Recovery attempt weighed for man's body in sinkhole

SEFFNER, Fla. Engineers worked gingerly Saturday to find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could eventually succumb to the unstable ground.

It could be days before officials decide whether they will attempt to recover Jeff Bush's body, and they were still trying Saturday to determine the extent of the sinkhole network and what kind of work might be safe. As the sinkhole grows, it may pose further risk to the subdivision and its homes.

Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner — a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa — when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house escaped unharmed.

Play Video

Man feared dead in sinkhole freak accident

On "CBS This Morning: Saturday," reporter Grayson Kamm of CBS affiliate WTSP-TV in Tampa, Fla., reported that Bush was not planning to stay in the house for long, just a few months. He was planning to move out Saturday, Kamm reports.

Because of Florida's unique geography, experts say sinkholes are common across the state, with thousands erupting each year. Most are small, though, and deaths rarely occur.

"There's hardly a place in Florida that's immune to sinkholes," said Sandy Nettles, a geologist. "There's no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur."

Florida is prone because it sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water. A layer of clay is on top of the limestone. The clay is thicker in some locations — including the area where Bush became a victim — making them even more prone to sinkholes.

Most are small, like one that was found Saturday morning in Largo, some 35 miles away from where the Seffner sinkhole. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, was discovered in a mall parking lot. Such discoveries are common throughout the year in Florida, though some factors — such as drought and development — can exacerbate the development, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

28 Photos

Sinkholes

Still, it's unclear what, if anything, caused the Seffner sinkhole.

"The condition that caused that sinkhole could have started a million years ago," Nettles said.

On Saturday, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokesman Ronnie Rivera said one of the homes next door to the Bush house also was compromised by the sinkhole, as determined through testing. The family, which had evacuated Friday, was allowed to go inside for about a half-hour to gathering belongings, Rivera said. The family was outside, crying and organizing boxes.

Engineers had been testing since 7 a.m. Saturday. By 10 a.m., officials moved media crews farther away from the Bush house so experts could perform tests on the home across the street.

Experts spent the previous day on the property, taking soil samples and running tests — while acknowledging that the entire lot where Bush lay entombed was dangerous. On Saturday, officials were still not allowing anyone in the Bush home.

Jeremy Bush, who tried to rescue his brother when the earth opened, lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house Saturday morning and wept.

He said someone came to his home in the Tampa suburb of about 8,000 people a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.

"And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said Friday.

The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Jeremy Bush running.

Engineers said they may have to demolish the small house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974.

Read More..

Rescuers Search for Man as Fla. Sinkhole Grows

Rescuers early Saturday morning returned to the site where a sinkhole swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom after the home's foundation collapsed.

Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday night.

While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials now estimate it measures 30 feet across and up to 100 feet deep.

MORE: How Sinkholes Can Develop

Rescue operations were halted Friday night after it became too dangerous to approach the home.

Bill Bracken, an engineer with Hillsborough County Urban Search and Rescue team said that the house "should have collapsed by now, so it's amazing that it hasn't."

RELATED: Florida Man Swallowed by Sinkhole: Conditions Too Unstable to Approach

Florida Man Believed Dead After Falling into Sinkhole Watch Video

Florida Sinkhole Swallows House, Man Trapped Inside Watch Video

Sinkhole Victim's Brother: 'I Know in My Heart He's Dead' Watch Video

Using ground penetrating radar, rescuers have found a large amount of water beneath the house, making conditions even more dangerous for them to continue the search for Bush.

"I'm being told it's seriously unstable, so that's the dilemma," said Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell. "A dilemma that is very painful to them and for everyone."

Hillsborough County lies in what is known as Florida's "Sinkhole Alley." Over 500 sinkholes have been reported in the area since 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

The Tampa-area home was condemned, leaving Bush's family unable to go back inside to gather their belongings. As a result, the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue set up a relief fund for Bush's family in light of the tragedy.

Officials evacuated the two houses adjacent to Bush's and are considering further evacuations, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, Bush's brother, Jeremy Bush, is still reeling from Thursday night.

Jeremy Bush had to be rescued by a first responder after jumping into the hole in an attempt to rescue his brother when the home's concrete floor collapsed, but said he couldn't find him.

"I just started digging and started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and told me the floor's still falling in," he said.

"These are everyday working people, they're good people," said Deputy Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County sheriff's office, "And this was so unexpected, and they're still, you know, probably facing the reality that this is happening."

Read More..

Efforts under way to confirm Qaeda boss death in Mali

BAMAKO: Algeria was seeking Saturday to confirm the reported killing of Al-Qaeda's top commander in northern Mali, where French and African troops attempted to flush out Islamist fighters from desert and mountain hideouts.

Chad's president announced on Friday that his troops had killed Abou Zeid days earlier, in what would be one of the worst blows to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in the seven-week-old French-led intervention.

Idriss Deby Itno claimed the AQIM commander in Mali was killed during a major battle that also left 26 Chadian soldiers dead on February 22. "Our soldiers killed two jihadist chiefs including Abou Zeid," he said.

Adding to the confusion over the jihadist supremo's fate, Mauritania's private news agency Sahara Medias on Saturday confirmed that Abou Zeid had been killed but had a different story.

It said Abou Zeid was killed "four days ago" in a French air strike during a clash between a jihadist unit he was leading and the group of Chadian soldiers that had suffered the 26 losses days earlier.

Sahara Medias said the strike occurred in the mountainous region of Tigharghar near the border with Algeria and added without naming them that "extremely well informed sources" had confirmed Abou Zeid's death.

However the Islamist organisation itself has not yet confirmed the jihadist leader's death and officials in his native Algeria were carrying out DNA tests in an effort to confirm the demise of one of Africa's most wanted men.

Analysts have suggested Abou Zeid's death could spell AQIM's doom with other jihadist groups now thriving in the region but while Washington described the report as "very credible" France has so far treated it with caution.

Algeria's El Khabar newspaper said Saturday that Algerian security services, who were the first to report Abou Zeid's death, had examined a body believed to be his.

"Algerian officers have examined a body said to be that of Abou Zeid in a military site in northern Mali and identified his personal weapon... but were unable to formally identify" the body as his, it said.

"Confirmation of Abou Zeid's death remains linked to the results of DNA tests done on Thursday by Algeria on two members of his family," said El Khabar.

Mauritanian expert Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Aboulmaali pointed out that Algeria had announced his death several times in the past and that Chad needed morale boosting news after suffering such heavy losses.

Matthieu Guidere, a French university professor and Al-Qaeda specialist, also voiced caution in the absence of any confirmation of Abou Zeid's death on jihadist forums.

"Experience shows that jihadists never try to hide their dead and immediately broadcast their martyrdom," he said.

Guidere explained that announcing the death of a wanted jihadist was a tactic that had been used in the past to force the operative to deny his death and reveal his location.

Abou Zeid, 46, whose real name is Mohamed Ghedir, was often seen in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao after the Islamists took control of northern Mali last year and sparked fears the region could become a haven for extremists.

An Algerian born near the border with Libya, Abou Zeid was a former smuggler who embraced radical Islam in the 1990s and became one of AQIM's key leaders.

He was suspected of being behind a series of kidnappings in the Sahel region, including of British national Edwin Dyer, who was abducted in Niger and killed in 2009, and of 78-year-old French aid worker Michel Germaneau, who was killed in 2010.

Abou Zeid was believed to be holding a number of Western hostages, including four French citizens kidnapped in Niger in 2010.

Guidere said Abou Zeid had adopted such a hard line since reaching the top of AQIM's operational command that many of his lieutenants left the group to join other organisations or launch their own.

One of the main splinters is the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), which first emerged last year and was battling African forces near the main northern city of Gao as recently as Friday.

"We waged a tough battle against Malian troops and their French accomplices around 60 kilometres east of Gao on Friday," MUJAO spokesman Abou Walid Sahraoui told AFP.

"We'll see later about the death toll," he said.

A Malian soldier who claimed he took part in the fighting said the operation had left a MUJAO base destroyed and "many dead" among the Islamists.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

Homeland Security required that this Predator drone, built by General Atomics, be capable of detecting whether a standing human at night is "armed or not."

(Credit:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security)

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders, but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

Homeland Security's Predator B drone can stay aloft conducting surveillance for 20 hours.

(Credit:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security)

Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislation introduced last month that would establish legal safeguards, in addition to parallel efforts underway from state and local lawmakers. The Federal Aviation Administration recently said that it will "address privacy-related data collection" by drones.

The prospect of identifying armed Americans concerns Second Amendment advocates, who say that technology billed as securing the United States' land and maritime borders should not be used domestically. Michael Kostelnik, the Homeland Security official who created the program, told Congress that the drone fleet would be available to "respond to emergency missions across the country," and a Predator drone was dispatched to the tiny town of Lakota, N.D. to aid local police in a dispute that began with reimbursement for feeding six cows. The defendant, arrested with the help of Predator surveillance, lost a preliminary bid to dismiss the charges.

"I am very concerned that this technology will be used against law-abiding American firearms owners," says Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. "This could violate Fourth Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights."

Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency declined to answer questions about whether direction finding technology is currently in use on its drone fleet. A spokesman provided CNET with a statement about the agency's unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that said signals interception capability is not currently used:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is not deploying signals interception capabilities on its UAS fleet. Any potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long standing law enforcement practices.

CBP's UAS program is a vital border security asset. Equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and day-and-night cameras, the UAS provides real-time images to frontline agents to more effectively and efficiently secure the nation's borders. As a force multiplier, the UAS operates for extended periods of time and allows CBP to safely conduct missions over tough-to-reach terrain. The UAS also provides agents on the ground with added situational awareness to more safely resolve dangerous situations.

During his appearance before the House Homeland Security committee, Kostelnik, a retired Air Force major general who recently left the agency, testified that the drones' direction-finding ability is part of a set of "DOD capabilities that are being tested or adopted by CBP to enhance UAS performance for homeland security." CBP currently has 10 Predator drones and is considering buying up to 14 more.

If the Predator drones were used only to identify smugglers or illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders, or for disaster relief, they might not be especially controversial. But their use domestically by other government agencies has become routine enough -- and expensive enough -- that Homeland Security's inspector general said (PDF) last year that CBP needs to sign agreements "for reimbursement of expenses incurred fulfilling mission requests."

"The documents clearly evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception technology and the capability to identify people on the ground," says Ginger McCall, director of the Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "This allows for invasive surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that could run afoul of federal privacy laws."

A Homeland Security official, who did not want to be identified by name, said the drones are able to identify whether movement on the ground comes from a human or an animal, but that they do not perform facial recognition. The official also said that because the unarmed drones have a long anticipated lifespan, the department tries to plan ahead for future uses to support its border security mission, and that aerial surveillance would comply with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and other applicable federal laws.

The documents show that CBP specified that the "tracking accuracy should be sufficient to allow target designation," and the agency notes on its Web site that its Predator B series is capable of "targeting and weapons delivery" (the military version carries multiple 100-lb Hellfire missiles). CBP says, however, that its Predator aircraft are unarmed.

Gene Hoffman, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who's the chairman of the Calguns Foundation, said CBP "needs to be very careful with attempts to identify armed individuals in the border area" when aerial surveillance touches on a constitutional right.

"In the border area of California and Arizona, it may be actively dangerous for the law-abiding to not carry firearms precisely due to the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across the border in those areas," Hoffman says.

CBP's specifications say that signals interception and direction-finding technology must work from 30 MHz to 3 GHz in the radio spectrum. That sweeps in the GSM and CDMA frequencies used by mobile phones, which are in the 300 MHz to 2.7 GHz range, as well as many two-way radios.

The specifications say: "The system shall provide automatic and manual DF of multiple signals simultaneously. Automatic DF should be able to separate out individual communication links." Automated direction-finding for cell phones has become an off-the-shelf technology: one company sells a unit that its literature says is "capable of taking the bearing of every mobile phone active in a channel."

Although CBP's unmanned Predator aircraft are commonly called drones, they're remotely piloted by FAA-licensed operators on the ground. They can fly for up to 20 hours and carry a payload of about 500 lbs.

Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's executive director, says, referring to direction finding and signals interception: "Whether or not CPB is currently engaged in these activities doesn't matter. Those are the drones they are putting in the air."

Read More..

Obama, Congress Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

Obama met for just over an hour at the White House today with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.

"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."

READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.

Sequestration Deadline: Obama Meets With Leaders Watch Video

Sequester Countdown: The Reality of Budget Cuts Watch Video

The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.

"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.

"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."

Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester

Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.

Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."

But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.

"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."

Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?

The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.

Read More..

Tennis: Federer beaten by Berdych again

DUBAI: Roger Federer's defence of the Dubai Open title came to a dramatic end in the semi-finals after he failed to convert three match points against Tomas Berdych, the man who also upset him in the US Open.

The world number six from the Czech Republic thrillingly turned the match around after a neck-and-neck second set tie-break, going on to win 3-6, 7-6 (10-8), 6-4 against the five-time champion and set up a final against Novak Djokovic.

The Serbian world number one extended his unbeaten run to 17 matches and reached the 55th final of his career with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) win over Juan Martin Del Potro, the former US Open champion from Argentina.

Federer was on the verge of success at 6-4 and 8-7 in the tie break, with the second of the three points coming on his serve, only for Berdych to somehow get into a rally and win it with some fierce ground strokes.

One break of serve halfway through the final set then proved decisive, as Federer gambled more and more on rushing the net instead of continuing the bruising baseline exchanges which characterised the first two sets.

"It's obviously unfortunate, you know," said Federer, for whom this is a tournament in his second home. "Pity to lose that one, but Tomas did well to hang in there.

"Obviously I leave this match with a lot of regrets I'm feeling: serving for the match, with the serve, having chances in the beginning of the second, you know, when he wasn't quite in the match yet, to go break up, you know, set and a break, you know, a few points where things just didn't happen for me."

Of his best chance, the second match point, Federer said: "That's just disappointing right there, because the match was in my racket.

"You do all the right things for so long, and then at the end you've got to explain why you didn't hit two shots decent, you know. So it's disappointing."

Berdych was pleased that he avoided the perils of tension in the later stages, as he closed the match out.

"Staying calm is definitely the big thing I have been working on," he said. "And I am still working on it, especially with the serve. When I serve well I can do a lot of damage."

Earlier, Djokovic was again in fine fettle for a man who had not played a tournament since the successful defence of the Australian title nearly five weeks ago, and, after three solid wins already, he raised his level once more.

Djokovic was made to.

Del Potro hit fierce first serves and heavy ground strokes mixed in with thunderbolt accelerations with his forehand, advancing to a 3-0 lead in the second set.

Djokovic responded superbly when behind, containing brilliantly, moving superbly, and counter-attacking with excellent timing and accuracy.

However, his break back to 2-3 came amidst controversy. Umpire Magdi Somat imposed a time violation on Del Potro when he took a longer to prepare at a vital moment, at 30-40, break point down.

The Argentine walked up to the umpire to protest, gesticulating as he did so, and accompanied by a spate of boos from spectators. By the time the situation had calmed, the delay was at least twice the permitted 25 seconds.

There followed a forehand-to-forehand exchange ending with a mis-hit under pressure by Del Potro costing him the game. When they sat down at the change of ends there was another exchange between the umpire and Del Potro, with further jeering from spectators.

Djokovic was critical. "I don't know exactly if the chair umpire gave him unofficial verbal warning before that. If he didn't, then I don't agree with that decision," he said.

It muddied the waters and proved to be a turning point. It also landed the Argentine with extra pressure in his next service game and although he diligently saved two break points amidst a sequence of excellent rallies, Djokovic eventually broke serve.

"It was very important point for the game, for the match," Del Potro said of the timing of the umpire's decision. "Maybe he doesn't know about that, you know.

"I mean, in that moment, if you call warning or if you do something different, you can lose the focus and that's what happened with me."

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Law firm seeks victims of 'bad robot surgery'

Is a robot about to excise your prostate? Well stop right there, mister. Here's some litigation that might interest you.

In a surreal twist to the ads you often see for legal help with accidents, arrests, or debt, a Louisiana law firm is fishing for victims of what it calls "bad robot surgery."

Becnel Law Firm LLC's ad below looks like something that would play in the background of a sci-fi film, but it's serious. The campaign Web site Badrobotsurgery.com says, "Robotic surgery can severely injure the bowel, bladder, and blood vessels. Some of these injuries can even occur without the surgeon knowing it, which can lead to severe complications if left untreated."

In a video on the site, Alabama surgeon Francois Blaudeau says Intuitive Surgical's wildly popular da Vinci robot surgery system has injured patients who are having their prostate or uterus removed. He adds that the robot may not be properly insulated, causing burns or "even vascular injuries causing death."

Becnel did not respond to inquiries about whether it's leading a class-action suit, but it wouldn't be the first time robot-assisted surgery has been the focus of litigation. Last year, a jury awarded a Chicago family $7.5 million after a man died following a robot-assisted spleen removal at the University of Illinois Hospital.

Intuitive was not a defendant in that case, but it has been named in other lawsuits. Approved by the FDA in 2000, its robotic platforms cost some $1.45 million and are controlled by surgeons sitting at nearby consoles. They do not perform programmed or autonomous procedures.

"In any definitive treatment option, such as surgery of the cancerous prostate, heart, or other major organs, there are risks of complications," Intuitive spokesperson Angela Wonson tells Crave, adding the company does not comment on active litigation or sites that solicit plaintiffs.

"Da Vinci surgery was designed to reduce the risk and complications associated with open surgical procedures by extending the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to a broader population of patients.

"To date, nearly 1.5 million surgeries have been performed globally and over 4,500 peer-reviewed articles studying the da Vinci Surgical System, covering hundreds of thousands of patients by hundreds of surgeons in dozens of countries have been published."

Today, there here are 2,585 da Vinci systems in hospitals around the world. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit:
Intuitive Surgical)

Wonson cites a large prostate cancer study in the journal European Urology that found that patients undergoing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy were less likely to receive a blood transfusion, to experience complications, or to have prolonged hospitalizations. Other long-term studies have found that robot surgery is safe.

However, a study published last month in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that hysterectomies performed with the da Vinci system cost thousands of dollars more but did not reduce complications compared with standard less-invasive surgery.

"Consumer advertising of expensive devices should be subjected to the same scrutiny as that of new and expensive medications," JAMA said in an editorial that discussed the hype surrounding the device compared to the literature.

But going under a robot's knife has a cutting-edge appeal that's irresistible to the many patients signing up, even though they may not know all the facts.

"I started doing robotic surgery two and a half years ago because I think it is the wave of the future and it will blossom into a great surgical technology that will truly benefit patients," Jacques-Pierre Fontaine, a lung cancer surgeon at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., told Crave.

"However, robotic lung surgery is also a sexy term that markets itself well. It's on billboards along highways across Florida. Patients seek surgeons who advertise that they perform robotic surgery. They may not understand the technology nor if it is truly beneficial for their specific condition, but they will drive from far away to see me in consultation specifically for a robotic procedure."

What do you think? Would you opt for robot-assisted surgery? And who would you sue if it went "bad"?

Read More..

Vatican hints at start date for papal conclave

VATICAN CITY Much speculation surrounds the date when leaders of the Roman Catholic Church will begin the process of selecting their new pope.

Play Video

Pope Benedict XVI: "I am no longer Pope"

The date for the conclave of cardinals to begin their deliberations has not yet been set, although one of Pope Benedict XVI's final acts before resigning his office was to amend the rules governing the election of a successor, allowing the cardinals to meet earlier than the usual 15-day transition between pontificates.

On Thursday, soon after Benedict left the Vatican on his final day as pope, Monsignor Carlo Maria Celli, a papal communications officer, hinted that the date could be March 11.

That could not be immediately confirmed.

The date of the conclave's start is important because Holy Week begins March 24, with Easter Sunday March 31. In order to have a new pope in place for the church's most solemn liturgical period, he would need to be installed by Sunday, March 17 -- a tight time frame if a conclave were to start March 15.

Cardinal Francis George, of the Archdiocese of Chicago, told CBS News he hopes the papal conclave will work quickly to name a new pope when it convenes next month -- but he does not know who he will vote for.

"Not yet, I honestly don't," he said. "I've got four or five names in mind. That's part of the next days' work, to check and see do the others think what I think?"

Regarding the issues the cardinals will be considering as they choose a new Pope, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, told CBS News that cleaning up the church after a number of scandals most likely will be part of the conclave's goal.

"Sadly, tragically, we leaders of the church have often given people reasons not to have trust in the church anymore," he said.

Read More..

Benedict XVI's Tenure as Pope Ends

VATICAN CITY -- Benedict XVI's eight-year tenure as pope ended today, after he bade farewell to the faithful and departed the Vatican as the first pope to resign in six centuries.

"Thank you for your love and support," the pope tweeted from his Pontifex account. "May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

With church bells ringing across Rome, the pope was driven to the helipad on the Vatican grounds for the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence where he assumed the title "pope emeritus" after 8 p.m. local time.

When Benedict arrived at the residence just south of Rome, he was greeted by a crowd of supporters waving flags and banners.

READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address

"I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth," he told them.

Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI's Helicopter Ride to Castel Gandolfo Watch Video

Pope Benedict XVI Says Goodbye to Cardinals Watch Video

In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor. At a morning meeting at the Vatican, Benedict urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.

Benedict, 85, spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.

His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace.

Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.

When Benedict's resignation took effect once and for all at 8 p.m. local time, the Swiss Guards left his side for the last time, their time protecting the pontiff completed.

For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure was bittersweet.

Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.

"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."

9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

Read More..

Amid US budget battle, another likely missed deadline

WASHINGTON: Leaders of a divided Congress acknowledged their failure to avert across-the-board spending cuts set to begin Friday, with lawmakers and the White House trading blame for the doomsday scenario that may lie ahead.

The only related actions of substance Thursday appeared to be votes on competing Senate bills, one sponsored by Democrats and the other by Republicans, to replace the indiscriminate budget austerity, which both sides wanted to avoid when it was baked into law in 2011, with targeted spending cuts and revenues.

President Barack Obama will make a final plea to bickering congressional leaders at a White House meeting on Friday, the last day before the severe cuts known as the sequester begin to kick in.

But many lawmakers from both sides have already resigned themselves to the realization that a deadline-beating budget deal to head off the damaging package of indiscriminate cuts totaling $85 billion this year is just not happening, and that a solution could arise from March negotiations over funding government operations for fiscal year 2013.

"We've laid our cards on the table," House Speaker John Boehner said in explaining why his chamber, which passed two sequester-replacement bills last year, would take no further action until the Senate passed a bill.

Some Republicans have begun to tone down the histrionics over the effects of the sequester, saying the cuts should be manageable -- even as the International Monetary Fund warned Thursday that the sequester will slow growth in the United States and have "an impact on global growth" as well.

But John Cornyn, the number two Republican in the Senate, said Thursday that Obama and his Democrats have been overstating their "apocalyptic predictions" of hundreds of thousands of job losses, a slash in economic growth, and harsh cuts to social services and national security.

"I would suggest... put down the Beltway Kool-Aid, because they are predicting a disaster that will not occur."

Some Republicans in the House agreed. "It is going to happen. It is 2.4 percent of the budget, and it is not the end of the world," Republican Representative Jim Jordan said in US News & World Report.

"We want the savings. We want to bank those savings, and we want to move on."

Democrats have put forward what they are touting as a "balanced plan" that raises new tax revenue to help replace the $85 billion in cuts.

It also cuts several billion dollars in what Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid called "wasteful subsidies to farmers," longstanding and controversial payments that some lawmakers first sought to scrap in the 1980s.

Republicans laid out a competing version that maintains the full financial effect of sequester, without raising new revenue, but gives the president broader "flexibility" to map out where the cuts would hit.

White House spokesman Jay Carney called the Republican proposal "the worst of all worlds."

"It explicitly protects pork-barrel projects and every single tax loophole that benefits the wealthy, but puts on the table cuts to things like Medicare and education, forcing middle-class families to bear the burden while asking nothing from the wealthiest Americans."

And Reid complained that such a plan would force Obama into deciding which programs stay and which get the axe.

But Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said that is precisely the leadership Obama needs to show in a time of crisis.

"It's your job to make the tough decisions," McConnell said of the president.

Democrats are trying to force Republicans into accepting more revenues through closing what Reid calls "wasteful tax loopholes" that favor millionaires.

But conservatives appeared to be standing firm, saying Obama got his $600 billion in tax revenues for the coming decade in the last fiscal negotiations in late December.

"Given those facts, the revenue issue is now closed," Boehner insisted.

Neither plan is likely to receive the necessary votes Thursday to move the legislation forward.

House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi called the delay "mindless," slamming the "anti-government ideologues" of the far right who were cheering for sequester.

Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer blamed Boehner for running out the clock until sequester hits, and he sounded resigned to the sequester sliding into effect after Friday.

"These votes (in the Senate) will not be the last word on the issue. The debate's only beginning," he said.

"In the coming weeks... we'll consider a budget that will keep these issues front and center."

Republicans in the House had similar intentions. They were coalescing around a plan that would see the sequester absorbed into negotiations on legislation that funds the government.

House Appropriations committee chairman Harold Rogers said there was broad support for the plan, which would pare down the $1.043 trillion discretionary spending budget for 2013 down to $974 billion, the difference being the amount of sequester cuts set to affect such spending.

-AFP/ac

Read More..