Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
A letter was mailed to Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker's office containing the toxic substance ricin, prompting the temporary closure of a Senate post office and prompting a federal investigation.
The letter was intercepted at an off-site location Tuesday morning and was later tested positive for ricin, a highly poisonous chemical that can be fatal to humans if inhaled. While the letter did not reach Wicker's office, the discovery prompted the off-site center to be shut down. There is no evidence of contamination in the on-site post office.
Wicker's office released a statement Tuesday evening from the senator in which he did not specifically mention the letter or its contents. He said the matter was "part of an ongoing investigation" by the U.S. Capitol police and the FBI.
"I want to thank our law enforcement officials for their hard work and diligence in keeping those of us who work in the Capitol complex safe. Gayle and I appreciate everyone?s thoughts and prayers," Wicker said.
Also Tuesday evening, the Senate Sargent at Arms, Terrence Gainer, sent an email to senior Senate staff saying the letter had been postmarked from Memphis, Tennessee but had not unusual identifying marks. He urged staffers to be "vigilant in their mail handling processes for ALL mailings."
Senators first learned of the letter at a private security briefing about the Boston Marathon bombings, but there is no indication, senators said, that the poisonous letter was connected to Monday's attacks.
"We don't know enough about Boston to even speculate," said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin after the briefing.
Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said the sender was a person who mailed frequent letters to Capitol Hill. Lawmakers' state offices around the country currently being notified about the incident.
All mail to the Capitol building is processed and tested in a facility off-site before reaching the destination as a precaution against incidents like this. Several senators interviewed said they were not concerned about a broader attempt to target them.
"It was caught in a way that did no damage, so I'm not excessive concerned about it," said Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin. "They've taken strong steps to avoid any problem."
Wicker's office has decline to comment and directed inquiries to the United States Capitol Police, which did not immediately return a request for comment.
Letters containing the lethal substance anthrax were sent to Vermont Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy and then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle exactly one week after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Several news organizations were sent anthrax-laced mail as well. Five people were killed and 17 were injured after inhaling the substance.
Yahoo News's Beth Fouhy and Olivier Knox contributed to this report.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? A New York City judge has dismissed an NBA security official's discrimination and assault lawsuit against University of Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, the NBA and USA Basketball, saying the alleged wrongdoing didn't happen in New York.
Kelley Hardwick sued in state court in Manhattan in June, alleging she was removed from the security detail of the USA women's basketball team at the London Olympics last year because she spurned sexual advances from Auriemma during a 2009 national team trip to Russia. Auriemma, who coached the Olympic team to the gold medal, denied the allegations.
Hardwick, the NBA's director of security and a former New York police detective, said league officials removed her from the detail after Auriemma told a USA Basketball official that he didn't want Hardwick to provide security for the team. The national team official then told Hardwick's supervisor at the NBA and she was reassigned, her lawsuit said.
After filing the lawsuit, Hardwick said she was reinstated to the national team's security detail but with significantly reduced responsibilities. After being reinstated, she said Auriemma screamed at her in front of the team, prompting the civil assault charge, court documents say.
Auriemma, who led UConn to its eighth NCAA championship last week, denied those allegations as well. His lawyer, Kenneth Novikoff, said Auriemma was confident he would prevail in the lawsuit.
"Mr. Auriemma categorically denied all the allegations against him," Novikoff said Wednesday.
Hardwick's lawsuit claimed violations of New York state and New York City human rights laws and assault.
Supreme Court Justice Cynthia S. Kern dismissed the case April 11 without addressing the merit of the allegations, saying New York courts lacked jurisdiction.
Kern said the discrimination and assault allegations all took place outside the state of New York.
Manhattan attorney Randolph McLaughlin, who represents Hardwick, appealed Kern's ruling Tuesday to the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division. He said in an email Wednesday that he would comment about the lawsuit's dismissal later in the day.
Auriemma's attorney said he was confident the appeal would be rejected.
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Shifts in physiological mechanisms let male bats balance the need to feed and the urge to breedPublic release date: 15-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emily Murphy emurphy@press.uchicago.edu 773-702-7521 University of Chicago Press Journals
As small and active flying mammals, bats have very high mass-specific energy requirements and as such continually adjust their rates of activity and metabolism in response to ambient temperature and other seasonal variation. In particular, during the autumn mating season, male bats must carefully balance time spent foraging (to gain enough fat to last the winter hibernation) with time spent finding a mate. Because both activities require significant effort, how do male bats do it? In an upcoming issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Nina Becker and colleagues reveal that the answer lies in the bats' resting metabolic rate.
In their study, the group monitored the thermoregulation, energy intake, activity, and metabolism of free-ranging Daubenton's bats Myotis daubentonii during this insectivorous species' main activity period of the year (mid-April to mid-October).
Becker et al. found that during spring, when ambient temperatures are low, prey is scarce, and the male bats are reproductively inactive, M. daubentonii used daily torpor (decreased body temperature) to balance their energy budgets.
In summer, when temperatures and abundance of insects increase, bats shift their behavior away from long and frequent bouts of torpor and toward more intake of food. In males it is predicted that this increase in feeding is done in anticipation of the impending mating season, when energy requirements are high but low insect abundance and significant time spent finding a mate (and therefore not foraging) mean that food intake will be at its lowest during the animals' entire period of activity.
In autumn, for male M. daubentonii to accommodate the high energy demands of reproduction and low energy intake and also sufficiently prepare for hibernation, Becker and colleagues report that the bats do not increase torpor, as they do in spring, but instead employ metabolic compensation to reduce resting metabolic rate. In this way, energy expenditures are reduced and thus the low amount of food the bats consume is enough for them to survive the winter. The exact mechanism allowing this reduction in resting metabolic rate is still in question, but the authors speculate it is likely due to a decrease in activity of either the digestive system or the brain.
###
Becker, Nina I., Marco Tschapka, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, and Jorge A. Encarnao. "Balancing the Energy Budget in Free-Ranging Male Myotis daubentonii Bats." Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 86:3 (May/June 2013).
Physiological and Biochemical Zoology (http://journals.uchicago.edu/PBZ) publishes original research in animal physiology and biochemistry, with a specific emphasis on studies that address the ecological and/or evolutionary aspects of physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Studies at all levels of biological organization from the molecular to the whole organism are welcome, and work that integrates levels of organization to address important questions in behavioral, ecological, evolutionary, or comparative physiology is particularly encouraged.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Shifts in physiological mechanisms let male bats balance the need to feed and the urge to breedPublic release date: 15-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emily Murphy emurphy@press.uchicago.edu 773-702-7521 University of Chicago Press Journals
As small and active flying mammals, bats have very high mass-specific energy requirements and as such continually adjust their rates of activity and metabolism in response to ambient temperature and other seasonal variation. In particular, during the autumn mating season, male bats must carefully balance time spent foraging (to gain enough fat to last the winter hibernation) with time spent finding a mate. Because both activities require significant effort, how do male bats do it? In an upcoming issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Nina Becker and colleagues reveal that the answer lies in the bats' resting metabolic rate.
In their study, the group monitored the thermoregulation, energy intake, activity, and metabolism of free-ranging Daubenton's bats Myotis daubentonii during this insectivorous species' main activity period of the year (mid-April to mid-October).
Becker et al. found that during spring, when ambient temperatures are low, prey is scarce, and the male bats are reproductively inactive, M. daubentonii used daily torpor (decreased body temperature) to balance their energy budgets.
In summer, when temperatures and abundance of insects increase, bats shift their behavior away from long and frequent bouts of torpor and toward more intake of food. In males it is predicted that this increase in feeding is done in anticipation of the impending mating season, when energy requirements are high but low insect abundance and significant time spent finding a mate (and therefore not foraging) mean that food intake will be at its lowest during the animals' entire period of activity.
In autumn, for male M. daubentonii to accommodate the high energy demands of reproduction and low energy intake and also sufficiently prepare for hibernation, Becker and colleagues report that the bats do not increase torpor, as they do in spring, but instead employ metabolic compensation to reduce resting metabolic rate. In this way, energy expenditures are reduced and thus the low amount of food the bats consume is enough for them to survive the winter. The exact mechanism allowing this reduction in resting metabolic rate is still in question, but the authors speculate it is likely due to a decrease in activity of either the digestive system or the brain.
###
Becker, Nina I., Marco Tschapka, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, and Jorge A. Encarnao. "Balancing the Energy Budget in Free-Ranging Male Myotis daubentonii Bats." Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 86:3 (May/June 2013).
Physiological and Biochemical Zoology (http://journals.uchicago.edu/PBZ) publishes original research in animal physiology and biochemistry, with a specific emphasis on studies that address the ecological and/or evolutionary aspects of physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Studies at all levels of biological organization from the molecular to the whole organism are welcome, and work that integrates levels of organization to address important questions in behavioral, ecological, evolutionary, or comparative physiology is particularly encouraged.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 15-Apr-2013
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