HIV," PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in the statement.

 Cuba's Communist government considers its free healthcare a major achievement of the 1959 revolution, although ordinary Cubans complain of a decline in standards since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country's former benefactor, in 1991.

 The PAHO and WHO credited Cuba with offering women early access to prenatal care, HIV and syphilis testing, and treatment for mothers who test positive. The two organizations began an effort to end congenital transmission of HIV and syphilis in Cuba and other countries in the Americas in 2010.

 (Reporting by Jaime Hamre; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Lisa Von Ahn) |||||Summary:

– On at least one aspect of health care, the world's most advanced nations can now take a back seat to Cuba. The World Health Organization says Cuba has become the first country to eliminate mother-to-baby transmissions of HIV, reports NBC News. The same holds true for syphilis. Cuba did so not through some experimental treatment but through rigorous prenatal screening of pregnant women. Those who tested positive were given HIV drugs before and after giving birth, and their newborns were treated as well. When that happens, the percentage of infected babies falls to under 1%. "Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible," says WHO chief Margaret Chan. "This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation." Cuba's policies didn't completely wipe out such transmissions—two babies were born with HIV in 2013, and five with syphilis—but the numbers met WHO's criteria for certification, reports Reuters.


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Allegations by Los Angeles police that "Shield" actor Michael Jace shot his wife to death at their Hyde Park home Monday night shocked longtime neighbors who described the couple as loving and friendly, but it isn't the first time he's faced accusations of domestic violence.

 Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that Jace confessed to fatally shooting his wife, April, multiple times around 8:30 p.m. Monday at their home in the 5400 block of Brynhurst Avenue. April Jace, a well-liked financial aid employee at Biola University, had walked in the door just 10 to 15 minutes earlier after picking up the couple's sons from baseball practice.

 Los Angeles police said in a statement that the motive for the shooting "is believed to be domestic violence" — an accusation levied against Michael Jace nearly two decades ago when he divorced his previous wife, Jennifer Bitterman.

 In court documents she described one instance in which she said Michael Jace threatened to kill her if they went to “war” over his visitation rights of their son. In the divorce filing, Bitterman painted a portrait of her husband as temperamental and unreliable.

 In another filing, a longtime friend of Bitterman's described a violent incident she said she witnessed between the couple.

 The woman told the court she was in the room when Michael Jace “choked and hit” Bitterman and “slammed her against the wall while [her son] screamed in his crib next to her.” The child was 6 months old at the time.

 "The Shield" actor Michael Jace remains in custody after the fatal shooting of his wife. "The Shield" actor Michael Jace remains in custody after the fatal shooting of his wife. SEE MORE VIDEOS

 The friend added she saw at least three more incidents of violence in the eight months she lived with the couple between 1996 and when Michael Jace filed for divorce in 1997.

 It was not the same picture painted by Jace's neighbors in Hyde Park, who on Tuesday said they never saw or suspected any violence in the home.

 "All I heard coming out of that household were giggles," said Shirley Harding, who has lived next door for about 12 years.

 She added that the couple always appeared to be in good spirits.

 "They were always hugging and kissing each other," she said. "Both were great parents."

 Law enforcement sources have told The Times that "The Shield" actor Michael Jace has confessed to shooting his wife to death. Law enforcement sources have told The Times that "The Shield" actor Michael Jace has confessed to shooting his wife to death. SEE MORE VIDEOS

 That sentiment was shared by most neighbors, who said they often saw Jace walking his German Shephard named Max and his two children on the street.

 "He's a very good dad who always played with his kids," said Brandon Cook, 35.

 But behind the giggles and dog walks, Michael Jace, 51, was under financial stress.

 The actor filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in March 2011, when he listed his liabilities at more than $500,000 against assets of $325,000, according to federal court records.

 At the time he was more than $22,000 in debt to the government, more than $16,000 in debt to credit card companies and still owed on two mortgages.

 Cook said Michael Jace struggled to find steady work after "The Shield" stopped airing a few years ago, and he noticed that the family downgraded to less expensive cars.

 "It was apparent," Cook said.

 The actor appeared to have been keeping up with his payments until late last year, when one of his creditors filed a motion stating the actor had fallen behind by about $2,800, according to the federal court records.

 On Monday, Harding said she saw Michael Jace quickly pull his gray van into the driveway, leaving his front door ajar.

 Shortly after, as she was washing her car, she heard a popping noise.

 "I wasn't sure if it was a gunshot, but then I heard two more popping noises and I ran into my house."

 Other neighbors reported hearing the couple arguing just before the shots rang out, KNBC-TV reported.

 Los Angeles police say the couple's two sons, both under 10, were home at the time of the shooting, but were physically unharmed.

 Michael Jace was standing in the doorway unarmed when police arrived. His wife's body was found in a hallway inside the home, police said.

 As police continued to investigate the pink stucco house Tuesday, neighbors were forced to confront two incredibly different narratives of the family they thought they knew.

 "They were like the Huxtables on the block," Tonja Edwards, 42, said. That Michael Jace might have killed his wife "in cold blood like that, really leaves us all puzzled," she added.

 The shooting also shocked Biola University, where April Jace was a well-liked financial aid worker.

 University President Barry H. Corey issued a statement Tuesday saying the La Mirada campus was “obviously shocked and saddened by this terrible news, to lose a wonderful colleague, mother and friend.”

 The couple's two sons were staying with family members as the investigation continued. In addition to the two sons she had with Michael Jace, April also had an older son from a previous relationship.

 "I'm heartbroken," Cook said. "My prayers go out to the family and for those kids because they don't have their mom or their dad anymore." ||||| Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Michael Jace (right) with his wife April. The actor is accused of shooting and killing his wife in front of their sons. AP April Jace, who, according to police, was shot multiple times by her husband, Michael Jace, after she returned home with their children on Monday. Previous Next

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 Michael Jace was a father from hell.

 “The Shield” actor’s first wife claims he had an “intimidation style of discipline,” spanking their young son Jordan “for crying or being afraid” and threatening the boy once for “failing to stand up to his stepbrother.”

 Jace, who is now accused of gunning down his second wife, April, was so terrifying that Jordan would cry if had to spend any time alone with his dad, Jennifer Bitterman said in court papers.

 “I would make every effort to encourage Jordan to be brave and reassure him that (Jace) loves him and that he is safe with him,” Bitterman said in records from the 2004 custody case.

 The acid appraisal of Jace’s parenting came as the 51-year-old actor remained jailed on suspicion of murder and the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office prepared to do an autopsy on his dead wife.

 Police said there was no history of domestic violence in the Jace household and the actor had no prior arrests.

 Bitterman, in the papers, said Jace was a mostly absent dad for the first five years of Jordan’s life and “all but abandoned him during this time.”

 “Financial support was infrequent as well,” she complained.

 But when Jordan was 6, Jace began seeing April and got religion.

 Brentt/AP Michael Jace (right) was detained by police after the shooting on Monday night.

 “His attitude seemed to have changed about fatherhood with the help of his new involvement in Christianity,” Bitterman said.

 Jace began asking for overnight visits with Jordan. But they did not go well.

 Once, Bitterman said, Jordan called her and was “inconsolably sobbing.” She said Jace refused to drive him home.

 Bitterman could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Neither could her now-grown son.

 “He’s a really good kid,” neighbor Tony Wren, 70, said. “He’s going to college. I think he was looking at Columbia. This is a lot of weight for him to be carrying.”

 Wren also called Bitterman “a very good mom.”

 “I'm glad she got out of that situation,” he said, referring to her sad marriage to Jace. “It could have been her.”

 Jace’s two sons with April were home when he gunned down their mother Monday and then called 911, police said. Both boys are younger than age 10.

 Dwight Flowers/AP The body of April Jace is removed from the couple’s home. Valerie Macon/Getty Images A police officer removes police tape from actor Michael Jace's home on Tuesday. Previous Next

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 The actor’s 18-year-old stepson, Savoy Brown, was not home at the time, his grandmother said.

 “It’s lucky he wasn’t there,” Naomi Brown said. “He probably would have tried to defend her.”

 Brown, who is 74 and lives in Rhode Island, said she met Jace at her grandson's graduation party last year and did not get the sense he might be dangerous.

 “He was very attentive to his two little boys when I met him,” she said. “We all had a really good time.”

 Best known for playing a sexually conflicted cop on the long-running FX series, Jace is deep in debt and police suspect he and his wife of 10 years were fighting over money.

 When she was still Jace’s fiancée, April defended the actor during the custody fight, calling him a good dad and provider. She also called Bitterman a bad mom.

 This was after Jace allegedly threatened to kill Bitterman if she “went to war” over visitation — and after a friend of the first wife described in divorce records how the actor slammed Bitterman against a wall as then-6-month-old Jordan screamed in his nearby crib.

 ndillon@nydailynews.com |||||

– The Shield actor accused of murdering his wife was a pretty terrifying father, according to his ex-wife. During a 2004 custody case, Jennifer Bitterman said Michael Jace used an "intimidation style of discipline" on their young son, Jordan, according to court records obtained by the New York Daily News. Jace spanked him "for crying or being afraid," and once threatened him for "failing to stand up to his stepbrother," Bitterman said, adding that Jordan was afraid to be alone with his father and once called her "inconsolably sobbing" because Jace refused to take him home from an overnight visit. The court documents also reveal that, according to Bitterman, Jace threatened to kill her if she "went to war" over visitation with Jordan. And, the Los Angeles Times reports, another filing shows that one of Bitterman's friends testified that she saw at least four violent incidents between the couple before they divorced, including one in which Jace "choked and hit" Bitterman and then "slammed her against the wall"—as Jordan, then 6 months old, cried in his crib nearby. Jordan is now grown, but Jace's two young sons with April Jace were home when he allegedly killed their mother. Money problems may have been behind their fight.