FDA clears first new weight-loss pill in 13 years

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

This photo provided by Food and Drug Administration shows Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade. The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol. (AP Photo/Food and Drug Administration)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Food and Drug Administration has approved Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade.

Despite only achieving modest weight loss in clinical studies, the drug appeared safe enough to win the FDA's endorsement, amid calls from doctors for new weight-loss treatments.

The agency cleared the pill Wednesday for adults who are obese or are overweight with at least one medical complication, such as diabetes or high cholesterol.

The FDA denied approval for Arena's drug in 2010 after scientists raised concerns about tumors that developed in animals studied with the drug. The company resubmitted the drug with additional data earlier this year, and the FDA said there was little risk of tumors in humans.

"The approval of this drug, used responsibly in combination with a healthy diet and lifestyle, provides a treatment option for Americans who are obese or are overweight and have at least one weight-related comorbid condition," said FDA's drug center director, Dr. Janet Woodcock, in a statement.

Arena and its partner Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., expect to launch the drug in early 2013.

With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent of the adult population, many doctors have called on the FDA to approve new weight loss treatments.

But a long line of prescription weight loss offerings have been associated with safety problems, most notably the fen-phen combination, which was linked to heart valve damage in 1997. The cocktail of phentermine and fenfluramine was a popular weight loss combination prescribed by doctors, though it was never approved by FDA.

In a rare move, the FDA explicitly stated in a press release that Belviq "does not appear to activate" a chemical pathway that was linked to the heart problems seen with fen-phen.

The FDA said the drug acts on a different chemical pathway in the brain, which is believed to reduce appetite by boosting feelings of satiety and fullness.

Obesity Society President Patrick O'Neil said he's encouraged by the drug's approval because it underscores the idea that lifestyle changes alone are not enough to treat obesity.

"This is good news because it tells us that the FDA is indeed treating obesity seriously. On the other hand, it's not the answer to the problem ? or even a big part of the answer," said O'Neil, who teaches at Medical University of South Carolina and was the lead researcher on several studies of Belviq.

Even if the effects of Belviq are subtle, experts say it could be an important first step in a new line of treatments that attack the underlying causes of obesity.

"The way these things tend to work is you have some people who do extremely well and other people don't lose any weight at all. But if we had 10 medicines that were all different and worked like this, we would have a real field," said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the weight loss program at Weill-Cornell Medical College.

Belviq is one of three experimental weight-loss drugs whose developers have been trying for a second time to win approval, after the FDA shot them all down in 2010 or early 2011 because of serious potential side effects.

Vivus Inc.'s Qnexa is thought to be the most promising of the drugs, achieving the most weight loss. But the FDA has delayed a decision on that pill until July.

Shares of San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped $2.54, or 28.7 percent, to close at $11.39. Shares of Mountain View, Calif.-based Vivus rose $1.94, or 7.4 percent, to $28.33.

Arena's studies showed that patients taking Belviq, known generically as lorcaserin, had modest weight loss. On average patients lost just 3 to 3.7 percent of their starting body weight over a year. About 47 percent of patients without diabetes lost at least 5 percent of their weight or more, which was enough to meet FDA standards for effectiveness. By comparison, average weight loss with Qnexa is 11 percent, with more than 83 percent of patients losing 5 percent of their weight or more.

The FDA said patients should stop taking Belviq after three months if they fail to lose 5 percent of their body weight. Patients are unlikely to see any significant weight loss by staying with the drug.

Side effects with the drug include depression, migraine and memory lapses.

In May a panel of expert advisers to the FDA voted 18-4 to recommend approval of Arena's drug, concluding that its benefits "outweigh the potential risks when used long term" in overweight and obese people.

Experts say the challenge of weight loss drug development lies in safely turning off one of the body's fundamental directives: to eat enough food to maintain its current weight.

While several drugs are available for short-term weight loss, until Wednesday there was only one FDA-approved prescription drug for long-term weight loss: Xenical from Roche, which is seldom prescribed because of unpleasant digestive side effects and modest weight loss. Belviq is the first new prescription drug approved to treat obesity since Xenical's approval 13 years ago.

Other safety failures for diet pills have continued to pile up in recent years.

Four years ago Sanofi-Aventis SA discontinued studies of its highly anticipated pill Acomplia due to psychiatric side effects, including depression and suicidal thoughts. In 2010, Abbott Laboratories withdrew its drug Meridia after a study showed it increased heart attack and stroke.

Associated Press

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Ephron blazed trail in male-dominated industry

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How the Brain Views Race

Liz Phelps was one of the first researchers to tackle how the brain responds to people of different racial groups. Image: NYU

In this groundbreaking adventure into the worlds of psychopaths, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton argues that there is a fine line between a brilliant...

Read More??

From Nature magazine

How the brain responds to and processes images of people from different racial groups is an emerging field of investigation that could have major implications for society. Psychologist Elizabeth Phelps of New York University, in New York, who in 2000 led one of the first studies in this area, tells Nature what her latest review of the field reveals about the neuroscience of race.

What does psychology tell us about race?
Social psychologists differentiate between the attitudes that people express and their implicit preferences. This can be studied using the implicit association task, which measures initial, evaluative responses. It involves asking people to pair concepts such as black and white with concepts like good and bad. What you find is that most white Americans take longer to make a response that pairs black with good and white with bad than vice versa. This reveals their implicit preferences.

What did your review of the neuroscience literature show?
My colleagues and I found that there?s a network of brain regions that is consistently activated in neuroimaging studies of race processing. This network overlaps with the circuits involved in decision-making and emotion regulation, and includes the amygdala, fusiform face area (FFA), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).

What did your previous work show?
Our 2000 study was the first to link race preference to brain activity. We measured the eye-blink startle, a reflex response that people display when they hear a loud noise, for example. A lot of studies have shown that this reflex is potentiated [enhanced] when people are anxious or in the presence of something they think is negative. We found that implicit preferences were correlated with potentiated startle, and that both were correlated with the amount of amygdala activation.

How does the neuroscience fit with the psychological model?
Activity in the FFA isn?t surprising, because all of these studies use photos of faces. The amygdala is involved in emotions, and might be linked to the automatic evaluations we make when we see people from other racial groups. We think that the ACC and DLPFC are involved in more complex functions. People tend to show unintentional indications of race bias, even when they are motivated to be non-prejudiced, so the ACC may be involved in detecting these conflicts. You can have an implicit bias and choose not to act on it, and the DLPFC may be trying to regulate the emotional responses that conflict with our egalitarian goals and beliefs.

What about people who are overtly prejudiced?
Finding differences in people with extreme views wouldn?t be too surprising, but I?m not sure we?d see anything more than an exaggerated [emotional] response. We?re more interested in ?normal? people. Those who are more internally motivated to be non-prejudiced show greater ACC activity, whereas those who hold extreme views obviously have explicit, intentional race bias and don?t care about controlling their emotional responses.

What are the societal implications of this research?
Most white Americans we studied show an implicit preference for their own group. They don?t have bad intentions, but because they?ve associated black people with, say, criminality so many times, their decisions are infused with that association, whether or not they believe it?s accurate. There?s evidence of unintentional race bias at every stage of the legal process. Despite the fact that it aims to be egalitarian, sentencing is vastly different for African Americans. The bias is also there in employment.

How should this research progress?
We need to investigate how our implicit preferences are linked to the choices and decisions we make. We want to use this knowledge to reduce the unintended consequences of race bias ? the things we do that aren?t consistent with our beliefs. One problem is the lack of funding for this type of work. It?s very hard to fund this kind of research because it?s not really relevant to health. One way to go would be to apply the sophisticated tools of neuroeconomics to investigate how unintentional bias affects our decision making. The research could also be linked to emerging work on controlling emotions.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on June 26, 2012.

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Higgs boson buzz goes through ups and downs

CERN / CMS Collaboration

A computer graphic shows a typical Higgs boson candidate event, including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red towers) is measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid's electromagnetic calorimeter. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision. The pale blue volume represents the CMS' crystal calorimeter barrel.

By Alan Boyle

A week ago, sources started passing the word that physicists were "fired up" about further evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson, the last undiscovered particle predicted by the Standard Model and the main quarry for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider.

That blaze of buzz reached a high point this week, when Columbia mathematician Peter Woit reported "reliable rumors"?that the confidence level for a detection of the Higgs' signature in the mass range of around 125 billion electron-volts, or 125 GeV, was increasing.

"CERN will soon have to decide how to spin this: will they announce discovery of the Higgs, or will they wait for some overwhelmingly convincing standard to be met, such as 5 sigma in at least one channel of one experiment?" Woit wrote.

---

"Sigma" refers to the statistical confidence that a given result is more than a fluke, with 5 sigma serving as the gold standard for a discovery. If you're a Higgs-watcher, you'll be hearing a lot about sigma in the next couple of weeks, leading up to the International Conference on High-Energy Physics, or ICHEP, in Australia from July 4 to 11. That's when the LHC's teams are due to provide a status report on the search for the Higgs.?

The Higgs hunt is hot because physicists have hypothesized about the boson for 40 years as part of the mechanism by which some particles acquire mass while others don't. The Higgs is so fundamental to the frontier of physics that Fermilab's Leon Lederman once called it the "God Particle"?? a term that most other physicists positively hate.?Finding it in the mass range where it's expected to be would serve as solid confirmation for the Standard Model, one of the most successful theories in the history of science. Not finding it would be more interesting: Physicists would have to consider some other mechanism, outside the Standard Model, to explain particle mass. And there's nothing theorists love more than a challenge like that.

In December, the teams behind the ATLAS and CMS detectors reported "tantalizing hints" of a Higgs detection at 125 GeV, with confidence levels of 3.6 sigma for ATLAS and 2.6 sigma for CMS. If the additional observations made since then show the same sorts of hints, those sigma levels should go up?? and that's been the gist of the buzz over the last week or so. For science geeks, that's a big deal, or at least a big meme: so big that the hashtag #HiggsRumors was for a time on top of Twitter's trending list, Discovery News' Jennifer Ouelette noted.

A lot of that trending took place because of the in-jokes spawned by the original buzz ??which has now fallen to a steady hum, thanks to a string of reality checks.

"Please do not believe the blogs," ATLAS spokeswoman Fabiola Gianotti told The New York Times. "I am very surprised that rumors appear on a subject that is really evolving daily," CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli told Science News. "The experimenters can't possibly have their data in presentable form yet, so the rumors can't be correct in every detail," Rutgers theoretical physicist Matt Strassler observed on his blog.

Union College physicist Chad Orzel, the author of "How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog," said the celebrity-level hype was?"the price of success":

"I mean, it?s not an accident that there?s a lot of excitement about the maybe-sorta-kinda discovery of the Higgs. This is the product of years of relentless hype from the particle physics community. They've been talking about this goddamn particle for longer than I've been running this blog, and it's finally percolated out into the general public consciousness enough that buzz about it can trend on Twitter. Complaining that your persistent effort to get people to care about particle physics esoterica has led to people being excited about particle physics esoterica seems more than a little churlish.

"So, lighten up. Revel in the success of your hype machine. God knows, if there were a Twitter trending topic about Bose-Einstein Condensation or anything else in atomic physics, I?d do the Happy Dance all the way down the hall. You?ve worked hard to make your elusive particle a celebrity, now reap the rewards."

The true reaping will come in a couple of weeks.?As Reuters' Robert Evans reported, the most recent readings from ATLAS and CMS are being analyzed in isolation, so that one team's conclusions don't influence the other team. Until the ICHEP actually takes place, hype is just about all we'll hear about. But in the meantime, get ready for the real news by reviewing these resources:

Update for 1 p.m. ET June 22: Europe's CERN particle-physics center just announced that the big update on the Higgs search will come on July 4, during a seminar at 3 a.m. ET that's tied to the start of the ICHEP conference.?

"We now have more than double the data we had last year," CERN's director for research and computing, Sergio Bertolucci, was quoted as saying. "That should be enough to see whether the trends we were seeing in the 2011 data are still there, or whether they?ve gone away. It?s a very exciting time."

CERN said that if a new particle is discovered, the ATLAS and CMS teams will need more time to ascertain whether it's the Higgs.

"It's a bit like spotting a familiar face from afar," CERN Director General Rolf Heuer explained. "Sometimes you need closer inspection to find out whether it?s really your best friend, or actually your best friend's twin."

CERN said physicists at the conference in Melbourne will be able to join the seminar via a live two-way link. The seminar will be followed by a news conference at CERN. There'll be a webcast available via?http://webcast.cern.ch. Stay tuned...

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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Most popular cities in the world to visit

George Rose / Getty Images

A view looking down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace and Victoria Memorial in London.

By Deborah L. Jacobs, Forbes.com

In choosing a vacation spot this year, will you follow your heart or follow the crowd?

To come up with its second annual list of the 20 most visited cities in the world,?MasterCard?followed the money. The company's?Global Destination Cities Index for 2012?ranks Istanbul as the fastest growing destination, putting it No. 5 on the list after London, Paris, Bangkok and Singapore.

Slideshow: See the most visited cities in 2012

?Despite sluggish economic growth around the world, the number of people traveling abroad continues to increase,? the report states. London leads the world in the two key criteria MasterCard considered: as both the most popular destination city for overseas travelers (they?re expecting 16.9 million foreign visitors this year), and in the average amount each visitor spends (their total spending there is projected to be $21.1 billion). Whether drawn by business or as tourists, London?s visitors from?New York?are the ones that travel the furthest and spend the most.

---

New York still ranks second by visitor spending (after London), which may explain all the foreign languages one hears while shopping at the?Gap.

In the Asia/Pacific region, Bangkok leads in the total number of visitors and visitor spending and is expected to displace Paris as the third-ranking city by visitor spending. Dubai retains its rank as No. 1 of the top 10 destination cities in the Middle East and Africa.

Glitz trumps history in the People?s Republic of China, with Shanghai ahead of Beijing by five ranks. And though to many minds Barcelona outcharms Madrid, Spain?s capital remains the more popular destination.

Although?Rome?hasn?t lost any of its charm, it has slipped in popularity as a tourist destination, falling below?Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Frankfurt and Dubai. Perhaps economic forces are at play.

Still undecided about your next destination? Check out the slideshow to help decide.

Deborah L. Jacobs, a lawyer and journalist, is the author of Estate Planning Smarts: A Practical, User-Friendly, Action-Oriented Guide. You can follow her on Twitter.

More from Forbes.com

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100,000 Downloads Later, TC Disrupt Finalist Open Garden Launches Update, Improves User Experience

Open Garden?was definitely one of the most interesting and ambitious startups to?launch?at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York last month. The service, which helps you share and crowdsource your mobile connectivity, was one of the Startup Battlefield finalists?and even though it lost to Uberconference, the company got a lot of momentum out of its launch. Today, Open Garden's CEO and co-founder?Micha Benoliel?told me that the company's Android and desktop apps (Mac and Windows) have now been downloaded over 100,000 times. In addition, Open Garden is launching an update today that will greatly improve the user experience for new users and add a few new features for existing users.

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The Photographic Tricks That Make McDonald's Burgers Look Good [Video]

If you've ever wondered how McDonalds manages to make its burgers look so much more appetizing in the pictures than they do in real life, wonder no more. This video takes a peek behind the scenes at a McDonald's photo shoot to explain some of the tricks that are used to make you crave a Quarter Pounder. Amazingly, the ingredients in the two are exactly the same—though they do look very, very different by the end of the process. [YouTube via PetaPixel] More »

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The Stuff That Matters (Theagitator)

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GOP In A Pickle On Obamacare (talking-points-memo)

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Washington County in Fox News spotlight

Welcome to your Personalized User Bar. Here, you can manage your account, sign up for newsletters, navigate to site sections, and share interesting content on social networks. You also can receive alerts on upcoming events, new products, or subscription/account activities.

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Phoenix Home Owners Save Money on Electric Bills with - EzineMark

Most people love to save money and for those living in Phoenix, Arizona, it is no different. We often hear tips on how to save money on electric bills, but the one way is most overlooked, is by having residential window tinting installed. Quick and easy, it involves the placement of ultra-thin plastic films against the glass surface and has many benefits.

HEAT REDUCTION

Perhaps the biggest strain on cooling the inside of a house, the sun?s heat will be greatly reduced by having the windows tinted. Seventy percent of the sun?s rays will be blocked, leaving the interior up to fifteen degrees cooler. A cooler house, leads to less time running the air conditioner, which leads to a big difference on the energy bill.

NO SUN DAMAGE

Many people love sitting in a warm patch of light at the kitchen table, reading the morning newspaper, never once thinking about the need for sunscreen until it?s too late.

Harmful UV rays, which easily pass through unprotected windows, not only damages skin but furniture as well. Whether the color is fading on the couch, the artwork on the wall, or the carpet on the floor, having the windows tinted will stop the damage. Ninety five to ninety nine percent of the sun?s UV rays will be blocked with window tinting, leading to fewer sunburns and less furniture replacement.

TAX BREAK

Not only will getting the windows tinted save on the energy bill, but it can also save during tax season. The government offers many tax incentives for homeowners who make energy saving improvements. Credits can easily consist of up to thirty percent of the cost of the film, with a limit of fifteen hundred dollars. So not only do you save on energy bills, but on your taxes as well.

LESS BUYING

Tinted windows are glare free and provide something hard to find in rural areas; privacy. With windows covered in privacy film, there?s no need to buy expensive blinds and curtains. So cut out the endless shopping for the perfect color matched curtains, or the right sized blinds, and sit back and enjoy the new private and glare free living room.

NATURAL LIGHT

Many types of window tinting can cut out the harsh UV rays without changing the color of the glass. With no need for curtains or blinds, natural light bathes the room. Better than the harsh light emitted from light bulbs, the natural light filtered through the windows, allows one to enjoy the sunlight without any of the worries. And without the need to turn lights on during the daytime, the electric bill will be a bit smaller.

Although it may seem like a good idea to cut corners and go with the cheapest installer, doing so can lead to a lot of problems. Improperly installed, the film can have wrinkles and bubbles marring the smooth surface of the glass. Also, films of a lesser quality may not only reflect light from the outside, but from the inside as well, making it extremely hard to see out at night. A good quality film will not have this problem, allowing perfect visibility no matter what time of day.

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Secret X-37B space plane mission ending soon

After spending more than a year orbiting our planet on a hush-hush mystery mission, the U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane is due to return to Earth any day now.

Air Force officials haven't announced exactly when the robotic X-37B space plane will land. But on May 30, they said that the spacecraft's homecoming should occur in the "early- to mid-June timeframe" ? a window that will close in the next week or so.

The Air Force launched the X-37B on March 5, 2011, sending the reusable space plane design on its second-ever space mission. The X-37B currently zipping around Earth is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2.

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California's Vandenberg Air Force Base is viewed as the most likely primary landing site for OTV-2. Edwards Air Force Base, also in California, serves as a backup. [Photos of the 2nd Secret X-37B Mission]

The X-37B looks much like NASA's now-retired space shuttles, only much smaller. The space plane is about 29 feet long by 15 feet wide, with a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed. A solar array packed in the payload bay powers the spacecraft. For comparison, two entire X-37Bs could fit inside the payload bay of a space shuttle.

OTV-2's flight represents a big jump for the X-37B space plane. The vehicle has been aloft for 462 days as of June 8, more than doubling the on-orbit time of the first space-flown X-37B, known as OTV-1.

OTV-1 launched in April 2010 and landed that December, staying on orbit for 225 days ? well under the spacecraft's supposed 270-day limit. OTV-2 is nearly 200 days over that limit on its current flight, and the calendar keeps ticking over.

Just what OTV-2 has been doing for so long up there remains a mystery, because the space plane's mission and payloads are classified. Air Force officials have said that the vehicle's chief task is testing out new technologies for future satellites, and some experts think that's likely to be the case.

For example, the space plane may be observing the Middle East and Afghanistan with some brand-new spy gear, according to Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.

OTV-2's orbit ? which takes it repeatedly over the stretch of Earth from 43 degrees north latitude to 43 degrees south latitude ? supports this interpretation, Weeden told SPACE.com earlier this year. The space plane's orbital parameters are classified, but amateur astronomers have been tracking OTV-2's movements since it blasted off.

The Air Force also probably wants to push the X-37B's limits on this second flight, to see just what the space plane can do, said Weeden, who published a report in 2010 that investigated the X-37B and its likely missions.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

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Tid Bit Tuesday All That Jazz | Katherines Corner

I have loved smooth jazz music since I was a teen.? The amazing sound of Grover Washington Jr?s? saxophone hooked me long ago and never let me go. I have numerous albums and cd?s with? beautiful saxophone sounds from musicians; David Sanborn , Charley Langer, Rod Tate, Kenny G, Mindi Abair and several other incredibly talented jazz saxophone players. I also have plenty of other albums and cd?s by both old and new jazz artists.

The next time you find yourself relaxing to some smooth jazz sounds, or you hear a talented musician playing the saxophone, know that I am right there with you. I?m swaying along to the smooth jazz sounds and smiling with you.

Here?s a list of a fewof the CD?s I have been listening to recently (? alphabetical order) ? Acoustic Alchemy, Boney James, Brian Hughes Chris Standring ,Chuck Loeb,Darren Rahn , Ed Taylor, Euge Groove, George Benson,Jeff Lorber,Jonathan Butler, Keiko Matsui, Michael Lington, Michael Buble?, Mindi Abair ,Nick Colionne, Patrick Lamb, Richard Elliot, Spyro Gyra , Tzeman, Terri Lyne Carrington ,Patrick Yandall

I think every day should have a little sax in it, don?t you? Giggle.

I had jazz tunes on the music player on Katherines Corner for two years. But sadly the free music player is gone now.

Book Club Summer Reading List has Been posted click the beach ball

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Jose Suarez: Whether We Are a Swing Vote or NBA Champs, Miami Local Elections Do Matter

Florida's status as a swing state means that every four years or so the world starts caring about every little political issue in Florida. However, there are some shenanigans that definitely deserve our attention, like when our Governor's agencies tell a 91 year-old decorated World War II veteran that he may be ineligible to vote because the state doesn't believe that he's a citizen. Then there is the recent decision by a Federal judge telling the State Legislature that he is blocking parts of our new, yet archaic, election law because he thinks it is "harsh and impractical" to charge a $1,000/day fine to people registering Floridians to vote because they turned in registration forms a little late.

On the other hand, some other news doesn't get quite enough attention, like the Miami Heat and the American Airlines Arena that... you guessed it... was built partly on taxpayer money. We are all happy that the Heat are doing great in the playoffs and that they're making record profits this year. But they promised they would give us, the taxpayers, a share of those profits in return. Last week, the Miami Dade County Inspector General issued an audit that found the Heat owe the people of Miami $3 million dollars for budget overruns that occurred while upgrading the stadium.

And what about those profits we should be getting now that the world watched the Heat put a stop to "Linsanity" and go toe to toe with the Celtics, raking in a bunch of dough? We should be getting a bunch of money put back into the city, right? Not so, according to the inspector general. He stated, "a number of questionable expenses were charged against arena revenues, thus lessening the county's prospects of receiving its proportional share of arena profits."

The part of the report that really kills me is where he basically says that no one at the county really knows how the agreement is supposed to work. But, it gets better! According to the Miami New Times, "no one has ever questioned the team's annual budgets and financial statements."

Which brings me back to the topic of elections. Nationally, while all eyes on Florida, Miami Dade's local elections, which take place in August, are going rarely noticed. This is more than a shame considering the impact these local elections will have on all of us. Aside from determining who some of our next commissioners will be, it will decide whether we will have leaders that try to sell us more "pipe dreams" like our nationally-recognized stadium fiascos, as our city starves, or leaders that will collect what is owed to us by the corporate welfare queens in the county.

While we can all agree that the rest of the country won't be paying any attention to our August elections, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying attention. Some of our local politicians that are up to no good are banking on low turnout. However if we prove them wrong and we all vote, we can make a stand and demand that our local government start working for us, not just the 1%.

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Car sales surging even as economy sputters

How will weak economic reports impact strong auto sales? Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com senior analyst and CNBC's Phil LeBeau discuss.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com contributor

With May sales showing another big surge, the U.S. auto industry is shoring up its position as one of the bright spots in the sputtering?American economy. But even with some makers reporting sales that nearly doubled last month, there are some potentially troubling issues behind the May figures.

Analysts and industry officials remain uncertain about whether the auto market can maintain its current, torrid pace, especially if other economic factors, such as the sharp slowdown in job growth and a slide in the stock market, begin to scare off potential buyers.

But for the moment, the May numbers leave reason to hope that car sales will well exceed cautious earlier forecasts for 2012.

Among the optimists is analyst Jesse Toprak, of data tracking firm TrueCar.com. "Sales are continuing to rebound and consumers are feeling more comfortable buying highly contented vehicles,? said Toprak, noting that four brands, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia, scored the highest average transaction prices ? the figure consumers actually pay after discounts ? in their history.

Toyota, meanwhile, saw its sales surge by over 87 percent?for the month, a significant turnaround for a maker that had suffered sharp declines throughout much of 2011.?Of course, the Japanese giant?s gains must be put into perspective.?Sales during May of last year reflected a low point during the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that all but shut down the Japanese auto industry leaving dealers desperately short of product to sell.

But Toyota officials insist there were other factors behind the May revival. "Our growth has been driven by the success of our new products, led by the Camry and Prius family, part of the most aggressive product launch in our history," said Bob Carter, Toyota division general manager.

Fellow Japanese maker Honda, which was also hard hit by the March 2011 Japanese disaster posted an only slightly less impressive 47.6 percent?sales jump, 46 percent?at the flagship Honda brand and 62 percent or the Acura brand.

Japan?s second-largest maker, Nissan, meanwhile, saw its sales climb ?only? 20.5?percent?-- including both the Nissan and Infiniti brands.? But Nissan didn?t suffer quite as serious production-related sales losses in 2011 as the other two members of Japan?s Big Three.

The May numbers generated a series of superlatives: General Motors, with an 11 percent?increase year-over-year, posted its best sales since August 2009, during the government?s Cash-for-Clunkers program.

Audi was one of several makers to report its best-ever May, while its German sibling Volkswagen recorded the best May since 1973.?Even so, Jonathan Browning, CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America ? which also includes Bentley ? was surprisingly cautious during a conference call with reporters.

While GM recently raised its forecast for all of 2012 to a possible peak of 14.5 million vehicles, Browning said that for now VW will stick with a more conservative estimate of 13.9 million.

?We?re not ready to change our forecast,? said Browning, cautioning there are plenty of economic uncertainties that could lead to a softening of demand during the second half of 2012.? Indeed, Browning noted there was ?ebbing-and-flowing? in the marketplace during May, the month opening strong, softening notably and then ending with a big bang over the holiday weekend.

Analyst Art Spinella, of CNW Marketing, said that showed up in his firm?s ?Jitters Index,? a measure of how worried potential auto buyers are.? And there are plenty of reasons to be worried, from the uncertain U.S. job market to the decline of the stock market, never mind the potential crisis in the Euro Zone.?

On the other hand, AAA is reporting that nationwide fuel prices have tumbled an average of about 27 cents a gallon since their early-April peak.? And some petroleum industry observers believe that some parts of the country could soon see pump prices as low as $3, rather than the $4 to $5-a-gallon numbers once anticipated by summer 2012.

That?s already showing up in sliding demand and lower prices for certain used vehicles, especially smaller, high-mileage offerings.? In the new car market, demand for fuel-efficient models maintained a healthy pace, most makers reported ? but GM noted that sales of its full-size pickups rose 27% during May, more than twice the maker?s overall sales increase.

One alternative explanation is that as one of the basic tools of the American working class, the surge in pickup sales could suggest Main Street is recovering faster than Wall Street right now.

CNBC's Phil LeBeau reports the sales numbers on General Motors, up 10.9% vs. 11.4% estimate, while Toyota reported sales up 87.3% vs. 89.5% estimates.

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