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AVENTURA, Florida (Reuters) ? Newt Gingrich describes the Palestinians as an invented people and seeks covert action against Iran, while Mitt Romney accuses President Barack Obama of throwing Israel under a bus.
But the Republican presidential candidates' tough talk on the Middle East in Florida before Tuesday's primary is doing little to sway the state's large Jewish population from its longstanding support for the Democrats.
If anything, it's Republican arguments on the U.S. economy - not Israel - that might win more favor with Jewish voters here come the general election in November.
"There has been, particularly among younger voters, a small shift toward the Republican Party in general," said Terri Susan Fine, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
She said there was some concern about Israel, but the larger reason was because some Jews see the Republican Party as more friendly to business.
"Economic conservativism is what is shifting their focus toward the Republican Party," she said. "Younger Jewish voters are very secure in Israel's stability."
Rabbi David Kaye of Congregation Ohev Shalom, a conservative temple north of Orlando, said members of his congregation were more concerned with economic issues in a state hard-hit by the housing crisis and one of the nation's highest unemployment rates.
"We still see that there's a lot of folks hurting," he said.
Jewish voters are also generally more liberal on social issues than the Republican candidates.
President Barack Obama received almost eight out of every 10 votes cast by Jewish voters in 2008. That overwhelming support among Florida's 640,000-member Jewish community, half of whom are over 65, was a key component in his narrow 3 percentage point victory in the swing state.
Jewish voters historically have been concerned with social justice and older voters especially have deep ties to the Democratic Party and labor movement going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency during the 1930s and earlier.
"It's part of our being - we are our brother's keeper," said Sydelle Sher, 79, of Delray Beach, a retired schoolteacher.
IRAN TENSIONS
But Sher, who attended a Gingrich rally last week, described herself as a fiscal conservative worried about the direction the country is going in under Obama.
"I fear the European-style socialism trend," she said, although she added that Israel policy is very important in her decision.
With tensions in the Middle East rising over Iran's nuclear ambitions, some Jewish Republicans wonder if the United States will stick by Israel.
Gloria Winton, 75, had harsh words for Obama on Israel as she headed into Mo's Bagels and Deli, near her home in Aventura, Florida. "I never thought before that Israel couldn't trust the United States. Now, I don't think that they can trust us," she said.
But she said she was leaning toward Romney, not Gingrich, because of Romney's more moderate tone. "I think (Gingrich is) very smart but I don't know if the independent voter would accept him," she said.
As they fight for their party's nomination, Romney and Gingrich have often seemed to compete over who can take the strongest pro-Israel line.
Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, drew 700 people to a rally on Friday sponsored by a Jewish Republican group, and both he and Romney count pro-Israel businessmen among their financial supporters.
Gingrich dismisses the Palestinians as an "invented people," and promises he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv as soon as he takes office.
Despite years of U.S.-led negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romney insists the Palestinians are not interested in living in their own nation alongside Israel, saying they want to destroy the Jewish state.
The former Massachusetts governor says Obama "threw Israel under the bus" for suggesting negotiations start with borders as they were before the 1967 Middle East war.
Democrats insist that Obama is not hostile to Israel, and call the Republicans' campaign a misleading and desperate attempt to make headway with an overwhelmingly Democratic voter bloc.
"Our ironclad commitment - and I meant ironclad - to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history," Obama said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Jewish voters typically account for 6-8 percent of turnout in Florida elections, and a lower percentage in Republican-only contests like Tuesday's primary, but they can make a difference if the vote is close.
Ira Sheskin, who runs the University of Miami's Jewish Demography Project, said statements like Gingrich's denial of the Palestinians' national identity could alienate the many Jewish voters whose main goal is Middle East peace.
"It was really not good for Gingrich to say that," Sheskin said. "Because if he becomes president, you want him to act as an honest broker in the Middle East. You don't do that if you've told one of the sides that they are an invented people."
"You won't advance the cause of peace."
(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny in Delray Beach; Editing by Alistair Bell and Doina Chiacu)
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The cast of The Help had much reason to celebrate at the 2012 SAG Awards. The Civil Rights drama swept in all of its categories, winning outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role, outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role and the night's highest honor, outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
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After sporting a cane for a few months due to a knee injury, Brad Pitt's walking stick has become a play toy for his and Angelina Jolie's kids as Brad begins the process of strengthening his atrophied leg.
"I was getting all lopsided," Brad, 48, explained to Access Hollywood's Shaun Robinson at the 2012 Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday. "So, I'm trying to balance out now."
PLAY IT NOW: Brad Pitt & George Clooney Honored At The Palm Springs Film Festival
The actor -- who, in addition to his SAG Award nomination for "Moneyball," was also nominated for an Academy Award -- revealed the Jolie-Pitt family enjoyed a good old-fashioned pancake breakfast to celebrate his Oscar nod.
"I got 'em all jacked up on sugar," he told Shaun. "I'm surprised they weren't sent home from school!"
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Big Screen Gentlemen: Hollywood?s Leading Men
Earlier on Sunday, the actor revealed to "CBS Morning News" correspondent Lee Cowan he's been receiving "a lot of pressure" from his kids to marry Angelina - a comment the actor is beginning to regret.
"Why did I say that?" Brad laughed, when asked about the already-highly-publicized marriage reveal. "No, but there's an issue of equality in marriage, and we wanted to hold out until everyone had the right.
"I was just commenting on, one, it's really difficult [to wait] when you love someone, and two, that we're getting a lot of heat from the kids," he explained.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Brangelina?s Family Album
Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The Obama administration released more details Thursday about the energy plan he previewed at the State of the Union this week. He announced an oil-and-gas-lease sale on nearly 38 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico ? and proposals for new incentives to increase the use of natural gas in heavy trucks and buses.
Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
President Obama was in Nevada today, promoting his efforts to increase oil and gas production.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, I'm announcing that my administration will soon open up around 38 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for additional exploration and development, which could result in a lot more production of domestic energy.
BLOCK: NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports that the president's new petroleum push is unpopular with environmentalists and Republicans.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: President Obama is starting off the New Year by reshaping himself into a champion, not just of clean energy, but of fossil fuels, too.
OBAMA: For decades, Americans have been talking about - how do we decrease our dependence on foreign oil? Well, my administration has actually begun to do something about it.
SHOGREN: Oil production is up and Americans are using less gasoline. As a result, America is importing less foreign oil than it has for 16 years. The chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee says that's no thanks to President Obama.
REPRESENTATIVE DOC HASTINGS: He has done nothing about it. His rhetoric sounds that way, but in fact, that is not the case.
SHOGREN: Republican Doc Hastings says policies of previous presidents boosted oil production. Hastings says President Obama has stood in the way. For example, he cancelled lease sales in Utah and slowed offshore drilling after the BP spill.
Energy analyst Kevin Book says the president's renewed focus on petroleum shows he gets how crucial the industry is for the future.
KEVIN BOOK: The message that energy production creates jobs has been internalized at the highest level of government.
SHOGREN: And yet, Book says the proposals the president is trumpeting aren't really new. For instance, the lease sale announced today was originally planned by the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union, the president said more offshore leases are on the way in the next five years in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
Environmentalists say the plan is too aggressive. Frances Beinecke, the executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, was on Obama's national commission on the BP spill.
FRANCES BEINECKE: The oil and gas industry is not investing in the safeguards that are required to ensure that spills don't occur.
SHOGREN: The president's new energy push isn't all about oil. He's calling for more homegrown production of natural gas and clean renewable power, too.
Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News.
Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145923396/obama-discusses-details-from-his-energy-agenda?ft=1&f=1007
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![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
Share ] Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University
EAST LANSING, Mich. The Big Three were so driven by short-term profits that they forgot or ignored basic accounting practices that could have helped guard against production decisions with long-term damage, according to an award-winning study by Michigan State University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Essentially, the domestic automakers built far more vehicles than they needed while failing to appropriately account for the costs of excess capacity or the damage the overproduction would have on their reputations.
"I was surprised they were not following fundamental accounting practices like we teach in our introductory accounting classes," said Karen Sedatole, MSU associate professor of accounting. "They were basically fooling themselves into thinking that, by making more cars, the true cost of one car goes down. For the most part, it doesn't."
Sedatole co-authored the study with Ranjani Krishnan, MSU professor of accounting, and Alexander Bruggen, associate professor at Maastricht.
From 2005 to 2006 several years before the auto bailouts the researchers did field interviews with managers from one of the domestic automakers and collected a wealth of production data on the entire North American auto industry.
What they found was a culture of emphasizing short-term gain over long-term brand stability at General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.
By building more cars than the market demanded, domestic automakers could better compete with their foreign counterparts on the hours-per-vehicle metric used in the influential Harbour Report and widely considered an indicator of automotive efficiency. Increasing production also allowed them to keep significant and rising costs of excess capacity off the Income Statement and on the Balance Sheet in the form of inventory. This practice, although acceptable for financial reporting purposes, is contrary to good accounting practices from a management decision-making perspective.
By doing this, the automakers made it appear as though their costs-per-vehicle were lower and their profits higher. Such behaviors are not uncommon for firms facing pressure from stockholders to boost operating profit and pressure from the public to justify large bonuses to executives. Sedatole characterized all these factors coming together as the "perfect storm."
Krishnan said the problem was worsened by high turnover in the management ranks. "The fact is, five years from now a certain manager may not be working here, so he needs to make his production numbers today so his analysts are happy, his investors are happy, his customers are happy and he makes his bonus," Krishnan said.
In the field interviews, many managers indicated they knew the short-term strategy would hurt their company's brand image, or reputation, in the long-term, but could not alter the culture. "It was something they had an intuition about, but it was like a big moving train that no one could stop," Sedatole said.
As a result, the automakers were left with an excess supply of vehicles they had to sell by offering huge incentives to consumers, a costly endeavor that also exacerbated the decline in brand image.
Since the industry crisis of 2008-2010, which led to the bailouts, the automakers have reduced some excess capacity, the researchers said. But as long as the automakers still can exceed market demand for short-term gain, Krishnan believes they will continue to do so.
"The point is, they can stop doing this it's just a question of wanting to stop doing it," Krishnan said.
To the extent that other industries show the same "perfect storm" characteristics excess capacity, internal and external incentives to overproduce, and the willingness to offer customer concessions to absorb the unwanted inventory they could fall into the same trap of harmful overproduction, Sedatole said.
The study, which appears in the journal Contemporary Accounting Research, was recently named the paper with the greatest potential impact on practice by the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 Share ] Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University
EAST LANSING, Mich. The Big Three were so driven by short-term profits that they forgot or ignored basic accounting practices that could have helped guard against production decisions with long-term damage, according to an award-winning study by Michigan State University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Essentially, the domestic automakers built far more vehicles than they needed while failing to appropriately account for the costs of excess capacity or the damage the overproduction would have on their reputations.
"I was surprised they were not following fundamental accounting practices like we teach in our introductory accounting classes," said Karen Sedatole, MSU associate professor of accounting. "They were basically fooling themselves into thinking that, by making more cars, the true cost of one car goes down. For the most part, it doesn't."
Sedatole co-authored the study with Ranjani Krishnan, MSU professor of accounting, and Alexander Bruggen, associate professor at Maastricht.
From 2005 to 2006 several years before the auto bailouts the researchers did field interviews with managers from one of the domestic automakers and collected a wealth of production data on the entire North American auto industry.
What they found was a culture of emphasizing short-term gain over long-term brand stability at General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.
By building more cars than the market demanded, domestic automakers could better compete with their foreign counterparts on the hours-per-vehicle metric used in the influential Harbour Report and widely considered an indicator of automotive efficiency. Increasing production also allowed them to keep significant and rising costs of excess capacity off the Income Statement and on the Balance Sheet in the form of inventory. This practice, although acceptable for financial reporting purposes, is contrary to good accounting practices from a management decision-making perspective.
By doing this, the automakers made it appear as though their costs-per-vehicle were lower and their profits higher. Such behaviors are not uncommon for firms facing pressure from stockholders to boost operating profit and pressure from the public to justify large bonuses to executives. Sedatole characterized all these factors coming together as the "perfect storm."
Krishnan said the problem was worsened by high turnover in the management ranks. "The fact is, five years from now a certain manager may not be working here, so he needs to make his production numbers today so his analysts are happy, his investors are happy, his customers are happy and he makes his bonus," Krishnan said.
In the field interviews, many managers indicated they knew the short-term strategy would hurt their company's brand image, or reputation, in the long-term, but could not alter the culture. "It was something they had an intuition about, but it was like a big moving train that no one could stop," Sedatole said.
As a result, the automakers were left with an excess supply of vehicles they had to sell by offering huge incentives to consumers, a costly endeavor that also exacerbated the decline in brand image.
Since the industry crisis of 2008-2010, which led to the bailouts, the automakers have reduced some excess capacity, the researchers said. But as long as the automakers still can exceed market demand for short-term gain, Krishnan believes they will continue to do so.
"The point is, they can stop doing this it's just a question of wanting to stop doing it," Krishnan said.
To the extent that other industries show the same "perfect storm" characteristics excess capacity, internal and external incentives to overproduce, and the willingness to offer customer concessions to absorb the unwanted inventory they could fall into the same trap of harmful overproduction, Sedatole said.
The study, which appears in the journal Contemporary Accounting Research, was recently named the paper with the greatest potential impact on practice by the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/msu-htb012512.php
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Republican presidential candidates former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gesture during a Republican presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidates former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gesture during a Republican presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, stand on stage before a Republican Presidential debate Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney smiles before a Republican presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gestures during a Republican presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gestures during a Republican Presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich clashed repeatedly in heated, personal terms Monday night in a crackling campaign debate, the former Massachusetts governor tagging his rival as an "influence peddler" in Washington, only to be accused in turn of spreading falsehoods over many years in politics.
"You've been walking around the state saying things that are untrue," Gingrich said to his rival in a two-hour debate marked by interruptions and finger pointing.
The debate marked the first encounter among the four remaining GOP contenders ? former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul shared the stage ? since Gingrich won the South Carolina primary in an upset last weekend, a double-digit victory that reset the race to pick a rival to challenge President Barack Obama this fall.
Romney was the aggressor from the opening moments Monday night, saying Gingrich had "resigned in disgrace" from Congress after four years as speaker and then had spent the next 15 years "working as an influence peddler" in Washington.
In particular, he referred to the contract Gingrich's consulting firm had with Freddie Mac, a government-backed mortgage giant that he said "did a lot of bad for a lot of people and you were working there."
Romney also said Gingrich had lobbied lawmakers to approve legislation creating a new prescription drug benefit under Medicare.
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PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) - Saturday's substantial snowfall may have slowed the Park City shuttle buses that take Sundance audiences from screening to screening, but the film festival kept on keeping on, with two afternoon world premieres that -- like previous Sundance hits "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Kids Are All Right" -- tweak genre conventions while remaining exceedingly audience-friendly.
Frank Langella gives another compelling performance in "Robot and Frank," a movie that often felt like a cross between "Driving Miss Daisy" and the senior-citizens-rob-a-bank comedy "Going in Style," with a science fiction twist.
Set in the near future (you can tell because the adults all have names like "Hunter" and "Madison"), the film sees the elderly Frank (Langella), who's fighting off dementia, being left in the care of a nurse robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) provided to Frank by his estranged son (James Marsden). We come to realize that Frank used to be a cat burglar, and since the robot hasn't been programmed with a moral compass, Frank teaches him how to pick locks and to be the perfect criminal sidekick.
The pensioner's health blossoms now that he has a new project to tackle, but what if he gets caught? What if his hippie-dippie, anti-robot daughter (Liv Tyler) moves back in to take care of him? And what about Frank's romance with the sexy local librarian (Susan Sarandon)?
"Robot and Frank" often winds up being the sum of its gimmick, but this talented cast (assembled by first-time director Jake Schreier) makes the movie loads of fun. Screenwriter Christopher D. Ford, also making his debut, even tosses in a few surprising third-act twists, and when's the last time you didn't see one of those coming?
The dialogue of teen rom-com "The First Time" winds up being one of the film's big flaws, but the cast and storytelling is so charming that you forgive the fact that almost all of the characters talk like screenwriters. (In this case, Jonathan Kasdan, who also directed.)
Kasdan's TV credits include "Dawson's Creek" and "Freaks and Geeks," but you'd never guess it from the quippy, artificial banter that takes up so much of this often delightful story about two high-schoolers who meet, fall hard and have sex over the course of one weekend. The sex part, of course, winds up complicating matters more than they ever could have expected, and the two have to figure out if they have a future together after that first awkward naked encounter.
It's hard not to be won over by "The First Time," though, since TV vets Britt Robertson ("The Secret Circle") and Dylan O'Brien ("Teen Wolf") are so utterly charming. Robertson, in particular, brings a brainy-pixie vibe that reminded me of the late, great Adrienne Shelley in those early Hal Hartley movies.
As for O'Brien, he's certainly charismatic, but he's tough to buy as the nerdy sensitive guy (who another character actually calls "average-looking") when he could clearly be an underwear model.
Nonetheless, the two actors click as slightly eccentric adolescents who feel like real people, even if they don't always talk like them.
Still, even if Kasdan bobbles the dialogue, he gets a lot of high school life just right, from messy keggers to Saturday night at the multiplex to the difference between calling a girl on her cell and calling her parents' number. Teenagers are probably likely to be way more forgiving of the beyond-their-years sophistication of the witty chat, and they might even make "The First Time" a hit.
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Mark Wahlberg is continuing to walk back his recent comments about September 11, saying he made a mistake but attempting to put it in some context.
In the latest issue of Men’s Journal, the actor said that he would have handled things differently had he been on one of the planes downed by terrorists.
Wahlberg's 9/11 comments were widely criticized and he quickly apologized. Speaking to Kidd Kraddick in the Morning on Friday, he explained it as such:
“I would never disrespect the victims of 9/11 or their families. It was misunderstood. My only intention was to explain that I would do anything to protect my family – I would put myself in harms way to protect my family or innocent people."
"That was it. First and foremost, I am not speaking as an actor."
"I am a real guy from the streets and I’ve been in a lot of situations, so I was very out of line and I wasn’t thinking about the real heroes and the guys, women, children, fathers, sons, daughters who were on those flights.”
This came up because Wahlberg was initially booked on one of the flights hijacked out of Boston on 9/11/01, before serendipitously moving his flight.
"If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did," he told the magazine. "There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry.'"
His comments greatly offended some victims of 9/11.
"People are much more vigilant now than they were on 9/11," Mary Shetchet, a spokesperson for the support group Voices Of 9/11, explained.
"10 years later it easy to say you would have responded differently.”
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/mark-wahlberg-just-a-guy-from-the-streets/
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? The Transportation Security Administration said its agents violated procedures by inspecting an elderly woman's colostomy bag screening another's back brace but denied claims the women were strip searched.
The women, Ruth Sherman, 88, of Sunrise, Florida, and Lenore Zimmerman, 85, of Long Beach, New York, complained they were strip searched by agents at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport during the busy Thanksgiving travel holiday.
New York state Senator Michael Gianaris wrote to the TSA on their behalf, urging an investigation.
In response, TSA Assistant Secretary Betsy Markey wrote to Gianaris and said an investigation showed TSA employees had put a back brace worn by Zimmerman through an X-ray machine.
"It is not standard procedure for TSOs to screen back braces through the X-ray, and TSA apologizes for this employee's action," said the letter, which Gianaris shared with Reuters on Wednesday.
TSA agents visually inspected a colostomy bag worn by Zimmerman, the letter said, which also is not standard operating procedure.
At no point was either passenger asked to remove any clothing, the TSA said.
"TSA sincerely regrets any discomfort or inconveniences the passengers at JFK experienced," the letter said.
Agents at JFK would receive refresher training "on how to respectfully and safely screen passengers with disabilities or medical conditions to ensure all proper procedures are followed," Markey said in the letter.
(Reporting By Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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CHICAGO (Reuters) ? A new study helps explain why up to a third of advanced melanoma patients who take Roche Holding's pill Zelboraf develop a less deadly form of skin cancer known as cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and points to a potential fix.
Researchers said combining drugs like Zelboraf, which block a mutation known as BRAF, with a second melanoma drug that blocks a different mutation known as MEK helped to solve this problem in lab mice.
GlaxoSmithKline has already shown early promise in a trial combining drugs that block both MEK and BRAF, and the study shows why this duo may be more effective and have fewer side effects than drugs that target either mutation separately.
Both MEK and BRAF are mutations in the same pathway and are used by the cancer to drive tumor growth.
"The combination of BRAF and the MEK inhibitors gives you a better response, and also prevents the emergence of these secondary tumors," said Professor Richard Marais of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, whose study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
About 50 percent of patients who get melanoma have the BRAF mutation and can be treated with Zelboraf, known generically as vemurafenib. But doctors noticed that many of these patients developed another type of skin cancer called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, which had to be removed surgically.
To understand why, the team -- which included researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, Roche and Daiichi Sankyo's Plexxikon -- studied squamous cell cancer tissue from 21 malignant melanoma patients who had been treated with vemurafenib in a clinical trial.
They found about 60 percent also had RAS mutations, likely caused by sun exposure, that could predispose them to squamous cell cancer. And unlike melanoma cells, when these mutated cells became exposed to a BRAF inhibitor, they tend to grow.
"It's not that these drugs (BRAF inhibitors) are tumor promoters. What they do is accelerate growth of preexisting but asymptomatic tumors in the skin of patients who are susceptible to that disease," he said.
Treatment with a MEK inhibitor blocks this side effect, Marais said.
Tests in lab mice found that those with both types of skin cancers who were treated with a combination of a BRAF and MEK drug had fewer lesions.
And there are hints that process may work in people.
In June, GSK presented the first data from its combination BRAF and MEK inhibitors at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.
"One of the things they found is the patients had fewer skin lesions. It actually works in people," Marias said.
He said the findings may spur more companies to combine their BRAF and MEK inhibitors.
"Not only will it give you the best response but it won't give you the secondary events," he said.
Melanoma globally afflicts nearly 160,000 new people each year. It can spread quickly to internal organs and average survival is six to nine months.
Zelboraf was developed in partnership with Daiichi Sankyo and is the second drug to be approved for melanoma in recent months. Prior to 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved a new melanoma drug in 13 years.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/zAkxlQ New England Journal of Medicine, online January 19, 2012.
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If the Yankees truly are thinking about Johnny Damon ? or Carlos Pena or anyone else ? to be their DH then they?re going to have to get him on the cheap. ?That?s because Jon Heyman reports that?the Yankees only have $1-$2 million to spend on a DH.
Well, they have more, but that?s what they?re willing to spend. Because they have a budget now.
I dunno. Andruw Jones against lefties, rotate A-Rod, Jeter, Teixeira or whoever else needs a rest against righties. That?ll work, right? Do they really need an old dude to come in and be a mostly full time DH? ?Pena would be nice, sure, but I just sorta feel like they can get by without such a beast.
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BANGKOK ? Asian stock markets rose Wednesday as expectations that China will loosen its monetary policy to boost growth overcame nervousness sparked by mixed earnings reports from big U.S. banks.
Benchmark oil rose above $101 per barrel while the dollar fell against the euro and the yen.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 1.4 percent to 8,579.80. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.3 percent to 19,685.87. South Korea's Kospi was down 0.2 percent at 1,888.88 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.2 percent at 4,223.60.
Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia rose while mainland China and Taiwan fell.
Investors cheered news out of China on Tuesday when the government said its economy slowed less dramatically in the fourth quarter than feared ? but still enough of a slowdown to persuade investors that Beijing will pursue a pro-growth monetary policy, analysts said.
"People have been buying stocks in anticipation of a relaxation in monetary policy by the Chinese government," said Derek Cheung, chief investment officer at Neutron INV Partners Ltd. in Hong Kong. "The market expects this around Chinese New Year. If China doesn't loosen around the new year, the market may come under pressure." The holiday begins Jan. 23.
China is one of the biggest importers and slower growth could have global repercussions if it cuts demand for iron ore, industrial components and other goods from Australia, Brazil, Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
It would also mean less demand for U.S. and European capital goods for Chinese factories and construction sites, and smaller profits for U.S. and European companies that do business here. The luxury goods industry would also feel a significant pinch, since China is just about the only growth market for those.
Commodities shares jumped on the growth data out of China. Australian miners Fortescue Metals Group jumped 5 percent and Rio Tinto Ltd. added 1.5 percent after both companies reported target-beating production figures Tuesday.
But some financial shares came under pressure on weak quarterly earnings from some U.S. banks, including Citigroup Inc., which said its fourth-quarter income fell 11 percent due in part to lower investment banking income and an accounting charge.
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group fell 1.1 percent and Hong Kong-listed Agricultural Bank of China also lost 1.1 percent.
South Korean high-tech shares also slumped. Samsung Electronics Co., the top global manufacturer of flat screen televisions, memory chips and liquid crystal displays, fell 0.9 percent. LG Electronics shed 1.8 percent, and Hynix Semiconductor was 1.2 percent lower.
European shares ended mostly higher Tuesday on the heels of short-term debt auctions by Spain, Greece and Europe's bailout fund that drew strong investor demand, despite recent credit rating downgrades by Standard & Poor's.
Many had feared the downgrades would prevent them from obtaining funds and worsen a sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to close at 12,482.07. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 0.4 percent to 1,293.67. The Nasdaq composite index added 0.6 percent to 2,728.08.
Benchmark crude for February delivery was up 66 cents to $101.37 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract finished at $100.71 per barrel in New York on Tuesday.
In currency trading, the euro rose to $1.2779 from $1.2722 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar fell to 76.65 yen from 76.82 yen.
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BLYTHEWOOD, S.C. ? Mitt Romney has ex-POW John McCain vouching for him. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum highlights his time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich frequently calls himself an "Army brat" who grew up on military bases.
While Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are the only GOP candidates to have worn a military uniform, all of the Republican presidential contenders are emphasizing their military ties these days in a state that's home to 413,000 veterans and eight military bases, with thousands of people on active duty.
"My purpose in life was to never be the president of the United States," Perry says as he campaigns ahead of South Carolina's primary Saturday. "My purpose has always been to serve my country and my state whenever they need or they call. That's our duty as Americans."
Perry's days as an Air Force pilot in the 1970s and his father's B-17 tail-gunner missions in World War II are staples of his South Carolina message as he looks to right his struggling campaign.
Paul, a flight surgeon in the 1960s who made his name as an antiwar congressman, is filling mailboxes with five-page letters that include a picture of him as a young draftee in a full-brimmed Air Force hat. "Let me begin by telling you that the troops know first and foremost that I am one of them," he writes.
There's a reason for the intensive courting: As long as South Carolina has been instrumental in deciding GOP nominees, the state's voters have rewarded candidates with military service. Every GOP primary winner since Ronald Reagan in 1980 has been a veteran.
This year may end that streak. Polls show Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, leading the pack. With the economy pushing U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts to the back of voters' concerns, some in South Carolina argue that GOP voters aren't pining for the biggest hawk this time.
"Financially, people are in dire straits right now," said state Sen. Lee Bright, a backer of Michele Bachmann before she left the race. "They realize that the more money we spend overseas the less money they are going to spend at home."
Nonetheless, most of the candidates have spent considerable time along the South Carolina coastline, wooing active-duty military members and veterans ? many of whom lean toward the GOP ? clustered around the bases near Charleston that for many years fueled the state's economy.
Perry, for one, has struck an aggressive posture lately, pledging that as president he would send troops back to Iraq to prevent Iran from exerting too much muscle in the region. On one upstate swing, he solemnly inspected a memorial garden and read markers to five Medal of Honor winners. He was accompanied by a former Marine captain with burn scars over half his body from the explosive device that hit his vehicle in Iraq and killed some of his comrades.
That veteran, Dan Moran, delivered a full-throated endorsement of Perry before a rapt audience. "For what it's worth, coming from somebody who had the honor and privilege of being able to spill some blood for his country, this is the man and this is the time," Moran said. "This country needs him."
Perry also has tried the personal touch, at one point pulling up a chair at voter Linwood Mizell's table to share more with the Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient.
Despite the special attention, Mizell held back. "I really haven't totally made up my mind," he said.
Romney, for his part, has campaigned with McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee and Vietnam veteran, and seems to talk up the military everywhere he goes in the state.
"This is a proud military state," Romney said Saturday in Sumter. A day earlier, Romney was on Hilton Head Island for a veterans' event attended by hundreds.
Meanwhile, Santorum has traveled the state arguing that Democratic President Barack Obama is determined to shrink the Pentagon. The Republican insists the cuts will hurt national security and he often seeks out spouses and parents of military members to hear their concerns.
"I will not cut defense," Santorum pledged recently in Charleston. "I will not reduce the budget deficit by cutting the central role of the federal government. In fact, I will allow the Defense Department to grow to make sure that we are not cutting the benefits and the pay of our men and women in uniform."
___
Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Jim Davenport and Julie Pace contributed to this report.
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Associated Press President Tom Curley, right, shakes hands with Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho after signing an agreement to open a new AP office in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. The AP opened its newest bureau in North Korea, making it the first international news organization with a full time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures, and video. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Associated Press President Tom Curley, right, shakes hands with Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho after signing an agreement to open a new AP office in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. The AP opened its newest bureau in North Korea, making it the first international news organization with a full time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures, and video. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Associated Press President Tom Curley, left, gestures to the Associated Press Pyongyang bureau sign which he had just hung on to the office door to open a new AP office in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. On the right is Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho. The AP opened its newest bureau in North Korea, making it the first international news organization with a full time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures, and video. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? The Associated Press opened its newest bureau here Monday, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures and video.
In a ceremony that came less than a month after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il and capped nearly a year of discussions, AP President and CEO Tom Curley and a delegation of top AP editors inaugurated the office, situated inside the headquarters of the state-run Korean Central News Agency in downtown Pyongyang.
The bureau expands the AP's presence in North Korea, building on the breakthrough in 2006 when AP opened a video bureau in Pyongyang for the first time by an international news organization. Exclusive video from AP video staffers in Pyongyang was used by media outlets around the world following Kim's death.
Now, AP writers and photojournalists will also be allowed to work in North Korea on a regular basis.
For North Korea, which for decades has remained largely off-limits to international journalists, the opening marked an important gesture, particularly because North Korea and the United States have never had formal diplomatic relations. The AP, an independent 165-year-old news cooperative founded in New York and owned by its U.S. newspaper membership, has operations in more than 100 countries and employs nearly 2,500 journalists across the world in 300 locations.
The bureau puts AP in a position to document the people, places and politics of North Korea across all media platforms at a critical moment in its history, with Kim's death and the ascension of his young son as the country's new leader, Curley said in remarks prepared for the opening.
"Beyond this door lies a path to vastly larger understanding and cultural enrichment for millions around the world," Curley said. "Regardless of whether you were born in Pyongyang or Pennsylvania, you are aware of the bridge being created today."
Curley said the Pyongyang bureau will operate under the same standards and practices as AP bureaus worldwide.
"Everyone at The Associated Press takes his or her responsibilities of a free and fair press with utmost seriousness," he said. "We pledge to do our best to reflect accurately the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as well as what they do and say."
KCNA President Kim Pyong Ho called the occasion "a significant meeting."
"I believe that the reason we are able to conduct all these projects in less than a year is that President and CEO Thomas Curley and the other members of the AP have promised to report on the DPRK with fairness, balance and accuracy, and have tried to follow through in collaboration with KCNA," he said in remarks prepared to mark the occasion.
"Even though our two countries do not have normalized relations, we have been able to find a way to understand one another and to cooperate closely enough to open an AP bureau here in Pyongyang as we have today," Kim said.
The North Korean capital, dappled in snow, remains in an outwardly subdued mood two weeks after the official mourning period concluded for Kim Jong Il, who died of a heart attack last month. His son, Kim Jong Un, has since become the third generation of his family to lead North Korea, following his father and grandfather, the nation's founder.
Kim's death came amid increased diplomatic activity surrounding the Korean peninsula, including recent bilateral meetings between North Korea and South Korea, and between North Korea and the United States. While his death put all that on hold, there are hints that North Korea remains willing to engage on a deal to restart six-party talks addressing the country's nuclear program.
The AP bureau will be staffed by reporter Pak Won Il and photographer Kim Kwang Hyon, both natives of North Korea who have done some reporting for AP in recent weeks on Kim's funeral and the mass public mourning on the streets of Pyongyang.
The bureau will be supervised by Korea Bureau Chief Jean H. Lee and Chief Asia Photographer David Guttenfelder, who will make frequent trips to Pyongyang to manage the office, train the local journalists and conduct their own reporting. Lee and Guttenfelder, both Americans, are longtime AP journalists with broad international experience.
As with other Asian news stories produced by AP, news from North Korea will be sent initially to AP's Asia-Pacific regional editing desk in Bangkok, where AP editors review and edit the stories for distribution to AP member newspapers and customers. Similarly, photos from North Korea will be edited at the Asia-Pacific photo editing desk, located in Tokyo.
Over the past two years, AP has been in contact with North Korean officials about how to set up broader access for AP print and photo journalists to Pyongyang. This led Lee and Guttenfelder to make several extensive reporting trips to North Korea. A team of AP photojournalists conducted a three-day workshop for KCNA photographers in Pyongyang in October.
KCNA hosted Curley and other AP executives in Pyongyang in March, and a five-member KCNA delegation, led by Kim, attended talks at the AP's world headquarters in New York City in June.
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GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? Rescue workers searching the half-submerged hulk of an Italian cruise ship for missing passengers and crew recovered a sixth body on Monday, more than 48 hours after the vessel capsized off Italy's west coast.
The captain of the 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia, arrested on Saturday, was accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all of the more than 4,200 people on board had been evacuated.
Francesco Schettino's employers, Costa Crociere, said he appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" and had brought the ship too close to shore where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.
The disaster occurred as passengers were sitting down to dinner on Friday night, triggering scenes of panic with passengers jostling to get on lifeboats and some leaping into the icy sea.
Divers combing the vessel for 16 people unaccounted for said conditions had deteriorated since the weekend. "The sea is much rougher today, it's much more difficult to work," one said.
Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a member of the ship's crew, were rescued on Sunday and police divers also recovered the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing emergency life jackets. The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found on Saturday.
A sixth body, that of an adult male passenger, was found just before dawn on Monday, officials said.
Passengers say there were unexplained delays in organizing the evacuation of those on board and this had resulted in chaos. More than 60 people were injured.
The vast hulk of the 290-metre-long ship, lying on its side, loomed over the little port of Giglio, an island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast.
A large gash could be seen in its hull but salvage experts said its fuel tanks did not appear to have been damaged, lessening the danger of an oil spill in the pristine waters.
Giuseppe Linardi, prefect of the city of Grosseto, told reporters the number of those unaccounted for stood at 16 but that could change slightly as passenger lists were rechecked.
Paolo Tronca, a fire department official, said the search would go on "for 24 hours a day as long as we have to."
"SERIOUS HUMAN ERROR"
Investigators were working through evidence from the equivalent of the "black boxes" carried on aircraft to try to establish the precise sequence of events behind the disaster, which occurred in calm seas and clear weather.
Carnival Corp, the owner of the ship, said it estimated the impact on its 2012 earnings for loss of use alone to be around $90 million and that the vessel could be out for most of the rest of the year or longer.
Defence Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, a naval admiral, said the disaster did not appear to have been caused by natural or technical factors.
"In my estimation there was a serious human error, which had dramatic and tragic consequences," he told RAI state television.
Operators Costa Crociere said Schettino appeared to have failed to follow standard emergency procedures.
"The route followed by the ship was too close to the coast and it seems that his decisions on the management of the emergency did not follow the procedures of Costa Crociere," said the company.
Prosecutors accused Schettino, who has worked for Costa Crociere since 2002 and who was promoted to captain in 2006, of leaving the ship before the evacuation was complete.
Coastguard officials said he had refused to return to the vessel when asked to.
Schettino has told Italian television the ship hit rocks that were not marked on maps and were not detected by navigation systems. He said the accident occurred some 300 meters from shore.
Costa Crociere expressed "deep sorrow" for the disaster. It said all crew had been properly trained in safety procedures and that the ship was fully equipped with life jackets, medical supplies and other safety equipment.
(Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie, additional reporting by Philip Pullella, Silvia Ognibene and Kate Hudson; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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Continue reading ITC preliminary ruling says Motorola's Droid series doesn't violate Apple patents
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ? The parents of Natalee Holloway, the American teenager who disappeared in Aruba in 2005, say their ordeal hasn't ended with a judge declaring their daughter dead. Their lawyers say they hope a young Dutchman seen leaving a bar with Holloway on the last day she was seen alive might ultimately be brought before a U.S. court on charges stemming from the case.
Joran van der Sloot, 24, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Peru to the 2010 slaying of a young woman he had met in a Lima casino. That plea from the Dutchman described as the prime suspect in the Holloway case came hours before Thursday's hearing in a Birmingham court where Dave and Beth Holloway watched the difficult step of a judge ruling their daughter legally dead.
"We've been dealing with her death for the last six and a half years," Dave Holloway said after Thursday's hearing. He said the judge's order closes one chapter in the ordeal, but added: "We've still got a long way to go to get justice."
Thursday's hearing was scheduled before van der Sloot ? who had been questioned in Holloway's disappearance ? pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a 21-year-old Peruvian, Stephany Flores. Flores was slain five years to the day after Holloway, an 18-year-old from the wealthy Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, disappeared.
Dave Holloway said he hopes van der Sloot, who awaits sentencing, gets a 30-year prison term sought by Peruvian prosecutors. Shortly after Flores' death on May 30, 2010, van der Sloot told police he had killed the woman in Peru in a fit of rage after she discovered on his laptop his connection to Holloway's disappearance. Police forensic experts disputed the claim.
"Everybody knows his personality. I believe he is beyond rehabilitation," Dave Holloway said.
Attorneys said both parents spoke of hopes that van der Sloot's next stop will be Birmingham, where he faces federal charges accusing him of extorting $25,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughter's body. Prosecutors said the money was paid, but nothing was disclosed about the missing woman's whereabouts.
Authorities said they believe the tall, garrulous Dutchman used the money to travel to Peru on May 14, 2010, where Flores was killed two weeks later. Van der Sloot is now jailed in Peru.
"I expect to see him in Birmingham," Dave Holloway said of van der Sloot on Thursday, shortly after Probate Judge Alan King declared his daughter dead.
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a high school graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island where van der Sloot grew up. Her body was never found and repeated searches turned up nothing as intense media coverage brought the case worldwide attention.
Investigators have long worked from the assumption that the young woman was dead in Aruba, where the case was classified as a homicide investigation. That investigation remains open, though there has been no recent activity, said Solicitor General Taco Stein, an official with the prosecutor's office in Aruba.
"The team that was acting in that investigation still is functioning as a team and they get together whenever there is information or things are needed in the case or a new tip arrives," Stein said in a phone interview Thursday.
In Birmingham, Natalee Holloway's parents, who have been divorced since 1993, shook hands and talked briefly before Thursday's hearing. During the 10-minute proceeding, they looked on somberly.
Dave Holloway told the judge in September he believed his daughter was dead and wanted to stop payments on her medical insurance and use her $2,000 college fund to help her younger brother. Beth Holloway initially objected, but her lawyer, Charlie DeBardeleben, said she later changed her mind once she understood her husband's intentions.
Beth Holloway sat in the back row in court, staring at her hands as she held them in her lap most of the time. Her attorney said it was difficult for her to witness the judge signing the death declaration.
"She's ready to move on from this," DeBardeleben added.
Mark White, an attorney for Dave Holloway, told the judge before he ruled that there was no indication Holloway was alive ? despite exhaustive searches, reward offers and blanket media coverage at times.
"Despite all that no evidence has been found Natalee Holloway is alive," he told the judge.
King had ruled in September that Dave Holloway had met the legal presumption of death for his daughter and it was up to someone to prove she didn't die on the trip. Thursday's hearing was held after a wait of several months but no one came forward with new information.
Attorneys said they are unaware of any plans for a memorial service.
___
Online:
AP interactive: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/natalee-holloway
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MOSCOW (Reuters) ? A Russian villager discovered a stockpile of Kalashnikov assault rifles hidden in the wooden crates he bought for $15 from a stranger to use as fuel for his winter stove.
A total of 79 guns and 253 cartridges were stuffed in more than 60 wooden boxes bought by a resident of the village of Sovkhozny in Udmurtia, a region some 1,300 km South-East of Moscow, Interfax news agency reported on Friday.
The 57-year old local resident said he bought them from a random truck driver for 500 roubles ($15.81) to heat his home.
The fully functional rifles, produced in 1959-1960, were on their way to a recycling plant from Izhmash, one of the country's oldest arms manufacturing plants, the company said, when they wound up in the man's possession.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, appointed last December by President Dmitry Medvedev to oversee the country's defense industry, said he will launch a probe into the mysterious appearance of automatic rifles.
"Wow! I will hold a meeting with Izhmash about its firearms next week and we will deal with this miracle," he wrote on his Facebook page www.facebook.com/dmitry.rogozin.
A deadly mixture of corner cutting and negligence continues to plague Russia's defense industry 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, with Russia still the world's second-largest arms exporter.
"I imagine how scared the West is of our nuclear arms," a Facebook user Oleg Zabara wrote in a comment on Rogozin's post. "Not because they exist, but because they could accidentally fall on them (by mistake), just like those rifles got to that old man."
It was not immediately clear if the driver was aware that he was carrying firearms in the boxes he rushed to cash in on, but investigators said a probe will look into the incident.
($1 = 31.6182 Russian roubles)
(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk, editing by Paul Casciato)
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Jan 9 2012
Arsene Wenger insists Arsenal have not just stood still in the six years they have not won a trophy.
The Gunners host Leeds in the third round of the FA Cup on Monday looking to bring an end to a barren run which now stretches back to when Patrick Vieira lifted the 2005 FA Cup after a penalty shoot-out win over Manchester United in Cardiff.
Arsenal may not have delivered any silverware since their 2006 move to the Emirates Stadium, but Wenger believes people should look at the bigger picture, and said: "You want your fans to be proud of trophies, but also to consider the achievement."
He added: "Everybody is entitled to view it differently, but you can't compare winning the Carling Cup to every year coming out of the group stage and every year qualifying for the Champions League.
"If we had been out of top European quality for 10 years and win one or two cups it would be different, but I do not try to defend the fact that we did not win [trophies].
"It has always looked like 'ah, you have not won a trophy so you have been nowhere for five years' - but in the same five years we have been in the semi-finals of the Champions League and final of the Champions League.
"One day you will realise that it is not as easy as it looks - and this year we are again one of the two [English] teams who qualified [for the last 16]."
Wenger revealed he has never been one to place much sentimental value on silverware, adding: "I don't know where I have my medals or where the 'Invincibles' medal is, because it is more important what is in front of you..
"I look forward for the next game, for the next win. That is the life of a top-level player. A top-level player wants to play at the top. He wants to win medals, yes, but there is a difference between playing in the Champions League and playing at a lower level."
Wenger added: "It is very important for us to win against Leeds on Monday night, but the basis of our life at the top level is dictated by the championship. If we can add on top of that the FA Cup, it is fantastic."
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