Obama nominates Elena Kagan for Supreme Court

President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, declaring she would demonstrate the same independence, integrity and passion for the law exhibited by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

If confirmed by the Senate, Kagan would become the third woman on the high court. Obama introduced her in the White House East Room as "my friend."

The former Harvard Law School dean "is widely regarded as one of the nation's foremost legal minds," Obama said.

Kagan, 50, said she was "honored and humbled by this nomination." She called it "the honor of a lifetime."

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Trib fights unfriendly confines on Wrigley Blanket landmark status would hurt business, it says

With a Tuesday deadline looming, City Hall and the Tribune Co.remain at an impasse over how much of Wrigley Field should be coveredby a landmark designation considered a precursor to stadium expansionand additional night games.

The Daley administration is pushing for a blanket designation. TheTribune Co., which owns the Cubs, is willing to swallow a designationconfined to 87-year-old Wrigley's signature features, including thestadium entrance, antique scoreboard and ivy-covered walls.

The deadline is Tuesday for the Tribune Co. to either consent tothe proposed landmark designation or declare an impasse and throw thehot potato back to the Chicago Commission on …

Oil near $87 after hitting two-year high

Oil remained near $87 a barrel Friday after reaching a two-year high as the Federal Reserve's plan to buy $600 billion of Treasury bonds to stimulate the U.S. economy drove a tide of cash into stocks and commodities.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for December delivery was up 35 cents at $86.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the session, it reached $87.22 — its highest point since Oct. 2008. On Thursday, the contract climbed $1.80 to settle at $86.49.

The Fed's announcement Wednesday underlined expectations that the dollar would weaken further and push up prices for commodities including oil.

The strength of …

Magazine Mountain Shagreen

Mesodon magazinensis

Status	Threatened
Listed	April 17, 1989
Family	Polygyridae (Land Snail)
Description	Medium-sized, dusky brown or buff colored shell.
Habitat	Cool, moist, rocky crevices in rock slide …

Mechanical Properties of Murine Leukemia Virus Particles: Effect of Maturation

ABSTRACT

After budding from the host cell, retroviruses undergo a process of internal reorganization called maturation, which is prerequisite to infectivity. Viral maturation is accompanied by dramatic morphological changes, which are poorly understood in physical/mechanistic terms. Here, we study the mechanical properties of live mature and immature murine leukemia virus particles by indentation-type experiments conducted with an atomic force microscope tip. We find that both mature and immature particles have an elastic shell. Strikingly, the virus shell is twofold stiffer in the immature (0.68 N/m) than the mature (0.31 N/m) form. However, finite-element simulation shows that …

Fatah Storms Hamas-Controlled Buildings

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hundreds of Fatah gunmen on Saturday stormed Hamas-controlled institutions in the West Bank, including parliament and government ministries, and told staffers that those with ties to Hamas will not be allowed to return.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, his office said. The meeting between Abbas and Jacob Walles took place at Abbas' headquarters in Ramallah hours before Abbas was expected to swear in an emergency government.

Abbas had dismantled the Hamas-Fatah coalition, fired Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and appointed Finance Minister Salam Fayyad in his place after Hamas took control …

Air Force waves off warnings about GPS accuracy

A government report says the accuracy of GPS signals could deteriorate in the next few years because of delays in satellite launches, but the Air Force says it has plenty of ways of keeping up the navigation system increasingly relied on by drivers and cell phone users.

The Government Accountability Office reported last month that there is a risk that launches of new satellites will not keep pace with the wear and tear on the Global Positioning System.

That could mean that the accuracy and reliability of hundreds of millions of civilian and military GPS devices _ including everything from "buddy finder" cell phone applications to guided bombs _ …