(AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has cleared a first-of-a-kind blood test that can help predict intellectual disabilities in infants by analyzing their genetic code.

The laboratory test from Affymetrix detects variations in patients’ chromosomes that are linked to Down syndrome, DiGeorge syndrome and other developmental disorders. About 2 to 3 percent of U.S. children have some sort of intellectual disability, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The test, known as the CytoScan Dx Assay, is designed to help doctors diagnose children’s disabilities earlier and get them appropriate care and support. It is not intended for prenatal screening or for predicting other genetically acquired diseases and conditions, such as cancer.

Affymetrix Inc. is based in Santa Clara, Calif.

Former sex crimes prosecutor and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today met with Major General Jeffrey Snow, the new director of the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to discuss implementing a series of aggressive, historic reforms addressing sexual assault that were passed into law last month.

McCaskill and Snow also addressed recent statistics that showed a 50 percent increase in reporting in the 2013 fiscal year. Advocates who successfully pushed for changes to the military justice system-including McCaskill-have near-universal agreement that increases in reporting of these crimes will represent progress in the effort to curb them.

“The numbers show that these reforms may already be starting to work, but we have to continue being vigilant in addressing these crimes,” said McCaskill, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Maj. Gen. Snow understands that his job will be incredibly difficult, and he knows he will be under an enormous amount of pressure from me, my colleagues, and the American people to get this right. Retaining a limited role for commanders, while instituting these historic reforms, is the key to curbing sexual assaults in the military, and the key to getting justice for our nations heroes.”

McCaskill grilled military leaders last year in several Senate hearings and introduced legislation-which has since been passed into law-that curtailed the authority of military commanders to dismiss jury convictions against sex offenders. That proposal became law as part of last year’s annual defense bill, which ultimately included a host of historic reforms to curb sexual assaults in the military, including:

Requiring civilian review if a commander declines to prosecute a case
Assigning victims their own independent legal counsel to protect their rights and fight for their interests
Mandating dishonorable discharge for anyone convicted of sexual assault
Criminalizing retaliation against victims who report a sexual assault
Eliminating the statute of limitations in rape and sexual assault cases

BY GLEN COPE
As all Americans welcome a new year, as well as the opportunities that it will potentially bring, America’s farmers and ranchers are once again preparing for the new growing season.

Farmers who make their living with the soil are inspecting the tractors, planters and other equipment essential to get their crop in the ground–checking for potential problems that could halt their efforts for speedy planting. For the spring calving season, ranchers will begin moving their cows to the “calving pasture” so that quick inspections of the herd will reduce issues with individual cows that may have problems delivering a calf.

A farmer’s life is one of constant cycles that are repeated every year.

Whether it’s springtime planting or fall harvest, making hay in the summer or feeding cows in the winter, the rewards of the farmer’s hard work is truly appreciated by those that make their living from a job that is subject to so many variables, two of which are Mother Nature and the markets.

With each passing day our world is inching closer to 2050, the year when many experts estimate that food production must double from 2010 levels in order to meet global demand.

This challenge is always in the back of farmers’ minds…how to meet this incredible demand, knowing that those who produce food must do so on less land and by using fewer resources.

But farmers are off to a good start. Even as total cattle numbers have fallen to levels not seen since the early 1950s, production efficiencies have allowed ranchers to keep up with increasing demand for beef. Similarly, America’s grain growers, through the use of hybrid breeding and genetically modified seeds, have tripled bushels per acre in the same amount of time.

Farmers are a resilient lot. Perhaps this resolve has come about from the constant forces of nature that sometimes work against them and also contribute to the weathered faces and calloused hands of the people who spend a majority of their day outdoors. Regardless of the means the result is the same: a group of citizens from Florida to Washington, from California to Maine, who do their level best to meet any challenge, no matter how impossible it may seem.

Glen Cope, a fourth generation beef producer in southwest Missouri, is past chair of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee.
– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/CuttotheChase.aspx#sthash.AWFdwtit.dpuf

 (AP) — Federal investigators say Southwest Airlines pilots who recently landed at the wrong airport in Missouri have told them they were confused by the small airport’s runway lights.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday the pilots of the Boeing 737 with 124 passengers on board told investigators they saw the bright runway lights of Graham Clark Downtown Airport, located in Hollister, Mo., and mistakenly identified it as the larger Branson Airport, which is seven miles away.

NTSB said the pilots contacted the Branson control tower and were told they were 15 miles from their target. But the pilots responded they had the runway in sight. They were cleared to land.

The Downtown Airport runway is half as long as the Branson runway. The runways are oriented in a similar direction.

Few topics in modern life have produced as much rancorous and visible public debate as abortion — and one hot point of contention today is simply how close that debate may take place to the clinics that perform them.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over a challenge to a Massachusetts state law, in McCullen v. Coakley, that creates a fixed, 35-foot “buffer zone” around the entrance or driveways of such clinics, forbidding protesters and others from entering the zone, with the exception of women seeking medical services, workers at the clinic, police and those merely walking to somewhere else.

The law at issue is rooted, its advocates say, in years of conflicts around such clinics in which protesters battle — verbally and sometimes more — and where women are harassed or even blocked as they attempt to enter. They argue that both pro- and anti-abortion demonstrators still can state their views, just not in proximity that’s likely to intimidate anyone.

On Wednesday, Justice Elena Kagan questioned the size of the Massachusetts zone, saying she was “a little hung up on why you need so much space.” Justice Antonin Scalia remarked that rather than bar all speech in the 35-foot zone, perhaps just a ban on swearing and screaming could be used.

But those in opposition to the law being challenged say that, as applied, it illegally targets only the speech of anti-abortion forces, and creates a constitutional conundrum in which listeners’ rights are favored over those of speakers, while offering no reasonable alternative for anti-abortion groups to effectively deliver their message. On Wednesday, justices also noted that not all those at clinics to oppose abortion are protesting: Many are there to offer a calm presentation of their views.

Similar arguments were raised over a Colorado buffer zone law upheld by the Court in 2000, in Hill v. Colorado – its last major ruling on the issue. The Colorado statute set out a 100-foot area around health care facilities, and forbade anti-abortion protesters inside such areas from coming closer than eight feet to anyone for the purpose of counseling or protesting – a so-called “floating buffer zone.”

A 1994 federal law forbids violent actions, obstruction, interference, and intimidation outside abortion clinics – in other words, it governs conduct, not the message. Challengers to both the Colorado and Massachusetts laws say those more-restrictive state statutes have it the wrong way around, targeting just anti-abortion speech, while those supporting abortion rights are free to move within the zones and to speak to women as they enter and leave clinics.
Generally, the First Amendment precludes government from considering “content” or “viewpoint” when regulating speech. Massachusetts officials say a history at such clinics of confrontation and violence justifies overriding that general limitation, in the name of public safety.

There are other significant First Amendment issues raised in this case and in the earlier Hill decision, including a proper balancing of what some call “a right to be let alone” vs. free speech rights of speakers on sensitive or even offensive matters.

The essential point of laws banning protests near such clinics is to shelter women seeking information or abortions from the emotional distress produced by often-graphic language, signs, handouts and “in-your-face” tactics used by anti-abortion forces, who see such actions as the final opportunity to reverse a decision to end a pregnancy.
And the equally basic First Amendment question raised is whether protection of “vigorous public debate” over significant issues in our society can be muzzled because of the undeniable distress it causes some women who hear – or are challenged by – that debate.

A clue as to how the Court may view McCullen may be found in a 2011 ruling in which emotional distress to the listener also was a core issue, involving protesters at a funeral service for a U.S. Marine killed in the line of duty. In that case, Snyder v. Phelps, the father of the fallen Marine sued a group known as the Westboro Baptist Church over its virulently anti-gay signs and visible picketing at his son’s funeral.

In an 8-1 decision, the court upheld the Westboro group’s right to protest and to use the most-effective place and manner of free speech, as long as it did not physically disrupt the services, and even if it caused pain to the Snyder family.

“The principle (is) that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in the majority opinion. “The First Amendment protects our right to express ourselves, and the depths of our opinions and emotions, in the most strident terms,” he wrote. “Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and – as it did here – inflict great pain … (but) we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course, to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Nothing about the national debate over abortion is simple – and that applies at times to even the words and manner we use in talking about it.

Gene Policinski is chief operating office of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]