Editorial: California GOP can rebuild by getting fiscal on issues

California Republican activists gathered for their spring convention last weekend in the state capital and batted around a variety of ideas for revitalizing the party.

Pick one: Stick to base principles about the economy and social issues, or adjust the party's principles to broaden its appeal beyond older white voters - or merely adjust the way the party expresses its principles to sound less divisive? Mount an all-out challenge to Gov. Jerry Brown in the 2014 election, or focus instead on strengthening the party's farm system with better candidates in municipal and district races? Rebuild methodically from party finances on up, or (as Karl Rove, the campaign guru for former President George W. Bush, told delegates in a speech) "Get off your ass" and fight back aggressively?

California Republicans must pick one and then rally around its familiar principles of fiscal restraint.

California needs a robust Republican Party to serve as a foil for free-spending Democrats. But the GOP here is anything but robust now.

Republicans hold no statewide offices. They are weak in the Legislature against Democrats' two-thirds supermajority. They lost ground here in the 2012 congressional election. The state party is heavily in debt.

These are all symptoms of the broader problem: Republicans' share of the state voter rolls has shrunk to 29 percent (vs. Democrats' 44 percent). The GOP's even-worse numbers

among younger generations and the growing Latino population suggest it must change to be a party of the future.

Most younger Californians - not to mention most slightly older Californians - don't want a party that wants to run their private lives, so they're turned off by conservatives who are fixated on gay marriage. Latinos won't join a party that doesn't seem to welcome them and their families, so a GOP that makes a priority of hard-line immigration policies isn't likely to win them over.

But younger Californians envisioning a prosperous future, and people who come to this country to share in a strong economy, will recognize the value of a GOP that makes a priority of promoting responsible fiscal practices.

It's not a matter of abandoning conservative principles on other issues - it's about acknowledging differences of opinion on social principles and then emphasizing Republicans' most popular principle.

State voters can get behind an opposition party that stands ready to keep Democrats honest in Sacramento on spending issues.

There were positive signs at the state GOP convention. Along with new chairman Jim Brulte, of the Inland Empire, the party elected vice chairwoman Harmeet Dhillon, of San Francisco, the first woman and the first Sikh in that position. The California Log Cabin Republicans reported more party leadership candidates than ever sought support from the gay and lesbian group.

Maybe most encouraging, top Republicans spoke of emphasizing the party's libertarian streak on economic and social issues. A fiscal focus by Republicans will be best for the party and, not coincidentally, best for the state.

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22727524/editorial-california-gop-can-rebuild-by-getting-fiscal?source=rss

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Napolitano: Airports feel impact from spending cuts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on Monday cautioned airline passengers to get to the airport extra early because U.S. spending cuts have already led to long lines at some security checkpoints, and said the coming furloughs will only make the situation worse.

Napolitano said mandatory spending cuts ordered on Friday by President Barack Obama have led to the elimination of overtime for Transportation Security Administration officers and customs agents. She said furlough notices would begin going out to employees on Monday, and Customs and Border Protection said it would send them out later this week.

Hiring freezes for both agencies will also prevent any open positions from being filled.

"We are already seeing the effects at some of the ports of entry - at the big airports, for example. Some of them had very long lines this weekend," Napolitano said at a "Politico Playbook" breakfast event.

She pointed to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as examples of those with long lines.

Napolitano said delays were between 150 percent and 200 percent at certain airports. Customs and Border Protection said in statement on Monday that the agency had begun reducing overtime over the weekend and effects were already visible.

"Lanes that would have previously been open due to overtime staffing were closed, further exacerbating wait times at airports with typically longer international arrival processes," the statement said, noting that additional effects were expected in the coming weeks as furloughs - which will go out on March 7 - take effect.

According to passengers and the TSA website, delays in customs and security were minimal through Monday morning but began to grow in the early afternoon.

Musician Phil Tucker, 27, and his band mates from the group Alpine, waited for an hour in Los Angeles before clearing customs after flying in from Melbourne, Australia. Tucker said that several of the customs booths were closed.

In Chicago's arrivals terminal, Dave Wagner, 51, of Boston, Massachusetts and his brother John, 48, of Chicago, arrived late Monday morning on a flight from Hong Kong. They said it took them an hour to clear customs - and that the wait appeared to be growing.

"It should have taken maybe 15 or 20 minutes," said Dave Wagner. "But there was only one agent for 12 lines."

At O'Hare International Airport's Terminal 2, which serves domestic passengers, a five-lane line for the TSA security checkpoint snaked back into the check-in area at 1 p.m.

Most passengers crossed through to their gates in about 30 minutes.

Some lawmakers have accused Napolitano and other administration officials of fear-mongering and exaggerating the impact that would be seen from the deep spending reductions known as the "sequester" which cut a total of $85 billion from government agencies between March 1 and October 1.

But Napolitano said the problems were real.

"Look, people, I don't mean to scare, I mean to inform. If you're traveling, get to the airport earlier than you otherwise would," she said. "And please don't yell at the Customs officers or the TSA officers - they are not responsible for the sequester."

The TSA issued a statement predicting lines and wait times would increase as the year goes on, especially during busy travel periods. It said the agency would have up to 2,600 TSA officer vacancies by the end of the fiscal year.

The Secret Service, which is also part of DHS, will see a five percent cut in spending but Napolitano said it would not impact security of the president.

The cuts at the agency will be on the investigative side which handles financial and identity theft, cyber crime and counterfeiting cases.

(Reporting by Deborah Charles; Additional reporting by James B. Kelleher in Chicago, David Beasley from Atlanta, Dana Feldman from Los Angeles and Atossa Araxia Abrahamian in New York; Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spending-cuts-already-cause-long-lines-airports-napolitano-163135159--business.html

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Researchers discover how to shutdown cancer's powerful master protein

Monday, March 4, 2013

The powerful master regulatory transcription factor called Bcl6 is key to the survival of a majority of aggressive lymphomas, which arise from the B-cells of the immune system. The protein has long been considered too complex to target with a drug since it is also crucial to the healthy functioning of many immune cells in the body, not just B cells gone bad.

But now, in the journal Nature Immunology, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College report that it is possible to shut down Bcl6 in the cancer, known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), while not affecting its vital function in T cells and macrophages that are needed to support a healthy immune system.

"The finding comes as a very welcome surprise," says the study's lead investigator, Dr. Ari Melnick, Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology and director of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical and Physical Sciences at Weill Cornell.

"This means the drugs we have developed against Bcl6 are more likely to be significantly less toxic and safer for patients with this cancer than we realized," says Dr. Melnick, who is also a hematologist-oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

If Bcl6 is completely inhibited, patients might suffer from systemic inflammation and atherosclerosis. Weill Cornell researchers conducted this new study to help clarify possible risks, as well as to understand how Bcl6 controls the various aspects of the immune system.

DLBCL is the most common subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma -- the seventh most frequently diagnosed cancer -- and many of these patients are resistant to currently available treatments.

"Scientists have been searching for the right answer to treat this difficult lymphoma, which, after initial treatment, can be at high risk of relapse and resistant to current therapies," Dr. Melnick says. "Believing that Bcl6 could not be targeted, some researchers have been testing alternative therapeutic approaches. This study strongly supports the notion of using Bcl6-targeting drugs."

In fact, the findings in this study were inspired from preclinical testing of two Bcl6-targeting agents that Dr. Melnick and his Weill Cornell colleagues have developed to treat DLBCLs. These experimental drugs are RI-BPI, a peptide mimic, and the small molecule agent 79-6.

Dr. Melnick says the discovery that a master regulatory transcription factor can be targeted offers implications beyond just treating DLBCL. Recent studies from Dr. Melnick and others have revealed that Bcl6 plays a key role in the most aggressive forms of acute leukemia, as well as certain solid tumors.

Transcription factors are responsible for either inhibiting or promoting the expression of genes, and master regulatory transcription factors are the equivalent of the CPU of a computer ? their actions regulate thousands of genes in different kinds of cells. For example, Bcl6 can control the type of immune cell that develops in the bone marrow -- playing many roles in the development of B cells, T cells, macrophages and other cells -- including a primary and essential role in enabling B-cells to generate specific antibodies against pathogens.

"When cells lose control of Bcl6, lymphomas develop in the immune system. Lymphomas are 'addicted' to Bcl6, and therefore Bcl6 inhibitors powerfully and quickly destroy lymphoma cells," Dr. Melnick says.

The big surprise in the current study is that rather than functioning as a single molecular machine, Bcl6 instead seems to function more like a Swiss Army knife, using different tools to control different cell types. This multi-function paradigm could represent a general model for the functioning of other master regulatory transcription factors.

"In this analogy, the Swiss Army knife, or transcription factor, keeps most of its tools folded, opening only the one it needs in any given cell type," Dr. Melnick says. "For B cells, it might open and use the knife tool; for T cells, the cork screw; for macrophages, the scissors. The amazing thing from a medical standpoint is that this means that you only need to prevent the master regulator from using certain tools to treat cancer. You don't need to eliminate the whole knife," he says. "In fact, we show that taking out the whole knife is harmful since the transcription factor has many other vital functions that other cells in the body need."

Prior to these study results, it was not known that a master regulator could separate its functions so precisely.

"Now we know we can take out a specific tool -- to shut down a specific part of the protein -- that causes the disease we want to treat."

Researchers hope this will be a major benefit to the treatment of DLBCL and perhaps other disorders that are influenced by Bcl6 and other master regulatory transcription factors.

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Weill Cornell Medical College: http://www.med.cornell.edu/index.html

Thanks to Weill Cornell Medical College for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127106/Researchers_discover_how_to_shutdown_cancer_s_powerful_master_protein

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