WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dr. Irving Weissman is so excited, he flew cross-country for the event. Larry Soler of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation will "Twitter" his impressions.
Other experts are sending out e-mails sprinkled with exclamation points.
They are all gushing about President Barack Obama's decision to lift some restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday.
Investors are rushing to get in on the changes, sending up shares of biotech companies that focus on stem cell research, including Geron INC., whose shares shot up 23 percent to $4.80 as Obama spoke, and StemCells Inc, whose shares were up 43 percent to $1.98.
Researchers were prominent in an audience of advocates and politicians invited to the White House announcement.
"I've been working and speaking out about the ban for about eight years, and now I want to be there," said Weissman, director of Stanford University's Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute.
"We can lift the bureaucracy that has been established to scrutinize every purchase by every lab, and move forward with this important research."
In August 2001, then-president George W. Bush reversed a decision by the National Institutes of Health to allow federally funded researchers to work with human embryonic stem cells. Bush and others object to their use on ethical and religious grounds because the powerful cells come from days-old human embryos.
Bush said researchers could only use already-existing batches of the cells, which can morph into any cell or tissue type in the body. And they may use state or private funds for the work.
IMMEDIATE PROFITS
Michael West of Alameda, California-based biotech BioTime says his company stands to profit from Obama's decision almost immediately. It just bought dozens of stem cell batches, or lines, from a Chicago fertility clinic and wants to sell them to newly empowered researchers.
They come from embryos carrying the genes for cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, breast cancer, Huntington's disease and others -- embryos created via in vitro fertilization.
"It would be unethical to implant them, knowing you are going to create a child with a devastating disease," West said in a telephone interview.
But those cells will be perfect for studying these diseases in the hope of someday curing or preventing them. Under the Bush restrictions, federally funded researchers could not have touched them.
"Embryonic stem cells have this wonderful property of dividing without limit," said West.
Susan Solomon of the New York Stem Cell Foundation hopes Congress will work to lift the remaining restriction on human embryonic stem cell research.
An amendment that has been placed on the Health and Human Services Department's budget every year forbids federal funds to be used for research that directly involves human embryos. That means federally funded researchers cannot actually make human embryonic stem cells but have to buy them.
"The president is doing everything that he alone can do," Solomon said in an interview. "Hopefully he will provide Congress with the kind of environment that they need to do the right thing."
Solomon flew to Washington for the event. She joined the JDRF's Soler, who was assigned to send updates of the ceremony from his cell phone via Twitter, a social networking tool.
VIENNA (Reuters) - The stand-off over the disputed Iranian nuclear programme cannot be resolved without the engagement of Iran's Arab neighbours, U.N. atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday.
He said a U.S. policy turnabout towards direct talks with Iran has boosted chances of a peaceful solution but the involvement of Arab states was crucial. Arabs have historically mistrusted Iran but are split over how to deal with it.
"I find it surprising that the Arab countries are not engaged in dialogue between Iran and the West. The neighbours so far have been sitting on the fence. Any solution to the Iranian issue has to engage the neighbours," ElBaradei said.
Middle East analysts say Gulf Arab states had little love for ex-U.S. President George W. Bush's hawkish, no-negotiations stance on Iran, fearing it could lead to a ruinous regional war.
But now they worry that any U.S. rapprochement with Iran could ultimately produce a nuclear-armed, non-Arab, Shi'ite Muslim superpower in their back yard and squeeze Sunni Muslim Arabs between two non-Arab nuclear power hubs, Iran and Israel.
Any collective Arab action on Iran, however, appears mired in chronic divisions over other issues including a 2002 Saudi-sponsored peace offer to Israel, opposed by some hardline or militant Arabs backed by Iran.
ElBaradei also said a Middle East security structure drawing in Iran, all Arabs and Israel, believed to have the region's only nuclear arsenal, would be an indispensable part of any Middle East peace arrangement.
A lack of security guarantees, he said, lay at the heart of Iran's motivation to pursue what would be virtual nuclear weapons status, since uranium enrichment can be used either for electricity generation or for material to detonate atom bombs.
Iran says its nuclear programme is to generate electricity.
"Iran could be a positive force in the region; it could also be a source of conflict and confrontation," ElBaradei told a foreign policy forum gathered in Austria's parliament.
The 66-year-old Egyptian, who won the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Vienna-based agency in 2005, will leave office in November after 12 years at the IAEA helm.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John McCain lost the 2008 U.S. presidential election to Barack Obama but has since won a leading role in Republican efforts to rein in Obama's big-spending economic revival plans.
In the past week, the Arizona senator helped head a Republican charge in the Democratic-led Senate that stalled a $410 billion bill to keep government operations funded through the end of this fiscal year, September 30.
"If it sounds like I'm angry it's because I am," McCain roared on the Senate floor. But after plenty of fiery debate, the bill was expected to win final congressional approval in the Senate on Tuesday and go to Obama to sign into law.
"I think it probably will (be passed) but I think we fought a good fight," McCain, 72, told Fox News on Sunday.
McCain complained the bill was packed with thousands of unneeded pet projects known as "earmarks", including measures to research pig odor, build a rodeo museum and construct wolf breeding facilities. Pledges to end such earmarks were central to McCain's Republican presidential campaign.
A frequent guest on TV talk shows, McCain appeared on Monday on CNBC where he again attacked Obama's policies. "We see the stock market continue to drop because of the message that is being sent, including, by the way, wasteful and unnecessary and excessive spending," McCain said.
Some Republicans targeted the spending bill because it relaxed certain limits on trade and travel to communist-run Cuba. But McCain's chief concerns were closer to home, focusing on the price tag and the "earmarks".
"McCain is trying to reestablish his bona fides as the Republican Party leader at a time when there really isn't a Republican leader," said Paul Light of New York University's Center for the Study of Congress.
"I don't think he's laying foundation for another White House run, but he is claiming center stage and laying down markers to judge Obama by," Light said.
Many Republicans in Congress quickly embraced outspoken opposition to Obama's plans. "Republicans are a lot more united and willing to take on the majority than usual so soon after a big election loss," said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution.
"Usually a party takes time to lick their wounds," Hess said. "They have moved quickly beyond that to be the party of opposition."
MCCAIN'S CELEBRITY STATUS
Hess said McCain had the celebrity status to take on the Democratic "superstar" Obama, who rode to the White House on a wave of popularity at home and abroad and still had very high poll ratings despite the deepening economic crisis.
McCain, 72, who survived five and one-half years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, seems too old for another White House bid. But he plans to seek reelection next year to a fifth Senate term.
Dubbed a "maverick", McCain has often bucked Republican Senate leadership. And while he holds no elected leadership post, he is seen as a force by members of both parties.
"McCain has returned to be a strong and effective voice that Democrats hate when they disagree with him but praise when they agree with him," a Republican leadership aide said.
McCain was among those in Congress who pressured Obama to scale-back an emergency economic stimulus package to $787 billion from earlier highs of upward of $900 billion.
He denounces Obama's proposed $3.55 trillion budget as a blueprint for the greatest transfer of power from the private sector to the federal government since the administration of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt over 60 years ago.
McCain has also reached across the political aisle to introduce legislation, including a bill backed by Obama to reduce the cost of prescription drug prices by allowing them to be imported from approved foreign facilities.
But he has made it clear that the Democrats will have to overcome his high-profile objections to big spending, taking on such Obama initiatives including a proposed bailout of the struggling U.S. financial sector.
"I don't think they made the hard decision and that is to let these banks fail," McCain told a weekend TV news program.
As details about an alleged assault of Rihanna by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, emerged, fans and the entertainment industry grappled with what it could mean for the future of the young star's career.
Authorities charged Brown, 19, on Thursday with felony counts of assault and making criminal threats, the Los Angeles County, California, District Attorney's Office said. If convicted, the sentence could range from probation to four years and eight months in prison, officials said.
Brown appeared before a judge on Thursday, but the arraignment was delayed for a month at the request of his attorney.
Twenty-one-year-old Rihanna was allegedly attacked by Brown on a Los Angeles street before their scheduled performances at the Grammy Awards on February 8.
Message boards across the Internet were abuzz with reaction after the sworn statement by Los Angeles Police Detective DeShon Andrews surfaced. The statement painted a brutal picture of what allegedly happened in the early morning hours of February 8.
"Robyn F. [Rihanna's real name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty] turned to face Brown and he punched her in the left eye with his right hand," the affidavit stated. "He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.'s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle."
Emil Wilbekin, editor-in-chief of GIANT Magazine, said some readers were expressing outrage at Brown's alleged actions on postings at the GIANT Web site, writing that they hope Brown gets jail time and that justice is served.
"In Chris Brown's case, there are two things going on," Wilbekin said. "The first is that Chris is such a clean-cut young man and so this is a very shocking turn of events, because it's completely against what we know of his entertainment persona.
"The second part is that both [Rihanna and Brown] have very young female fans."
Brown, a native of small-town Tappahannock, Virginia, made the music scene with his 2005 debut album and the single, "Run It!", which quickly topped the Billboard music chart.
His good looks and athletic dance moves quickly rocketed him to teen idol status and he solidified that reputation with a successful follow-up album, movie and TV appearances and a Grammy nominated duet with "American Idol" winner Jordan Sparks.
Stories of troubled singers are nothing new to the entertainment industry. Many artists, including Whitney Houston and Britney Spears, have been able to survive the negative press and emerge with many fans still intact.
But industry insiders like Wilbekin point out that there is a marked difference between self-destructive behavior and allegedly causing harm to another person. iReport: Share your reaction to the Chris Brown allegations
Even though Brown issued a brief apology for the incident, Wilbekin said he believes the entertainer has been hurt by the silence emanating from his camp.
"He still has not made [an extensive] statement to the public, and particularly because a lot of his fans are young women, that's not going to go over well," Wilbekin said. "I think the fact that he's not come clean about it, which I understand for legal reasons, is an issue. Not saying anything at all is not helpful, especially not for his career."
Joann Killeen, president of Killeen Furtney Group, knows a bit about crisis communications -- her marketing and public relations firm initially represented California octuplet mom Nadya Suleman before later dropping her as a client -- and agrees that silence is not always golden.
Killeen said Brown's representatives may have erred by waiting a week before issuing a statement.
"By then everybody had an idea and a vision as to what happened," she said. "Unfortunately if you don't speak and frame the issue, state what happened, state the facts that you know, someone else is going to do it for you and you lose your position of being proactive and owning the story."
While she points out that America loves a comeback story -- like actor Robert Downey Jr., who was nominated for an Academy Award this year after multiple drug-related arrests in the past -- Killeen said the public can be much more forgiving about drug abuse than domestic violence.
"I think it's going to take a concerted effort on [Brown's] part to be very vocal about asking not only Rihanna for forgiveness, but he has to convince America that he's really going to work on resolving his anger issues and putting his life back together," Killeen said.
Despite the charges, some fans are vowing to take a wait-and-see approach.
"I'm sure there are people out there that feel betrayed," said twentysomething Brown fan Kadija White of Capital Heights, Maryland. "But there are probably some people like me who still are going to like his music."
However, Devi Dev, who does the entertainment segment on urban radio station 93.5 KDAY in Los Angeles, said listeners have been extremely vocal in their support for Rihanna and their sadness at the incident.
"A lot of the ladies are just like 'I feel so bad for her. Leave him girl, leave him' and the guys are being very defensive, saying women hit men, too," said Dev.
If Brown has any hope of surviving this, he is going to have to completely reinvent himself as an artist who appeals to older fans, Dev said.
"His fan base is teenage girls and the fact that he allegedly hit a young woman, his fan base is completely gone," she said. "No parent is going to want to support their child listening to his music or buying his music." R.From : Lisa Respers France
