Severe budget cuts to hit economy at delicate time

(CBS News) As the automatic budget cuts known in Washington as the sequester draws closer, consider this: the federal government does $500 billion worth of business with private contractors, including as many as 120,000 small businesses.

That's everyone from the makers of nearly a million pairs of combat boots each year to the roughly 700 companies in 44 states that make parts for the Boeing C-17 military transport plane.

Jill Schlesinger, editor at large of CBS MoneyWatch, told "CBS Evening News" Saturday anchor Jim Axelrod that the blunt cuts come during a delicate time of the nation's economic recovery.

"Let's say that we're running a town, and we just had to make these across-the-board spending cuts," Schlesinger said. "What if we had to cut 20 firemen at the exact same we're going to cut 20 librarians? I mean, I love the library, but they are not equal, and what this sequestration does is it equalizes the pain across every single agency without a forethought, without saying, 'Wait a minute, what's important to safety? What's important to actually bringing money in the door?'"

The cuts would drag on the nation's economic growth, Schlesinger said.

"The economy is still fragile," she said. "Yes, we have been in recovery for a couple of years, and that's good, but this is not a robustic recovery. We're not growing at 3 or 3-and-a-half percent. We're only growing by 2 percent."

Still, the cuts aren't likely to have as negative of an effect on Wall Street because investors saw them coming, Schlesinger said.

"They've built it into their models," she said. "They've said, 'OK, we're going to give up a half a percent of growth, but we still believe that we will be able to grow enough so companies can make money.'"

A lot of the investors Schlesinger spoke to said that if things take a turn for the worse they suspect that Congress will come together and do something retroactively to potentially delay the cuts.

"No one," she said, "wants to be in office presiding over an economy that goes into a double-dip."

Watch Schlesinger's full conversation with Axelrod in the player above

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Fiery Last-Lap Daytona Crash Injures 28 Fans

A fiery last-lap crash at the Daytona International Speedway injured a number of spectators today, who were seen being carried away from the stands on stretchers.

A total of 28 fans were injured, with 14 transported to hospitals and 14 treated at the speedway, Dayton president Joie Chitwood III. All NASCAR drivers involved in the crash have been treated and released, Chitwood said.

ESPN reported that one of the spectators taken to the hospital was on the way to surgery with head trauma.

The 12-car crash happened moments before the end of the Nationwide race, and on the eve of the Daytona 500, one of NASCAR's biggest events.

The crash was apparently triggered when driver Regan Smith's car, which was being tailed by Brad Keselowski on his back bumper, spun to the right and shot up the track. Smith had been in the lead and said after the crash he had been trying to throw a "block."

Rookie Kyle Larson's car slammed into the wall that separates the track from the grandstands, causing his No. 32 car to go airborne and erupt in flames.

When a haze of smoke cleared and Larson's car came to a stop, he jumped out uninjured.

His engine and one of his wheels were sitting in a walkway of the grandstand.

"I was getting pushed from behind," Larson told ESPN. "Before I could react, it was too late."

Driver Michael Annett was taken to the hospital after he slammed head-on into a barrier during the chaos. NASCAR officials told ESPN the driver was awake and alert.

Tony Stewart pulled out the win, but in victory lane, what would have been a celebratory mood was tempered by concern for the injured fans.

"We've always known this is a dangerous sport," Stewart said. 'But it's hard when the fans get caught up in it."

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Rusty rocks reveal ancient origin of photosynthesis

SUN-WORSHIP began even earlier than we thought. The world's oldest sedimentary rocks suggest an early form of photosynthesis may have evolved almost 3.8 billion years ago, not long after life appeared on Earth.

A hallmark of photosynthesis in plants is that the process splits water and produces oxygen gas. But some groups of bacteria oxidise substances like iron instead – a form of photosynthesis that doesn't generate oxygen. Evolutionary biologists think these non-oxygen-generating forms of photosynthesis evolved first, giving rise to oxygen-generating photosynthesis sometime before the Earth's atmosphere gained oxygen 2.4 billion years ago (New Scientist, 8 December 2012, p 12).

But when did non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis evolve? Fossilised microbial mats that formed in shallow water 3.4 billion years ago in what is now South Africa show the chemical fingerprints of the process. However, geologists have long wondered whether even earlier evidence exists.

The world's oldest sedimentary rocks – a class of rock that can preserve evidence of life – are a logical place to look, says Andrew Czaja of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. These rocks, which are found in Greenland and date back almost 3.8 billion years, contain vast deposits of iron oxide that are a puzzle. "What could have formed these giant masses of oxidised iron?" asks Czaja.

To investigate, he analysed the isotopic composition of samples taken from the oxidised iron. He found that some isotopes of iron were more common than they would be if oxygen gas was indiscriminately oxidising the metal. Moreover, the exact isotopic balance varied subtly from point to point in the rock.

Both findings make sense if photosynthetic bacteria were responsible for the iron oxide, says Czaja. That's because these microbes preferentially oxidise only a small fraction of the dissolved iron, and the iron isotopes they prefer vary slightly as environmental conditions change (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, doi.org/kh5). His findings suggest that this form of photosynthesis appeared about 370 million years earlier than we thought.

It is "the best current working hypothesis for the origin of these deposits", says Mike Tice of Texas A&M University in College Station – one of the team who analysed the 3.4-billion-year-old microbial mats from South Africa.

William Martin at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, agrees. "Anoxygenic photosynthesis is a good candidate for the isotope evidence they see," he says. "Had these fascinating results been collected on Mars, the verdict of the jury would surely remain open," says Martin Brasier at the University of Oxford. "But [on Earth] opinion seems to be swinging in the direction of non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis during the interval from 3.8 to 2.9 billion years ago."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Photosynthesis has truly ancient origins"

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US budget cuts can be avoided: Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama insisted Friday that mandatory government budget cuts set to kick in on March 1 -- known as the sequester -- were not "inevitable."

The cuts to defence and domestic spending were mandated in an agreement between Obama and his Republican foes to end a previous budget battle.

"I never think that anything is inevitable, we always have the opportunity to make the right decisions," Obama told reporters following a White House meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"Hope springs eternal."

The consequences of the threatened sequester were supposed to be so punishing that Democrats and Republicans would have no choice but to reach a deal to reduce the deficit.

Obama also attempted to reassure financial markets in case the cuts do go forward.

"Unlike issues like the debt ceiling, the sequester going into effect will not threaten the world financial system, it's not the equivalent of the US defaulting on its obligations," Obama said.

"What it does mean though is that if the US is growing slower, other countries are growing slower."

Obama wants to use a "balanced" mix of spending cuts and tax revenue increases achieved by closing loopholes used by the wealthy to cut the US deficit, and says he will not sign a bill that harms the middle class.

Republicans, who lost a previous showdown with Obama over raising tax rates for the rich, say the debate over hiking taxes is closed.

They say they are willing to close loopholes, but only in the context of a sweeping reform of the tax code, and maintain that Obama wants to use proceeds from any immediate revenue rises for more bloated government spending.

Hundreds of thousands of public employees and private contractors are threatened by the cuts.

- AFP/jc

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Sorority girl drops 107 pounds

Brittni Garcia began her weight loss journey in 2009 at 235 pounds.

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

iReporter's weight loss journey

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Brittni Garcia didn't think her weight was a problem until she couldn't fit into her "fat shorts"


• At 235 pounds, Garcia always felt like she stood out from her sorority sisters in college


• Garcia shed 107 pounds, and now promotes weight training and a healthy diet


• Do you have a weight loss success story? Share it with CNN iReport

(CNN) -- Brittni Garcia's family didn't go out for walks; they went out for dinner. And when they were at home, they enjoyed watching movies, playing board games and eating big Mexican-style home-cooked meals.

This lazy lifestyle led Garcia to weigh more than 200 pounds by the eighth grade.

"My mom always said, 'You are a big girl. You are just big-boned,'" said the 25-year-old information specialist. "So I just accepted it."

Through high school and college, her weight continued to rise. But even at 235 pounds, Garcia didn't think her weight was a problem -- until she couldn't fit into her "fat shorts" anymore.

That was December 2009.

It was a typical night for Garcia. She was studying for finals in her sorority house at Eastern Illinois University and wanted to change into some comfortable clothing. She found her red pajama XXL shorts that she normally wore to bed.

As she struggled to pull them up, she realized they were too tight and uncomfortable -- her "big, comfy shorts" no longer fit.

"Tons of emotions ran through my head," she said. "I was afraid that was the way my life was going to be."

That's when Garcia's mentality changed. Being overweight was no longer normal for her.

Heart disease runs in her family, and she realized it was time to address her weight now before it turned into a bigger health problem.

"I wanted to lose weight to challenge myself and show myself I can change, and not change for the world," Garcia wrote in her iReport. "This time, it was for me."

Getting in shape wasn't going to be easy. Going to the gym had been one of her biggest fears for a long time. She was self-conscious about how she looked and sounded when she ran.

"It was hard for me to breathe," Garcia said. "It was embarrassing."

Team loses 400 pounds for Winter Games

Embarrassment about her weight extended to other areas of her life. Although she was president of her sorority, Garcia always felt like she stood out.

"All the sorority girls had cookie-cutter form, and I looked different," she said. "It was really hard for me to connect."

Garcia's involvement in Greek life perpetuated her unhealthy habits; she often went to bars and restaurants to mingle with her college friends. It was difficult to break the cycle, but she found supportive friends who also hit the gym.

"What I tell people is that you find new friends at the gym," she said. "If you don't have the support, it's really hard to do it on your own."

Garcia found one of her biggest supporters through her sorority. She met Nicholas Monreal at a Greek function, and they began dating when she was at her heaviest. But the days of social functions, bar visits and restaurant outings are long gone for the couple.

"He was there when I realized I wanted to change," she said. "To this day, our dates are to the gym. We see excitement in going on walks and runs."

The couple has been together for four years; he proposed in December. Monreal has noticed a significant difference in Garcia over the past few years -- not just physically.

"She's more energetic ... and she's more willing to try new things," he said "She's just working very hard, and she's a better person for it."

On the right track

Since the beginning of 2010, Garcia has lost 107 pounds.

There were setbacks, the biggest of which came this past August when she was in a car accident. She completed three months of physical therapy and wasn't able to go to the gym and do her daily routines for a month and a half.

She was angry at first -- mad at the person who hit her car and stalled her progress at the gym.

But she got over her initial anger, and Garcia went on a walk. This time, she wasn't alone. Her fiance, her parents, her sisters and her aunt encouraged her to stay active. As a result, Garcia went on walks with them and did yoga at a gym.

Girl loses 65 pounds in fight against childhood obesity

After getting back on track with her daily workouts, Garcia realized she also had to better manage her eating habits.

"For the longest, I would go to the gym and go home to eat whatever I wanted," she said. "That's not how it works. I had to learn to eat differently and to learn to like new foods."

She started doing research on proper nutrition. She read books and online articles, shopped at health foods stores and learned to prepare meals that helped her maintain a healthy diet.

Now for two hours every Sunday, Garcia grills chicken, cooks vegetables and packs fresh fruit in preparation for the upcoming week.

"(I) make eating as simple as possible," she said. "If there are a lot of ingredients, I don't want it."

The next step

Down to 128 pounds, Garcia has been left with a lot of loose skin -- particularly around her stomach. She is doing CrossFit exercises and weight training to tighten up the area.

She's also checking off some other goals.

One of the most rewarding moments in Garcia's weight loss journey was completing her first 5K run in 27 minutes.

When she first started training, running three miles took her 48 minutes. Today, she can complete it in less than 25.

"I hadn't been able to walk a lap, let alone run it," she said. "And now when I finish a workout, I really get emotional and I can't believe that I could do it."

She isn't stopping there. Garcia wants to complete a half marathon as well as the Warrior Dash in June. As a result, she might take a pool break in between.

"I really want to fit in my bikini comfortably this summer," she said.

Today, Garcia doesn't shop at plus size clothing stores anymore. She was able to drop from a size 22 to a size 6.

And what happened to her XXL "fat shorts?" She ditched them for a pair of small exercise shorts.

To those just starting their weight-loss journey, she offers this advice:

"Once you start, don't give up. The hardest thing to do is to continue. If you have a bad day, don't make it a bad week."

Father, son lose 260 pounds after weight loss surgery

Do you have a weight loss story to share? Upload it to iReport.

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Wash. state governor: 6 underground nuclear tanks leaking

YAKIMA, Wash. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing."

The tanks, which already are long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy said earlier that liquid levels were decreasing in one of the tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels.

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, right, is joined by Maia Bellon, director of the Department of Ecology, at a news conference to discuss a tank leak at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in Olympia, Wash.

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AP Photo/Rachel La Corte

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The government spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.

Central to cleanup is the construction of a plant to convert millions of gallons of waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The $12.3 billion plant is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule.

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said earlier this week that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks, but that he wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend scarce money.

Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site — and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy — will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington D.C.

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Jodi Arias' Friends Believe in Her Innocence

Accused murderer Jodi Arias believes she should be punished, but hopes she will not be sentenced to death, two of her closest friends told ABC News in an exclusive interview.

Ann Campbell and Donavan Bering have been a constant presence for Arias wth at least one of them sitting in the Phoenix, Ariz., courtroom along with Arias' family for almost every day of her murder trial. They befriended Arias after she first arrived in jail and believe in her innocence.

Arias admits killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and lying for nearly two years about it, but insists she killed Alexander in self defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Remains Calm Under Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video

Nevertheless, she is aware of the seriousness of her lies and deceitful behavior.

The women told ABC News that they understand that Arias needs to be punished and Arias understands that too.

"She does know that, you know, she does need to pay for the crime," Campbell said. "But I don't want her to die, and I know that she has so much to give back."

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The lies that Arias admits she told to police and her family have been devastating to her, Bering said.

""She said to me, 'I wish I didn't have to have lied. That destroyed me,'" Donovan said earlier this week. "Because now when it's so important for her to be believed, she has that doubt. But as she told me on the phone yesterday, she goes, 'I have nothing to lose.' So all she can do is go out there and tell the truth."

During Arias' nine days on the stand she has described in detail the oral, anal and phone sex that she and Alexander allegedly engaged in, despite being Mormons and trying to practice chastity. She also spelled out in excruciating detail what she claimed was Alexander's growing demands for sex, loyalty and subservience along with an increasingly violent temper.

Besides her two friends, Arias' mother and sometimes her father have been sitting in the front row of the courtroom during the testimony. It's been humiliating, Bering said.

"She's horrified. There's not one ounce of her life that's not out there, that's not open to the public. She's ashamed," she said.

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Mood-sensing smartphone tells your shrink how you feel

PEOPLE with anxiety, depression or stress are often asked to record their mood changes throughout the day, helping psychologists fine-tune their treatment. But they often forget, recording only sparse information at best. Now an emotion-sensing smartphone app that automatically generates someone's "mood diary" could give psychologists all the data they need.

It's the brainchild of Matt Dobson and Duncan Barclay, founders of speech recognition firm EI Technologies, based in Saffron Walden, UK. Instead of relying on people writing diaries, the app, called Xpression, listens for telltale changes in a person's voice that indicate whether they are in one of five emotional states: calm, happy, sad, angry or anxious/frightened. It then lists a person's moods against the times they change, and automatically emails the list to their psychologist at the end of the day.

To work, the app has to be always on, listening out for the user's voice once every second, whether they are talking to family, friends, colleagues or even pets. It also listens in on phone calls. If the user is silent, the app does nothing. Crucially for the users' privacy, it doesn't record their words, instead seeking out telltale acoustic features – like pitch – that are indicative of emotional state.

This kind of emotion recognition via voice pattern already works well and is a "hot area" of research, says Stephen Cox, head of the speech processing lab at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who is scientific adviser for the firm.

Initially, Xpression will send 200-millisecond-long acoustic snapshots to a remote server where a machine-learning system will work out a person's emotional state before sending it back to the app for storage. Factors like voice loudness, intensity, changes in pitch and speaking pace allow the system to accurately estimate somebody's emotional state. "We extract acoustic features and let the machine-learning system work it out," says Cox. This ability will be built into the app itself eventually, says Dobson.

There's a strong need for this kind of technology, says Adrian Skinner, a clinical psychologist with the UK's National Health Service in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. "With conditions like depression, people tend to stop doing things like filling in mood diaries. If this app gives us more complete diaries it could help us better find the day-to-day triggers that raise or lower a patient's mood," he says.

The firm is a finalist in a UK government competition to identify the nation's top mobile tech company, to be judged on 26 February. An insurance company has already expressed an interest in using the app to ensure the workplace stress therapy it pays for is effective. Clinical trials are due to take place later this year.

This article appeared in print under the headline "We know how you really feel"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Non-American or European Pope is good, poll finds

WASHINGTON: More than half of Catholics in the United States think it would be a good thing for the next pope to come from South America, Asia or Africa, a Pew Research Center poll said Thursday.

Another 20 per cent said it would not matter if Pope Benedict XVI's successor hails from a developing region of the world, while just 14 per cent thought it was a bad idea.

Pew's Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed 1,504 Americans of all faiths, including 304 Catholics, shortly after the German-born pontiff's resignation announcement was made on February 11.

Fifty-one per cent of Catholic respondents said the next pope should "maintain the traditional positions of the Church."

Of those who thought he should take the Church in new directions, 15 per cent said he should get tougher on sex abuse and nine percent thought he should be more accepting of gays and marriage equality.

Just one percent believed he should be less strict about abortion.

Nearly one in four Americans are Catholics, making the Church the largest single denomination in the country -- and the United States the developed nation with the largest Catholic population.

- AFP/sf

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Drew Peterson gets 38 years for ex-wife's murder

By Michael Christian and Greg Botelho, CNN

updated 7:09 PM EST, Thu February 21, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: State's attorney describes Drew Peterson as a "cold-blooded killer"


• NEW: Vowing to appeal, a defense lawyer says his client was "railroaded"


• The Chicago-area police sergeant was convicted of murdering his third wife


• He is sentenced to 38 years in prison and will get credit for nearly 4 years served

(CNN) -- After years policing Illinois streets for criminals, Drew Peterson is now among them -- and will be for more than three decades, a judge ruled Thursday.

Will County Judge Edward Burmila sentenced Peterson to 38 years in prison in the murder of his third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, said state's attorney spokesman Charles B. Pelkie.

The former Chicago-area police sergeant will get credit for the nearly four years that he has been in custody, according to Pelkie, a spokesman for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow. He could have received as many as 60 years in prison; Illinois does not have a death penalty.

"The reason that I never looked Drew Peterson in the eye is because I never acknowledged his existence," said Glasgow, describing the convict as a "cold-blooded killer."

"But I looked him in the eye today," the prosecutor said. "He knows that we did our job."

Peterson was convicted of murder in September but had fought for a new trial, an effort that Burmila denied Thursday, just before the sentencing, Pelkie said.

Peterson's lawyers promised Thursday that they would press on with their appeal and expressed confidence they would prevail. They stood by their client, who made long and emotional remarks in court, claiming he never should have been found guilty of murder.

"Wouldn't you be angry if you were wrongly convicted?" said one of his attorneys, Steve Greenberg.

"In this case, (the prosecution) changed everything ... How would you feel if you were railroaded?"

Savio was found dead in her dry, clean bathtub on March 1, 2004. Prosecutors said Peterson killed her; the defense contended that she fell, hit her head and drowned.

The headline-grabbing case did not arise until after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared in October 2007. It was during the search for Stacy Peterson -- who still has not been found -- that investigators said they'd look again into Savio's death, which was initially ruled an accidental drowning.

Authorities altered their judgment and ruled Savio's death a homicide in February 2008, setting the stage for the first-degree murder trial last year of Peterson, a former police officer in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

A Will County jury convicted him of murder after nearly 14 hours of deliberation.

"Finally, somebody heard Kathleen's cry," the victim's mother, Marcia Savio, said after the verdict. "Twelve people did the right thing, oh, thank God."

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