Drug Users With HIV at Much Higher Overdose Risk (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- HIV-infected drug users are 74 percent more likely to have an overdose than those without HIV, a new evidence review finds.

Behavioral and biological factors may be among the reasons for this increased risk, according to the Rhode Island Hospital researchers. Drug overdose is a frequent cause of non-AIDS death among people with HIV.

The link between HIV infection and drug use is well documented, but the association between HIV and overdose has received less attention and was the focus of this study, which involved a review of 24 previous studies.

"Over the past 30 years, we have made impressive strides in caring for and prolonging the lives of people with HIV. Our study found that premature death by overdose is an issue that affects people with HIV disproportionately," study leader Traci Green, a researcher with Rhode Island Hospital and the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research, said in a hospital news release.

"It is not entirely clear why the risk is greater, and few studies have endeavored to figure out why this might be happening," she added.

Biological factors may include clinical status, weakened immune systems, opportunistic infections and poorer physical health among HIV-infected drug users. Some research has suggested that hepatitis C infection and other conditions that affect metabolic ability may also increase the risk of overdose, according to the release.

Behavioral factors -- such as high-risk lifestyles and an increased rate of psychiatric conditions -- may also contribute to the higher risk of overdose among HIV-infected drug users, Green said.

Other possible factors could include homelessness and poverty, and poor access to medications and therapy used to treat opioid dependence, she suggested. Many HIV patients take opioid painkiller drugs as part of their treatment, while others use illegal opioids.

The study appears online in advance of print in the journal AIDS.

"Bringing overdose awareness and prevention into the HIV care setting is critical to reducing overdose deaths," Green said.

"Health care providers who treat HIV-infected patients with a history of substance abuse or who are taking opioid medications should consider counseling patients on how to reduce their risk of overdose. They may also consider prescribing naloxone (Narcan) to patients, or offering a referral to MAT (medication-assisted therapy) to reduce the risk of overdose," she advised.

Naloxone is a prescription medication that reverses an opioid overdose and has no abuse potential.

More information

The New Mexico AIDS Education and Training Center has more about recreational drugs and HIV.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111216/hl_hsn/druguserswithhivatmuchhigheroverdoserisk

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Highlights of bipartisan legislation extending payroll tax cuts, jobless benefits (Star Tribune)

What We Owe to the Americans Returning Home from Iraq (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | According to a December 15 post in the Yahoo! News Blog, The Envoy, the United States has lowered its flag in Baghdad and declare its 9-year military mission in Iraq over. An estimated 4,500 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis died during the course of the war. And for those who served our country and have returned home, a lifetime of recovering from the scars of that service have only just begun.

The question that remains is whether the U.S. government is going to step up and offer its own service to the thousands of men and women now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to their time in Iraq.

According to Patriot Outreach, post-traumatic stress disorder is the most common psychological injury of the war, striking more soldiers returning from both Iraq and Afghanistan than clinical depression or anxiety. In any given war, an average of 10 percent to 20 percent of those serving will be afflicted. Nearly all of the 1.4 million United States military active duty and reserves personnel have been exposed to battle conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's a lot of PTSD to contend with.

According to military.com, in May, the 9th Circuit federal appeals court ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul its mental health care system, noting that an average of 18 veterans a day commit suicide and it takes an average of four years to fully provide the mental health benefits owed to veterans.

I believe that the United States must do better in providing these services to our returning veterans. Regardless of the economic crisis and deep, looming cuts to defense and health care budgets or how any one individual may feel about the war or are reasons for getting into it, we have an obligation to address the needs of these soldiers who have served in our country's name. They put their lives on the line. We owe it to them to do what it takes to give back the lives to those who are now suffering from PTSD.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111215/us_ac/10687019_what_we_owe_to_the_americans_returning_home_from_iraq

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5 dead, including 3 children, in Illinois town

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Livingston County Sheriffs detectives investigate the scene of a multiple homicide Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in Emington, Ill. A family of five, including a baby and two other children, was found shot to death in the small eastern Illinois farming town of Emington, a county official said Friday. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

(AP) ? Five people, including a baby and two children, were found shot to death Friday at a home in a small eastern Illinois farming town, authorities said, and police said they were not searching for a gunman.

While not specifically saying the shooter was among the dead, Livingston County Sheriff Martin Meredith said the community was "safe from any harm" and authorities "are not looking for anyone in this crime."

County board member Bob Young, who lives in Emington, said the dead included a man, a woman, an infant, a first grader and a fourth grader. The family had moved to the town of about 100 people about 80 miles southwest of Chicago within the last six months and the two older children attend school in nearby Saunemin, Young said. The street where the family lived was closed by police, he said.

Meredith said first responders found the bodies after Livingston County dispatchers received a call Friday afternoon. Coroner Michael Burke will release the names of the victims once relatives are notified, the sheriff said.

Livingston County authorities and Illinois State Police crime scene technicians were still working the scene late Friday, Meredith said. He declined to release additional details about the shooting, saying more information would be released Saturday morning.

Ronald Groetsema lives near the home where the family was found and said he heard six to eight gunshots, then heard a second round of four to six shots a few minutes later. Groetsema's 12-year-old son got off the school bus with the children who died, he said.

"They were happy because it was the last day of school before Christmas break," Groetsema said.

Residents described Emington as a once strictly farming town that has gone through changes in the last 20 years as young families moved in. Young said the town has become more of a bedroom community from which people commute north to cities such as Joliet, about 45 miles away.

"We did have an awful disaster here," said Emington Mayor Daniel Delaney, who's been in office for 24 years. "You never would have thought it would happen in our town of 100 people or less. It's very sad. There were helicopters flying over earlier. Right now it's just very, very, very sad for us here."

Delaney said the town is not prosperous and has received help from the state. "It's always really had a hard time. Most of the people are retired or farmers who moved into town," he said.

Young said Emington has a post office that's been targeted for closure and just a handful of small businesses ? a grain elevator, a dog groomer and a small beauty salon. The town, he said, had never experienced anything like Friday's shootings.

"I've lived here all my life. I guess, 60, 70 years ago we had a bank robbery, was the other big thing, but otherwise, nothing like this," he said.

Young said he did not know the family well.

"We've seen the kids playing at the playground and talk to them," Young said. "We thought everything was fine."

___

Associated Press writers David Mercer in Champaign and Karen Hawkins and Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-16-Illinois-Five%20Dead/id-70900c4a19ff469cbed00c9694b9fe1a

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Russian team trying to top K2 ? in winter (AP)

ISLAMABAD ? Reaching the summit of K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges.

Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved ? scaling the world's second highest peak in winter.

The 15 climbers will endure temperatures plunging more than 50 below zero and winds of up to 70 kilometers an hour (40 miles per hour) as they inch up the stunning giant pyramid that straddles Pakistan and China. The assault is expected to take 2 1/2 months.

"This is only possible for a Russian team," said Victor Kozlov, the affable leader of the expedition, whose members put up a new route on K2 in 2007. "God willing, we can make it," he said this week in the Pakistani capital, ahead of his journey to the Karakoram range in the far north of the country.

Winter ascents of the world's 14 highest mountains are some of most prized achievements left in climbing.

The "eight-thousanders," as they're known since they all top 8,000 meters (5 miles), were all conquered in summertime long ago. Amid a crowded field where each year hundreds pay around $80,000 to be guided up Everest, winter ascents can help a climber stand out and get his or her name in the history books.

Winter climbers have been summitting the 14 one by one the past decades ? starting with Everest ? but peaks of the Karakorum remained unconquered. The range is further north than the Himalayas, where Everest is located, and thus sees harsher winters. K2 is the northernmost peak of the lot.

Teams attempted winter ascents in the Karakorum 16 times in recent years. The first success came this year, when a three-member team including American Cory Richards summitted Gasherbrum II. That left only four peaks, three of them in the Karakorum and one nearby in the Himalayas.

"If they make it up K2 in winter, it will be huge," said Billi Bierling, a mountaineering journalist with three "eight thousanders" to her name, including Everest.

Elite mountaineers thrive on first ascents, new routes on established peaks and climbing in the "purest style" possible. That typically means no porter assistance high up on the slopes, no oxygen bottles or no reliance on fixed ropes left by other parties.

The Russians, who start their ascent around Christmas, are not using oxygen and will have porters at base camp only. Their gear and food ? including three freshly slaughtered yaks and, according to Kozlov, a little vodka ? is being flown in by Pakistani army helicopters charging more than $7,000 an hour.

Winter climbing means less daylight and temperatures around twice as cold as summer, making frostbite more of a danger. Living conditions at base camp are more miserable, winds are more vicious, there is more snow, greater avalanche risk and climbers need more food and equipment to stay alive.

The one plus: "The mountains are less crowded," said Bierling.

By the mid 1960s, all of the world's tallest 14 mountains had seen summer ascents.

A Polish team was first up an "eight-thousander" in winter, topping out on Everest in February 1980. The triumph set the stage for a decade of other successful expeditions, mostly by a group of Polish climbers nicknamed "The Ice Warriors."

The Russians intend to follow the "Cesen" route up K2 before venturing to the 8,611-meter summit from a face that has never been climbed, hoping it will allow them to avoid the worst of the wind. They plan to fix ropes and establish camps up the mountain. They will then wait for a window of clear weather, at most a few days sometime in February or early March, and make a summit dash.

K2 is renowned for terrible, unpredictable weather and steeper slopes than Everest. In the summer of 2008, 11 climbers died in an avalanche, the deadliest incident on a peak that has the second-highest fatality rate among the "eight-thousanders." More than 300 have reached the top, but at least 80 have died trying.

Andrzej Zawada, the Polish climber who made Everest's first winter ascent, tried K2 in 1987.

In a written account, he said that from the end of December there was so much snow at base camp they had to dig tunnels to get into their tents. In 80 days on the mountain, they had just 10 days of good weather. They retreated after reaching a high point of 7,300 meters, frostbitten, their tents and ropes ripped off the mountain in the wind.

"We did everything that was humanly possible in those inhospitable conditions," he wrote. "We were simply powerless in the face of such dangerous, formidable and life threatening elements which people have to confront in the highest mountains."

Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani climber to summit K2, said he thought the Russians stood a chance.

"They are a strong team, and experienced, but it depends on the weather," he said.

He urged them to be fearless: "If you face death in the face, it will run away like a dog."

There are two other expeditions elsewhere in the Karakorams this winter.

Pakistan has long welcomed foreign mountaineering expeditions, which bring cash and jobs into one of the country's poorest regions. While the northern areas where the Karakorum range is situated are some of the safest in Pakistan, largely untouched by militancy, the spike in Islamist terrorism in the country over the last five years has led to a sharp drop in arrivals, said Naiknam Karim, from Adventure Tours Pakistan, which is organizing the Russian push.

"The biggest hurdle is the law and order situation and the perception outside the country," he said. "Sometimes the climbers want to come, but their families don't allow it."

______

On the Web

http://k2-winterclimb.ru/eng/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_k2_in_winter

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NYC protesters scale fence at vacant lot

Occupy Wall Street protestors lift the fences surrounding a park near Duarte Square in an effort to occupy the space they were previously removed from weeks prior, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in New York. While officers made arrests, protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!" About a thousand people gathered across the street at a city-owned park. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Occupy Wall Street protestors lift the fences surrounding a park near Duarte Square in an effort to occupy the space they were previously removed from weeks prior, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in New York. While officers made arrests, protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!" About a thousand people gathered across the street at a city-owned park. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Occupy Wall Street protestors lift the fences surrounding a park near Duarte Square in an effort to occupy the space they were previously removed from weeks prior, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in New York. While officers made arrests, protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!" About a thousand people gathered across the street at a city-owned park. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

An Occupy Wall Street protestor heads up a ladder to scale the fences surrounding a park near Duarte Square in an effort to occupy the space they were previously removed from weeks prior, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in New York. While officers made arrests, protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!" About a thousand people gathered across the street at a city-owned park. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Occupy Wall Street protestors are shoved onto the street by police near Duarte Square after an effort to occupy the space they were previously removed from weeks prior, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in New York. While officers made arrests, protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!" About a thousand people gathered across the street at a city-owned park. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

(AP) ? Dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested Saturday after they scaled a chain-link fence or crawled under it to get to an Episcopal church-owned lot they want to use for a new camp site.

Protesters used a wooden ladder to scale the fence or lifted it from below while others cheered them on. A man wearing a Santa suit stood on the ladder among others, as they ignored red "Private Property" signs.

As officers made arrests, protesters shouted obscenities and hollered: "Make them catch you!" The group was inside the lot for a short time before being led out by police in single file through a space in the fence. About 50 people were arrested, police said.

"We're just trying to say that this country has gone in the wrong direction, and we need spaces that we can control and we can decide our future in, and that's what this is about," said David Suker, who was among those who scaled the fence.

Before the arrests, several hundred gathered in Duarte Square, a half-acre (0.2 hectare) wedge of a park at the edge of Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood and across the street from the vacant lot.

They gathered partly to mark the three-month anniversary of the Occupy movement and partly to demand use of the lot, owned by Trinity Church.

The original Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan was shut down last month.

Trinity is a Zuccotti Park neighbor that helped demonstrators assemble, and provided them shelter in the three months since the movement began. The day after authorities moved in and cleaned out Zuccotti Park, about a dozen protesters went to the vacant lot, clipped the fence at the church-owned property and were arrested, along with some journalists.

Since then, some Occupy protesters have launched a bid to gain the church's consent for them to use the space. Trinity's Rev. James H. Cooper said giving the protesters access to the lot would not be a safe or smart move.

"There are no facilities at the Canal Street lot. Demanding access and vandalizing the property by a determined few OWS protesters won't alter the fact that there are no basic elements to sustain an encampment," he wrote in a statement. "The health, safety and security problems posed by an encampment here, compounded by winter weather, would dwarf those experienced at Zuccotti Park."

On Friday, the top bishop of the Episcopal Church asked protesters not to trespass on the property. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori warned it could result in "legal and police action."

Trinity Church dates back to the colonial era and was a refuge for relief workers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. A sculpture out front was made out of a giant sycamore tree destroyed on 9/11.

"I feel it is very much in keeping with the tradition over the years of Trinity to work with poor people, to help poor people," said Stephen Chinlund, 77, a retired Episcopalian priest and one of several at the square Saturday.

Chinlund held a sign that read: Trinity, hero of 9/11, be a hero again!"

___

Associated Press broadcast newsperson Julie Walker contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-17-Occupy%20Wall%20Street/id-df4951147d00416c80d5b19dee3c5ebb

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SEC charges ex-Fannie, Freddie CEOs with fraud (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Two former CEOs at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday became the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis.

In a lawsuit filed in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil fraud charges against six former executives at the two firms, including former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron.

The executives were accused of understating the level of high-risk subprime mortgages that Fannie and Freddie held just before the housing bubble burst.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives told the world that their subprime exposure was substantially smaller than it really was," said Robert Khuzami, SEC's enforcement director.

Khuzami noted that huge losses on their subprime loans eventually pushed the two companies to the brink of failure and forced the government to take them over.

The charges brought Friday follow widespread criticism of federal authorities for not holding top executives accountable for the recklessness that triggered the 2008 crisis.

Before the SEC announced the charges, it reached an agreement not to charge Fannie and Freddie. The companies, which the government took over in 2008, also agreed to cooperate with the SEC in the cases against the former executives.

The Justice Department began investigating the two firms three years ago. In August, Freddie said Justice informed the company that its probe had ended.

Many legal experts say they don't expect the six executives to face criminal charges.

"If the U.S. attorney's office was going to be bringing charges, they would have brought it simultaneously with the civil case," said Christopher Morvillo, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Manhattan.

Robert Mintz, a white-collar defense lawyer, says he doubts any top Wall Street executives will face criminal charges for actions that hastened the financial crisis, given how much time has passed.

Mudd, 53, and Syron, 68, led the mortgage giants in 2007, when home prices began to collapse. The four other top executives also worked for the companies during that time.

In a statement from his attorney, Mudd said the government reviewed and approved all the company's financial disclosures.

"Every piece of material data about loans held by Fannie Mae was known to the United States government and to the investing public," Mudd said. "The SEC is wrong, and I look forward to a court where fairness and reason ? not politics ? is the standard for justice."

Syron's lawyers said the term "subprime had no uniform definition in the market" at that time.

"There was no shortage of meaningful disclosures, all of which permitted the reader to assess the degree of risk in Freddie Mac's" portfolio, the lawyers said in a statement. "The SEC's theory and approach are fatally flawed."

According to the lawsuit, Fannie and Freddie misrepresented their exposure to subprime loans in reports, speeches and congressional testimony.

Fannie told investors in 2007 that it had roughly $4.8 billion worth of subprime loans on its books, or just 0.2 percent of its portfolio. That same year, Mudd told two congressional panels that Fannie's subprime loans represented didn't exceed 2.5 percent of its business.

The SEC says Fannie actually had about $43 billion worth of products targeted to borrowers with weak credit, or 11 percent of its holdings.

Freddie told investors in late 2006 that it held between $2 billion and $6 billion of subprime mortgages on its books. And Syron, in a 2007 speech, said Freddie had "basically no subprime exposure," according to the suit.

The SEC says its holdings were actually closer to $141 billion, or 10 percent of its portfolio in 2006, and $244 billion, or 14 percent, by 2008.

Syron also authorized especially risky mortgages for borrowers without proof of income or assets as early as 2004, the suit alleges, "despite contrary advice" from Freddie's credit-risk experts. He rejected their advice, "in part due to his desire to improve Freddie Mac's market share."

Fannie and Freddie buy home loans from banks and other lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and then sell them to investors around the world. The two own or guarantee about half of U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million loans.

During the financial crisis, the two firms verged on collapse. The Bush administration seized control of them in September 2008.

So far, the companies have cost taxpayers more than $150 billion ? the largest bailout of the financial crisis. They could cost up to $259 billion, according to their government regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Administration.

Mudd was paid more than $10 million in salary and bonuses in 2007, according to company statements. He was fired from Fannie after the government took over. He's now the chief executive of the New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group.

Syron made more than $18 million in 2007, according to company statements. His compensation increased $4 million from 2006 because of bonuses he received ? part of them for encouraging risky subprime lending, according to company filings. It's not clear what portion of the bonuses was for his efforts to promote subprime lending.

Syron resigned from Freddie in 2008. He's now an adjunct professor and trustee at Boston College.

The other executives charged were Fannie's Enrico Dallavecchia, 50, a former chief risk officer, and Thomas Lund, 53, a former executive vice president; and Freddie's Patricia Cook, 58, a former executive vice president and chief business officer, and Donald Bisenius, 53, a former senior vice president.

Lund's lawyer, Michael Levy, said in a statement that Lund "did not mislead anyone." Lawyers for the other defendants declined to comment Friday.

Based on the outcomes of similar cases, the lawsuit might not yield much in penalties against the former executives.

In July, Citigroup paid just $75 million to settle similar civil charges with the SEC. Its chief financial officer and head of investor relations were accused of failing to disclose more than $50 billion worth of potential losses from subprime mortgages. The two executives charged paid $100,000 and $80,000 in civil penalties.

Fines against executives charged in SEC civil cases can reach up to $150,000 per violation. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro has asked Congress to raise the limit to $1 million.

The SEC has brought other cases related to the financial crisis since it began a broad investigation into the actions of Wall Street banks and other financial firms about three years ago.

Goldman Sachs & Co., for example, agreed last year to pay $550 million to settle charges of misleading buyers of a complex mortgage investment. JPMorgan Chase & Co. resolved similar charges in June and paid $153.6 million.

Citigroup Inc. agreed to pay $285 million to settle similar charges, though that settlement was recently struck down by a federal judge in New York City.

Most cases, however, didn't involve charges against prominent top executives.

An exception was Angelo Mozilo, the co-founder and CEO of failed mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. He agreed to a $67.5 million settlement with the SEC in October 2010 to avoid trial on civil fraud and insider trading charges that he profited from doling out risky mortgages while misleading investors about the risks.

Associated Press writers Marcy Gordon in Washington and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_bi_ge/us_fannie_freddie_charges

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Russian team trying to top K2 _ in winter

In this Dec. 14, 2011 photo, Victor Koslov, the leader of the Russian expedition to K2, gestures during an interview in Islamabad, Pakistan. Summiting K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges. Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved: Scaling the peak in winter. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

In this Dec. 14, 2011 photo, Victor Koslov, the leader of the Russian expedition to K2, gestures during an interview in Islamabad, Pakistan. Summiting K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges. Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved: Scaling the peak in winter. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

In this Dec. 14, 2011 photo, Victor Koslov, the leader of the Russian expedition to K2, gestures during an interview in Islamabad, Pakistan. Summiting K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges. Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved: Scaling the peak in winter. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

(AP) ? Reaching the summit of K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges.

Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved ? scaling the world's second highest peak in winter.

The 15 climbers will endure temperatures plunging more than 50 below zero and winds of up to 70 kilometers an hour (40 miles per hour) as they inch up the stunning giant pyramid that straddles Pakistan and China. The assault is expected to take 2 1/2 months.

"This is only possible for a Russian team," said Victor Kozlov, the affable leader of the expedition, whose members put up a new route on K2 in 2007. "God willing, we can make it," he said this week in the Pakistani capital, ahead of his journey to the Karakoram range in the far north of the country.

Winter ascents of the world's 14 highest mountains are some of most prized achievements left in climbing.

The "eight-thousanders," as they're known since they all top 8,000 meters (5 miles), were all conquered in summertime long ago. Amid a crowded field where each year hundreds pay around $80,000 to be guided up Everest, winter ascents can help a climber stand out and get his or her name in the history books.

Winter climbers have been summitting the 14 one by one the past decades ? starting with Everest ? but peaks of the Karakorum remained unconquered. The range is further north than the Himalayas, where Everest is located, and thus sees harsher winters. K2 is the northernmost peak of the lot.

Teams attempted winter ascents in the Karakorum 16 times in recent years. The first success came this year, when a three-member team including American Cory Richards summitted Gasherbrum II. That left only four peaks, three of them in the Karakorum and one nearby in the Himalayas.

"If they make it up K2 in winter, it will be huge," said Billi Bierling, a mountaineering journalist with three "eight thousanders" to her name, including Everest.

Elite mountaineers thrive on first ascents, new routes on established peaks and climbing in the "purest style" possible. That typically means no porter assistance high up on the slopes, no oxygen bottles or no reliance on fixed ropes left by other parties.

The Russians, who start their ascent around Christmas, are not using oxygen and will have porters at base camp only. Their gear and food ? including three freshly slaughtered yaks and, according to Kozlov, a little vodka ? is being flown in by Pakistani army helicopters charging more than $7,000 an hour.

Winter climbing means less daylight and temperatures around twice as cold as summer, making frostbite more of a danger. Living conditions at base camp are more miserable, winds are more vicious, there is more snow, greater avalanche risk and climbers need more food and equipment to stay alive.

The one plus: "The mountains are less crowded," said Bierling.

By the mid 1960s, all of the world's tallest 14 mountains had seen summer ascents.

A Polish team was first up an "eight-thousander" in winter, topping out on Everest in February 1980. The triumph set the stage for a decade of other successful expeditions, mostly by a group of Polish climbers nicknamed "The Ice Warriors."

The Russians intend to follow the "Cesen" route up K2 before venturing to the 8,611-meter summit from a face that has never been climbed, hoping it will allow them to avoid the worst of the wind. They plan to fix ropes and establish camps up the mountain. They will then wait for a window of clear weather, at most a few days sometime in February or early March, and make a summit dash.

K2 is renowned for terrible, unpredictable weather and steeper slopes than Everest. In the summer of 2008, 11 climbers died in an avalanche, the deadliest incident on a peak that has the second-highest fatality rate among the "eight-thousanders." More than 300 have reached the top, but at least 80 have died trying.

Andrzej Zawada, the Polish climber who made Everest's first winter ascent, tried K2 in 1987.

In a written account, he said that from the end of December there was so much snow at base camp they had to dig tunnels to get into their tents. In 80 days on the mountain, they had just 10 days of good weather. They retreated after reaching a high point of 7,300 meters, frostbitten, their tents and ropes ripped off the mountain in the wind.

"We did everything that was humanly possible in those inhospitable conditions," he wrote. "We were simply powerless in the face of such dangerous, formidable and life threatening elements which people have to confront in the highest mountains."

Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani climber to summit K2, said he thought the Russians stood a chance.

"They are a strong team, and experienced, but it depends on the weather," he said.

He urged them to be fearless: "If you face death in the face, it will run away like a dog."

There are two other expeditions elsewhere in the Karakorams this winter.

Pakistan has long welcomed foreign mountaineering expeditions, which bring cash and jobs into one of the country's poorest regions. While the northern areas where the Karakorum range is situated are some of the safest in Pakistan, largely untouched by militancy, the spike in Islamist terrorism in the country over the last five years has led to a sharp drop in arrivals, said Naiknam Karim, from Adventure Tours Pakistan, which is organizing the Russian push.

"The biggest hurdle is the law and order situation and the perception outside the country," he said. "Sometimes the climbers want to come, but their families don't allow it."

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On the Web

http://k2-winterclimb.ru/eng/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-16-Pakistan-K2%20in%20Winter/id-9234915bc1b74ec5b04a426551e4fa3e

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Charlize Theron 'really enjoying' being single

>>> we all remember that pretty popular girl from high school , the one everyone thought had it all. charlize theron plays that girl in the new movie " young adult . "ow now at 30 something, her character decides to go back to the hometown where she grew up and rekindle an old flame. but she quickly finds out there might be some problems with her plan. let's take a look.

>> buddy slade and i are meant to be together. and i'm here to get him back.

>> i'm pretty sure he's married with a kid on the way.

>> no. the kid is here. i'm cool with it. i've got baggage, too. i would keep all of this to yourself. i would find a therapist.

>> that's not the old flame. that's matt who you became friends with.

>> yes.

>> but this is, i think, a dark, complicated role in which mavis gary seems to not understand reality. how would would you describe it?

>> i think you did a really good job. i really like the idea, the film is really kind of dressed up as it looks like a very simple story. and what i liked about it is what you just said. it's a film that deals with some really complicated human issues. it really is a study on human behavior and it really is the story of a girl who kind of had a -- development and writes these young adult novels and has never grown up and has no tool set. so there was something interesting about watching a woman in her mid 30s dealing with things that we all know, but dealing with them like a 16-year-old.

>> exactly. and she's not just trying to rekindle an old flame. she actually is going after her old boyfriend after he has just had a child with his wife who he's happily married to.

>> yeah.

>> so she's actually a character who you have ever reason watching this movie that you want to hate her.

>> yeah.

>> and yet in the way you play her, it's impossible to hate her. and why is that?

>> because i fool you. i thought i -- when i read it, i think, like you said, the things that she does are despicable. but there was something about her that felt very human to me. and i think jason wrightman, who directed this film so brilliantly, said something really so very true. when we watch movies, it is in a way like holding up a mirror. and we see these things that most of the time it's the attributes that we aspire to. most movies are about people doing good things and this is a character that i think holds a mirror to the things that i think maybe are not so attractive about us, that are very human.

>> in a rare way, in a way that we don't often see women portrayed on film, you know? and i'm interested in that because i wonder, do you go after the sort of dark, complicated bob de niro type characters or do they come seeking you?

>> i don't know exactly how it works. i mean, i think those are -- that's definitely the career i wanted for myself. i grew up on 70s film and i looked at what gene hackman and dustin hoffman did and those are the characters that i just relished. it was very rare. i think women in the 70s got to do them, too, like meryl streep and susan suranden. but i think we're waking up to the feeling that women are not just the two extremities. we are really -- there's a massive gray zone when it comes to us and we're, i think, sometimes more complex and layered than men are. and i think slowly film is kind of coming around and showing those women.

>> and you're playing some of those roles and to the point where you have won an oscar, you've been nominated for another and now there's buzz about this particular movie? so when you are in that category of actresses who is sort of expected or sort of perceived as being oscar worthy, what's the sort of -- i mean, is there a comfort kind of a zone? what does that mean? i mean, few of us have that experience.

>> i sometimes feel like i never -- i mean, it's so bizarre. i feel incredibly blessed that i have gone through that experience and this is like this little film. i haven't worked for three years. and to come back in this film with this kind of material with someone like jason wrightman directing me, that feels like a gift and i can't even think -- i can't think beyond that. it's such a compliment, but it's so --

>> well, we're cheering for you. the movie is called " young adult " it opens in select cities today and nationwide on december 16th . i think you're fantastic in it. i'm rooting

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45671021/ns/today-entertainment/

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