White House: Trump has confidence in Shulkin ‘at this point in time’

 President Donald Trump has confidence in David Shulkin “at this point in time” despite reports that the Veterans Affairs secretary may be fired as early as this week, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said on Monday.

 “We all serve at the pleasure of the president. If he is not pleased, you‘ll know it,” Gidley said in an interview on Fox News. “At this point in time though, he does have confidence in Dr. Shulkin. He is a secretary and he has done some great things at the VA. As you know, the president wants to put the right people in the right place at the right time and that could change.“

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 Shulkin has reportedly been viewed negatively after being accused of excessive spending on travel and for saying he has been given the blessing of the White House to purge VA staffers he accused of “subversion,” though he's been given no such approval.

 When pressed about reports on Monday that Trump would like to fire Shulkin but doesn’t have a replacement, Gidley said, “When the president wants to make a change, he will make it.“

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 “He doesn't have to try, he doesn't have to guess. He has the power to do so whether he has a replacement or not, he can still make a change,” he said. “The president wants to put the best people around him to execute his policy.“

 White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah on Monday afternoon declined to discuss Shulkin's future, saying there will be “no personnel announcements” when he was asked about the secretary at the White House press briefing.

 “I haven't asked the president about it today. I don't want to comment on it too specifically,” Shah said.

  ||||| (CNN) President Donald Trump indicated this weekend to associates he is preparing to oust Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, a source familiar with the conversations confirmed to CNN.

 CNN's Jeff Zeleny has reported two officials said Shulkin remains the most vulnerable cabinet member.

 The announcement could happen as early as this week, the source said. However, until an announcement is made, no decision in the Trump White House is considered final.

 Several officials told Zeleny that Trump wants a replacement for Shulkin to announce seamlessly.

 White House officials did not have any comment.

 Read More ||||| Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin testifies on FY2019 and FY2020 budgets for veterans programs before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in Washington.... (Associated Press)

 Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin testifies on FY2019 and FY2020 budgets for veterans programs before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) (Associated Press)

 PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump is planning to oust embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin amid an extraordinary rebellion at the agency and damaging government investigations into his alleged spending abuses, three administration officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.

 Two officials said an announcement on Shulkin could happen this week, subject to Trump's final decision as the White House hones in on possible replacements to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. One of the officials rated Shulkin's chances of being pushed out in the next day or two at "50-50." The three officials demanded anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter.

 Trump, who spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate, told associates that he would keep two other administration officials who had been under fire: White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

 "He did say that he's expecting to make one or two major changes," said Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a Trump confidant who spoke with the president over the weekend, on ABC's "This Week."

 "Now, other White House sources, not the president, tell me that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is likely to depart the Cabinet very soon," Ruddy said.

 The White House did not immediately comment. Shulkin did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.

 Speculation over Shulkin's fate has ramped up in recent weeks following a blistering report by VA's internal watchdog in February that found he had improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and his staff had doctored emails to justify his wife traveling to Europe with him at taxpayer expense. Earlier this month, two people familiar with the White House discussions told the AP that Trump increasingly viewed Shulkin as a distraction as the White House floated the names of possible candidates to replace him, including conservative "Fox & Friends" contributor Pete Hegseth.

 A separate VA watchdog investigation, due out in the coming weeks, is also looking into a complaint that Shulkin asked his security detail to accompany him to a Home Depot store and cart furniture items, according to two people familiar with the allegation who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

 One person familiar with the White House discussions told the AP on Sunday that the White House was looking closely at roughly half a dozen candidates to head the VA, the government's second-largest department with 370,000 employees.

 Among the candidates being vetted include Hegseth, a former military officer and former CEO of the conservative Concerned Veterans for America; former Rep. Jeff Miller, who had been chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee; retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; Michael Kussman, a former VA undersecretary of health; Toby Cosgrove, a former president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic; and Leo Mackay Jr., a former VA deputy secretary who is now senior vice president at Lockheed Martin Corp.

 In the event of Shulkin's departure, deputy VA secretary Tom Bowman would serve as acting head of the VA until a nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Bowman has also come under criticism at the White House for being too moderate to push Trump's agenda of fixing veterans' care.

 During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to fix the VA by expanding access to private doctors and firing bad employees, criticizing the department as "the most corrupt." Last year, Trump promised to triple the number of veterans "seeing the doctor of their choice."

 But a Trump administration plan to expand the Veterans Choice program remains in limbo after lawmakers declined last week to include it in a massive spending bill.

 In response to the ethics issues, Shulkin has denied wrongdoing and complained about internal drama at the agency that has made it difficult for him to push through VA improvements, citing a half dozen or so political appointees there who were rebelling against him.

 But Kelly, the White House chief of staff, recently made it clear to Shulkin that he had become weary of the VA secretary's tendency to run to the media to voice complaints and claim a White House mandate that he did not fully have, according to a person familiar with the conversations who wasn't authorized to discuss them publicly and insisted on anonymity.

 The department provides medical care and other benefits to 9 million military veterans in more than 1,700 health facilities around the U.S.

 ___

 Yen reported from Washington. Washington bureau chief Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Jill Colvin contributed to this report. |||||

Write a summary.

– Reports were out over the weekend that Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin may be the next Cabinet member to get the boot, but White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley downplayed those reports Monday—somewhat. "We all serve at the pleasure of the president. If he is not pleased, you‘ll know it," Gidley said on Fox News, according to Politico. "At this point in time though, he does have confidence in Dr. Shulkin. He is a secretary and he has done some great things at the VA. As you know, the president wants to put the right people in the right place at the right time and that could change." Sources told CNN and the AP over the weekend that Trump planned to oust Shulkin, possibly as early as this week, but that he wanted to have a replacement selected first. Pressed on that subject, Gidley said, "When the president wants to make a change, he will make it. ... Whether he has a replacement or not, he can still make a change." Shulkin has been under fire due to accusations of excessive spending and policy differences with the White House, leading to friction within his department. (Trump was at one point reportedly considering Energy Secretary Rick Perry as Shulkin's replacement.)


Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mike Pence is a "political dummy", says North Korea

 A senior North Korean official has dismissed remarks by US Vice-President Mike Pence as "stupid", casting further uncertainty about a planned meeting between the two countries' leaders.

 Choe Son-hui said the North would not "beg" for dialogue and warned of a "nuclear showdown" if diplomacy failed.

 In recent days, both sides have said that the 12 June Trump-Kim summit could be delayed or even called off.

 North Korea insists it will not give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally.

 Why Choe's statement matters

 Choe Son-hui has been involved in several diplomatic interactions with the US over the past decade. She is one of Kim Jong-un's top aides and analysts say her statement will have been sanctioned by the leader himself.

 It came days after Mr Pence warned that North Korea "may end like Libya" - where then-leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels in 2011 after renouncing nuclear weapons eight years earlier.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Viewpoint: Why Trump's summit strategy was so unusual

 Ms Choe, in an article carried by the state news agency KCNA on Thursday, said Mr Pence had made "unbridled and impudent remarks".

 She added: "As a person involved in US affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing from the mouth of the US vice-president.

 "Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behaviour of the United States."

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why North Korea is angry at this man: John Bolton

 Meanwhile North Korea is pressing ahead with plans to dismantle its only nuclear testing facility later this week.

 The Punggye-ri site is located in a remote part of the north-west of the country. A group of international journalists, who have been invited to observe the event, are on their way there.

 How this story has developed

 - 10 May: Trump says he will meet Kim in Singapore on 12 June

 - 12 May: North Korea announces dismantling of test site

 - 16 May: North threatens to scrap summit over comments by US National Security John Bolton about "Libyan model"

 - 18 May: Trump distances himself from Bolton, saying US is not pushing for Libya-style denuclearisation

 - 22 May: Trump insists that unless the US gets "certain conditions... we won't have the meeting"

 'Careful diplomacy requires careful messaging'

 Analysis from Laura Bicker, BBC News, Seoul

 So we are back to name calling and threats of nuclear war - just weeks before the planned summit.

 Some may say this is a typical Pyongyang power play. But it was also so avoidable.

 North Korea had made it clear last week that mentioning the Libyan model of denuclearisation touched a nerve. Firstly because the Gaddafi regime collapsed and he was killed, but also because the North believe its weapons programme is far more advanced than Libya's ever was.

 So to even mention the two countries in the same context will be a grave insult and Pyongyang may feel that Washington is not showing it the respect it deserves.

 The US had been warned, and yet Mr Pence decided to repeat the comparison anyway. Careful diplomacy requires careful messaging and careful language, and North Korea clearly feels the Trump administration has shown a lack of discipline in this regard.

 It is interesting that Pyongyang decided not to target Donald Trump, who also made similar remarks. Aiming the insults at those around the president rather than Mr Trump himself may suggest North Korea is not ready to throw away the prospect of a summit quite yet.

 Please upgrade your browser to view this content. Timeline hide How Trump and Kim have changed their tone What happened next? Show all Was this timeline useful? Yes No Thank you for your feedback. Share this timeline ||||| Following a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, President Trump suggested that a planned summit between the U.S. and North Korea could be delayed. Gerald F. Seib explains why. Photo: Getty Images

 North Korea’s senior envoy for U.S. affairs renewed a threat to call off a planned summit with President Donald Trump and warned that Pyongyang could “make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined.”

 In its most direct language aimed at Washington following a recent rapprochement between the two countries, Choe Son Hui, the North’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said if the June 12 talks were called off, the U.S. could instead face off with North Korea in a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

 ... ||||| Women protesters stage a rally for peace on the Korea peninsular near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Wednesday, May 23, 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump labored with South Korea's Moon Jae-in Tuesday to keep... (Associated Press)

 Women protesters stage a rally for peace on the Korea peninsular near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Wednesday, May 23, 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump labored with South Korea's Moon Jae-in Tuesday to keep... (Associated Press)

 TOKYO (AP) — North Korea has lobbed another verbal salvo at Washington ahead of an increasingly embattled plan for its leader, Kim Jong Un, and President Donald Trump to meet next month, calling Vice President Mike Pence a "political dummy" and saying it is just as ready to meet in a nuclear confrontation as at the negotiating table.

 The outburst at Pence, issued in the name of a top Foreign Ministry official, comes on the heels of another sharp rebuke of Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, John Bolton, and has raised concerns a major gap has opened between the two sides just weeks before the June 12 summit in Singapore.

 In both cases, Pyongyang was trying to push back against hard-line comments suggesting North Korea may end up like Libya if it doesn't move forward quickly and irreversibly with concrete measures to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

 Choe Son Hui, a vice minister of foreign affairs, was quoted Thursday by the North's state-run news agency slamming as "ignorant" and "stupid" comments Pence made in an interview with Fox News that compared the nuclear-capable North to Libya. Libya gave up its program at an early stage only to see its longtime dictator overthrown and brutally killed years later.

 She questioned whether the summit would be worthwhile if the remarks reflect Washington's position.

 "We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us," KCNA quoted her as saying. "Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States."

 The summit plan has hit a number of speed bumps recently as both sides have begun trading barbs and taking tougher positions. Trump met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday at the White House for consultations and suggested the summit could be delayed or even called off entirely.

 Even so, both sides still seem to want to hold the meeting, which would be unprecedented.

 Success in talks would be a huge accomplishment for Trump. Meeting with the U.S. president as an equal on the world stage would be a major coup for Kim.

 Despite its insults to Pence and defiant rhetorical flourishes, Choe's statement did not directly criticize Trump and carefully noted that she would only recommend the North Korean leader withdraw from the meeting if Washington "clings to unlawful and outrageous acts."

 Meanwhile, officials from the two sides are reportedly planning to meet in Singapore this weekend to further discuss the agenda and logistics. And North Korea was moving forward with a major gesture of goodwill ahead of the summit by dismantling its nuclear test site.

 The North, which has vowed to stop all underground nuclear testing and intercontinental ballistic missile launches, has invited foreign media to the remote site to observe a ceremony to mark the closing. The ceremony was expected to be held Thursday or Friday, depending on the weather.

 Choe, a veteran diplomat and former head of the North America desk at the North's Foreign Ministry, was responding to comments Pence made to Fox News this week that it would be a "mistake" for the North Koreans to think they can "play" Trump. Pence said both the Clinton and Bush administrations had been "played" by the North Korean government.

 "We offered concessions to the North Korean regime in exchange for promises to end their nuclear weapons program, only to see them break those promises and abandon them," Pence said, adding that if Pyongyang does not go along with talks to give up its nuclear weapons, Washington could return to the "Libya model."

 That suggestion — which Trump had earlier seemed to distance himself from — is especially inflammatory to Pyongyang.

 The Libya model refers to negotiations in 2004 that led to the shipping of nuclear components to the U.S. from Libya under Moammar Gadhafi. But in Pyongyang's mind the most important part of the story is what came after that. Gadhafi was deposed after a 42-year reign and killed in 2011 — the year Kim assumed power in North Korea — while his country spiraled into chaos.

 "In view of the remarks of the U.S. high-ranking politicians who have not yet woken up to this stark reality and compare the DPRK to Libya that met a tragic fate, I come to think that they know too little about us," Choe said, using the acronym for North Korea's official name.

 She added: "To borrow their words, we can also make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now."

 ___

 Talmadge is the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter: @EricTalmadge |||||

Write a summary.

– The US has a simple choice, according to Pyongyang: Meet North Korea at the negotiating table, or in a "nuclear-to-nuclear showdown." Senior North Korean official Choe Son Hui put the planned June 12 summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un in even more doubt Thursday with a blistering statement that warned Pyongyang wouldn't "beg" for dialogue and called Mike Pence a "political dummy," the Wall Street Journal reports. Choe, the North's vice minister of foreign affairs, slammed Pence for comparing North Korea to Libya in the context of denuclearization. "I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice president," she said. Choe—who warned that Pyongyang could make the US "taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined"—was responding to Pence's comment to Fox News earlier this week, in which he said the Clinton and Obama administrations had been "played" by North Korea and it would be a mistake for the Koreans to think they could do the same to Trump, the AP reports. The BBC notes that Choe is one of Kim's top aides and her statements will have been sanctioned by the leader. Trump said Tuesday that the summit "may not work out" for June 12, but he sounded more optimistic Wednesday, before Choe's remarks were released. "Right now we're looking at it, we're talking about it, and they’re talking to us," he told Fox. "We have certain conditions. We'll see what happens. But there's a good chance."


Write an article based on this summary:

– Promising new research may make it possible to detect autism in babies before symptoms appear. Researchers scanned the brains of infants with autistic siblings considered at high risk of developing the disorder themselves. They report in the journal Nature that brain changes identified in MRIs of infants allowed them to predict with 80% accuracy in the first year which ones would go to show autistic symptoms. Children usually do not show signs of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), such as not making eye contact, until age 2 or older. Early intervention has been shown to ease and even reverse symptoms. Lead author Joseph Piven tells CBS News "the first year of life (is) where the brain is most malleable" and responsive to treatment. Though small in scope, the first-ever study could lead to development of a tool to predict autism in high-risk infants—and perhaps in the general population—before their first birthday "to prevent these children from falling behind in social and communication skills," co-author Annette Estes tells the Guardian. One in 100 children develop autism, but that risk zooms to one in five for those with an autistic sibling, per Nature. Scientists analyzed the brain scans of 106 babies at high risk and 42 at low risk for the disorder. Those in the high-risk group who later went on to develop ASD saw unusual growth of the outer surface of the brains in the first year of life, followed by "an overgrowth of the brain" in the second year, Piven tells CBS. That brain growth was linked to ASD symptoms. ("Neural fingerprint" of mom's voice may help unlock secrets of autistic brains.)

BSIP/UIG via Getty Image

 By scanning the brains of babies whose siblings have autism, researchers say they have been able to make reasonably accurate forecasts about which of these high-risk infants will later develop autism themselves. The findings raise the prospect of diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) months before children develop symptoms, a goal that has proved elusive. Nature looks at the new study and its implications.

 Why has it been so tough to diagnose autism in infants?

 Children typically show symptoms of ASD, such as difficulty making eye contact, after the age of 2. Researchers believe that the brain changes underlying ASD begin much earlier — possibly even in the womb. But behavioural assessments haven't been helpful in predicting who will get autism, says Joseph Piven, a psychiatrist at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, who co-led the study, published online in Nature1.

 “Children who end up with autism at 2 or 3, they don’t look like they have autism in the first year," he says.

 Are there genetic signatures or biomarkers that could help predict an autism diagnosis?

 Certain rare mutations are linked to ASD, but the vast majority of cases cannot be pinned to a single or even a handful of genetic risk factors. Beginning in the 1990s, Piven and other researchers noticed that children with autism tended to have larger brains than developmentally normal children, suggesting that brain growth could be a biomarker for ASD. But Piven and colleague Heather Cody Hazlett, a psychologist at UNC-Chapel Hill, say it had not been clear when overgrowth occurred.

 What did their latest study look at?

 Autism occurs in roughly 1 in 100 children in the general population, but infants with an older sibling with a diagnosis have about a 1 in 5 chance of developing ASD. As part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS), Piven and Hazlett’s team scanned the brains of 106 of these ‘high-risk’ infants at age 6, 12 and 24 months using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to see if they could catch the brain overgrowth in the act. They also followed 42 low-risk infants.

 What did they find?

 Fifteen of the high-risk infants were diagnosed with autism at 24 months. MRI scans revealed that the volume of these infants’ brains grew faster between 12 and 24 months, compared with children who were not diagnosed with ASD, and that this accelerated growth occurred at the same time that behavioural signs of autism appeared.

 The researchers also found brain changes between 6 and 12 months, before ASD symptoms appeared. The cortical surface area — a measure of the size of folds on the outside of the brain — grew faster in infants later diagnosed with autism, compared with those who did not receive a diagnosis.

 Hazlett et al, Nature 2017; 10.1038/nature21369

 Could these brain changes be used to predict autism diagnosis in infants?

 Hazlett and Piven’s team then used a deep-learning neural network, a form of machine learning, to ask if MRI scans at 6 and 12 months in a larger set of high-risk infants could predict an autism diagnosis at age 2. The algorithm correctly predicted 30 out of the 37 autism diagnoses (81%), while producing false-positives in 4 out of the 142 infants who were not later diagnosed.

 “We now have this finding in these high familial risk infants that we can predict 8 out of 10 that we think will get autism,” says Piven, adding that behaviour-based predictions do no better than 50–50 at that age. “This has tremendous clinical implications.”

 What will it take for these results to be used in the clinic?

 A lot more research, agree Pivens’ team and other experts. In the first instance, the results need to be confirmed with a larger follow-up study of high-risk infants: Piven's team has applied for NIH funding for such a study. They are also looking at whether other brain-imaging techniques can detect the early brain changes.

 “It’s an excellent piece of science, but ultimately it’s based on a few hundred individuals,” says Armin Raznahan, a clinician-scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. “The key thing is going to be replicating this.”

 Even if the findings are robust, clinical applications could prove limited. Cynthia Schumann, an expert on autism brain imaging at the University of California, Davis, notes that the findings apply only to high-risk infants, and not to the general population. A large follow-up study would be needed to test whether autism can be predicted in the general population, she says.

 Differences between MRI scanners and methods for extracting data could also swamp the subtle anatomical changes detected in the study, adds Raznahan. Widespread application would also depend on having a ‘growth-chart for the brain’ that is broadly applicable across the general population — a huge challenge, he notes.

 If autism could be predicted in infants, could doctors do anything about it?

 There is no evidence that the risk of developing autism can be reduced in infants, says Raznahan, and the immediate application of early diagnosis would be to inform families. Having a reliable tool for early diagnosis could help researchers to test interventions, because it would help them to determine whether a treatment is working or not, adds Piven. ||||| Experimental research may lead to a new method to diagnose infants with autism before symptoms show.

 In what they say is a first-of-its-kind study, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the brains of infants at high risk for autism – those whose older siblings had the disorder – at 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months of age.

 From the scans, researchers were able to correctly predict 80 percent of those infants who would later meet criteria for autism at 2 years of age.

 The results revealed that early brain development biomarkers could be helpful in determining which high-risk babies will go on to develop autism.

 “We see an increased rate of growth in the outer surface of the brain, the folds, the sort of waviness of the surface that’s followed by an overgrowth of the brain in the second year,” senior study author Joseph Piven, M.D., of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, told CBS News.

 That overgrowth of the brain coincided with the behaviors typical of autism that start to emerge when the child reaches their second year, the researchers say.

 By identifying the brain changes early, there’s the potential to develop therapies that could intervene sooner, while the brain is still developing.

 “It’s a time we’re talking about during the first year of life where the brain is most malleable,” Piven said.

 About one out of 68 children develop autism in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For infants with older siblings with autism, the risk may be as high as 20 out of every 100 births.

 Most children aren’t diagnosed until at least the age of 2 or older.

 Early diagnosis is key, experts say, because the sooner the disorder is recognized, the sooner families and doctors can employ intervention strategies like behavioral and communications therapies, and more likely the child is to achieve a better outcome. In fact, one study published in 2014 found that if intervention begins as early as the first 6 months of life, it can significantly improve a child’s condition and possibly even eliminate symptoms.

 Though the current research was only done in babies who have an older sibling with autism, the researchers say it may eventually be useful to the general population.

 “We haven’t had a way to detect the biomarkers of autism before the condition sets in and symptoms develop,” Piven said in a statement. “Now we have very promising leads that suggest this may in fact be possible.” ||||| Images revealed which infants would go on to have an autism diagnosis, raising hopes for earlier care and interventions for those affected

 Babies who are most at risk of developing autism as toddlers have been identified from brain scans in the first year of life.

 The images helped doctors spot which of a group of children who were already at risk because of autism in the family would later be diagnosed with the condition.

 The work raises hopes that affected children could be helped with earlier specialised care and interventions to help their social abilities before any behavioural symptoms start to appear.

 Brain scans of premature babies reveal changes that may raise risk of autism Read more

 Scientists studied 106 babies, all of whom had an older brother or sister with autism, and found that telltale features in brain images taken at six and 12 months revealed which infants would go on to have an autism diagnosis.

 The technology is not ready to use in clinics, but researchers who took part in the study believe it lays the groundwork for a tool that can predict autism in high-risk babies before their first birthday.

 “We don’t have such a tool yet, but if we did, parents of high-risk infants wouldn’t need to wait for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at two, three or even four years,” said Annette Estes, a co-author on the study and director of the University of Washington in Seattle. “Researchers could start developing interventions to prevent these children from falling behind in social and communication skills,” she added.

 About one in 70 children in the UK develops autism, but among those with a diagnosed sibling, the risk of the condition can rise to about one in five. The test has not been tried on children who are not at high risk.

 Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists describe how they compared brain scans of high-risk babies with those from 42 low-risk children who had no siblings with autism. On each lab visit, scientists assessed the children’s behaviour and intellectual abilities.

 Study offers potential breakthrough in care of children with autism Read more

 The images, taken as the babies slept, revealed that high-risk infants who developed autism experienced a “hyperexpansion” of the brain’s surface in the first year of life. The unusual growth preceded a rise in brain volume over the following year that was linked to social difficulties the children developed.

 The scientists next used a machine learning algorithm to predict from the scans and the infant’s sex which high-risk children would be diagnosed with autism at the age of two. The computer identified eight in 10 of those who developed autism. In about 3% of cases, it predicted autism that did not appear.

 Estes said that by the time children are diagnosed at the age of two to four years old, they have often already fallen behind their peers in terms of social skills, language and communication. Once children have missed those developmental milestones, she added, catching up is a struggle for many and nearly impossible for some.

 “Our hope is that early intervention, before age two, can change the clinical course of those children whose brain development has gone awry and help them acquire skills that they would otherwise struggle to achieve,” said Stephen Dager, a co-author at the University of Washington’s Center on Human Development and Disability.

 Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society’s Centre for Autism, said: “If confirmed by further research, it’s possible that MRI scanning of this type could be developed to help families who already have an autistic child to access earlier diagnosis for subsequent children. This would mean those children could receive the right support as early as possible.

 “It is important to highlight, however, that autism is a complex condition which manifests in many different ways. No single test is likely to be able to identify potential autism in all children, but this technology could help simplify and speed up the route to autism assessment for some children.” |||||


Summarize this article:

India’s top court has ruled that adultery is no longer a crime, declaring that the colonial-era law is unconstitutional and discriminatory against women.

 A five-judge bench of the supreme court unanimously ruled that the criminal offence of having a sexual relationship with a woman without her husband’s consent was archaic and deprived women of agency.

 The case, brought by an Indian businessman living in Italy, sought to have section 497 of the Indian penal code and another similar provision made gender neutral. But the court said the offence, which carried a prison sentence of up to five years, was arbitrary and needed to go.

 “It is time to say husband is not the master,” said the chief justice, Dipak Misra. He quoted John Stuart Mill: “Legal subordination of one sex over another is wrong in itself.”

 Indu Malhotra, one of two women among the 25 judges on the court, said: “The time when wives were invisible to the law, and lived in the shadows of their husbands, has long since gone by.”

 There is no official data on how frequently men were prosecuted under the law, but it was often raised in divorce proceedings, lawyers say.

 The decision is one of several socially progressive rulings by the court this session. This month the justices ruled to decriminalise homosexuality, and on Friday they will decide on a case about whether women in their menstruating years can be restricted from entering Kerala state’s Sabarimala temple.

 Indian court upholds legality of world's largest biometric database Read more

 Like the decision to legalise homosexual acts, some advocates against the adultery law characterised Thursday’s decision as an act of decolonising the country’s Raj-era criminal code.

 “I welcome this judgment by the supreme court,” said Rekha Sharma, the head of India’s National Commission for Women. “It was an outdated law, which should have been removed long back. This is a law from British era. Although the British had done away with it long back, we were still stuck with it.”

 The court has been more willing to affirm British-era legislation when it comes to restricting speech, in recent years endorsing imperial laws against criminal defamation and creating (but later dropping) a rule that Indians must stand while the national anthem is played in movie theatres.

 “I wouldn’t yet call it a progressive era in the court,” said Gautam Bhatia, a Delhi-based lawyer and legal scholar. He said in cases such as the adultery or homosexuality rulings, the court was dispensing with laws that had clearly fallen behind social mores. “These are the low-hanging fruit,” he said.

 Thursday’s decision was decried by some prominent feminists including Swati Maliwal, Delhi’s commissioner for women. She said the adultery law should have become gender neutral because it could be a deterrent against men abandoning their families, in a society where women wield little power, especially in poorer or deeply patriarchal areas of the country.

 “Thousands of women approach the commission, many from disadvantaged backgrounds, saying their husbands are acting in an adulterous manner and have left them without support to look after the children,” Maliwal said. “At least with this law a woman can get a sense of justice, and the men have a kind of fear that when they enter a relationship, it has some sanctity that they have to live with.

 “In an ideal society I would totally agree with this judgment, but we are not talking about an ideal society,” she said.

 Lawyers for the central government had opposed scrapping the adultery law, arguing that diluting sanctions against infidelity would “result in laxity of the marital bonds”. The law had survived three previous legal challenges, the most recent in 1988.

 The succession of high-profile cases provides a notable send-off for Misra, an at times controversial chief justice who has been the subject of public complaints from his fellow judges over his handling of politically sensitive cases.

 The Delhi high court is currently examining another law that makes an exception for sexual assault if the perpetrator and victim are married. The government as well as several men’s rights groups have filed petitions against scrapping the marriage exception.

 Karuna Nundy, a supreme court lawyer leading the case to overturn the marital rape law, said Thursday’s judgment bolstered her argument. “Both laws based on the doctrine of a man owning his wife, the wife being property,” she said.

 Nundy said the court had shown in recent judgments that it now believed “sexually autonomy is not forfeited at the marital door”. ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption Under the law the woman could not be punished as an abettor - the man was considered to be a seducer

 India's top court has ruled adultery is no longer a crime, striking down a 158-year-old colonial-era law which it said treated women as male property.

 Previously any man who had sex with a married woman, without the permission of her husband, had committed a crime.

 A petitioner had challenged the law saying it was arbitrary and discriminated against men and women.

 It is not clear how many men have been prosecuted under the law - there is no data available.

 This is the second colonial-era law struck down by India's Supreme Court this month - it also overturned a 157-year-old law which effectively criminalised gay sex in India.

 While reading out the judgement on adultery, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that while it could be grounds for civil issues like divorce, "it cannot be a criminal offence".

 Who challenged the law?

 Last August, Joseph Shine, a 41-year-old Indian businessman living in Italy, petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down the law. He argued that it discriminated against men by only holding them liable for extra-marital relationships, while treating women like objects.

 "Married women are not a special case for the purpose of prosecution for adultery. They are not in any way situated differently than men," his petition said.

 The law, Mr Shine said, also "indirectly discriminates against women by holding an erroneous presumption that women are the property of men".

 In his 45-page petition, Mr Shine liberally quotes from American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, women rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on gender equality and the rights of women.

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Previous pleas were dismissed by the court in the interests of "stability of marriages"

 However, India's ruling BJP government had opposed the petition, insisting that adultery should remain a criminal offence.

 "Diluting adultery laws will impact the sanctity of marriages. Making adultery legal will hurt marriage bonds," a government counsel told the court, adding that "Indian ethos gives paramount importance to the institution and sanctity of marriage".

 What did the adultery law say?

 The law dictated that the woman could not be punished as an abettor. Instead, the man was considered to be a seducer.

 It also did not allow women to file a complaint against an adulterous husband.

 A man accused of adultery could be sent to a prison for a maximum of five years, made to pay a fine, or both.

 And although there is no information on actual convictions under the law, Kaleeswaram Raj, a lawyer for the petitioner, said the adultery law was "often misused" by husbands during matrimonial disputes such as divorce, or civil cases relating to wives receiving maintenance.

 "Men would often file criminal complaints against suspected or imagined men who they would allege were having affairs with their wives. These charges could never be proved, but ended up smearing the reputations of their estranged or divorced partners," he told the BBC.

 Interestingly, Indian folklore and epics are full of stories about extra-marital love. Most love poems in Sanskrit, according to scholar J Moussaief Masson, are "about illicit love".

 But Manusmriti, an ancient Hindu text, says: "If men persist in seeking intimate contact with other men's wives, the king should brand them with punishments that inspire terror and banish them".

 What did the judges say?

 All five Supreme Court judges hearing the case said the law was archaic, arbitrary and unconstitutional.

 "Husband is not the master of wife. Women should be treated with equality along with men," Chief Justice Misra said.

 Judge Rohinton Nariman said that "ancient notions of man being perpetrator and woman being victim no longer hold good".

 Justice DY Chandrachud said the law "perpetuates subordinate status of women, denies dignity, sexual autonomy, is based on gender stereotypes".

 He said the law sought to "control sexuality of woman (and) hits the autonomy and dignity of woman".

 Critics have called the law "staggeringly sexist", "'crudely anti-woman'", and "'violative of the right to equality'".

 "The legal system should not regulate whom one sleeps with," wrote Rashmi Kalia, who teaches law.

 The main concern, according to the respected journal Economic and Political Weekly, is "not whether the expectations of fidelity in a marriage are right or wrong, or whether adultery denotes sexual freedom."

 "It is whether the state can and should monitor a relationship between adults that is too complex, sensitive and individual for it to be capable of doing in a just manner," the journal wrote in a recent editorial.

 Where else is adultery a criminal offence?

 Image copyright Mansi Thapliyal Image caption The latest challenge was made in view of the "changed social conditions"

 Adultery is considered illegal in 21 American states, including New York, although surveys show that while most Americans disapprove of adultery, they don't think of it as a crime.

 "The criminal statutes remain in force for largely symbolic reasons, and there isn't enough enforcement risk for anyone to incur the political costs of repealing them," Deborah Rhode, a professor of law at Stanford University and the author of Adultery: Infidelity and the Law told the BBC.

 Adultery is prohibited in Sharia or Islamic Law, so it is a criminal offence in Islamic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia.

 Taiwan punishes adultery by up to a year in prison and it is also deemed a crime in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia is drafting laws that prohibit all consensual sex outside the institution of marriage.

 In 2015, South Korea's Supreme Court struck down a similar law where a man could be sent to prison for two years or less for adultery. The court said the law violated self-determination and privacy.

 More than 60 countries around the world had done away with laws that made adultery a crime, according to Indian lawyer Kaleeswaram Raj.

 In the UK, adultery is not a criminal offence and like many other countries, one of the main reasons given for divorce.

 Couples cannot use adultery as a ground for divorce if they lived together as a couple for six months after the infidelity was known about.

 Have there been previous challenges to the law?

 In 1954, the law was first challenged by a petitioner asking why women cannot be punished for the offence, and that such "exemption was discriminatory".

 Image copyright Mansi Thapliyal Image caption Critics have called the law "violative of right to equality"

 The Supreme Court rejected the plea.

 Since then, the top court has rejected similar pleas, including the constitutional validity of the law, at least twice - 1985 and 1988.

 "The stability of marriage is not an ideal to be scorned," a judge said in 1985.

 A married woman had approached the court, demanding the right to file a complaint of adultery against her husband's unmarried lover. The court, rather patronisingly, described the plea as a "crusade by a woman against a woman".

 It said the law was about punishing the "outsider" who "breaks into the matrimonial home" and "violates its sanctity".

 Two different panels on law reforms in 1971 and 2003 recommended that women should also be prosecuted for the offence.

 "The society abhors marital infidelity. Therefore there is no good reason for not meting out similar treatment to the wife who has sexual intercourse with a married man," the 2003 panel, led by a judge, said.

 In 2011, the top court, hearing another plea, said the law was facing criticism for "showing a strong gender bias, it makes the position of a married woman almost as a property of her husband".

 What has the reaction been to the latest ruling?

 Many Indians were not even aware the law existed. However, after Thursday's ruling, people have been largely supportive of the verdict.

 Others said the top court should now move to make marital rape a criminal offence:

 But a few felt that the law should have been made gender neutral instead of being struck down: |||||

– "It is time to say husband is not the master," Dipak Misra, the chief justice of India's top court, says in a ruling striking down the country's adultery law. "Legal sovereignty of one sex over another is wrong." The ruling jettisoning the 158-year-old colonial-era law means adultery is no longer a crime in India, the BBC reports. Long criticized as archaic and sexist, it made it illegal for a man to have sex with a married woman without the permission of her husband. Misra said that while adultery could certainly be an issue in civil cases like divorce, "it cannot be a criminal offense." The law had been challenged three previous times, most recently in 1988. "I welcome this judgment by the supreme court," says Rekha Sharma, the head of India’s National Commission for Women. "It was an outdated law, which should have been removed long back." She notes that the law dated from the British colonial era—but the British got rid of their version of the law many years ago. Government lawyers had urged the court to keep the law, arguing that "making adultery legal will hurt marriage bonds." The Guardian reports that those who brought the case had only sought to make the law gender neutral, but the court decided to simply get rid of it. (Earlier this month, the court struck down a colonial-era law banning gay sex.)


News article:

FILE - In this May 29, 2010 file photo, American singer and actress Miley Cyrus performs during her concert at the Rock in Rio music festival in Lisbon. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, file) (Associated Press)

 FILE - In this May 29, 2010 file photo, American singer and actress Miley Cyrus performs during her concert at the Rock in Rio music festival in Lisbon. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, file) (Associated Press)

 Miley Cyrus won't be told what she should wear or what she should sing about. The 17-year-old is releasing new album, "Can't Be Tamed," and is doing it her way, even though some say she is going to too far for her age.

 "I'm not trying to be 'slutty,'" said Cyrus in a recent interview. "I'm not trying to be like, go to the club and get a bunch of guys ... What I'm trying to do is to make a point with my record and look consistent, in the way my record sounds and the way I dress."

 What she wears has been put under the spotlight recently. Some thought the video for "Can't Be Tamed" was too provocative, and others have criticized her for revealing too much skin in her outfits.

 Cyrus admits to being partial to shorts and hot pants. But she sees nothing wrong with flashing her legs.

 "I'm really comfortable with my body, I work really hard to be fit and to know that I can wear whatever makes me most comfortable. I feel more comfortable dressing with a little less, which is just how I've always been," she said.

 "Now I'm able to do that a little more freely and, also, I've just grown up to be this way too. It's not like this was me five years ago. It's me now, presently."

 Maturing is Cyrus' current mission.

 She'll finally shed the blonde wig of her Disney pop star persona, "Hannah Montana," when it ends this year. Then Cyrus will be free to embrace her solo stardom and sex appeal.

 "When you're 11, the word you would use to describe someone is definitely not sexy, and as you get older I think you grow into that. And I think I've done that but that's not my schtick. That's not what I'm trying to do to sell records. I want people to buy my record because of my music."

 "Can't Be Tamed" is out on Monday.

 ___

 Online:

 http://www.mileycyrus.com/ ||||| According to media reports out this morning, Heather Locklear is reportedly moving out from the psychiatric ward at a southern California hospital, and into what's being termed a "long-term facility" to receive care for ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues.

 As we've been reporting, Heather was hospitalized in stable condition just a few days ago after a reported overdose scare; now, it appears she needs more significant long-term care than what can be given to her at that hospital.

 Related: Tommy Lee SLAMS Howard Stern!

 According to TMZ, sources connected to Heather's family spoke with doctors at her current hospital, and the experts believe that Locklear's problems

 [Image via Dave Starbuck/Future Image/WENN.] |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Attention: Miley Cyrus is “not trying to be slutty,” she insists. Sure, she likes to flash a lot of skin (as photos show, she’s recently taken to going pantsless), but that’s just because she feels “more comfortable dressing with a little less,” she tells the AP. “What I'm trying to do is to make a point with my record," which is called...wait for it...Can't Be Tamed, "and look consistent, in the way my record sounds and the way I dress.” And while she says she’s grown into her sex appeal (she is all of 17 now, remember!), “that’s not what I'm trying to do to sell records. I want people to buy my record because of my music.” Meanwhile, Perez Hilton—currently in hot water for posting an upskirt photo of Miley—insists she was wearing underwear in the picture and says he was simply pointing out “she was exiting this car in a very un-ladylike fashion.”


BOSTON (AP) — Boston's police commissioner says a 34-year-old homeless man with a violent history has been arrested in the stabbings of two city park rangers on Boston Common, the nation's oldest public park.

 Commissioner William Evans said Tuesday night that a 46-year-old ranger sergeant is in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital with life-threatening injuries. He said a 23-year-old ranger new to the service is in stable condition at Tufts Medical Center with less serious wounds.

 Evans said Bodio Hutchinson attacked the unarmed rangers in what the commissioner said was an unprovoked confrontation at about 4:30 p.m. Evans said witnesses followed the suspect and provided cellphone video to police. He said a knife police believe was used in the attack was recovered from Frog Pond.

 Evans said Hutchison faces attempted murder charges. ||||| Investigators checked a trash can at Boston Common following the stabbing of two park rangers.

 A homeless man with a “violent criminal past” allegedly stabbed two Boston park rangers who approached him on Boston Common Tuesday, lunging at them in an unprovoked and wild attack that left one ranger in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital, police officials said.

 Boston police chased Bodio Hutchinson, 34, into the Public Garden, where they arrested him and fished a knife out of a nearby pond, officials said. Before officers tackled him to the pavement, witnesses said, Hutchinson told the officers to shoot him.

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 “Our prayers are with both of the rangers,” said Boston Police Commissioner William Evans at a press conference Tuesday night. “We have good witnesses and good video, and we’re confident in the suspect we have that’s responsible for this.”

 Authorities did not name the two men wounded but said the ranger who was critically hurt and taken to Mass. General is a 46-year-old sergeant who has been on the job for 20 years. He was stabbed in the abdomen and was in surgery on Tuesday night. The other ranger, authorities said, is 23 and had just joined the force. He suffered several wounds and was taken to Tufts Medical Center.

 Hutchinson was sitting on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument statue in the Common when the rangers, who were not armed, approached him, said Evans.

 Hutchinson “has a very violent, assaultive past history,” Evans said. “The officers confronted him up by the monument and without provocation he lunged at both officers,”

 Witnesses who rushed to the Common after hearing a commotion described a horrifying scene: two wounded rangers, one lying on a bench with his hands over his stomach to stanch the bleeding, the other walking nearby and holding his arm.

 Bill Mitchell for The Boston Globe Boston Police chased Bodio Hutchinson, 34, into the Public Garden, where they arrested him and fished a knife out of a nearby pond, officials said.

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 “We run up here, we see cops, just like, bleeding,” said Jackson Marchant, who was walking nearby when the stabbing occurred. “A lot of people were helping the cops. But he was stabbed right in the central stomach, and it was bloody, it was bleeding, his whole torso was covered in red. He was holding himself, praying.”

 The wounded ranger continued praying as he was loaded into an emergency vehicle, Marchant said.

 Officials said that as Hutchinson allegedly fled, some bystanders followed him, and videotaped him on their cellphones.

 Witnesses described a brief chase, with officers running after Hutchinson out of the Common and into the Public Garden, telling him to stop. Hutchinson was not moving very fast, witnesses said.

 “He stopped, and he told them to shoot him,” said Nicholas Rusk, 19. “They just tackled him to the ground.”

 One witness snapped a series of pictures of the arrest: In one, a heavyset man dressed in a Red Sox jacket and a pompom hat with “Boston” written on it is lying prone on the ground under two officers, his mouth slightly open. In another, the man stands in bright red shorts over black pants, surrounded by officers whom he appears to be addressing. Police declined to confirm that the pictures showed Hutchinson.

 Witnesses pointed police to the pond in the Public Garden, and officers waded in. Evans said they retrieved a knife.

 “I can’t say enough about the public,” said Evans. “Great work on the part of the public and on the part of the officers.”

 According to police, Hutchinson has an open warrant for his arrest on a charge of assault and battery on a police officer. He was arrested in February of last year and charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery, according to officials.

 Evans said it was not clear whether the rangers who approached Hutchinson knew of the outstanding warrant.

 Mayor Martin J. Walsh said that at any given time, two to four officers are patroling Boston Common and the Public Garden.

 “Certainly we’ve, on the Boston Common, had issues in the past with homelessness, but our officers work very hard in there,” said Walsh. “Generally they work without incident and are able to defuse any situation. In this incident clearly they were not able to defuse it when the gentleman attacked them.”

 Walsh said the parks commissioner will talk with rangers and police to see if they need more equipment or more manpower to keep the parks safe.

 On Tuesday evening, the monument was roped off with crime scene tape. The heavy police presence had drawn onlookers, many of whom expressed shock that rangers could be so brazenly attacked. Helicopters whirred overhead, and investigators canvassed the scene by flashlight, marking several spots as evidence.

 Evans said Hutchinson will probably face at least two counts of attempted murder, in addition to the outstanding charges of assaulting a police officer, and drug charges.

 “He’s not a newcomer to the criminal justice system,” said Evans. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– A Boston park ranger suffered life-threatening injuries after being stabbed on the Boston Common this afternoon, reports the Boston Globe. Another ranger was injured in the attack inside what the AP calls the nation's oldest public park. Police say a homeless man with a "very violent, assaultive" history lunged at the pair with a knife when they approached him as he sat by a statue. Authorities identified the suspect as Bodio Hutchinson, 34. The rangers haven't been identified. The more seriously injured one, who was stabbed in the abdomen, is 46. The other is 23. Police said witnesses followed the suspect and helped identify him with cellphone video. Officers found the knife believed used in the attack in a pond.