News article:

Afghan National army soldiers search a car at a checkpoint ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for Oct. 20, at the Independent Election Commission compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Oct.... (Associated Press)

 Afghan National army soldiers search a car at a checkpoint ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for Oct. 20, at the Independent Election Commission compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) (Associated Press)

 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The three top officials in Afghanistan's Kandahar province were killed when their own guards opened fire on them at a security conference Thursday, the deputy provincial governor said, and a Taliban spokesman said the target was Washington's top general in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, who escaped without injury, according to NATO.

 Agha Lala Dastageri, Kandahar's deputy provincial governor, said powerful provincial police chief Abdul Raziq was among the dead, along with Kandahar Gov. Zalmay Wesa, who died of his wounds at a nearby hospital.

 Dastageri said provincial intelligence chief Abdul Mohmin also died inside the governor's sprawling residence where the attack occurred.

 Three Americans — a service member and two civilian workers — were wounded in the shooting, said U.S. Col. Knut Peters, a spokesman for NATO troops in Afghanistan. Their conditions were not immediately known.

 "Gen. Miller is unhurt," said Peters. Miller is the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

 It was members of Wesa's elite guard unit who turned their guns on their colleagues during a high-level security meeting ahead of Saturday's parliamentary elections.

 Khalid Pashtun, a member of parliament from the province, said Afghan Security Forces cordoned off the area and a U.S. military helicopter circled overhead as a gun battle that began at 3 p.m. local time raged on for more than one hour.

 Peters said initial reports indicate one of the original attackers is dead. He had no further information.

 In a telephone interview, the spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern region, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the Taliban carried out the attack. He said Gen. Miller was the target and said Raziq, the governor and the intelligence chief were killed.

 Pashtun said an Afghan military corps commander was also among the dead, although he didn't name him.

 An Interior Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said Raziq rarely visited the governor's residence and was meticulous about his own security.

 Razik was a particularly powerful figure in southern Kandahar and a close U.S. ally despite widespread allegations of corruption. He ruled in Kandahar, the former Taliban heartland, with an iron fist and had survived several attempts to kill him, including one last year that resulted in the death of five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates.

 Security has been steadily deteriorating in Afghanistan with increasingly brazen attacks being carried out by insurgents and Afghanistan's security forces have been on high alert ahead of Saturday's elections.

 The Taliban have threatened the polls and warned teachers and students not to participate in the vote and not to allow schools to be used as polling centers. The insurgents said in a statement Wednesday that they will target Saturday's elections, which they view as illegitimate, but that they do not want to harm civilians.

 Meanwhile, a NATO convoy was attacked late Wednesday near the Afghan capital, killing two civilians and injuring five Czech troops, Afghan officials and the Czech military said Thursday.

 The attack, which took place in the district of Bagram in Parwan province, also wounded three Afghan civilians, said Wahida Shakar, spokeswoman for the provincial governor.

 Bagram is about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Kabul and is also the home of a sprawling U.S. military base

 The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

 Of the five Czech soldiers, one was seriously injured when their vehicle overturned following the explosion. The soldier underwent surgery and the Czech military said he was not in life-threatening condition.

 Earlier, NATO spokeswoman Sgt. 1st Class Debra Richardson had said three alliance service members were hurt in the bombing but didn't provide more details.

 Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said an insurgent suicide bomber rammed his car into the NATO convoy.

 The attack on the NATO convoy came at the end of a particularly violent day across Afghanistan as tensions are rising ahead of the country's parliamentary elections on Saturday.

 A Taliban bombing in southern Helmand province killed a candidate running in the elections. The Taliban also attacked checkpoints in the northern Baghlan province, killing six policemen and wounding two others in a four-hour battle. Also, in eastern Maidan Wardak province, a suicide car bomber targeted a military vehicle, killing two Afghan army troops.

 In recent months, Afghan troops have come under near-daily attacks. NATO troops, which handed over security to Afghan forces at the end of 2014, mostly train and assist with air power. So far this year, eight U.S. soldiers and three other NATO service members have died in Afghanistan.

 ___

 Associated Press writer Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report. ||||| KABUL—One of southern Afghanistan’s most powerful political and military figures was assassinated Thursday and the top U.S. commander in the country escaped unharmed when bodyguards for the governor of southern Kandahar province opened fire following a meeting to discuss security preparations for this weekend’s parliamentary elections.

 The Taliban, which has pledged to disrupt the elections set for Saturday, claimed responsibility for the attack. Gen. Abdul Razik, the Kandahar police chief who was killed, and the U.S. commander,... |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– The top US commander in Afghanistan survived an assassination attempt Thursday, but a high-ranking Afghan official was killed. US Army Gen. Scott Miller was not injured in the attack in Kandahar City, which took place after a meeting to discuss security ahead of Saturday's national elections, reports the Wall Street Journal. However, the assault in which bodyguards for a regional governor opened fire did kill Kandahar's police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, described by the Journal as "one of southern Afghanistan's most powerful political and military figures." One other Afghan official was killed, the regional governor critically wounded, and three Americans—a service member and two civilians—were also hurt, per the AP. The New York Times calls the attack "one of the most devastating Taliban assassination strikes of the long Afghan war," and the Taliban confirmed afterward that Miller and Raziq had been the targets. The assault took place at the regional governor's compound. "When the high-ranking participants were heading to helicopters, an enemy infiltrator opened fire on them,” says an Afghan government official. The 39-year-old Raziq was a controversial figure, seen as crucial in maintaining order in the region but also accused of human rights abuses and corruption.


Write a summary based on this article:

The now-retired federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage shared his reflections with reporters for the first time Wednesday, saying that the trial should have been televised and that he never considered stepping aside because he is gay.

 "If you thought a judge's sexuality, ethnicity, national origin (or) gender would prevent the judge from handling a case, that's a very slippery slope," former Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker told reporters in a conference room at the San Francisco courthouse where he served for 21 years.

 "I don't think it's relevant," he said.

 Independent thinker

 Walker, 67, who retired from the bench at the end of February, also said he thinks his ruling was correct and he hopes higher courts review the case on its merits.

 He discussed the case in his first meeting with reporters since he announced his retirement in September.

 A former corporate lawyer who was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, Walker proved to be an independent thinker - a libertarian who advocated decriminalization of drugs and issued groundbreaking rulings limiting government power and expanding individual rights.

 His most prominent ruling was his August decision overturning Proposition 8, the November 2008 initiative that amended the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage.

 Same-sex-marriage ruling

 After a 12-day trial that included testimony by gay and lesbian couples and experts on the history and purpose of marriage, Walker ruled that Prop. 8 discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation and gender and did not benefit heterosexual spouses or the marital institution.

 The measure's sponsors have asked a federal appeals court to overturn the ruling, but the court has questioned whether the sponsors have legal standing - the right to represent the state's interests - after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to appeal.

 Walker first raised that issue in August, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that expressed doubt about whether sponsors of an initiative can stand in for state officials. But he said Wednesday he'd prefer to see the appeals court decide whether Prop. 8 is unconstitutional.

 If Prop. 8 is invalidated because no one has the standing to defend it, he said, it will leave "a sense of the issue not having been resolved."

 The Chronicle first disclosed Walker's sexual orientation during the trial, a fact he had neither discussed publicly nor tried to conceal. He said Wednesday he'd been surprised that it hadn't surfaced earlier and had surmised that "every journalist had decided it was not news."

 The disclosure prompted some opponents of same-sex marriage to accuse Walker of bias and demand that he disqualify himself. Walker noted Wednesday that no parties in the case, including Prop. 8's sponsors, ever made such a request, and said, "I never thought it was appropriate to recuse from that case."

 Television coverage

 Walker also tried to have the trial televised as part of a pilot project approved by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Supreme Court intervened at the request of the measure's sponsors, who said their witnesses might back out for fear of retribution if they knew a large audience would be watching.

 The high court said Walker had failed to give enough advance public notice and also questioned whether such a high-profile case should be telecast. But Walker said Wednesday that trials of great public interest - Prop. 8, or the current Barry Bonds perjury trial - are the ones that should be most visible outside the courtroom.

 "We are supposed to have public trials in this country," he said, and the only way that can happen now is "to admit the public by their eyes and ears."

 Walker said the Supreme Court may have been motivated by its unwillingness to televise its own proceedings - a stance he called "very hard to understand." Camera coverage would expose Americans to a range of arguments and the high quality of lawyers and the court system, he said.

 Walker is returning to private law practice as head of a San Francisco firm that will specialize in mediation, arbitration and other alternatives to litigating complex civil cases. Those were his most satisfying cases as a judge, he said.

 He was also the judge who ruled the George W. Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists illegal and rejected Apple Computer's claim that Microsoft Corp. had illicitly copied Apple Macintosh features in the Windows operating system.

 But Walker said his favorite trial was the 2000 case in which he approved Hearst Corp.'s purchase of The Chronicle. It had everything, he said - local color, meaty antitrust issues, surprising testimony, and political and journalistic intrigue.

 "If every trial were like that, I'd stay forever," he said.

 This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle ||||| Should judge have recused himself on Prop. 8? On Same-Sex Marriage

 Same sex marriage supporters hold a rally in the Castro district after US District Judge Vaughn Walker announced his ruling to overturn Prop 8 finding it unconstitutional August 4, 2010 in San Francisco, California. The voter approved measure denies same-sex couples the right to marry in the State of California. Photograph by David Paul Morris/Special to the Chronicle less Same sex marriage supporters hold a rally in the Castro district after US District Judge Vaughn Walker announced his ruling to overturn Prop 8 finding it unconstitutional August 4, 2010 in San Francisco, ... more Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 59 Caption Close Should judge have recused himself on Prop. 8? 1 / 59 Back to Gallery

 Judge Vaughn Walker's Proposition 8 decision last week has thrust his personal life into the limelight. The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that the fact that Judge Walker "is himself gay" is the "biggest open secret" in town. The BuzzTab blog calls him "the apple of gay advocators eyes." The Los Angeles Times reported just last month, after the conclusion of closing arguments in the case, that he is "openly gay" and "attends bar functions with a companion, a physician."

 Is any of this relevant to Judge Walker's ruling striking down Proposition 8?

 Well, as University of Notre Dame law Professor Gerard Bradley recently noted, the mere fact that Judge Walker may be homosexual would not necessarily have required recusal. But the fact that he "attends bar functions with a companion, a physician," and may therefore be in a stable homosexual relationship of the kind that could lead to marriage, is an entirely different matter.

 The political philosopher John Locke noted in his Second Treatise on Civil Government that "it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases (because) self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends." That sentiment, undoubtedly true, is actually codified in federal law. A judge is required to disqualify himself in any proceeding "in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances in which: (a) the judge has ... personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding; [or] ... (c) the judge knows that the judge ... has a financial ... or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding."

 If Judge Walker is indeed in a long-term, same-sex relationship, he certainly has an "interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding" - he and his partner are now permitted to marry! - and that, according to Judge Walker's own finding, has financial benefits as well. Such conflicts would have required recusal, and cannot be waived by the parties.

 If the relationship does not create such a conflict, it nevertheless creates the circumstance "in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned." That ground for disqualification can be waived by the parties, but the judge must "disclose on the record the basis of the disqualification" and then only continue after the parties have agreed in writing to his continued involvement. No such disclosure and agreement occurred in this case.

 Judge Walker's failure to disqualify himself or at least to disclose his potentially disqualifying relationship to the parties requires that the opinion in the case be vacated and a new trial conducted before a different judge. In Liljeberg vs. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the Supreme Court held that the original judgment had to be set aside even when the disqualifying relationship only became known to the parties 10 months after the judgment entered in the case had been upheld on appeal. Where an objective observer would have questioned the judge's impartiality, recusal is required, and the appropriate remedy is to annul the judgment because of the risk of injustice to the parties and of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process.

 Given the high-profile nature of this case, the threat to the public's confidence in the judicial process is particularly acute. Judge Walker has unilaterally neutered the votes of more than 7 million Californians. A contentious step under the best of circumstances, such a decision should only be rendered, if at all, by a judge whose impartiality is beyond reproach. Judge Walker's, unfortunately, is not. ||||| g'day m8

 Acknowledging his sexuality for the first time in public, Vaughn Walker, who left the U.S. District Court bench in February, and who declared Prop 8 unconstitutional and is now seeing his court ruling bandied about on appeal, told reporters today that not only is he a big ‘mo, but he’s also been in a relationship with his partner for 10 years. As for the argument that gay judges can somehow not rule on cases involving sexuality, Walker takes the same position Queerty always has: immutable characteristics like sexuality, race, and gender are not judicial conflicts of interest. Taking those traits into consideration when a judge decides whether to recuse himself from a case, says Walker, is “a very slippery slope.” The Los Angeles Times, stupidly, would disagree. |||||

– The judge who overturned California's ban on gay marriage acknowledged in an interview for the first time that he's homosexual and that he never considered recusing himself from the case. "If you thought a judge's sexuality, ethnicity, national origin (or) gender would prevent the judge from handling a case, that's a very slippery slope," retired federal Judge Vaughn Walker tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "I don't think it's relevant." The Chronicle actually reported on Walker's sexual orientation during the Prop 8 trial, prompting critics, like this one, to stay he should have stepped down because he had a conflict of interest. ("He and his partner are now permitted to marry!") Nope, says the gay blog Queerty after the Walker interview. "Immutable characteristics like sexuality, race, and gender are not judicial conflicts of interest."


– CDC officials say a woman with an extremely rare form of tuberculosis came to the US from India and traveled to three different states before being diagnosed with an active case of the disease. Now she's isolated at a National Institutes for Health clinic in Maryland, and authorities are trying to track down "hundreds of people" who may have come into contact with her, NBC News reports. If it were just a simple case of TB, there wouldn't be such a brouhaha—but the unnamed patient has extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR TB, which doesn't respond to some of the most powerful anti-TB drugs, per the World Health Organization. Although the disease is rare—the CDC says only 63 cases of it were noted between 1993 and 2011—TB bacteria can enter the air via coughs or sneezes and remain there for several hours, the agency notes. After spending time in India—the country with the largest number of TB cases in 2013, according to WHO—the woman flew back to Chicago in April, then traveled to Missouri and Tennessee over the next seven weeks, notes NBC. CNN points out as many as 8 weeks can pass between exposure and a positive TB test. A spokeswoman for the McHenry County Health Department in Illinois tells the Chicago Tribune it's keeping an eye on some people the woman was in close contact with and that the general public is likely not at risk. An NIH statement says the patient is being treated in a room "specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections, including XDR-TB," per NBC; the CDC says she's in stable condition. The CDC reports only 30% to 50% of XDR TB cases can be cured, and treatment can take years, with doctors even performing surgery to remove infected areas.

Expand this summary.

Play Facebook

 Twitter

 Embed Authorities trace steps of woman with rare tuberculosis 2:46 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 A female patient with an extremely hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis is being treated at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C., and federal and state officials are now tracking down hundreds of people who may have been in contact with her.

 The woman traveled to at least three states before she sought treatment from a U.S. doctor. While TB is not easily caught by casual contact, extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB is so dangerous that health officials will have to make a concerted effort to warn anyone who may be at risk.

 “The patient was transferred to the NIH via special air and ground ambulances,” the NIH said in a statement.

 “The patient was transferred to the NIH via special air and ground ambulances."

 “The patient is staying in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections, including XDR-TB. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, is providing care and treatment for the patient in connection with an existing NIH clinical protocol for treating TB, including XDR forms. NIAID has treated other XDR-TB patients in the past under this protocol," the NIH said.

 These special isolation rooms usually control air flow to prevent germs from escaping into the rest of the hospital or outside.

 The patient, who isn’t being identified in any way, may face months or even years of treatment. Ordinary TB is hard to treat and requires, at a minimum, weeks of antibiotics. XDR-TB resists the effects of almost all the known TB drugs. Sometimes patients have to have pockets of infection surgically removed.

 Only about a third to half of cases can even be cured.

 Play Facebook

 Twitter

 Embed Is the public at risk for tuberculosis? 1:20 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 It’s not clear why the patient traveled so much before seeking treatment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

 “The patient traveled in April from India to the United States through Chicago O’Hare airport,” the CDC said in a statement provided to NBC News.

 “The patient also spent time in Missouri and Tennessee. Seven weeks after arriving in the United States, the patient sought treatment for and was diagnosed with active TB.”

 She was isolated in a suburban Chicago hospital before she was sent to NIH.

 CDC and NIH are testing the patient to see what drugs may help her.

 “Besides concerns about community contacts, the patient flew from India to the United States. CDC will obtain the passenger manifest for that flight from the airline and will begin a contact investigation. Although the risk of getting a contagious disease on an airplane is low, public health officers sometimes need to find and alert travelers who may have been exposed to an ill passenger,” CDC said.

 Play Facebook

 Twitter

 Embed How Come Tuberculosis Is Still a Problem? 0:42 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 CDC takes these cases very seriously. In 2007 Andrew Speaker, an Atlanta lawyer with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, was arrested and forcibly isolated under federal order after he defied CDC advisories and flew out of the country to get married.

 XDR-TB is very rare in the U.S. CDC says it got reports of 63 cases between 1993 and 2011.

 "TB bacteria are put into the air when a person with TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, shouts, or sings," CDC says. "These bacteria can float in the air for several hours, depending on the environment. Persons who breathe in the air containing these TB bacteria can become infected."

 “The patient traveled in April from India to the United States through Chicago O’Hare airport."

 People with lowered immunity, especially HIV patients, are most at risk.

 “All travelers should avoid high risk settings where there are no infection control measures in place. Documented places where transmission has occurred include crowded hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, and other settings where susceptible persons come in contact with persons with TB disease,” CDC advises.

 The average cost of treating multidrug-resistant TB is $134,000, compared to $17,000 for a normal case. That can shoot up to $430,000 for an extensively resistant case. It’s not clear who will pay for this patient’s treatment.

 Nine million people are infected with TB every year, including 9,000 people in the U.S. ||||| A woman with a rare, hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis visited family in McHenry County after arriving at O'Hare International Airport in April, and also traveled in Missouri and Tennessee, according to health officials who are trying to track down people who came in close contact with her.

 The woman sought treatment at an undisclosed hospital in the Chicago area, where she was admitted to an isolation unit, and then was transferred to a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md. Her condition was reported as stable.

 The woman has an extremely drug-resistant form of the disease called XDR TB, which is impervious to most TB drugs. Three to four cases are reported each year in the United States, on average.

 TB is not as easily spread as diseases like the flu or measles. But it is a dangerous illness, especially for people with weakened immune systems, and health officials are taking the situation seriously, Skinner said.

 Health officials in Illinois are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find people with whom the woman may have had prolonged direct contact, in close quarters, according to CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.

 Debra Quackenbush, a spokeswoman for the McHenry County Health Department, said some of the people who came into close contact with the woman have been interviewed and are being monitored. She did not believe the general public was at risk.

 Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria spread from person to person through the air. It usually affects the lungs and can lead to symptoms such as chest pain and coughing up blood.

 TB has been declining in the United States. But globally, each year it sickens about 9 million people and is a cause of 1.5 million deaths.

 Associated Press contributed. ||||| Story highlights Woman traveled from India to the U.S. and later tested for drug-resistant TB

 Contact tracing is underway for people who had prolonged close contact with patient

 (CNN) Health authorities are working to identify people who may have been exposed to a patient with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis.

 The patient traveled in April from India to the United States, through Chicago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Seven weeks after arriving, the patient -- who also spent time in Missouri and Tennessee -- sought treatment and was diagnosed with active tuberculosis.

 She has an extensively drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, which is a relatively rare form of the disease that is resistant to at least four of the core anti-TB drugs, according to the World Health Organization

 Contact tracing is underway, and the CDC is seeking people who may have had prolonged close contact with the woman, including those who sat in the same row or near the woman on the flight.

 "The likelihood that this person transmitted the illness is low, but this is a very serious illness so we can't take any chances, and need to get the close contacts in for testing," said Tom Skinner, a spokesperson at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "TB is a very serious illness and the XDRTB version is difficult to treat."

 Read More ||||| (PDFCdc-pdf – 421k)

 Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB)

 What is Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB)?

 Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB) is a rare type of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) that is resistant to isoniazid and rifampin, plus any fluoroquinolone and at least one of three injectable second-line drugs (i.e., amikacin, kanamycin, or capreomycin). MDR TB is caused by an organism that is resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin, the two most potent TB drugs.

 How is XDR TB spread?

 Drug-susceptible TB and XDR TB are spread the same way. TB bacteria are put into the air when a person with TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, shouts, or sings. These bacteria can float in the air for several hours, depending on the environment. Persons who breathe in the air containing these TB bacteria can become infected.

 TB is not spread by

 shaking someone’s hand

 sharing food or drink

 touching bed linens or toilet seats

 sharing toothbrushes

 kissing

 Why is XDR TB so serious?

 Because XDR TB is resistant to the most potent TB drugs, the remaining treatment options are less effective, have more side effects, and are more expensive. XDR TB is of special concern for persons with HIV infection or other conditions that can weaken the immune system. These persons are more likely to develop TB disease once they are infected, and they also have a higher risk of death if they develop TB disease.

 Who is at risk for getting XDR TB?

 Drug-resistant TB (MDR or XDR) is more common in people who:

 Do not take their TB medicine regularly

 Do not take all of their TB medicines as prescribed by their doctor

 Develop TB disease again, after having taken TB medicine in the past

 Come from areas of the world where drug-resistant TB is common

 Have spent time with someone known to have drug-resistant TB disease

 How can I prevent myself from getting TB?

 Avoid close contact for a prolonged period of time with known TB patients in crowded, enclosed environments like clinics, hospitals, prisons, or homeless shelters.

 Can the TB vaccine (BCG) help prevent XDR TB?

 The TB vaccine is called Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), and it is used in many countries to prevent severe forms of TB in children. However, BCG is not generally recommended in the United States because it has limited effectiveness for preventing the most common forms of TB and in preventing TB in adults. The effect of BCG against XDR TB would likely be similar to the effect on drug-susceptible TB.

 If I have drug-susceptible TB, how can I prevent getting drug-resistant TB?

 The most important thing is for you to continue taking all your TB medicines exactly as prescribed. No doses should be missed and treatment should not be stopped early. You should tell your health care provider if you are having trouble taking the medications or if you have any side effects. If you plan to travel, talk with your health care provider, and make sure you have enough medicine to last while away.

 Can XDR TB be treated and cured?

 Yes, in some cases. Some TB control programs have shown that cure is possible for an estimated 30% to 50% of affected people. Successful outcomes depend greatly on the extent of the drug resistance, the severity of the disease, whether the patient’s immune system is weakened, and adherence to treatment.

 What are the symptoms of XDR TB?

 The general symptoms of TB disease include feelings of sickness or weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats. The symptoms of TB disease of the lungs may also include coughing, chest pain, and coughing up blood. Symptoms of TB disease in other parts of the body depend on the area affected. If you have these symptoms, you should contact your doctor or local health department.

 What should I do if I have been around someone who has XDR TB?

 If you think you have been exposed to someone with XDR TB disease, you should contact your doctor or local health department about getting a TB skin test or blood test for TB infection. You should tell the doctor or nurse when you spent time with this person. You should also tell the doctor or nurse where the person with XDR TB is being treated. It will be important to know about this person’s treatment. If your test for TB infection is positive, you will need special follow up.

 How long does it take to find out if you have XDR TB?

 If TB bacteria are found in the sputum (phlegm), the diagnosis of TB can be made in a day or two, but this finding will not be able to distinguish between drug-susceptible TB and drug-resistant TB. To determine drug susceptibility, the bacteria need to be grown and tested in a specialized laboratory. Final diagnosis for TB, and especially for XDR TB, may take from 6 to 16 weeks.

 Is XDR TB a problem in the United States?

 The risk of acquiring XDR TB in the United States appears to be low because XDR TB is uncommon in the U.S. However, TB can spread easily. As long as XDR TB exists, the risk to people in the United States is not zero, and the U.S. public health system must address the threat.

 How many cases of XDR TB have been reported in the United States?

 In the United States, 63 cases of XDR TB have been reported between 1993 and 2011*.

 *The National Tuberculosis Surveillance System (NTSS) 1993-2011.

 Is it safe to travel to countries where cases of XDR TB have been reported?

 Although MDR and XDR TB are occurring globally, they are still rare. HIV-infected travelers are at greatest risk if they come in contact with a person with MDR or XDR TB.

 All travelers should avoid high risk settings where there are no infection control measures in place. Documented places where transmission has occurred include crowded hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, and other settings where susceptible persons come in contact with persons with TB disease.

 What can health care providers do to prevent XDR TB?

 Health care providers can help prevent MDR and XDR TB by quickly diagnosing TB cases, following recommended treatment guidelines, monitoring patients’ response to treatment, and making sure therapy is completed.

 Providers should also ensure proper implementation of infection control procedures to prevent exposure to TB in hospitals or health-care settings where TB patients are likely to be seen.

 Why does there seem to be more cases of XDR TB now than there were in the past?

 In 2006, CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other global leaders in TB reported the results of a survey regarding drug-resistant TB conducted by 25 reference laboratories comprising the Global Supranational TB Reference Laboratory Network, the National TB Surveillance System in the United States, the national reference laboratory of South Korea, and the national MDR TB patient registry in Latvia. The findings indicated that 20% of M. tuberculosis isolates were MDR, and 2% also were resistant to many additional TB drugs. This highly resistant form of TB was identified in every region of the world where there was lab capacity to identify it. In a report published in 2006, the highly resistant form of TB was named extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB). Since then, more countries have improved their laboratory capacity to test for XDR TB and their ability to report XDR TB. These factors have contributed to an apparent increase in drug-resistant TB because of better diagnosis and better reporting.

 What is CDC doing to prevent XDR TB from becoming a bigger problem?

 CDC is collaborating with other federal agencies and international partners to raise awareness and enhance strategies for TB prevention worldwide by:

 Strengthening TB services for people living with HIV/AIDS;

 Guiding preparedness and outbreak investigation responses;

 Improving access to TB drugs;

 Conducting routine surveillance (including drug susceptibility) and periodic surveys;

 Implementing new, rapid diagnostic tests;

 Developing and promoting, national and international TB testing standards;

 Conducting program evaluation (e.g., National TB Indicators Project [NTIP]);

 Building capacity of health care providers to diagnose and treat TB;

 Reinvigorating the Federal TB Task Force;

 Providing assistance to improve TB program capacity in the U.S. and abroad; and

 Developing education, risk, and media communications (Web- and print-based) to aid in preparedness and public awareness of TB prevention and control issues.

 Additional Information

 CDC. Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Information

 CDC. Questions and Answers About TB

 CDC. Tuberculosis: General Information

 CDC. Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis

 CDC. Tuberculosis Information for International Travelers

 CDC. Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis – United States, 1993–2006

 CDC. CDC’s Role in Preventing XDR TB ||||| Frequently asked questions - XDR-TB

 1. What is XDR-TB?

 XDR-TB, an abbreviation for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), is a form of TB which is resistant to at least four of the core anti-TB drugs. XDR-TB involves resistance to the two most powerful anti-TB drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin, also known as multidrug-resistance (MDR-TB), in addition to resistance to any of the fluoroquinolones (such as ofloxacin or moxifloxacin) and to at least one of three injectable second-line drugs (amikacin, capreomycin or kanamycin). MDR-TB and XDR-TB both take substantially longer to treat than ordinary (drug-susceptible) TB, and require the use of second-line anti-TB drugs, which are more expensive and have more side-effects than the first-line drugs used for drug-susceptible TB.

 2. How do people get XDR-TB?

 People may get XDR-TB in one of two ways. It may develop in a patient who is receiving treatment for active TB, when anti-TB drugs are misused or mismanaged, and is usually a sign of inadequate clinical care or drug management. It can happen when patients are not properly supported to complete their full course of treatment; when health-care providers prescribe the wrong treatment, or the wrong dose, or for too short a period of time; when the supply of drugs to the clinics dispensing drugs is erratic; or when the drugs are of poor quality.

 The second way that people can develop XDR-TB is by becoming infected from a patient who is already ill with the condition. Patients with TB of the lungs can spread the disease by coughing, sneezing, or simply talking. A person needs only to breathe in a small number of these germs to become infected. However only a small proportion of people infected with TB germs develop the disease. A person can be infected by XDR-TB bacteria but not develop the active disease, just as with drug-susceptible TB

 3. How easily is XDR-TB spread?

 Studies suggest that there is probably no difference between the risk of transmission of XDR-TB and any other forms of TB. The spread of TB bacteria depends on factors such as the number and concentration of infectious people in any one place together, and the presence of people with a higher risk of being infected (such as those with HIV/AIDS). The likelihood of becoming infected increases with the time that a previously uninfected person spends in the same room as an infectious case. The risk of spread increases where there is a high concentration of TB bacteria, such as can occur in poorly-ventilated environments like overcrowded houses, hospitals or prisons. The risk of spread is reduced if infectious patients receive timely and proper treatment.

 4. How can a person avoid becoming infected with XDR-TB?

 While patients with XDR-TB may be as infectious as those with ordinary TB, the chances of a TB infection being XDR-TB is lower due to the rarity of the condition. The measures to be taken are the same as those for the prevention of ordinary TB. Close contact with a patient with infectious TB is to be avoided especially in poorly ventilated spaces. The risk of becoming infected with TB is very low outdoors in the open air. TB patients should be encouraged to follow good cough hygiene, for example, covering their mouths with a handkerchief when they cough, or even, in the early stages of treatment, using a surgical mask, especially when in closed environments with poor ventilation.

 5. How can a person who already has ordinary TB avoid getting XDR-TB?

 The most important thing is for the health care workers and community to provide all the means (information, counselling, and material support) that enable patients to continue taking all their treatment as prescribed. No doses should be missed and above all, treatment should be taken right through to the end. If a patient finds that side-effects are a problem, for example, the tablets make them feel sick, then they should inform their doctor or nurse, because often there is a simple solution. If they need to go away for any reason, patients should make sure they have enough tablets with them for the duration of the trip.

 6. Can XDR-TB be cured or treated?

 XDR-TB patients can be cured, but with the current drugs available, the likelihood of success is much smaller than in patients with ordinary TB or even MDR-TB. Cure depends on the extent of the drug resistance, the severity of the disease and whether the patient’s immune system is compromised. Patients infected with HIV may have a higher mortality. Early and accurate diagnosis are important so that effective treatment is provided as soon as possible. Effective treatment requires that a good selection of second-line drugs is available to clinicians who have special expertise in treating such cases.

 7. How common is XDR-TB?

 XDR-TB is rare, however 77 countries worldwide had reported at least one case by the end of 2011. Information from countries with reliable data suggests that about 9% of MDR-TB cases worldwide have XDR-TB. WHO estimates that there are about 650,000 MDR-TB cases in the world at any one time. Only a small proportion of these cases are detected and treated appropriately given that many low and lower middle-income countries still lack sufficient diagnostic capacity to detect MDR/XDR-TB.

 8. How do countries prevent XDR-TB?

 National TB control programmes working with all health services can prevent XDR-TB by ensuring that all practitioners working with people with TB adhere to the International Standards for TB Care. These emphasize providing proper diagnosis and treatment to all TB patients, including those with drug-resistant TB; assuring regular, timely supplies of all anti-TB drugs; proper management of anti-TB drugs and providing support to patients to maximize adherence to prescribed regimens; caring for MDR/XDR-TB cases in services with proper ventilation, and minimizing contact with other patients, particularly those with HIV, especially in the early stages before treatment has had a chance to reduce the infectiousness.

 9. Can the TB vaccine, known as BCG, prevent XDR-TB?

 The BCG vaccine prevents severe forms of TB in children, such as TB meningitis, but is less effective in preventing pulmonary TB in adults, the commonest and most infectious form of TB. It is expected that the effectiveness of BCG against XDR-TB is similar as for ordinary TB. Nevertheless, new vaccines are urgently needed, and WHO is actively advocating for the development of new vaccines.

 10. What is the link between XDR-TB and HIV/AIDS? Why in some places is XDR-TB linked with HIV?

 People living with HIV are at greater risk of developing TB – as well as XDR-TB - than people without HIV, because of their weakened immunity. In few places where XDR-TB strains circulate more frequently, people with HIV are therefore more likely to be infected with XDR-TB than elsewhere. To date, in most of the places with high rates of HIV infection, XDR-TB has not been widespread. For this reason, the majority of people with HIV who develop TB will have ordinary TB and can be treated with standard first-line anti-TB drugs. For those with HIV infection, treatment with antiretroviral drugs will likely reduce the risk of developing XDR-TB, just as it does with ordinary TB. Patients with both XDR-TB and HIV who do not receive antiretroviral drugs are at high risk of dying.

 11. How can I tell if I might have TB or XDR-TB?

 XDR-TB can only be diagnosed in a well-equipped laboratory. Symptoms of XDR-TB are no different from ordinary TB: a cough with thick, cloudy mucus (or sputum), sometimes with blood, for more than 2 weeks; fever, chills, and night sweats; fatigue and muscle weakness; weight loss; and in some cases shortness of breath and chest pain. If you have these symptoms, it does not mean you have XDR-TB. But it does mean you must go and see a doctor for a check-up. If you are already on treatment for TB, and at least some of these symptoms are not improving after a few weeks of medication, you should inform your clinician or nurse.

 12. How quickly can XDR-TB be diagnosed?

 If TB bacteria are found in the sputum, the diagnosis of TB can be made in a day or two. To confirm XDR-TB, however, it may take from 6 to 16 weeks.

 13. Is it safe to travel to places where XDR-TB has been identified?

 XDR-TB is still very rare but has been documented in many countries. People who are most at risk, if they do come into contact with someone with XDR-TB, are those with reduced immunity to infectious diseases, such as those with HIV infection or other medical conditions that can weaken a person's immunity. It is also advised that such people should avoid areas where there are no infection control measures in place. Air travel carries only very minimal risks of infection with any kind of TB. Concerned travellers should seek advice before their visit from their doctor, national authorities, or trusted travel web sites such as www.who.int/topics/travel .

 14. What should be done if a person has been in contact with a known or suspected case of XDR-TB?

 Anyone who has been in contact with someone known, or suspected of having, XDR-TB should consult their doctor or a local TB clinic and be screened to see if they have TB. This is most important if the person has any symptoms of TB. If they have a cough, they will be asked to provide a sample of sputum, which will be tested for evidence of TB disease. If TB is found, treatment will be started with the drugs to which the person’s TB is most likely to respond. If there is any evidence of infection with TB bacteria but without TB disease, preventive treatment may be given or the person may simply be asked to attend health services periodically for a check up.

 15. Should patients with XDR-TB be isolated while on treatment or after treatment options have failed?

 In order to make the diagnosis, patients with suspected TB or XDR-TB are sometimes admitted to hospital. In order to protect other patients and health workers in the hospital, isolation of such patients is part of good quality care. Once the diagnosis is made and treatment begun, for patients who are willing to undergo treatment, isolation is usually neither necessary nor appropriate. Isolation has a very limited role to play in patients in whom treatment has failed. Studies have shown that treating TB patients at home with appropriate infection measures in place generally poses no substantial risk to other members of the household. By the time a diagnosis is made, the household contacts have already been exposed to the patient’s infection. However, in the absence of options for curative treatment, all infection control measures at household should be strengthened. Whenever this is not feasible then options for voluntary isolation and delivery of palliative and end of life care should be offered to the patient.

 16. What risks do health-care workers face with XDR-TB, particularly those who may be HIV-positive themselves?

 To protect health-care workers who may come into contact with infectious TB patients, appropriate and strict infection control measures must be implemented in health-care facilities at all times. Health-care workers are also encouraged to make sure that they are aware of their HIV status so that they can restrict putting themselves at risk of exposure.

 18. What is WHO doing to combat XDR-TB?

 Firstly, WHO is ensuring that the health authorities responsible for TB care and control receive accurate information about XDR-TB. Latest information on XDR-TB, and related TB issues, are published on the WHO Stop TB website. Secondly, WHO advises that good TB prevention, care and control prevents the emergence of drug resistance in the first place, and that the proper treatment of MDR-TB prevents the emergence of XDR-TB. Thirdly, WHO is regularly updating its guidance to Ministries of Health on the management of drug-resistant TB patients and diagnostic policies.

 Further information

 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with extensive resistance to second-line drugs worldwide. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2006; 55: 301-305.

 Guidelines for the programmatic management of drug-resistant tuberculosis: Emergency Update 2008. WHO/HTM/TB/2008.402. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2008.

 The Tuberculosis Coalition for Technical Assistance. International Standards of Care. 2006. Available from: www.who.int/tb/publications/2006/istc_report_shortversion.pdf

 Resolution WHA62.15. Prevention and control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. In: Sixty-second World Health Assembly, Geneva, 18–22 May 2009, Resolutions and decisions; annexes. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2009 (WHA62/2009/REC/1):25–29. Available from: apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA62-REC1/WHA62_REC1-en.pdf

 Towards universal access to diagnosis and treatment of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis by 2015. WHO progress report 2011. WHO/HTM/TB/2011.3. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2011

 Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant TB (M/XDR-TB): 2010 global report on surveillance and response. WHO/HTM/TB/2010.3. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2010.

 Global Tuberculosis Control 2011. WHO/HTM/TB/2011.16. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2011.

 Guidance on ethics of tuberculosis prevention, care and control. WHO/HTM/TB/2010.16. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2010.

 WHO Stop TB Department - 26 January 2012

 For more information please contact:

 Monica Dias

 diash@who.int |||||


Summarize this article:

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Turing Pharmaceuticals boss Martin Shkreli had previously defended the price riise

 Judging by social media, Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, may be the most hated man in America right now.

 He's been called a "morally bankrupt sociopath", a "scumbag" a "garbage monster" and "everything that is wrong with capitalism." And those are some of the tamer comments.

 So how did a rap music-loving, former hedge fund manager suddenly become the target of online ridicule and even death threats?

 His company recently acquired the rights to Daraprim. Developed in the 1950s, the drug is the best treatment for a relatively rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis. People with weakened immune systems, such as Aids patients, have come to rely on the drug, which until recently cost about $13.50 (£8.80) a dose.

 But Mr Shkreli announced he was raising the price to $750 a pill. The more than 5,000% increase and his brash defence of the decision has made him a pariah among patients-rights groups, politicians and hundreds of Twitter users.

 Other drugs companies have made similar moves raising the price of niche products, but few have so publicly and so unapologetically answered critics.

 The backlash became so pitched on Tuesday that Mr Shkreli agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to an "affordable level".

 Image copyright Twitter Image caption Martin Shkreli, seen here in an August Twitter post, has aggressively answered critics

 Humble beginnings

 Martin Shkreli, the son of Albanian and Croatian immigrants, grew up in a working-class community in Brooklyn, New York. He skipped several grades in school and received a degree in business from New York's Baruch College in 2004.

 At 17, he began his first internship at Cramer Berkowitz & Co, the hedge fund founded by television personality Jim Cramer.

 In 2006, Mr Shkreli started his own hedge fund, Elea Capital Management.

 The fund closed a year later after a $2.3m lawsuit from Lehman Brothers, which collapsed before it could collect on the ruling.

 After Elea, Mr Shkreli started MSMB Capital Management in 2008. The fund would be his launch pad for founding biotech firms including Turing.

 Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Shkreli moved into the pharmaceutical industry after working as a hedge fund manager

 A rocky start in pharmaceuticals

 Turing was not Mr Shkreli's first foray into the pharmaceutical industry. In 2011, he founded biotech firm Retrophin, with the goal of focusing on medicines for rare diseases.

 He was ousted as head of the company in 2014 amidst allegations he improperly handled legal settlements.

 A year later the company filed a $65m lawsuit that claimed Mr Shkreli created Retrophin and took it public simply to pay off investors in his old hedge fund, MSMB when the fund went under.

 Mr Shkreli has denied the accusations. "They are sort of concocting this wild and crazy and unlikely story to swindle me out of the money," he told the New York Times.

 On August 4, 2017, a jury found Mr Shkreli guilty of three of eight counts, including securities fraud, in a criminal case brought by US prosecutors. But they cleared him of allegations that he had looted Retrophin to make payments for the hedge funds. The civil suit brought by Retrophin remained pending as of 4 August.

 Image caption Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to Daraprim in August

 A second chance

 Turing Pharmaceuticals was launched in February 2015 after Mr Shkreli was forced out of Retrophin.

 The business claims its goal is to focus on treatments for serious diseases for which there are limited options. "We are dedicated to helping patients, who often have no effective treatment options," a statement on Turing's website said.

 The company only has two products on the market Daraprim and Vecamyl, which treats hypertension.

 Mr Shkreli has argued the Daraprim price increase was warranted because the drug is highly specialised; he likened the Daraprim to an Aston Martin previously being sold at the price of a bicycle. The additional profits he said will be used to make improvements to the 62-year-old drug recipe.

 Image copyright Twitter Image caption One of Shkreli's first tweets about the Dramaprim controversy

 Mr Shkreli did not take the criticism of his company's actions lightly.

 On Sunday, he sent out a hostile tweet accusing the media of singling him out. "And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me. So I point one back at em, but not the index or pinkie," he wrote, quoting an Eminem song.

 His tone later softened following several TV interviews where he claimed the profits of the drug would be used to create a better product.

 All of the negative attention may have finally had an effect on Mr Shkreli.

 His Twitter account, which had sparred with critics for days, went dark and then Mr Shkreli agreed to lower the price.

 "We've agreed to lower the price on Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit," he told ABC News. "We think these changes will be welcomed." ||||| America is outraged — outraged! — that Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the cost of a drug called Daraprim by 5,000% last month. (The drug is used to fight infections in patients suffering from AIDS and other conditions.)

 What took everyone so long?

 Turing CEO Martin Shkreli is a repeat moral offender. He pulled off similar price hikes at his previous company, before getting fired and sued for $65 million.

 But there's a much bigger problem than Shkreli here: The skyrocketing cost of generic drugs. It's nothing new. And it hadn't gotten much attention until this week, partly because most pharma companies aren't run by evil executives who happily explain they're making a profit by over-charging AIDS patients.

 Here's an incredible sentence from an ABC News report from this past May — on three other generic drugs that have seen their prices skyrocket in the past year.

 The cost of the generic blood pressure medication captopril jumped more than 2,700 percent, the asthma drug albuterol sulfate went up more than 3,400 percent and the antibiotic doxycycline jumped a whopping 6,300 percent, according to National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) statistics.

 One 49-year-old patient suffering from a painful condition called endometriosis said the cost of her treatment had grown 6,500% between 2010 and 2015. She now spends about $115 per day on a generic painkiller called fentanyl citrate, which is forcing her to deplete her retirement savings.

 "I realized if I wanted to keep my job and my life, I was going to have to find a way to pay for this," she told ABC News. "I started taking money out of my IRA, and that’s how we had to pay for it."

 There's a mix of reasons for these soaring prices, but the most important factor is that companies like Turing are cornering the market on certain generic drugs, and then using their near-monopoly power to hike prices.

 So why doesn't another firm try and compete, especially given that the patent on a drug like Daraprim has lapsed? Well, maybe 10,000 people use Daraprim every year. And as Sarah Kliff wisely reports for Vox, there isn't enough market demand for these generic drugs to motivate a new competitor to enter the field.

 And given the relatively small numbers of people affected by each of these drug hikes, there hasn't been much attention on the issue — even though the National Community Pharmacists Association has flagged dozens of generic drugs that have seen their costs similarly skyrocket in the past year.

 The Daraprim scandal exploded this week for several reasons. An odious pharma executive straight out of central casting. Hillary Clinton's speech, further calling attention to the problem. And — by Google News' count — more than 3,600 articles dedicated to the controversy.

 But the Daraprim scandal is now over. Two days after the story detonated in the pages of the New York Times, Turing Pharmaceuticals will dramatically reduce its planned price hike to Daraprim, Shkreli told NBC News on Tuesday night. He didn't make clear what the new price would be, only that it would be lowered to a level for Turing to make a "small profit."

 The real trick wasn't getting Turing Pharmaceuticals to back down. The sheer weight of the news cycle did that this week.

 (By Tuesday morning, the news about Turing and Shkreli was even trending around the world. "¿Por qué este hombre es el más odiado de internet?" asked writers at Sopitas.com, a Mexican website.)

 The hard part is achieving lasting reform. And no one agrees on how to do that.

 Take Hillary Clinton's new proposal to reform the prescription drug industry, which was hailed by her supporters but panned by some policy experts.

 Harvard's Amitabh Chandra tells the New York Times that Clinton's proposal to force pharma companies to reinvest profits into R&D is "astonishingly naïve"; there's no evidence that pharma firms aren't doing enough research, and pushing them to spend more upfront would seem to do little to lower the actual costs of drugs. Meanwhile at Forbes, Avik Roy contends that Clinton's plan would actually lower the incentive for new companies to enter the market, by reducing the patent life on innovative drugs.

 Instead, the most promising solution is probably pushing on regulators, not singling out pharma companies. Writing in the NEJM last year, Jonathan Alpern and coauthors suggested that FDA needed to dramatically speed up its process to encourage new generic manufacturers; the agency on average needs 10 months just to process a new application to produce a drug.

 "[W]e believe that special pathways should be created to promote competition and permit the private market to function more efficiently," Alpern and his coauthors wrote.

 Getting FDA to change its regulations is a slow process. There won't be any TV-ready villains; just rounds of public comment and dry testimony. And the rules won't be fixed by a few days of negative headlines.

 But if you care about this issue — if you're offended by what Turing tried to do to Daraprim — remember your outrage. Keep it close. You'll need it for the long slog to come in the months ahead.

 --

 Follow @ddiamond

 Sign up for Dan's free newsletter.

 From the archives:

 Also on Forbes: |||||

– The drug company CEO called the "most hated man in America right now" by the BBC says he's misunderstood—but that he'll lower the price of Daraprim in response to the firestorm of criticism. "There were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action," Turing Pharmaceuticals chief Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of the toxoplasmosis drug from $13.50 a pill to $750, tells NBC News. "I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people." The 32-year-old former hedge fund boss says it's "very easy to see a large drug price increase and say, 'Gosh, those people must be gouging,'" but that drug pricing is "very hard stuff" for people to understand. Shkreli admits that the drug is cheap to make, but he says the price has to cover "the quality control, the regulatory costs, and all of the other things that come with having a drug company." Shkreli is an "odious pharma executive straight out of central casting," but his company is far from the only one buying up relatively obscure drugs and massively increasing the price, writes Dan Diamond at Forbes. The same thing has happened to dozens of other drugs over the last year, and while media attention forced Shkreli to back down, "the hard part is achieving lasting reform," he writes. (A huge increase in the price of a tuberculosis drug has also been rolled back.)


Article:

A groggy Rick Santorum, donning suit and tie, sans sweater vest, didn't think much of Mitt Romney's 38-to-31 percent win over him in last weekend's CPAC presidential straw poll.

 When CNN's "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley said she was surprised Santorum didn't do better with party conservatives, he shot back: "Well, you know, those straw polls at CPAC... for years Ron Paul has won those because he trucks in a lot of people, pays for their tickets, and they come in and vote and they leave. We didn't do that, we don't do that. i don't try to rig straw polls."

 Did Romney rig CPAC?

 "You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought, we've heard all sorts of things," Santorum said.

 "We didn't pay them to turn out," he added, speaking of his supporters at CPAC, Missouri and elsewhere.

 He went on to say that he didn't think there was anything wrong with that, except he doesn't want to engage in that kind of politics.

 Romney's campaign rejected Santorum's statement.

 “Rick Santorum has a history of making statements that aren’t grounded in the truth," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

 "Yesterday Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll and won a separate nationwide survey of conservatives conducted by CPAC organizers. Also, Mitt Romney won the Maine caucuses. Conservative voters recognize that in order to change Washington, we need someone who isn't a creature of Washington.”

 Read more about: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum ||||| Ron Paul counts himself among the baffled by Mitt Romney's description of himself as a severe conservative.

 "I think I share your interest in that, because that was the first time I’ve heard that definition, so I guess Mitt will have to tell us exactly what it means," the Texas congressman and GOP presidential contender said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "Obviously, he means he’s a serious conservative, and he was trying to defend himself, or portray himself as such, but I don’t know exactly what he was meaning by that."

 Read more about: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul ||||| Newly minted White House chief of staff Jack Lew says President Obama's position on birth control and Catholic institutions has been "consistent" -- and that his Friday "accommodation" is as far as he will go to win over the bishops.

 "There are others who don't have the same objective, they will have to speak for themselves [but] this is our plan," Lew told Candy Crowley on Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

 When she asked Lew if he could say, with a "straight face," that insurance companies would pick up contraception costs from church-run schools and hospitals a very straight-faced former White House budget director said, somewhat surprisingly, that health insurers would in fact pay less for the birth control-inclusive plans -- presumably because they reduce pregnancies.

 Read more about: Barack Obama, Catholics, Contraception, Jack Lew, Bishops |||||
What is a summary?

– Fresh off his loss to Mitt Romney at CPAC, Rick Santorum hit the talk shows this morning, and he's downplaying the victory, reports Politico: "You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought—we've heard all sorts of things," Santorum told CNN. "Ron Paul has won those (straw polls) because he trucks in a lot of people, pays for their ticket, and they come in and vote. I don't try to rig straw polls." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: Santorum on his chances: "I think we can do well (in Michigan). I think we can do reasonably well in Arizona, and really make this a two-person race." Sarah Palin on Romney: He's "a great candidate," but "his idea of conservatism is evolving, and I base this on a pretty moderate past that he has had, even in some cases a liberal past. Now that’s a problem. He’s still in the 30 percentile mark ... because we are not convinced." Obama chief of staff Jack Lew on the birth control ruckus: The Friday "accommodation" is as far as the White House will go. "There are others who don't have the same objective, they will have to speak for themselves, (but) this is our plan." Ron Paul on 'severe conservative' Romney: "That was the first time I’ve heard that definition, so I guess Mitt will have to tell us exactly what it means. Obviously, he means he’s a serious conservative, and he was trying to defend himself, or portray himself as such, but I don’t know exactly what he was meaning by that."


Thousands of Native Americans chanted in protest against the Washington Redskins name outside the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium Sunday, where the team will play the Minnesota Vikings. (McKenna Ewen and Divya Jeswani Verma/The Washington Post)

 Thousands of Native Americans chanted in protest against the Washington Redskins name outside the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium Sunday, where the team will play the Minnesota Vikings. (McKenna Ewen and Divya Jeswani Verma/The Washington Post)

 — At what was hailed by organizers as the largest-ever protest of the Washington Redskins’ name, a group of Native Americans stood outside the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium in a plaza built as a tribute to 11 of the state’s tribes. A man in the middle held up a sign painted in bold black letters: “RACIST.”

 For more than an hour Sunday, hundreds of Washington Redskins fans on their way to the game against the Minnesota Vikings shuffled past the voices of condemnation, some with their Redskins’ caps stuffed in their pockets and their jerseys covered by zipped up jackets.

 “Who are we?” the demonstrators yelled. “Not your mascots!”

 On a broad grassy patch behind them, a throng of Native Americans, students and other activists chanted, sang, banged drums and waved banners: “Change the Name Now” and “Stop Racism in the NFL.” University of Minnesota police put the estimated crowd at 3,500 to 4,000. Organizers estimated it at 5,000.

 More than two dozen speakers from across the country addressed the noisy but peaceful gathering. They consider the Redskins moniker deeply offensive, while team owner Daniel Snyder argues that it honors Native Americans and has vowed never to change it.

 1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Protesters march outside stadium before Redskins game against Minnesota View Photos Native American groups and other activists decried the use of the team’s mascot and its imagery. Caption Native American groups and other activists decried the use of the team’s mascot and its imagery. Nov. 2, 2014 Native Americans protest the Redskins�? name outside the stadium in Minneapolis before the team played the Minnesota Vikings. John McDonnell/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

 The interactions between protesters and Redskins fans never turned violent, but they were often tense and sometimes profane.

 Samuel Wounded Knee, 35, a Crow Creek Sioux with square shoulders and long dark hair, carried a sign that read “Wake Up Snyder” and confronted nearly every Redskins fan he saw, cursing at one who cut through the rally and taunted protesters.

 “We don’t want to be your mascot,” he yelled. “My son doesn’t want to be your mascot.”

 Nearby, his 3-year-old sat on the grass in a maroon-and-yellow shirt that hung down to his ankles and said simply on its front: “REPLACE.”

 Preparations for the rally were underway for months, with organizers determined to make it even larger than one held more than two decades ago. In 1992, when the Buffalo Bills played Washington in the only Super Bowl hosted in Minnesota, an estimated 3,000 demonstrators turned out at the now-demolished Metrodome to denounce the team’s name.

 Last November, when the Vikings hosted the Redskins for the first time since 2007 at the Metrodome, more than 700 people protested outside. But the debate about the name has grown much more intense over the past year, with a parade of Native American leaders, lawmakers, civil rights activists and sports commentators condemning it.

 The name retains its support among a majority of Americans, with 71 percent saying it should not be changed in a poll conducted for ESPN in September. How the nation’s 5.2 million Native Americans feel is impossible to know. A 2004 Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that 9 out of 10 Native Americans were not offended by the moniker, but that survey is now 10 years old, and many activists question its methodology.

 On Sunday, the speakers were united in their opinion.

 “We are here to tell the NFL there is no honor in a racial slur,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) told the demonstrators. “Here in Minnesota, we have 11 proud tribal nations, but only 150 years ago, their ancestors, men and women, elders and children, were hunted and murdered for profit. This was a government-funded policy of genocide. The pain of this brutal and shameful history is still with us.”

 She said, “If there is any decency in the NFL, the time is now — change the mascot.”

 Vikings fan Larry Gibson, 54, a factory worker from St. Paul, Minn., was dismissive of the rally as he paused to watch, expressing his disgust to a Redskins fan beside him.

 “It could be the Vikings next, who knows?” Gibson said.

 Tony Cansler, who wore a custom Redskins jersey along with a Redskins hat, ear muffs and mittens, shook his head.

 “I mean, how far do you go with this, you know?” he replied.

 Cansler, a 53-year-old maintenance worker, had driven six hours from his home in Iowa to watch his beloved Redskins play.

 “To me, the name is respectful,” he said. Native Americans “should take pride in the name.”

 Controversy had swirled around the Vikings game since August because of demands by the University of Minnesota to limit use of the Washington team’s name and logo inside the stadium. But university administrators insisted that they could not dictate behavior to the Vikings organization, which is paying the university $300,000 a game to use the stadium while its new facility in Minneapolis is being built.

 After the protest – as the public address announcer bellowed the name over and over inside the stadium – a school official told a group of reporters that the Vikings had ignored their repeated requests.

 Unlike many NFL cities where Native Americans have little presence, their influence in the Twin Cities – and throughout Minnesota – is robust.

 More than 1,100 students throughout the University of Minnesota system identify themselves as Native Americans, and TCF Bank Stadium was built with the help of a $10 million donation from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. At the time, it was the largest private gift to Gophers athletics.

 The stadium also honors Minnesota’s 11 federally recognized tribes with the plaza where, on Sunday, protesters confronted fans.

 Joseph Keller, wearing a Chris Cooley Redskins jersey, walked through it, stopping in front of a group of screaming teen protesters. He blew them kisses, then dropped his cigarette on the pavement and stepped on it.

 A young woman snatched it from the ground and dropped it down the back of his jersey. He stopped, reached back to remove it and kept walking.

 “So I’m racist because I like the Redskins?” he said to his friend, a Vikings fan, as the two men stood in line.

 Keller, a former Marine who lives just outside Minneapolis, said he doesn’t understand Native Americans’ issue with the name, insisting that it’s a tribute to their warrior culture.

 “That’s the way I look at it,” he said.

 Moments later, the national anthem boomed from the stadium, drowning out the chants of protest behind him. ||||| The University of Minnesota wants the Washington Redskins to wear throwback jerseys without the team name or logo for the Nov. 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings being held at the college’s stadium.

 The college, which is leasing its TCF Bank Stadium to the Vikings as the team’s new stadium gets built for a scheduled 2016 opening, has also asked that the game not have any Washington apparel or paraphernalia sold on the premise; that the word “Redskins” not be uttered by the game’s public address announcer; and that the team’s moniker not appear on the scoreboard or in the program guide or other game-related print or digital material.

 Vikings officials appeared receptive to the university’s appeal during a meeting in late July, according to Katrice Albert, the college’s vice president in the office of equity and diversity.

 “They said they’d make that request of the Washington team, but were not sure how it would be received,” she said. “The two Vikings officials said they are part of the NFL and don’t have the authority to force the hand to change the Washington name but understand it’s offensive to some members of our community. The Vikings have a great working relationship with the tribal nations of Minnesota, and they’re very understanding of how this team name and logo impacts our community.”

 The university’s stadium features a Tribal Nations Plaza dedicated in honor of the 11 Native American tribes in Minnesota. It was built with a $10 million donation from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community — the largest private gift ever to Gophers athletics.

 On Thursday, the tribe released a statement saying that it and other Minnesota tribes oppose the Redskins’ name “and other sports-related logos, mascots and names which degrade a race of people.” The community is working with the university to prepare “appropriate responses” to the NFL game and “minimize the damage that could be done by invoking the name in a place that respects and honors the Minnesota Native American community.”

 A Vikings spokesman told The Post on Wednesday that the team was still trying to determine how it would handle the school’s request. Last year, hundreds of Native Americans and their supporters gathered outside the Metrodome before the Vikings played the Redskins to denounce the name of Washington’s team.

 Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie said Wednesday that the team disagrees with the school’s effort to bar the Redskins’ name at TCF Bank Stadium. “We have met many Native Americans from Minnesota who agree with our position and feel we are using the term correctly and honorably,” Wyllie said.

 University officials said the use of the Redskins name at their stadium violates the institution’s affirmative action, diversity and equal opportunity policy. More than 1,100 students identify themselves as Native American throughout the University of Minnesota system.

 Chuck Tombarge, a university spokesman, said the school has no recourse if the Vikings refuse to satisfy its requests. “Obviously, the Vikings are a good partner to Minnesota. We’ve outlined our suggestions and trust they will give them due diligence and will work on this as much as possible,” he said.

 The Vikings and school officials are slated to meet again this month, with more meetings between then and game day.

 The school is not the only entity pressuring the Vikings. Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum (D) sent a letter in June to Vikings owner Zygi Wilf urging him to condemn the Redskins’ team name and suggested he bears some responsibility to take a stand because NFL teams equally split the sales of every team’s licensed merchandise.

 McColllum’s letter was carbon copied to the University of Minnesota’s president, Eric W. Kaler. He replied to her last week.

 Joel Barkin, the spokesman for the Oneida Indian Nation, which has worked with McCollum frequently in its campaign against the team’s name, applauded the school’s proactive stance and said the word should be banned at professional stadiums, too.

 “Many of these professional stadiums receive large forms of public subsidies, so we plan on writing to each of the teams to follow the lead of Minnesota,” Barkin said. “It’s inappropriate for taxpayers to be subsidizing the endorsement of a racial slur.” ||||| MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two buses transporting the Washington Redskins to their game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday collided on a highway exit ramp while driving to TCF Stadium.

 The Redskins tweeted that the team had arrived safely at the stadium and team spokesman Tony Wyllie said that the accident will not affect the game.

 "Everyone is fine. No one was injured," Wylie said.

 Minnesota State Patrol Lt. Eric Roeske said one of the Minneapolis police squads escorting two buses crashed into a guard rail and ended up in front of the buses. He said the first bus braked but the second bus rear ended the first bus on the ramp. He said the accident call came in around 8:15 a.m.

 Roeske said the officer in the squad car was taken to the hospital. He added there were minor injuries like scrapes and bruises on at least one bus passenger, but he didn't know how many sustained injuries.

 Washington wide receiver Pierre Garcon tweeted a photo from inside one of the buses and said in a message "So this just happened. But we are ok."

 Garcon's photo shows a broken front windshield. There is a police car parked in front of the bus and emergency workers, one pushing a stretcher on wheels, standing in the road.

 The Redskins and Vikings were scheduled to kick off at noon. |||||

Write a summary.

– The Washington Redskins are having a rough time of it today: Things started with a crash this morning involving two of the team's buses, which were en route to play the Vikings in Minneapolis, reports the AP. A police escort in Minnesota crashed into a guardrail around 8:30am; the team bus immediately behind it braked to avoid hitting the cop car, but second bus rear-ended the first. No injuries. Arriving in Minneapolis, the team was met with chants of "Who are we? Not your mascot!" from some 3,200 protesting Native Americans who were none too happy with the "Redskins" moniker. "My Hubby Did Not Fight in Iraq To Be Called A 'Redskin,' read one sign. The protest raised familiar arguments, with one Redskins fan calling the name a "respectful" one in which Native Americans should "take pride." The name is nothing more than "a racial slur," counters one Democratic rep at the protest, citing Minnesota's "11 proud tribal nations. This was a government-funded policy of genocide." Indeed, as the Washington Post reports, Minneapolis is home to a sizable Native American presence, perhaps contributing to the size of the demonstration. The issue is compounded by the University of Minnesota, which currently leases its football stadium to the Vikings for a hefty $300,000 per game. With 1,100 students who identify as Native American, the university had in August demanded that the Redskins limit use of the mascot, logo, and team name during today's game.


News article:

Although infanticide occurs everywhere and at all levels of society, France seems to have been especially afflicted in the past three decades.

 The most notorious case in recent years is that of Vï¿½ronique Courjault, now 41, jailed in Tours last year after admitting murdering three babies and keeping their bodies in the family freezer.

 In November 1984, Jean-Pierre Leymarie and his wife Rolande were jailed for killing seven newborns in Corrèze. Four years later, Rosita Garnier, 38, was jailed by a court in Blois for murdering three newborns.

 Sylvie Coulon, 27, from Limoges, was jailed in 1990 for killing four infants and putting their bodies out with the rubbish. And Cï¿½line Lesage, 34, admitted the murder of seven babies found in a cellar in Normandy in 2007.

 "It's easy to come up with a narrative to explain why it happens in contemporary India or 17th-century Europe, for example, but why is it happening in 21st-century France?" asks Michelle Oberman, author of When Mothers Kill.

 The recent French cases also deviate sharply from the pattern in the US, she said, where the mother is usually very young, not in a relationship and who conceals the pregnancy from her parents, and then kills the child as soon as it is born.

 One of the conditions often offered up to explain infanticide is "pregnancy denial", a psychiatric condition where a woman either doesn't realise or cannot accept she's having a baby, not even enough to consider an abortion.

 "Women can carry on menstruating, they don't put on weight and their breasts don't get bigger because the denial is so strong it overcomes the physical manifestations of pregnancy," explained Anne Carpenter, a consultant forensic clinical psychologist in Glasgow. When the baby arrives, she is forced to confront that reality, and sometimes with catastrophic results.

 "With no sense of the child as an individual being, it is viewed more as an inconvenience, and something to be got rid of in the same way as you get rid of the trash," she added.

 But denial is not the only explanation. Pierre Lamothe, a French psychiatrist, said in many cases he had studied, the women wanted to be pregnant because it made them feel fully feminine, but they did not want children. "When the child appears, it has no real existence," he said. "Mentally, the woman does not accept that it is a living person." ||||| Pascal Rossignol / Reuters Candles are displayed in front of the house where the bodies of newborn babies were found in Villers-au-Tertre, France, on July 29, 2010

 The question is as horrifying as it is important to ask: Why are a rising number of French women killing their newborn babies? Finding the answer has become a matter of urgency following the discovery on Wednesday of eight infants allegedly smothered to death and buried by their mother in northern France. And with that case marking at least the fifth instance of multiple infanticide reported in France since 2003, it has become vital for the nation to confront the phenomenon that appears to be behind it all: a mental condition known as pregnancy denial.

 This latest case of newborn murder in France was uncovered in the northern town of Villiers-au-Tertre, after eight tiny bodies were found buried in the gardens of two separate homes. Six of the cadavers were unearthed on July 29 by police at the house of Dominique Cottrez, 45, and her husband Pierre-Marie, 47. Investigators searched their home after the resident of a house previously owned by Dominique's parents turned up two tiny bodies on July 24 while digging a pool in the backyard. According to the French prosecutor leading the inquiry in the town, a short distance south of Lille, Dominique has admitted to hiding her pregnancies  and the killings of her babies  from her husband, whom police describe as being "dumbstruck" by the revelations. Dominique was charged for the murders; Pierre-Marie has been cleared of wrongdoing and released but could yet become a subject of investigation. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)

 The case in Villiers-au-Tertre is only the most recent example of a father of slain babies being apparently unaware of his wife's pregnancies. Four other such cases since 2003 include that of Véronique Courjault, 42, who was convicted in June 2009 of killing three of her newborns  two of whom she hid in a freezer and were later discovered by her husband. And this past March, Céline Lesage, 38, was found guilty of murdering six of her babies after she hid her pregnancies from the men who had fathered them. Both women were sentenced to prison  Courjault for eight years and Lesage for 15.

 Experts explained those cases as resulting from pregnancy denial, an often misunderstood and minimized condition. According to Michel Delcroix, a former gynecologist who served as a court expert in the Courjault trial and others involving pregnancy issues, pregnancy denial is a quasi-schizophrenic condition in which women either don't realize or cannot accept that they are with child  not even enough to have an abortion. Whether these women are afflicted with the condition before they deliver or as they're suddenly giving birth, Delcroix explains, the psychological denial is so strong that they refuse to believe they're pregnant even when the reality confronts them. (See more on pregnancy.)

 "These women are so convinced pregnancy is impossible that once the child they never wanted arrives, they don't accept it as real and get rid of it to restore order to what they believe is nonpregnant reality," Delcroix says. "However terrible its consequences, pregnancy denial acts in infanticide cases much as a psychotic state that drives someone to kill another person does. Yet we still try women for what they do during pregnancy denial when we don't try psychotic killers deemed not responsible for their actions." Delcroix and others who are fighting for pregnancy denial to be medically and legally recognized as an illness argue that improving ways to identify and treat these women makes more sense than simply punishing the crimes they commit as a result of it.

 What causes the condition? Several things, Delcroix says, including previous trauma such as beatings and rape. But other, nonphysical factors can also be involved, and denial can kick in even if a woman has already had and raised children without a problem  Lesage has a 14-year-old son; Dominique Cottrez has two grown daughters. And while pregnancy denial has been around for decades or longer, Delcroix says it's rising in frequency. The probable reason, he says, is changes in wider social factors that have downgraded the value of childhood, parenting and family.

 But in some cases, it can also be a matter of women simply failing to see themselves as mothers. "Some women never manage to update their self-identity during pregnancy, [while others] want to become pregnant without wanting to procreate," psychiatrist Pierre Lamothe told Le Parisien on Thursday. "When the child arrives, it doesn't really exist for them. They don't give it life, in psychological terms. If they saw it as a [real] baby, they wouldn't kill it." (See the top 25 crimes of the past century.)

 Others just never realize  or acknowledge  that they're with child. Experts on pregnancy denial say most sufferers are either sufficiently overweight or experience such little body change that they simply assume they've gained some weight. In France, 230 women a year discover their pregnancy only while giving birth. Though just a fraction resort to infanticide, Delcroix fears there are more of those cases that remain undiscovered than there are ones that come to light, as in Villiers-au-Tertre. And he poses a chilling question: Does anyone really believe that the spreading phenomenon of pregnancy denial  and the infanticide it can lead to  is purely a French problem? |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– It's a good question. Why, asks Bruce Crumley in TIME, are French women killing their babies? It may have something to do with a little known, "quasi-schizophrenic" phenomenon called "pregnancy denial," he finds. Women with this condition "either don't realize or cannot accept that they are with child," a doctor says. And, he adds, it's not a French-only thing. Women can become "so convinced pregnancy is impossible that once the child they never wanted arrives, they don't accept it as real and get rid of it," the doctor says. Or, as one psychologist tells the Independent, for some women a baby "is viewed more as an inconvenience, and something to be got rid of in the same way as you get rid of the trash."


“The heist took about 3 minutes and 40 seconds,” Mr. Durham says in the documentary. “When I was done, the police were there, and I was passing by with my getaway car. Took my ski mask off, window down, and I was looking at them.”

 He adds: “I could hear them on my police scanner. They didn’t know it was me.”

 Mr. Durham, in details that he shares for the first time, after years of claiming innocence, brags of doing “bank jobs, safety deposit and more spectacular jobs than this.” He says he targeted the museum not because of any interest in art but simply because he could. “That’s the eye of a burglar,” he boasts.

 The works are of inestimable value because they have never been to market: “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” (1882) is one of only two seascapes van Gogh painted during his years in the Netherlands, and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen” (1882-84), showing the church where the artist’s father was a pastor, was a gift to the artist’s mother.

 (Prices for van Gogh landscape paintings at auction range from about $10 million to about $70 million.)

 But Mr. Durham did not know the historical background of the paintings. He said the paintings were the smallest ones in the gallery he targeted, and closest to the hole through which he entered. He stuffed them into a bag, and escaped by sliding down a rope he and his accomplice had put in place. When he hit the ground, he came down so hard that he smashed the seascape, chipping the paint. He left behind a black baseball cap. A security guard called the police, but she was not permitted to use force to try to stop the burglars. ||||| In 2002 pleegde beroepscrimineel Octave Durham een geruchtmakende schilderijenroof in het Van Gogh Museum. Hij stal twee unieke, kostbare doeken van Vincent van Gogh. Durham werd veroordeeld en moet nog altijd tonnen schadevergoeding betalen aan het museum. In deze documentaire legt hij voor het eerst een gedetailleerde bekentenis af en volgen we hem in zijn zoektocht naar de verdwenen schilderijen, die hij destijds verkocht aan de maffia. Om zijn schuld aan het museum af te kunnen lossen probeerde hij het afgelopen jaar de schilderijen terug te vinden. Maar tijdens zijn speurtocht werden de doeken plotseling door de Italiaanse politie ontdekt en in beslag genomen. Vandaag komen de schilderijen terug naar Amsterdam. ||||| One of two men convicted for stealing two paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002, told his story to the Telegraaf over the weekend. Octave Durham told the newspaper that he and companion Henk B. actually wanted to steal the famous paintings Sunflowers and The Potato Eaters, but the first was too well guarded and the second was too large to fit through the window they broke to get into the museum.

 Durham and B. eventually made off with two other paintings - Seafront at Scheveningen and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen. These paintings were recovered from the Italian mafia last year. Durham would not tell the newspaper how much the Italian mafia paid for them. "I will not mention an amount. Otherwise I'll get a surcharge from the tax authorities", he said.

 The paintings were only sold to the Italian mafia after failed attempts to sell them in the Netherlands. Durham and B. initially wanted to sell the paintings to criminal Sam Klepper, but he was assassinated shortly before the robbery. Afterwards they contacted Heineken-kidnapper Cor van Hout, but he too was assassinated before he could buy the paintings.

 For years Durham denied having anything to do with the robbery in the museum in Amsterdam. He was still convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.

 After being recovered, the two paintings were initially considered evidence in the Italian authorities' case against the mafia. But in January a court ruled that they could be released and returned to the Netherlands. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "I'm a born burglar," says Octave Durham, per the New York Times, which looks at a new documentary about Durham's notorious theft of two Vincent Van Gogh paintings. Set to be broadcast Tuesday on Dutch TV, the 45-minute special by filmmaker Vincent Verweij gets the inside scoop on the 2002 heist Durham says took less than four minutes and nabbed him two works the Times deems "of inestimable value": Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen. Durham, who was convicted for the burglary in 2004 and spent just over two years in prison, says he passed cops in his getaway car and brags that he'd pulled off "more spectacular jobs than this"—after years of denying he had any involvement in the theft, per Versopolis.com. In one reveal that may insult art lovers everywhere, Durham notes he didn't run off with the Van Goghs because of any particular love for the great master, or for art in general: He did it because it was an opportunity for a big get. "That's the eye of a burglar," he says. Per NLTimes.com, Durham told a Dutch paper over the weekend he'd wanted to steal two other Van Gogh paintings—Sunflowers and The Potato Eaters—but one was too big to slip out and the other was under heavy security, so he and partner Henk Bieslijn settled on the other two. The Times notes the Van Gogh Museum is still "furious" with Durham, who didn't get paid for the film, and refused to help Verweij. The filmmaker defends his choice of cinematic subject, noting, "You never see documentaries or articles about art theft from the perspective of the thief." (The Van Gogh Museum was pretty stoked when the paintings were recovered.)