American League Standings

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All Times EDT
East Division
W L Pct GB
New York 49 30 .620 _
Boston 48 33 .593 2
Tampa Bay 48 33 .593 2
Toronto 41 42 .494 10
Baltimore 25 57 .305 25 1/2
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Detroit 44 37 .543 _

The Obamas may come home for National Urban League confab

Noteworthy and newsworthy folks - perhaps even President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Robinson Obama - come this way along with some 10,000 other atten- dees and visitors from across the country for the 2009 National Ur- ban Conference, "The Path to Power." July 29 - Aug. 1 at McCor- mick Place Con- vention Center. On the "A" iist: Terranee Howard, Gabrielle Union, Tracee Ellis Ross, Ne-Yo, EnVogue, MTV's Sway, Yung Joe, Rev. Al Sharpton, Stevie Wonder, Camille Edwards, Michael Steele, Benjamin T. Jealous, Va- lerie Jarrett, Ame Dun- can, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Soledad O'Brien, Gwen !fill, Tyra Banks, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Dr. Michael Lomax, Al- exis Hermann, Magic Johnson, Jada …

New Bollywood releases on their way.(Entertainment)

MEMBERS of the Indian film industry are probably breathing a sigh of relief now that the hugely popular Indian Premier League cricket tournament has come to a close. The final was played last Sunday in front of 60 000-plus spectators in Mumbai, plus a worldwide television audience of millions.

Bollywood superstars Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty individually co-own three of the teams in the IPL and they attended all their team's games. Twitter was abuzz with tweets from the stars about catching flights back to India for team games.

Bollywood filmmakers have learnt to accept that cricket takes precedence over all else, so there are no major …

LOBSTER CATCHES STIR VIOLENT CLASHES.(BUSINESS)

Byline: TOM COHEN Associated Press

TORONTO -- A conflict dating back to the arrival of white settlers in North America has rekindled off the coast of eastern Canada, with Native American fishermen and government agents battling over fishing rights.

In three recent raids by federal fisheries officials backed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Coast Guard vessels, an estimated 2,000 Indian lobster traps have been seized or destroyed with a handful of Indians arrested.

Two of the raiding officers were wounded in the face from rocks thrown by Indians trying to ward off the raiders, and two Indian boats sank while others were rammed in increasingly dangerous boat battles in Miramichi Bay on the New Brunswick coast.

Bolstered by video footage that showed their boats being rammed, the Indians now …

Israel funnels millions of dollars to settlements

The Israeli Cabinet voted Sunday to pour millions of dollars of new funding into Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including several hardline communities that have put up fierce resistance to government-imposed construction restrictions.

The vote caused an uncharacteristic rift in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet, with centrist members accusing the Israeli leader of caving in to pressure from Israeli extremists.

Netanyahu announced his spending plan last week, saying it would grant funds for transportation, education and health care to distressed areas throughout the country. But the inclusion of some Jewish settlements, particularly isolated …

Studies from Georgia Institute of Technology Update Current Data on Nanofibers.(Report)

Scientists discuss in "An alginate-based hybrid system for growth factor delivery in the functional repair of large bone defects" new findings in Nanofibers. "The treatment of challenging fractures and large osseous defects presents a formidable problem for orthopaedic surgeons. Tissue engineering/regenerative medicine approaches seek to solve this problem by delivering osteogenic signals within scaffolding biomaterials," scientists in Atlanta, Georgia report (see also Nanofibers).

"In this study, we introduce a hybrid growth factor delivery system that consists of an electrospun nanofiber mesh tube for guiding bone regeneration combined with peptide-modified alginate hydrogel …

Marine Mammals Are on Frontline of Failing Ocean Health; Diseases May be Early Warning Sign for Humans, Say Scientists.

Byline: SeaWeb

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- Leading scientists, physicians, and veterinarians are uncovering new links between land-based pollution and diseases in marine mammals, with implications for human health.

"Marine mammals are providing early clues of our unseen impact on the sea," says Paul Sandifer, Chief Scientist for the new Oceans and Human Health Initiative in the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "There is mounting evidence that our activities on land are taking a toll on the health of the oceans, and in turn our own well-being."

"Wildlife can serve as a source of infection, as we have seen with the avian bird flu, but they can also be sentinels of pathogen pollution. They are often the first victims of these diseases," says Pat Conrad from the University of California at Davis. "By paying attention to them, it will tell us about our own health and the links between our health and that of the environment."

CATS AND OTTERS: A DEADLY LINK TO LAND?

When Pat Conrad first started studying the death of otters on the California coast, she had no idea that her investigation would lead her upstream. Her team traced the cause of death to the brain parasite, Toxoplasma, and ultimately to cats.

"Before I started this project I didn't think about things like how much cat feces gets in to the environment - how what we dump on our lawns and sidewalks flows into streams to rivers and into the ocean," says Conrad.

But with the discovery that otters in areas with heavy freshwater outflow are nearly three times as likely to be infected with Toxoplasma, and the fact that sea otters spend their entire lives grooming, sleeping, eating, and playing in the same nearshore waters where humans swim and surf, this land-sea connection is front and …