NASA spacecraft exploring solar system's edge (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? More than three decades after launching, NASA's workhorse spacecraft is inching closer to leaving the solar system behind.

Currently 11 billion miles away from the sun, Voyager 1 has been exploring the fringes of the solar system since 2004. Scientists said Monday the spacecraft has entered a new region in the solar system that they have dubbed the "stagnation zone."

Voyager 1 still has a little way to go before it completely exits the solar system and becomes the first manmade probe to cross into interstellar space, or the vast space between stars.

The spacecraft has enough battery power to last until 2020, but scientists think it will reach interstellar space before that ? in a matter of several months to years.

Chief scientist Ed Stone of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the timing is unclear because no spacecraft has ever ventured this far.

"The journey continues," Stone told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

For the past year, Voyager 1 used its instruments to explore the new region. It appeared to be the cosmic doldrums where solar winds streaming out from the sun at 1 million mph have dramatically eased and high-energy particles from outside are seeping in ? a sign that Voyager 1 is at the doorstep of interstellar space.

Scientists expect to see several telltale signs when Voyager 1 finally crosses the boundary including a change in the magnetic field direction and the type of wind. Interstellar wind is slower, colder and denser than solar wind.

Even with certain expectations, Stone warned that the milestone won't be cut-and-dried.

"We will be confused when it first happens," Stone said.

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977 to tour the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. After their main mission ended, both headed toward interstellar space in opposite directions. Voyager 2 is traveling slower than Voyager 1 and is currently 9 billion away miles from the sun.

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Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

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Online:

Voyager mission: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_sc/us_sci_nasa_voyager1

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San Gabriel Valley still feeling effects of windstorm

Los Angeles County's most potent windstorm in recent years continued to dole out complications Saturday, depriving about 80,000 homes and businesses of power for a third day and sapping pre-holiday spirit in some foothill communities.

Nearly 74,000 Southern California Edison customers remained without power Saturday in about a dozen San Gabriel Valley communities, including Pasadena, Temple City, San Marino and Arcadia. Utility workers handed out flashlights, ice and bottled water to affected residents.

The storm ? a meteorological mutation of typical Santa Ana winds ? blasted the region with cold northerly winds instead of warm seasonal gusts, and it bowled over myriad trees and snapped power lines. At the wind event's peak, more than 400,000 customers throughout Los Angeles County lost power, about 235,000 of them in San Gabriel Valley cities.

Photos: Santa Ana winds

At night, large stretches of normally bustling commercial thoroughfares like Valley Boulevard were dim as cars crawled past dark traffic signals and closed gas stations, supermarkets and restaurants.

"This is probably the most severe windstorm event in terms of impact on the power grid in the last decade," said Gil Alexander, a Southern California Edison spokesman. "Looking at our history, this is one of the more significant ones."

Alexander said the utility hoped to return power to most homes by the end of Sunday, but he said crews were having problems reaching affected neighborhoods because of downed trees. Although the windstorm had moved away, he said it was possible that traditional Santa Ana winds could swoop in and aggravate the situation.

"We still see the potential for some ongoing wind damage," Alexander said. "We have more than 500 personnel involved in assessing the damage and working around the clock, so we're hopeful that most of our customers will have power restored by the end of the weekend."

Joe Ramallo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said service had been restored by Saturday evening to nearly all of its more than 200,000 customers who lost power because of the storm. But, he said, an additional 5,000 customers in San Pedro lost power Saturday. He said he was not sure whether that outage was related to weather.

Stuart Seto, a weather specialist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said there were some robust gusts Saturday, including winds clocked at nearly 50 mph in the Newhall Pass and in the mid-60s in the mountains.

Strong Santa Ana winds are expected to ramp up again Monday through Tuesday, though Seto said they were not predicted to be quite as forceful as the previous gusts. They are expected to come from the northeast, meaning they would sweep through San Fernando Valley communities and the Cajon and Newhall passes and spare the San Gabriel Valley from the most powerful gusts, which could top 60 mph.

"They'll still feel the gusty winds, but they won't feel them like before," Seto said of the already hard-hit communities. "When the winds were more northerly, they were coming right at them."

In towns such as Arcadia and South Pasadena, city crews worked to clear major streets of trees and other debris. City officials reminded motorists to treat blacked-out traffic signals like four-way stop signs. Some streets remained closed, as did the L.A. County Arboretum and several parks and libraries.

In Temple City, where about 75% of the town's roughly 10,000 homes had been without power, the situation has steadily improved, said Steven Masura, the city's community development director. About 3,700 homes were still without power early Saturday afternoon. Masura said he was hopeful that by Monday all would get electricity back.

Friday night, the city's big commercial corridor at Las Tunas Drive and Rosemead Boulevard was up and running after losing power during the storm.

"We're hoping that by late Sunday we'll be 99% up, but we don't know for sure," Masura said.

The windstorm created an uptick in patients at local hospitals. The emergency room at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena saw a 5% increase in patients Wednesday night through Friday night over the usual 170 patients it sees each day.

Several were injured in car accidents due to debris-strewn streets and nonworking traffic signals, said Dr. Robert Goldweber, assistant director of the hospital's emergency department. Emergency room staff also saw many elderly people who'd fallen in the dark. Some patients' oxygen generators failed.

"People needed oxygen and their oxygen generators went out. They didn't have the equipment they needed," Goldweber said.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/UIhy9szgNR4/la-me-wind-follow-20111204,0,2987057.story

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Limp Bizkit have been dropped by Interscope Records

The reformed Nu-metal band were let go from Interscope records after poor sales of their comeback album, ‘Gold Cobra’, although frontman Fred Durst said the group are glad to now be independent. He told radio show Poolside With Dean Delray: “One of the things with ‘Gold Cobra’ was it was a record for us to [...]

Source: http://www.celebritymound.com/limp-bizkit-have-been-dropped-by-interscope-records/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=limp-bizkit-have-been-dropped-by-interscope-records

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San Fran Burger Kings also charge for kids meals (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Burger King has joined McDonald's in charging for kids meal toys to comply with San Francisco's ban.

A new city law that took effect Thursday bans free toys with kids meals that are high in fat, sugar and salt. It's designed to encourage nutritional fast food for youngsters.

McDonald's and Burger King decided to charge a dime for the trinkets.

McDonald's is using the toy money to build a Ronald McDonald House for families of young patients at the new University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center at Mission Bay.

Burger King spokeswoman Kristen Hauser tells the San Francisco Chronicle ( http://bit.ly/sU7bag) that Burger King hasn't decided what to do with the toy proceeds.

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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_he_me/us_kids_meal_crackdown

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Differing laws on trafficking impede US crackdown

In this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 photo, Holly Smith, 33, talks about her experiences when she was caught up in a child sex trafficking ring during an interview in her home in Richmond, Va. A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime. Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly brought to a motel where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair. ?Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me,? said Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 photo, Holly Smith, 33, talks about her experiences when she was caught up in a child sex trafficking ring during an interview in her home in Richmond, Va. A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime. Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly brought to a motel where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair. ?Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me,? said Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 photo, Holly Smith, 33, talks about her experiences when she was caught up in a child sex trafficking ring during an interview in her home in Richmond, Va. A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime. Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly brought to a motel where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair. ?Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me,? said Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 photo, Holly Smith, 33, talks about her experiences when she was caught up in a child sex trafficking ring during an interview in her home in Richmond, Va. A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime. Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly brought to a motel where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair. ?Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me,? said Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime.

In Connecticut, for instance, the strict penalties for sex traffickers are among the toughest in the nation. Neighboring Massachusetts, meanwhile, had no statute specifically targeting sex trafficking until one was signed into law days ago.

The report released Thursday by the advocacy group Shared Hope International said more than a dozen states have passed new crackdowns, but four states ? Maine, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming ? have yet to impose any specific restrictions on the crime.

"Each state's laws show omissions in protective provisions for child victims and (they) lack strong laws to prosecute the men who rent the bodies of other men's children," said Linda Smith, the group's founder and president.

As many as 15,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the U.S. each year, according to advocacy groups. They say there could be more than 100,000 victims in the country now.

Victims are sometimes smuggled in from outside the U.S., but many started out as young runaways or simply needed money. Human traffickers target men, women and children for forced labor or services, while sex traffickers make their victims work in the sex trade. The crimes range from smuggling immigrants into the U.S. to work in restaurants or homes to forcing young women to work as prostitutes.

Holly Austin Smith said a man at a mall promised her a job after she ran away from home at age 14. She said she was swiftly brought to a motel in New Jersey where two adults gave her a dress, put makeup on her face and dyed her hair.

"Within hours I was on the streets of Atlantic City having men forced on me," said Smith, now 33 and an advocate of stricter sex trafficking laws.

Federal authorities can prosecute traffickers under the Trafficking Victims Protections Act, enacted in 2000, which carries stiff penalties. The law also created a new visa allowing victims of the crime to become temporary U.S. residents. But prosecutors have limited resources and often have to rely on the states to crack down on the crime.

Some states have taken aggressive steps to strengthen their laws, the report said. Fifteen states now allow victims to seek civil damages from their traffickers in court. Four states ? Illinois, Maryland, Nevada and New York ? have laws that vacate convictions for sex trafficking victims.

Other states were criticized in the report for failing to pass strict laws. The report also found that 10 states have yet to adopt sex trafficking laws and that 19 don't make it a crime to buy sex acts with a minor. It also found that Iowa, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Wyoming have no laws making it a crime to use the Internet to purchase or sell sex acts with a minor.

Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna, president of the National Association of Attorneys General, said policymakers have to play catch-up to establish consistent policies to rein in the crime.

"Having a strong, fairly uniform set of laws across the country is very important, because traffickers are mobile, their victims are mobile and we don't want traffickers to be moving their victims even more trying to evade stronger state laws, by moving to states with weaker laws," he said.

The state definitions of illegal trafficking that vary from federal standards can also make it more difficult to get additional protections and services from the U.S. government, said Kirsten Widner of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University's School of Law.

"And if they have no definition at all, that could be a real problem," said Widner.

One high-profile battleground was Massachusetts, which for years faced pressure from advocates to enact anti-trafficking laws. In November, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that would impose a life sentence on anyone found guilty of trafficking children for sex or forced labor. It also allows prosecutors to look at first-time offenders under 18 as victims rather than criminals.

"We have focused on the very people who have been victimized the most," said Attorney General Martha Coakley, who pushed for the bill. "What the bill does is change the lens around on that. That's why implementing this is going to be difficult. I think we can do it. It's a real change in the way we've approached it."

Some advocates, though, say more aggressive enforcement of the laws, instead of strict new ones, may help crack down on the crime. State authorities need to implement the laws on the books, better coordinate with federal prosecutors and spend more resources trying to identify victims, said Mary Ellison, a director of policy for the Polaris Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group.

"Traffickers make their money on the backs of the most vulnerable and there's not as much of a risk because laws aren't implemented as strongly as they want," she said. "Until they see these laws implemented, they're not going to be deterred because they're making tons and tons of money exploiting and enslaving people."

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Associated Press writers Steve LeBlanc in Boston, Manuel Valdes in Seattle, Wash. and Steve Helber in Midlothian, Va., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-01-Child%20Sex%20Trafficking/id-a092210d603b45698990619827437cd2

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Senate rejects, for now, extending payroll tax cut (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Senate Republicans on Thursday defeated a plan by President Barack Obama to renew a temporary cut in the Social Security payroll tax, even as all sides on Capitol Hill continue to promise an eventual compromise on a tax holiday before Congress leaves Washington for Christmas.

More than two dozen of the Senate's 47 Republicans also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in a vote that exposed a wide split among the party over whether renewing an existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut makes sense.

The defeat of the competing plans came as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said for the first time that renewing the payroll tax cut would boost the lagging economy, a view many in his party don't share. Boehner also promised compromise on a renewal of long-term jobless benefits through the end of 2012.

The payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are at the center of a costly, politically-charged year-end agenda in which Democrats seem poised to prevail in renewing a tax cut that many Republicans back only reluctantly. But Republicans are insisting ? in a switch from last year ? that the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits be paid for by cutting spending.

Both parties are seeking the political high ground as next year's elections loom, with Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs.

The first payroll tax plan to fall was a Democratic measure that was the centerpiece of Obama's jobs package announced in September. It would cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent next year and also extend the cut to employers, with its hefty $265 billion cost paid for by slapping a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.

Republicans and a handful of Democrats combined to kill the measure on a 51-49 tally that fell well short of the 60 required under Senate rules. For the first time, a Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, voted to support the millionaires' surcharge.

The White House issued a statement by Obama that accused Republicans of voting to raise taxes on 160 million people because they "refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share." The statement didn't mention the GOP alternative.

In a surprising result, Democrats and more than two dozen Republicans voted 78-20 to kill the $120 billion GOP alternative that would have simply extended the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut, financed by freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 and reducing the government bureaucracy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republican opponents "insist on helping the very wealthy while turning their back on the middle class," while another member of the leadership, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans were in full-blown retreat just days after Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said on "Fox News Sunday" that "the payroll tax holiday has not stimulated job creation. We don't think that is a good way to do it."

On Thursday, however, Boehner disagreed.

"I don't think there's any question that the payroll tax relief, in fact, helps the economy," Boehner said. "You're allowing more Americans, frankly, every working American, to keep more of their money in their pocket. Frankly, that's a good thing."

Meanwhile, House Republicans readied legislation of their own that aides said likely would include the tax cut extension as well as renewed benefits for long-term victims of the worst recession in decades and a painfully slow recovery.

Boehner made clear that all costs must be paid for, and said higher taxes were a non-starter.

"Republicans are ready to work with the president and the Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance temporarily, but they must be offset with spending cuts elsewhere," he said.

A meeting between Boehner and Reid produced no progress, aides said, and House Republicans were considering a GOP-tilting version of the measure before Congress would settle on an eventual compromise that might not pass until just days before Christmas.

But Thursday's votes indicated there was lots of reluctance among Republicans to renew the costly payroll tax cut, which even some Democrats said hasn't much helped the economy.

"I can't find many people who even know that they're getting it, okay?" said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who opposed both plans. "So with that being said, we're going to double down on something that we thought should have worked that didn't work."

There were other issues under negotiation as lawmakers looked toward the end of a highly partisan year, the first in a new era of divided government.

Boehner said lawmakers were discussing a bill to avoid a scheduled 27 percent cut on Jan. 1 in reimbursement rates for doctors treating Medicare patients.

The two parties also looked for agreement on a measure to fund the government through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year.

Boehner added that he likely would try to include some of the 20 House-passed bills that are part of a GOP jobs package in one of the year-end wrap-up bills. Most of the measures would block federal regulations on various industries, and are stalled in the Senate.

With unemployment hovering around 9 percent nationally, Obama urged Congress in September to renew and expand the Social Security payroll tax cut for workers that he signed a year ago, and called as well for an extension of benefits that can cover up to 99 weeks for the long-term jobless.

State unemployment insurance programs guarantees coverage for six months, but as in previous downturns, Congress approved additional benefits in 2008. Expiration of those payments would mean an average loss of $296 in weekly income for 1.8 million households in January, and a total of 6 million throughout 2012.

On the tax cut extension, Republicans prefer a simple one-year continuation of the existing law, jettisoning Obama's call to deepen the cut to 3.1 percentage points on workers' first $106,800 in earnings, while expanding it to cut in half employers' Social Security contributions for their $5 million in payroll.

To pay for the measure, Senate Republicans proposed freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 ? extending a two-year-freeze recommended by Obama ? and reducing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs through attrition.

The Democratic plan would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut; the GOP plan would provide a $1,000 tax cut for such an earner. A two-income family making $200,000 would reap a $6,000 tax cut under the Democratic plan and a $4,000 tax cut under the GOP version.

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Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_go_ot/us_congress_payroll_tax

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