Kate and William show off Britain's new prince

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince William and his wife Kate gave the world its first glimpse of their new baby on Tuesday when they left hospital to a barrage of camera flashes with the boy who is third in line to the British throne.

Cheered by well-wishers, the couple waved and took turns to hold their son, wrapped tightly in a white blanket with only the top of his head and his hands visible.

"We are still working on a name, so we will have that as soon as we can," William told reporters, adding that he could not be happier.

"He's got her looks, thankfully," he added, glancing at his wife. Kate, wearing a pale blue dress with white polka dots, brushed aside the compliment, saying "No, no, I'm not sure about that."

"It's such a special time," she added as onlookers hung out of the windows of surrounding buildings for a better view. "Any parent will probably know what this feeling is like."

The couple followed tradition by giving the public the first sight of the baby on the steps of the hospital as they left - just as William's father Prince Charles and late mother, Princess Diana, did with him.

A relaxed William laughed as he confirmed he had already changed his first nappy (diaper) and joked that he would remind his son "of his tardiness when he is a bit older", because the infant had kept them, and the public, waiting longer than expected.

"He's got a good pair of lungs on him, that's for sure. He's a big boy, he's quite heavy," William added.

WEEKS OF ANTICIPATION

Kate, 31, gave birth to the couple's first child on Monday afternoon, ending weeks of feverish anticipation about the arrival, and all three spent the night in the hospital - St Mary's in west London.

Their baby cried and wiggled his fingers as William carried him in a car seat to a Range Rover before driving his family to nearby Kensington Palace, his childhood home.

Kate's parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, were the first visitors to see the couple and their new child. Asked if she would reveal the name or had made any suggestions, Kate's mother said: "Absolutely not."

Apart from the media, the event attracted hundreds of well-wishers from the public.

"We're here to witness history, where a future monarch has been born," said Maria Scott, a housewife who had camped outside the hospital since Saturday.

The baby is third in line to the throne after grandfather Charles and William, 31, and pushes the fun-loving Prince Harry, William's brother, into fourth place.

"I'm thrilled," Charles said. His second wife, Camilla, spoke of a "wonderfully uplifting moment for the country", saying Charles would make a "brilliant" grandfather.

Congratulations flooded in from around the world after the birth, which was followed moment-by-moment by global media.

WRAPPED IN THE FLAG

It fuels a new wave of popularity for the House of Windsor inspired by the younger royals, William and Harry.

Support for the royal family dipped after their mother Diana's death in a car crash in Paris in 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles, as the family's handling of the aftermath prompted accusations that they were out of touch.

But last year's celebrations of Queen Elizabeth's 60th year on the throne showed support for the monarchy at a record high.

Hordes of TV crews, photographers and royal fans wrapped in British flags camped outside the hospital for the first glimpse of the baby, to be called the Prince of Cambridge.

To mark the birth, the Royal Artillery fired a 41-gun salute at London's Green Park and 62 rounds were fired at the Tower of London. The bells of Westminster Abbey, where the couple married in April 2011, rang for three hours.

William and Kate, who met when they were students at university in Scotland a decade ago, are officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The couple, who have been living in a cottage in Wales where William is based as a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot, will eventually live with their baby at Apartment 1A in Kensington Palace.

Royal experts said the baby would now be taken out of the public glare.

"Having a baby is a very private moment, and they are a private couple, so the next time we see the baby will be the official photo, and that could be weeks," said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine.

(Additional reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, Li-Mei Hoang, Stephen Addison and Dasha Afanasieva; Writing by Peter Griffiths and Michael Holden; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-awaits-first-glimpse-britains-prince-000209988.html

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Researchers develop new approach for studying deadly brain cancer

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ? Human glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most common, aggressive and deadly forms of brain cancer, is notoriously difficult to study. Scientists have traditionally studied cancer cells in petri dishes, which have none of the properties of the brain tissues in which these cancers grow, or in expensive animal models.

Glioma (brain cancer) cells growing in a 3-D hydrogel. The green fluorescent dye reflects the cytoskeletons of the cells. | Photo courtesy Brendan Harley

Now a team of engineers has developed a three-dimensional hydrogel that more closely mimics conditions in the brain. In a paper in the journal Biomaterials, the researchers describe the new material and their approach, which allows them to selectively tune up or down the malignancy of the cancer cells they study.

The new hydrogel is more versatile than other 3-D gels used for growing glioma (brain cancer) cells in part because it allows researchers to change individual parameters ? the gel?s stiffness, for example, or the presence of molecular signals that can influence cancer growth ? while minimally altering its other characteristics, such as porosity.

Being able to adjust these traits individually will help researchers tease out important features associated with the initial growth of a tumor as well as its response to clinical therapies, said University of Illinois chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Brendan Harley, who led the study with postdoctoral researcher Sara Pedron and undergraduate student Eftalda Becka. Harley is an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois.

The researchers found that they could increase or decrease the malignancy of glioma cells in their hydrogel simply by adding hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring carbohydrate found in many tissues, especially the brain.

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a key component of the extracellular matrix that provides structural and chemical support to cells throughout the body. HA contributes to cell proliferation and cell migration, and local changes in HA levels have been implicated in tumor growth.

?Hyaluronic acid is one of the major building blocks in the brain,? Harley said. ?The structure of a newly forming brain tumor has some of this HA within it, but there?s also a lot of the HA in the brain surrounding the tumor.?

Previous studies have used hydrogels made out of nothing but hyaluronic acid to study gliomas, Harley said. ?The problem there is that HA is structurally not very strong.? It also is difficult to adjust the amount of HA that the glioma cells are exposed to if their environment is 100 percent HA, he said.

In the new study, Pedron observed how glioma cells behaved in two different hydrogels ? one based on methacrylated gelatin (GelMA) and the other using a more conventional polyethylene glycol (PEG) biomaterial. These two materials vary in one important trait: GelMA is a naturally derived material that contains adhesive sites that allow cells to latch onto it; synthetic PEG does not.

?The purpose of having these two systems was to isolate the effect of HA on glioma cells,? Pedron said. If changing HA levels produced different effects in different gels, that would indicate that the gels were contributing to those effects, she said.

Instead, Harley and Pedron found that additions of HA to glioma cells had ?very similar? effects in both materials. Adding too little or too much HA led to reduced malignancy, while incorporating just enough HA led to significantly enhanced malignancy. This held true for multiple types of glioblastoma multiforme cells. This suggests that ?it?s the HA itself that is likely the cause for this malignant change,? Harley said.

?If you have a material that allows you to selectively tune up or down malignancy, that will allow you to ask lots of questions about treatment methods for more malignant or less malignant forms of glioma. It also will allow scientists to try to get a response that?s closer to what you see in the body,? he said.

?If you talk to pathologists, they?ll say a biomaterial will never allow you to grow a full brain tumor, which is probably true,? Harley said. ?But it?s realistic to think that a well-designed biomaterial will allow you to study aspects of glioma growth and treatment in a way that?s much richer than simply looking in a petri dish and much more accessible than trying to study tumor development within the brain itself.?

The U. of I. department of chemical and biomolecular engineering, the Institute for Genomic Biology and the Campus Research Board supported this research.

Editor's note: To reach Brendan Harley, call 217-244-7112; email bharley@illinois.edu. To reach Sara Pedron, email spedron@illinois.edu. The paper, ?Regulation of Glioma Cell Phenotype in 3D Matrices by Hyaluronic Acid,? is available online.

Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor | 217-333-5802; diya@illinois.edu

Source: http://www.healthcanal.com/cancers/41099-researchers-develop-new-approach-for-studying-deadly-brain-cancer.html

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Strong earthquake in western China kills 3 people

BEIJING (AP) ? A strong, shallow earthquake struck a moderately populated part of western China on Monday morning, and state media reported at least three deaths.

The quake hit near the city of Dingxi in Gansu province, a largely desert and pastureland region with a population of 26 million. That makes it one of China's more lightly populated provinces, although the Dingxi area has a greater concentration of farms and towns with a total population of about 2.7 million.

The three deaths were reported in Min County in the rural southern part of Dingxi municipality, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The government's earthquake monitoring center said the magnitude was 6.6, which can cause severe damage. More quakes were detected during the morning, including a magnitude-5.6.

It said the initial quake at 7:45 a.m. (2345 GMT Sunday) hit about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) beneath the surface, although the Gansu provincial earthquake administration said the quake was at an even shallow depth of just 6 kilometers (3.7 miles).

Quakes near the surface tend to be more destructive.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude as 5.9 and the depth at 10 kilometers (6 miles).

Initial measurements of a quake can vary widely, especially if different monitoring equipment is used.

Dingxi is about 1,233 kilometers (766 miles) west of Beijing.

China's worst earthquake in recent years was an 8.9 magnitude temblor that struck the southwestern province of Sichuan in 2008, leaving 90,000 people dead or missing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/strong-earthquake-western-china-kills-3-people-021226421.html

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Family struggles to maintain neglected graves at historic church

Nellie Mooney, left, Jerry Logan, center, and Fred Logan, whose families helped establish Shaws Creek AME Zion Church in Horse Shoe in 1865, look over the church cemetery, which has not been cared for in years.

MIKE DIRKS/TIMES-NEWS

Published: Sunday, July 21, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 9:12 p.m.

Every time Hendersonville resident Shirley ?Nellie? Mooney visits her family graves at Shaws Creek A.M.E. Zion Church in Horse Shoe, she is filled with a mix of gratitude, nostalgia and sadness.

She's grateful for the way things have changed in the world since her great-grandfather helped organize the church, founded just two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation by executive order in 1863.

She's nostalgic for the days when she attended the small wooden church with her 14 siblings, recalling ?leisurely? carefree days of singing psalms, sharing testimonies and saying prayers for those living and dead.

But perhaps the strongest feeling these days is sadness, as Moody watches the graves of her siblings and ancestors continue to be overrun by uncut grass, un-pulled weeds and overgrown brush, year after year.

The church, cemetery and grounds were always tended to by the parishioners, said Mooney and her nephew, Arthur ?Jerry? Logan, but the church was officially closed more than two years ago due to a steady decline in membership.

Since then, Mooney and her family have tried to keep up the grounds by mowing the lawn, cleaning up gravesites ? some of which are unmarked slave graves ? and cutting back brush. But it appears to be a losing battle. They say they just can't keep up with the 2.5-acre property, let alone the church building that is need of general upkeep, but to which they have no access.

That keeps Mooney up at night.

?I pray every night that God would let that church be what it was intended to be,? she said. ?If there are not enough people to attend, not enough funds to keep it open, at least let the state have it and make a historic place where kids can come and learn about our history.?

And Shaws Creek is steeped in history. The oldest African-American church in Henderson County, the first service was held in 1865 with parishioners sitting on logs in a small clearing that belonged to a white land owner, J.R. Leverette, who loaned the parishioners the land for worship. When winter approached, they built a ?brush arbor? to protect themselves from the elements as much as possible.

It took the original worshipers more than 25 years to save $50 to buy the land from Leverette, who encouraged the group to build a church.

Mooney's great-grandfather, John Wesley Logan, who was born a slave, helped fellow church trustees Alex Maxwell and Frank Gash hew the trees that formed the church's walls and floor.

?The womenfolk cooked and helped in whatever way possible,? wrote Mooney's sister, Hannah Logan Edwards, in a history she prepared of the church in 1976. ?With hard work and long hours, the walls were raised for a meeting house.?

Mooney's great-grandfather, from Horse Shoe, served as the church's first full-time pastor for 18 years, during which the church was named Logan's Chapel. After his death in 1929, the church was renamed Shaws Creek, after the name of a nearby stream.

Today, the gravesites of John Wesley Logan and his wife, Mary Angeline, are tended to by Mooney, her brother, Fred Logan, and her nephew, Jerry ? as best they can. But they need help, Jerry said.

The ground on which his ancestors' graves sit are on property owned by the A.M.E Church in America, and he's mystified as to why the national church isn't taking care of the grounds. A call to the church was unreturned at press time.

?Every church takes care of its property,? he said. ?But not at Shaws Creek.?

Reach Tanker at 828-694-7871 or nancy.tanker@blueridgenow.com.

Source: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20130721/articles/130719758

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West Africa: Gulf of Guinea Turns Into Piracy Hotspot

West Africa's Gulf of Guinea has overtaken the Somali coast as Africa's main piracy hotspot, and this upward trend looks set to continue.

The Gulf of Guinea, which extends from Cape Lopez, Gabon, to Cape Palmas in Liberia, has become one of the pre-eminent piracy hotspots in the world. In 2012, the region accounted for the highest number of maritime attacks globally, surpassing East Africa's coastal waters, which were long regarded as the most dangerous for both private and commercial seafarers.

Initially confined to the waterways and estuaries of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region, which had been the focal point of a near decade-long insurgency against the Nigerian federal government, maritime attacks by Niger Delta-based pirates are now increasing in both frequency and scope across the Gulf of Guinea. Of particular concern is the way in which maritime crime has evolved from oil siphoning and bunkering to increasingly well-coordinated and often violent attacks targeting commercial shipping vessels and their crew.

Piracy and the conflict in the Niger Delta

Much of the piracy in the Gulf of Guinea can be explained in terms of the security situation within the restive Niger Delta region. Despite possessing lucrative oil reserves which generate over 80% of the federal government's revenue, the Niger Delta continues to be plagued by extreme levels of poverty, a high unemployment rate and bureaucratic corruption. Furthermore, the environmental damage caused by the oil industry has adversely affected the region's once lucrative fishing and agricultural industries, thus limiting legitimate options for local youths to enter the economy.

The aforementioned grievances, in addition to the federal government's alleged inaction in addressing these concerns, incited an armed revolt within the Niger Delta in the early 2000s. From 2003, armed groups in this region actively sought to control regional petroleum resources. Initial attempts to gain control involved a process known as bunkering, where an oil pipeline is tapped and the oil extracted onto a barge. However, as the Niger Delta insurgency peaked from 2006 to 2009, various criminal and militant groups emerged and regularly engaged in conflict for control of territory.

In the resultant scramble for financial resources, the region began to experience an increase in attacks on ships carrying oil and other cargo, attacks on fishing boats, and kidnappings. As kidnappings and acts of sabotage became more frequent, oil companies began to increase security at their onshore points of operation. Insurgents and criminals quickly adapted to these actions and increasingly extended their activities to offshore facilities including oil platforms, rigs and shipping vessels. Their ventures, particularly in the absence of an effective response from regional and/or international maritime authorities, have been relatively successful and piracy continues to proliferate in the Gulf of Guinea.

However, although previously carried out by organised militant groups - many of whom have since laid down their arms in exchange for amnesty from the government - most acts of piracy within the Gulf of Guinea are now perpetrated purely by criminal entities for financial purposes. The low risk but high yield nature of piracy operations within the region has provided armed gangs with further incentive to engage in maritime attacks.

Daily pirate attacks

It is difficult to assess the current rate of piracy within the Gulf of Guinea, particularly since a large percentage of incidents go unreported. Current statistics provided by the government suggest that at least 15 cases of piracy are reported in the Niger Delta alone on a monthly basis. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) meanwhile suggests that the frequency of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea is around 50 per year, although the UN-sponsored agency concedes that its statistics most likely equate for only 50% of actual piracy attacks. Finally, independent maritime security agencies operating within the region currently estimate that at least one act of piracy is reported within the Gulf of Guinea on a daily basis, and that current incident trends indicate that the number could increase to two per day.

In addition to the increasing frequency in piracy attacks within the Gulf of Guinea, pirates are also expanding the scope of their operations. Since 2006, piracy has rapidly expanded beyond the Niger Delta and increasingly occurred within the territorial waters of neighbouring countries such as Benin, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Togo and Gabon. Maritime attacks within the aforementioned countries were generally opportunistic and limited to low-level robberies, while vessel hijackings remained limited to waters off the coast of Nigeria. Since late 2011, however, this trend has changed, with vessel seizures also reported off the coasts of Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Togo and Ivory Coast. It is likely that this pattern will continue in the short-term in the absence of coordinated multilateral anti-piracy initiatives.

Perpetrators and modus operandi

There are several main groups responsible for carrying out pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea; these include the Niger Delta Vigilantes, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, and remnants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). There are also a multitude of smaller groups; these are comprised mostly of youths with loose affiliations to larger militant groups. Despite the involvement of these militant groups, the majority of Nigerian piracy is linked to organised crime and is not politically motivated.

Nigerian pirate operations have become increasingly sophisticated over the last five years. Attacks take various forms. In some instances, pirates board a vessel and rob the crew of their personal possessions and any valuable items or cargo that can be immediately transported to their smaller vessels. Hijacking incidents remain the most lucrative and are increasing in the region. However, while Somali pirates hijack ships and then attempt to extort a ransom for both the ship and its crew, Nigerian pirates' prime target is the cargo, although kidnappings have occurred in the past. Gulf of Guinea pirates generally sail captured vessels to locations off the coast of the Niger Delta, where oil, cargo and/or fuel reserves are looted and transferred onto the pirate's barges. The ship and its crew are then usually released.

Currently, there is little evidence to suggest that West African pirates will adopt the modus operandi employed by their Somali counterparts and possibly hold foreign-owned vessels for ransom. Somalia-based pirates are able to hold both vessels and crew members' hostage at many of the country's ports. This is primarily due to the fact that Somalia's Federal Government generally has little influence on the political and security environment outside of the capital, Mogadishu. As a consequence, the Somali state security apparatus has, to date, been unable to counter piracy operations by itself. These attacks are in many cases perpetrated by clan militias who exert de facto control over the areas in which they operate. As all states within the Gulf of Guinea have functional governments that exert control over all areas of the country, pirates within the region are unable to hold vessels and/or crewmen onshore for extended periods of time without incurring a response by security forces. Nonetheless, there are concerns that Gulf of Guinea pirates may seek to kidnap crew members, particularly Western nationals, and transfer them to safe houses onshore. From here, they can then be used to extort a ransom from their respective employers.

Piracy is likely to remain a feature of the Gulf of Guinea's maritime security environment within the short- to medium-term. Currently, there is little multilateral naval co-operation among states along the Gulf of Guinea to address the problem, and pirates continue to operate with relative impunity. Although regional bodies such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) are in the process of developing the institutions required to address the piracy threat, concerns pertaining to the funding, coordination and enforcement of such initiatives have already been raised. Furthermore, even in the presence of internationally-backed and regionally-coordinated anti-piracy initiatives, a failure to address the key socio-economic and political concerns in the Niger Delta will see likely see piracy remain a feature of the Gulf of Guinea's security environment within the short- to medium-term.

Ryan Cummings is Chief Analyst for Africa for Red24, a crisis management assistance company providing advice, support and response within crisis management, travel tracking, product recall, kidnap and ransom and travel security. Follow red24 on twitter @red24security.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201307210336.html

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Former BP boss Lord Browne returns to Gulf of Mexico in $3.75bn deal

The acquisition sees Fieldwood Energy, backed by Lord Browne's private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, take over the biggest set of oil and gas field in the shallower section of the Gulf.

The assets, which it is buying from US firm Apache, cover 1.9m net acres and 500 blocks, with estimated proved reserves of 133m barrels of oil and 636bn cubic feet of gas.

Fieldwood will also assume $1.5bn in estimated future costs related to plugging and abandoning old oil and gas wells, Apache said.

Lord Browne ran BP from 1995 to 2007, overseeing a period of major expansion including building a big position in the Gulf, especially in deep water.

He was succeeded by Tony Hayward, who lost his job after the 2010 explosion aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf, which killed 11 men and unleashed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Accounts of the long-term causes of the disaster were critical of the culture of safety at BP built up under both Mr Hayward and Lord Browne before him.

BP remains mired in litigation over the disaster.

Lord Browne's Riverstone's other high profile investments include backing fracking firm Cuadrilla and North Sea explorer Fairfield Energy. It also invests in renewable energy.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568300/s/2ee2932f/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cfinance0Cnewsbysector0Cenergy0Coilandgas0C10A190A4630CFormer0EBP0Eboss0ELord0EBrowne0Ereturns0Eto0EGulf0Eof0EMexico0Ein0E30B75bn0Edeal0Bhtml/story01.htm

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Democrats Have Found Their Monetary Mojo

As Ben Bernanke sinks into the west, Democratic senators rise to say how they really feel.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

I have a confession to make. I knew what I was going to write about Ben Bernanke?s congressional testimony before he opened his mouth. I knew I?d say that Bernanke?s latest round of monetary policy hearings on Capitol Hill was an excellent time to reflect on the Democratic Party?s profound failure to oversee any constructive influence on monetary policy. I?d watched these hearings before, and Democrats so uniformly failed to bring any progressive pressure that it was obvious they wouldn?t change their tune this time around.

Except that a funny thing happened Thursday morning and they surprised me. Years late (but better late than never), Democrats seem to have found their monetary mojo. It?s giving me some hope that the Bernanke succession will lead to better days to come.

To be sure, things got off to a friendlier start for my original, pessimistic thesis on Wednesday, when Bernanke sat before the House Financial Services Committee. There we got the dialogue I was expecting, with members of both parties overwhelmingly ignoring the ostensible subject of the hearings in order to grind other axes.

For Republicans, the ax of choice was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For Democrats, as usual, the ax was fiscal policy. Republicans asked Bernanke leading questions about whether Fannie and Freddie shouldn?t be privatized. (Bernanke thinks a reduced government role is desirable but declined to endorse a specific approach). Democrats asked leading questions about whether sequestration was hurting the economy. (Bernanke thinks it is, and should be replaced with a long-term deficit stabilization deal). But while both sides mostly stuck to their pet issues, the GOP did take the time to do a little hard-money advocacy. Rep. Jeb Hensarling R-Texas, for example, opined that the stock market is ?hooked on the drug of easy money.?

That?s how things have played out throughout the Obama years. Both parties have largely neglected monetary policy, but Republicans have consistently made it clear that they would favor tighter money. Despite mass unemployment and low inflation, they think the Fed has been insufficiently vigilant against inflation and should show more indifference to the unemployed. For an opposition party, it?s a convenient stance?the view is that Obama should take the blame for labor market problems, and the Fed should simply stand pat.

Democrats, meanwhile, have failed to provide any counterbalance. Many writers have castigated the Fed for providing years of above-target unemployment and below-target inflation, but no politicians have given voice to the dove case. And even though the Fed is nominally independent of politics, this kind of unbalanced pressure must make a difference. At the margin, money has consistently been tighter?and growth slower, and unemployment higher?than it probably would have been had Democrats been out there beating the drums for monetary stimulus.

But on Thursday morning, when the action shifted to the Senate, a new day had dawned. Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., got the ball rolling with a leading question: Would unwinding federal reserve bond purchases too early ?threaten the economy and the financial system??

Bob Corker, R-Tenn., got in one for tight money, characterizing the Fed as ?almost acting as an enabler for Congress,? which has been ?relying on the Fed for amphetamines.? Tom Coburn, R-Okla., used made-up stats to argue that inflation is out of control. But Bob Menendez, D-N.J., had his own line of questioning about whether certain members of the Fed?s governing board hadn?t been overstating the possible downsides of easier money. And Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., pressed on the subject of why recent bad growth news wasn?t pushing the Fed for greater easing. The two Democrats who avoided monetary issues entirely, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both asked questions that were directly relevant to bank regulatory bills they?re sponsoring?a perfectly respectable reason to go off-topic.

Why did Democrats suddenly get religion? What accounts for this amazing turnaround? I?d like to think it?s because their staff started reading Moneybox.

More plausibly: It?s probably not a coincidence that this revival is happening at Bernanke?s last round of hearings. The end of his term means that soon there will be confirmation hearings for a replacement?most likely Janet Yellen?and with the GOP in a fighting mood, they won?t feature the kind of smooth sailing that we?ve seen from previous nominations to the chairmanship. That means members of the relevant committees and their staffers need to start preparing to talk about the issues at hand. If I?m right and the dovish lines of questioning are about laying the groundwork for some dovish confirmation hearings, then the bad news about my column framing could be good news indeed for the country.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/bernanke_congress_testimony_finally_some_pushback_from_democrats_on_hard.html

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