Flying fox playground + golf driving range + bike ride with Sam + beach run + halloumi cheese = good day off with family :) Source: http://twitter.com/davemiers/statuses/153733065087266816
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Check-ups during pregnancy tend to focus around the waist. But there's growing debate about which mothers-to-be should have a gland in their neck tested, too.
Numerous studies since 1999 have found that an underactive thyroid can raise a woman's risk of miscarriage, premature birth, or a lower IQ for her baby ? even if it's so mildly sluggish that she feels no symptoms.
The problem: While serious cases are treated with a hormone pill, so far there's little evidence that treating the milder cases makes a difference. So guidelines about who should be tested vary widely.
Now a peek at prenatal testing from one of the country's largest medical labs suggests that nearly a quarter of pregnant women are getting the simple thyroid blood test regardless of whether they have symptoms.
Researchers at Quest Diagnostics examined records for half a million pregnant women. Of those who got tested, a higher-than-expected number ? 15 percent ? had an underactive thyroid. That's five-fold higher than some previous estimates, partly because the way in which the condition is diagnosed has changed recently, says the study published by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The vast majority of those women were in the gray zone, with milder cases where no one knows for sure if a diagnosis helps or wastes money on testing and thyroid medication.
The finding adds pressure for science to settle this long-running controversy.
"We still don't have perfect answers," says Dr. Elizabeth Pearce, a well-known endocrinologist at Boston Medical Center, where a recent survey found widespread prenatal thyroid testing. But, "if it's my patient in my office, or it's me or my family member, I'm going to treat every time."
Obstetricians seem more wary.
"There are studies on both sides of the fence," says Dr. Dena Goffman of New York's Montefiore Medical Center, which tests only women at high risk. "If you don't know what to do with the results, you probably shouldn't order the test," she said.
The unassuming thyroid ? a small bow tie-shaped gland nestled in the front of the neck ? plays a big role in good health for everyone. It produces hormones that regulate metabolism and can affect almost every type of tissue in the body. About 20 million Americans are estimated to have a malfunctioning thyroid that, if serious enough, can contribute to heart disease, bone-thinning osteoporosis and infertility.
An overactive thyroid, called hyperthyroidism, speeds up bodily functions, causing such symptoms as weight loss, nervousness, anxiety and increased heart rate and vision problems.
Much more common is an underactive thyroid, called hypothyroidism. It slows body functions, causing such problems as fatigue, weight gain, depression, constipation and dry skin. It even can contribute to high cholesterol, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Thyroid problems increase with age, but they affect far more women than men ? and pregnancy puts extra stress on the gland.
Having enough thyroid hormones is important for fetal brain development, especially during the first trimester, when the fetus depends solely on the mother for them. The hormones also play a role in avoiding miscarriage or premature birth.
Mothers also may harbor immune system cells called antibodies that subtly attack the gland and likewise are linked to miscarriage and prematurity. Italian researchers found that treating those women lowered their risk of encountering this problem.
There is broad agreement that women with overt hypothyroidism ? a seriously underactive gland ? should be treated, most likely given a once-a-day hormone pill long known to be safe in pregnancy. But it takes blood testing to diagnose overt disease because even those women don't always report the vague symptoms.
Those $25 blood tests are sure to uncover women with mild hypothyroidism, too, the people in the so-called gray zone. Some research has raised questions about whether mild cases really pose a pregnancy risk, and preliminary results from a large British study recently found no overall IQ benefit to the resulting children if their mothers had been treated.
But the damage might already have been done by the time treatment began late in the first trimester, notes Boston's Pearce. In the U.S., doctors are anxiously awaiting a similar National Institutes of Health study; results aren't expected until 2015.
What's the advice until then? The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends testing only pregnant women who have thyroid symptoms, have had previous thyroid problems, or have similar autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes ? those considered at risk for overt disease.
The American Thyroid Association goes further. Last summer it advised also testing all pregnant women age 30 and older, and those with enlarged thyroids, previous pregnancy problems or those who are obese, says Pearce, who co-authored the guidelines.
Most guidelines cite the lack of evidence for treating mild cases. The thyroid association does urge treatment if those women harbor the worrisome antibodies.
A final tip: Pregnant women should check that their prenatal vitamins contain iodine, important for proper thyroid function, Pearce says. Not all do. Most Americans get enough iodine from dairy products, bread, seafood and iodized table salt. But women need extra during pregnancy.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE ? Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
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LOS ANGELES ? Russell Brand and Katy Perry are getting a divorce, the British comedian told The Associated Press Friday.
"Sadly, Katy and I are ending our marriage. I'll always adore her and I know we'll remain friends," said Brand, 36, offering no other details.
He and the 27-year-old pop singer were married in October 2010 at a resort inside a tiger reserve in India.
Brand's recent film credits include "Arthur," "Hop" and "Get Him to the Greek." He is among the ensemble starring alongside Tom Cruise in "Rock of Ages," set for release next year.
Perry's run of No. 1 singles earned her the distinction of becoming MTV's first artist of the year earlier this month. She hosted "Saturday Night Live" on Dec. 10 and gave no indication the couple was in trouble.
The couple got engaged in January 2010 after meeting at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where he hosted and she performed.
He was effusive about his bride while promoting projects earlier this year, saying marrying Perry has "given me much more strength in what I do."
"For a long while, what I do professionally was all that mattered to me really," he said in March. "Now I think, well, whatever I do, I'll just go back to her, and that's incredibly comforting."
He cited irreconcilable differences in papers filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
A representative for Perry did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/Ml4U06H7t8I/
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Roger Highfield, contributor
Ever wondered how many images are uploaded to Flickr every day? That question lies at the heart of this installation by Dutch curator Erik Kessels, part of an exhibition at the Foam photography museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The answer is around a million. The installation is made up of print-outs of images posted on Flickr during a single 24-hour period. Kessels hopes this avalanche will highlight how the rise of digital photography has swamped us in images. The Future of the Photography Museum exhibition runs until 7 December.
Flickr has also been a boon for research. One group at the University of Washington in Seattle used thousands of photos to create a virtual 3D model of landmarks, including St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in New York. The idea was to recreate the detailed geometry of an entire city using online photographs.
Meanwhile, in rural Bahia, Brazil, handyman Jos? Carlos Mendes Santos found a mysterious inch-tall plant with white-and-pink flowers. When amateur botanist Alex Popovkin uploaded the images to Flickr, Lena Struwe at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and others identified the plant as a new species. Its name, Spigelia genuflexa, comes from the plant's habit of bending its branches down so that fruits ripen underground, a process called geocarpy.
Another project that used Flickr as a tool could have privacy implications. Jon Kleinberg of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and colleagues analysed 38 million photos uploaded to Flickr by people with social network contacts. They found that two people have a 5 per cent chance of knowing each other, if on three separate occasions they take an image at the same place on the same day. This is 300 times greater than the chance of two randomly chosen Flickr users knowing each other. They were surprised to find that so much information could be extracted from so little.
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MANCHESTER, N.H. ? He's still plotting an aggressive campaign schedule across several states, but Herman Cain also has begun to outline a possible exit strategy from the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The former business executive, facing a woman's allegation of a 13-year extramarital affair, says a heavy emotional toll on his family ? particularly his wife, Gloria, who he has not seen since the charge surfaced ? could force him to call it quits. The shift comes as a growing chorus of would-be allies suggests he is no longer a viable presidential contender and Cain himself says fundraising has suffered.
Cain, a top-tier candidate just weeks ago, says he'll decide in the next "few days" whether to abandon his White House bid, but not before he meets with his wife.
"Since I've been campaigning all week, I haven't had an opportunity to sit down with her and walk through this with my wife and my family. I will do that when I get back home on Friday," Cain told reporters gathered at his New Hampshire campaign headquarters Wednesday night. "I am not going to make a decision until after we talk face to face."
Cain said he had spoken to his wife only by phone since Monday, the day an Atlanta television station reported the woman's accusation. Since then, aides have crafted a packed campaign schedule with stops in Ohio, New Hampshire, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia and prepared to launch a fresh round of TV ads in Iowa.
Cain was to sit down Thursday afternoon with the New Hampshire Union Leader, an influential conservative voice in the first-in-the-nation primary state. This evening the former pizza executive is scheduled to deliver a business-focused speech at Middle Tennessee State University.
"There were some people who thought that I was finished," Cain said Wednesday night. "But I'm going to leave it with Yogi Berra's comment: `It ain't over till it's over.' And it ain't over yet."
Many Republican operatives believe Cain's bid is over whether he pulls the plug or not.
"I don't see how they walk away from the damage that's been done and emerge as a viable primary candidate," said Rick Wilson, a longtime GOP consultant based in Florida. "All these things about Herman Cain keep coming out drip, drip, drip, and they're not handling it well. And now conservative Republicans have another place to go: Newt Gingrich."
Dan McLagan, a veteran GOP strategist based in Atlanta, said Cain "is like a zombie at this point: He's dead but he does not appear to have noticed and has kept on walking."
"His support is all moving to Gingrich and, at some point, he's going to look back and see that he is grand marshal of a one-man parade," McLagan said.
Gingrich has been the beneficiary ? in polls, at least ? of Cain's slide in the month since it was disclosed that the National Restaurant Association paid settlements to two women who claimed Cain sexually harassed them while he was its president. A third woman told The Associated Press that Cain made inappropriate sexual advances but that she didn't file a complaint. A fourth woman also stepped forward to accuse Cain of groping her in a car in 1997.
Cain has denied wrongdoing in all cases.
Atlanta-area businesswoman Ginger White, 46, said her affair with Cain ended this year before he became a White House candidate. In an interview with an Atlanta TV station, she displayed records showing repeated cell phone calls and text messages with Cain.
Cain has denied any such affair, and in a letter addressed to "patriots and supporters" called her allegations "completely false" and labeled her "troubled." Cain's attorney, Lin Wood, has sent a letter to White's attorney requesting those cell phone records among other documents so Cain and his team can analyze their authenticity and content.
"It's very disappointing that he would call me troubled and, you know, it's unfortunate," White said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Top aides huddled privately Wednesday to map out a strategy to get past the allegations. He has told his top supporters that his campaign must determine whether he will have the financial and grassroots support to move ahead.
"The day that this latest one hit, fundraising went way down," Cain told reporters in New Hampshire. "As the week has gone on and this woman who has made these accusations has basically started to contradict herself, our fundraising has started to go back up. It's not up to the level where it was, but a lot of people are saying, you know what, they don't believe it."
In New Hampshire and at other campaign stops this week, he renewed what has become a familiar defense: that he is the victim of attacks by liberals and the establishment, who are threatened by his outsider appeal.
"They want you to believe that with another character assassination on me that I will drop out," a defiant Cain told a crowd of about 200 Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. Some responded with shouts of "No!" and "Boo!"
In Iowa, Cain's state chairman, Steve Grubbs, said he was preparing a busy December schedule beginning with a Dec. 10 debate in Des Moines. And Grubbs said Cain, who has not aired any campaign ads in Iowa since last week, will resume advertising Friday with a new spot that asserts that electing Cain would put a veteran CEO in the White House, not a politician.
"His campaign is strong enough to survive the allegations," said Michael Farren, 31, an Ohio State University doctoral student in economics, from Pataskala, Ohio.
___
Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta, Ann Sanner in Columbus, Ohio, Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Kasie Hunt in New York contributed to this report.
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THE HAGUE (Reuters) ? Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was arrested and flown to The Hague overnight to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, the first former head of state to be tried by the ICC since its inception in 2002.
The world's top war crimes court opened an investigation last month into killings, rapes and other abuses committed during a four-month conflict in Ivory Coast triggered by Gbagbo's refusal to cede power to Alassane Ouattara in an election last year.
Fadi El Abdallah, an ICC spokesman, said Gbagbo would make an initial appearance in court within a few days, where he would be informed of his rights and the charges brought against him.
"Mr Gbagbo allegedly bears individual criminal responsibility, as indirect co-perpetrator, for four counts of crimes against humanity, namely murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and other inhuman acts," the ICC said in a statement on Wednesday.
Gbagbo's arrest and detention in The Hague was welcomed by human rights groups, but could prove divisive in Ivory Coast and trigger unrest among his supporters.
The timing of the transfer is particularly sensitive, coming just days before a December 11 parliamentary election which Gbagbo's FPI party is already boycotting in protest at the treatment of its top officials arrested in connection with the conflict.
Gbagbo's aides have already branded the ICC "victor's justice," saying it demonstrates the bias of international players towards former top IMF executive Ouattara, who came to power only after French soldiers helped him oust Gbagbo.
Gbagbo's arrest marks a big breakthrough for the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has up to now struggled to get hold of some of his biggest targets.
"It is exactly a year since the presidential election that led to one of the worst episodes of violence Cote d'Ivoire has ever known, with ordinary Ivorians suffering immensely, and crimes allegedly committed by both parties," Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement.
"We have evidence that the violence did not happen by chance: widespread and systematic attacks against civilians perceived as supporting the other candidate were the result of a deliberate policy."
The prosecutor said crimes were committed by both parties in the election, and that he expected to bring more cases before the court irrespective of political affiliations.
"Leaders must understand that violence is no longer an option to retain or gain power. The time of impunity for these crimes is over," he said.
Gbagbo, 66, is one of between two and six people the ICC prosecutor has said he wants to focus on in a civil war that killed 3,000 people and uprooted more than a million.
The conflict ended only when French-backed pro-Ouattara forces captured Gbagbo on April 11.
WHISKED TO THE HAGUE
Both the ICC and the Ivory Coast authorities tried to keep Gbagbo's arrest and transfer to The Hague secret to avoid any risk that it could be derailed or provoke unrest.
The arrest warrant was issued under seal, a process that ensures it is kept secret until the last minute.
Gbagbo was whisked by helicopter on Tuesday from remote Korhogo in northern Ivory Coast, where he had been under house arrest since his capture, and put on a plane to Rotterdam where he arrived on Wednesday morning. A convoy of police vans drove him to the detention centre in The Hague.
His trial by the ICC is likely to prove as divisive as his election loss -- almost half of Ivorians voted for him.
Seeing Gbagbo on trial at the ICC could anger many Ivorians after Moreno-Ocampo said Libya could try Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam at home, despite an ICC warrant for him.
The militiamen who backed Gbagbo during the dispute have largely fled, been disarmed or are in hiding, but popular anger, especially in Gbagbo's homeland in the west, could easily flare.
"This victors' justice is in reality nothing but a political maneuver designed to liquidate President Gbagbo," his aide Toussaint Alain said in a statement.
The charge of victors' justice would be easier for Ouattara to refute if any of his men had been arrested for alleged crimes during the conflict, but none have.
"Gbagbo's transfer to the ICC is a welcome step to bring justice to victims of grave crimes in our country. But it is critical that the court investigate all serious crimes committed by all parties since the outbreak of armed conflict in 2002," said Ali Ouattara of human rights group C?te d'Ivoire Coalition for the ICC (CI-CPI) in a statement.
"Only through fair and impartial justice addressing all sides of the conflict can the ICC avoid criticisms of bias and thus truly help bring justice and reconciliation to Ivorians," he added.
(Reporting By Vanessa Romeo in Rotterdam, Michael Kooren in The Hague, and Tim Cocks and Ange Aboa in Abidjan; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by Ralph Gowling)
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