Weekend deal on teacher evaluations expected (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)

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Allison Adato: When Chefs Become Dads

Their kids are their most valuable diners. But having a little one can upend the good eating intentions of even these food pros

Before they became parents, Quinn and Karen Hatfield had opened two iterations of their celebrated Los Angeles restaurant Hatfield's, one bigger than the last. His French-influenced menu and her inventive desserts earned critics' praise and fed countless thousands. Then, a few years ago, their most important customer showed up. Wordless, toothless, she came to eat. When their daughter was ready for solids, Quinn was as prepared to meet the challenge as a restaurateur tipped off to a top critic in his dining room. "He made all her baby food, sourcing amazing stuff from farms, all organic," says Karen. "Red quinoa, different squashes -- fabulous."

Yes, the children of chef dads eat well -- they have some of the country's best cooks whipping up meals on demand. But as they grow, kids exert a strong influence over how everyone else in the family eats, and that shift rarely results in more Brussels sprouts and less mac n' cheese. For those trying to eat healthfully or lose weight, dining with children can be a challenge -- even for top food pros. For instance, now that the Hatfields' daughter is a bit older, there is (organic) kiddie cereal in the home pantry. And Quinn, who previously overcame what he calls his "issue with sugar," to lose about 35 lbs. isn't so happy with that development. Now he says, "If I wake up and eat my daughter's Gorilla Munch, then it's a sugar day and I eat sugar all day." To make up for it, "The next day I won't eat any sugar."

Other creative solutions are called for. PBS's Simply Ming host, Ming Tsai, prefers to eat brown rice for its nutrients, fiber and flavor. But his two boys like white rice. He's discovered they don't notice when he stealthily uses a 50-50 brown/white blend in his fried rice, which he cooks with them on weekends. And James Beard-award winner Nate Appleman, who was inspired to start running and drop 90 lbs. when he became a dad to son Oliver, makes sure to stock only snacks that he too can eat. "We always have nuts or dried fruit, cheese or almond butter," he told me. "I've actually grown to love graham crackers. They are a not-too-indulgent sweet."

In a best-case scenario, having a child helps you eat better than you did before. "It makes you think about the four food groups, so we'll have more fruit salads, more vegetables," says Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, chef-owner of Boulder's Frasca Food and Wine. If you aren't much of a home cook, it might please you to know that many chefs weren't either until they started families. Today Mackinnon-Patterson, a Top Chef Masters alum, is usually the one to pack his young daughter's lunch box, which might contain leftovers from his restaurant's staff meal or pasta salad, tiny meatballs and fresh raspberries that "she sticks on her fingers." But, always a restaurant man, he admits to checking the lunch box at the end of the day, just as he does with plates returning to his work kitchen: Did diners lick them clean, or leave something behind? Did she love it or hate it? "If she didn't eat it I wonder why and I call her teacher."

Few things bother a chef more than food left untouched on the plate -- actually that irks me too, and I am not at all a chef. Many pros think the problem we lay folk have is serving kids bland food, on the assumption that more spice or sauce will put children off. "The one thing people don't do is season," says Chopped's Marc Murphy, chef-owner of Landmarc in New York. "The babysitter will make my kids broccoli and I'll say, 'What did you do to this?' And it's 'Oh, I just put a little olive oil.' No salt and pepper? Kids aren't allowed to have flavor?" He's another weekend home-cook, who serves up vegetables even at breakfast. Family favorites are his broccoli and Parmesan frittata, which they dive into like pizza, or "green eggs" with pesto. And when he doesn't feel like cooking, they head to Chinatown for breakfast congee with dried scallops, and steamed Chinese vegetables with oyster sauce.

"When I saut?ed vegetables for my kids I always used oyster sauce or clam juice," says Susur Lee, chef of Zentan in Washington D.C., and a father to three grown sons. "That umami sweetness is attractive to kids." When you can get your children to eat the foods you want to eat yourself, everyone can sit down to the same meal, and no one's diet needs to go off the rails.

But even when they are eating differently from their kids, smart chefs don't make too much about it. "There's enough advertising to make kids self-conscious" about food and diet and weight, says Murphy. "If my kids want an ice-cream cone, even if I'm not hungry I'll get an ice-cream cone, because I don't want to be the parent who's like, 'Oh, I can't eat that.' We'll all have ice cream together. You want to teach them to live and enjoy life."

Allison Adato is the author of "Smart Chefs Stay Slim: Lessons in Eating and Living from America's Best Chefs" (Penguin/NAL, 2012) from which this story was adapted. Follow her on Twitter at @editgirlnyc.

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The Clash - The Equiliser (Americablog)

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California foie gras ban ends farmer's 'American dream'

A looming foie gras ban in California is pitting animal rights protesters against high-end chefs. Squeezed in the middle is Guillermo Gonzalez, lamenting the end of his "American dream".

Gonzalez, the only foie gras producer in the famously liberal US state, claims ignorant activists and "special interests" are unfairly throttling the livelihood he has built since arriving from El Salvador in 1986.

"I feel that a big injustice has been committed. I feel that emotion and intimidation have prevailed over reason and science. But this is bigger than us, so I just have to comply," he told AFP.

"It is in a way an offense to honest work, and I don't lose the hope that reason will prevail," added the 60-year-old, packing up his business before the July 1 deadline.

Gonzalez founded Sonoma Artisan Foie Gras 26 years ago, after leaving his homeland and spending a year in France's southwestern Perigord region to learn the traditional culinary craft from the Gallic masters.

Based in the bucolic town of Sonoma, a few miles from the world-renowned Napa Valley wine-growing region north of San Francisco, the firm is one of only a handful of foie gras producers in the United States.

But its problems began in 2003 when trespassers began stealing ducks from the family's farm, and vandals targeted the homes of two of his partners in a restaurant in downtown Sonoma, causing over $50,000 in damage.

Then in 2004 Californian lawmakers passed a law to outlaw production and sale of foie gras -- fatty liver, made by force feeding ducks and geese -- although they gave him seven years to comply.

The following year was the firm's peak, when it processed 80,000 ducks at its farm, set in walnut orchards near Farmington, east of San Francisco. Since then it has processed an average 50,000 a year.

Gonzalez, who testified on animal welfare to a US House Agriculture subcommittee in 2007, said he has always hoped California would reconsider the ban -- hopes fueled by Chicago's 2008 repeal of a city ban approved in 2006.

In the run-up to the California ban, some of the Golden State's top chefs including Thomas Keller, the only US chef with two three Michelin-starred restaurants, redoubled efforts to persuade lawmakers to overturn the ban.

Calling themselves the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards (CHEFS), they have staged a series of foie gras-rich evenings to raise money for the cause.

But John Burton, the former California legislator who drafted the law, dismissed their calls, likening the tradition of foie gras to waterboarding and female genital mutilation.

"They've had all this time to figure it out and come up with a more humane way," he lamented to the San Francisco Chronicle in April.

"I'd like to sit all 100 of them down and have duck and goose fat -- better yet, dry oatmeal -- shoved down their throats over and over and over again," he added.

Animal rights campaigners have, when they got wind of such events, been quick to stage protests outside restaurants, chanting slogans like "Helpless ducks are force fed, eat somewhere else instead."

But Mark Berkner, owner and chef at "Taste" in Plymouth, 40 minutes east of Sacramento where the bill was passed, said lawmakers should not be allowed to force their ethical choices on his restaurant's customers.

"We want to have choices here," he told AFP at one of the support-foie gras events, questioning the precedent it sets. "We don't want to be told down the road you can't serve chicken, you can't serve pork, you can't serve beef."

Back on his near-empty farm, Gonzalez said critics of foie gras often simply have misconceptions about the force-feeding process -- involving inserting a funnel into ducks' throats -- which he insists is not cruel.

"The big problem is the lack of education for the general public," he said, stressing the personal relationship between feeder and ducks, and the physiognomy which lets ducks hold and digest large amounts of food.

The process can harm them, if done wrongly, he said -- but compared it to a human baby being fed with milk.

"Even a mother of a baby, of a human being, .. if she doesn't have the skill to give her the bottle can harm the baby. It's as simple as that," he said. "You have to have the skill."

He said the fight to try to keep his business running, including defending lawsuits, has cost him $1.6 million over the last decade. "We essentially lost our retirement fund," he said.

But sitting next to his wife Junny -- who also turned 60 this year and is known locally as "The Foie Gras Lady" -- he insisted he is not angry.

"No, I don't feel angry. I think anger is a very negative feeling that only leads to bad results. I think that sadness and resignation is one that leads to a more constructive positive future," he said.

Gonzalez is considering various business options, including rearing a particular type of French duck commercially, although he will take some time to decide what to do next.

Reflecting on his American dream, he added: "I believe that what we have done as immigrants is what is expected of any immigrant, which is to work hard, create jobs, pay taxes, incorporate in society, do social service ..."

"The experience I'm feeling right now is that it's being by force taken away from us."

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Mariah's Challenge: Grieving Father Leo McCarthy Offers Teenagers Money For Not Drinking

In memory of his young daughter, a grieving father is offering teens thousands of dollars to not drink, CNN reports.

Five years ago, Leo McCarthy's 14-year-old daughter, Mariah, was killed when a 20-year-old drunk driver hit her as she was walking home with two friends in Butte, Mont.

In the days immediately after her death, McCarthy said he watched as his daughter's young friends struggled to deal with their grief.

?They were all fumbling and bumbling about," he told Mariners Magazine in 2009. "I told them they needed to look beyond the death and toward something more hopeful. As I was doing the eulogy, I wanted to talk to that group of kids and let them know that there is more to the world.?

So at Mariah's funeral, McCarthy issued an unusual challenge -- Mariah's Challenge -- to Butte's teenagers.

"If you stick with me for four years," he said during his daughter's eulogy. "Don't use alcohol, don't use illicit drugs but give back to your community, work with your parents and talk to your parents, I'll be there with a bunch of other people to give you money."

McCarthy has kept his promise.

Together with Jimm Kilmer and Chad Okrusch, the fathers of Mariah's two friends who survived the accident, McCarthy, 52, started a non-profit which has raised and given out more than 140 $1,000 scholarships to Butte high schoolers over the years

"I wanted to give them encouragement and to tell them that...you can be better and always be greater in the situation," McCarthy told CNN.

To be eligible for the Mariah's Challenge scholarship, teens must sign a pledge to not drink until they are 21 and not get into a car with someone who has been drinking. In their senior year of high school, they can submit a scholarship application -- as long as they haven't been convicted of underage possession of alcohol or drugs.

"Mariah is forever 14. I can't get her back," McCarthy said. "But I can help other parents keep their kids safe."

This year, more than 40 high school seniors were awarded scholarships, MTStandard.com reports. At the emotional awards banquet, Butte citizens expressed their pride towards the student winners and lauded the positive paradigm shift that has occurred within the city thanks to McCarthy's challenge.

"I think about the culture change we have in Butte now, with a program like this," said Brian Morris, Montana's Supreme Court Justice, at the event. "I'm so proud that it's coming from Butte, Montana and spreading throughout the Northwest -- and I think to myself, if we can change the culture of alcohol in a place like Butte and we have people like you growing up, we can change anything in the world."

According to CNN, Montana routinely ranks in the top five per capita for drunken-driving fatalities.

McCarthy said he hopes that by adopting Mariah's Challenge, the teenagers of Montana will slowly change this statistic.

Watch the highlights from the 2012 Mariah's Challenge scholarship banquet in this YouTube video:

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Video: Rumors swirl around Microsoft tablet

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Restaurant Industry Is Leading the Pack in Mobile Adoption ...

The restaurant and food industry is embracing the mobile movement more than other business sectors, according to a new infographic.

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Apple considering swappable iPhone camera lenses, patent suggests

Removable bits on an iPhone? It doesn't seem like a typical Apple idea, but a new patent filing suggests the company is looking at ways to introduce multiple lenses on the phone's camera.

The astonishing competitiveness of the still young smartphone market forces tech companies to constantly innovate in a bid to keep ahead of the game and tempt consumers to reach for their wallet.

Patent filings give us a good idea, well ahead of time, of the kinds of areas and ideas handset makers are looking at, with the latest application from Apple indicating the possibility of interchangeable lenses for the iPhone?s camera.

The application, picked up on by Apple Insider, was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, although it was actually filed at the end of 2010.

Called ?Back Panel for a Portable Electronic Device with Different Camera Lens Options?, the application throws up the idea of an iPhone with a removable back panel, allowing the user to attach other panels incorporating a variety of different lenses. There?s also a diagram showing a back panel with two lenses at opposite corners, the idea being that you?d flip it around to swap lenses.

With Apple well known for its clean product designs, underscored recently by the company?s head designer Jony Ive talking of his quest for simplicity ? ?We?re trying to bring simplicity and clarity, we?re trying to order the products?.Our goal is to try to bring a calm and simplicity to what are incredibly complex problems? ? it?s a bit of a stretch to think that a future iPhone will incorporate any of the designs suggested in the patent, but hey, you never know. Perhaps by having the patent the Cupertino company just wants to ensure no other phone maker takes the idea, even if they don?t use it themselves.

If you?re an advocate of the iPhone?s camera, has there ever been a moment where you wished you had a different lens at your disposal, or is the camera?s point-and-shoot simplicity its beauty ? and the precise reason why you use it to take most of your pics? And anyway, if you really must have some different glass in front of your iPhone?s camera lens, there are plenty of third-party products already on the market.

[Image via engadget]

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After NBA defections, North Carolina ready to go guard-heavy

CBSSports.com wire reports

June 14, 2012 11:59 PM ET

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina is going from attacking inside with several scoring options to focusing its attention on the perimeter.

The Tar Heels lost senior 7-footer Tyler Zeller and a pair of early NBA draft entrees in Harrison Barnes and John Henson off their front line. That leaves sophomore forward James Michael McAdoo as the veteran up front for a team that returns four experienced guards, though two are returning from serious knee injuries.

"If they make shots, I'm going to be excited about it," Williams said Thursday afternoon at his annual offseason news conference. "You've got to have some kind of inside threat."

The Tar Heels should have some of that with McAdoo, a 6-foot-9 forward who played so well late in the year after Henson's wrist injury that he even flirted with entering the NBA draft. Now it's his turn in the forefront.

"I feel like I'm ready for it," McAdoo said. "I feel like being a leader is something I'm good at, something I did all through high school, something I'm excited about. ... I feel like I'm more than ready and capable of doing that."

But there's no other proven options to put alongside him. Desmond Hubert offers some size but played about five minutes per game as a freshman. The Tar Heels are bringing in a recruiting class that includes center Joel James (6-10, 270 pounds) and forward Brice Johnson, who at 6-9 and 190 pounds has a lean frame similar to Henson when he first arrived here in 2009.

With that inexperience inside, it could mean plenty of shots for guys like Reggie Bullock, Leslie McDonald and P.J. Hairston on the wings.

"I think it will be a little bit of a change," said Bullock, who thrived as a starter after Dexter Strickland went down with a knee injury in January. "It's going to be more of a guard-oriented team. We're going to be quicker on the ball, guarding, defensive-wise. We just need for players to be able to knock down shots for us this year."

McDonald's return should help in that area. Williams said the junior -- one of the team's best outside shooters in 2010-11 -- has fully recovered from a right knee injury that sidelined him all of last season.

Williams said Strickland has been cleared for light work such as jumping, shooting and some running. He said he hopes the team's top perimeter defender is fully cleared for workouts by August.

With point guard Kendall Marshall also leaving for the NBA draft, the team would also likely offer significant minutes to rookie point guard Marcus Paige. The Iowa native is recovering from a foot injury in the spring that required surgery.

Williams said Paige's recovery has gone well.

"There's no question we're going to ask him to do a lot," Williams said.

Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and The Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and The Associated Press is strictly prohibited.

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1960s-era anti-cancer drug points to treatments for Lou Gehrig's disease

ScienceDaily (June 13, 2012) ? A long-used anti-cancer drug could be a starting point to develop new treatments for the incurable nerve disease known as Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), scientists are reporting. Their research showing how the drug prevents clumping of an enzyme linked to ALS appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Lucia Banci, Ivano Bertini and colleagues explain that ALS causes a progressive loss of muscle control as the nerves that control body movements wither and die. Patients become weak and have difficulty swallowing and breathing, and most die within three to five years of diagnosis. Although some ALS cases are hereditary and run in families, about 90 percent are "sporadic," with the cause unknown. Some research links sporadic ALS to clumping of an antioxidant enzyme called hSOD1. The authors explored whether cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug used since the 1960s that is known to interact with some of the enzyme's amino acids, has any effect on hSOD1 clusters.

The scientists found that in laboratory tests, the anti-cancer drug cisplatin bound readily to the enzyme, preventing hSOD1 from aggregating and dissolving existing bunches. Cisplatin targets sites that can form bonds between hSOD1 after the enzyme loses the atom of copper it normally carries. The scientists note that cisplatin does not prevent the enzyme from performing its normal functions. "From this work it appears that cisplatin is a promising lead compound for the rational design of ALS treatments," the authors say.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Italian Research Project of National Interest (PRIN) and Bio-NMR.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Lucia Banci, Ivano Bertini, Olga Bla?evit?, Vito Calderone, Francesca Cantini, Jiafei Mao, Angela Trapananti, Miguela Vieru, Ilaria Amori, Mauro Cozzolino, Maria Teresa Carr. Interaction of Cisplatin with Human Superoxide Dismutase. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012; 134 (16): 7009 DOI: 10.1021/ja211591n

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Christina Ricci: R-Pattz Got British Accent Coaching

Apparently Robert Pattinson has spent too much modulating his voice to play Edward Cullen because the English actor needed dialogue coaching -- to perfect a British accent!

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Why dissonance strikes an emotional chord

The Screaming Marmots aren't a rock band, but shrieks of the large rodents are telling scientists something about the animal nature of some music.

Daniel Blumstein, a biologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, studies marmots, a group that includes groundhogs, and he noticed something interesting about their cries.

"The pups sometimes scream when we capture them," said Blumstein, professor and chairman of UCLA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology. "These cries are very different than other vocalizations, like the alarm calls, we've studied."

Now he and colleagues have found evidence that human listeners can be aroused by the characteristics of music that resemble animals' distress calls.

"When we hear music, a lot of the mechanisms in our brain that are helping us understand it are probably originally designed to perceive emotions in voices, so music sort of fulfills that role of being an emotional voice," said study researcher Gregory Bryant, an assistant professor of communication at UCLA.

Bryant and Peter Kaye, a musician at Kingston University in Surrey, England, composed 12 brief clips of otherwise benign-sounding music that incorporated the unpredictable, or nonlinear, characteristics of animal cries. These included sudden shifts in pitch and distortion, similar to the guitar effects common in rock music.

In the natural world, Blumstein said, distortion occurs when a human or mammalian vocal system is overblown ? when air is forced rapidly through the vocal system. The effect shows up in the screams of young marmots and many other animals when they are separated from their parents. Adult animals may shriek, too, while being attacked by predators, Blumstein added.

At UCLA, undergraduates who listened to alternating versions of music ranked the ones that contained the distortions as more arousing and more negatively charged than the versions without them. In rock music, this negative valence manifests as aggression, Bryant said.

Sudden shifts in pitch also are associated with animal cries and with emotion in human language, but in this experiment, their effects varied depending on the nature of the shift.

The study built on a previous analysis of movie soundtracks, which noted how horror movies incorporate similar sounds, like screaming and noise, into their soundtracks. [Top 10 Scariest Movies Ever]

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   3. Updated 108 minutes ago 6/13/2012 1:55:54 AM +00:00 Why dissonance strikes an emotional chord
   4. Snakes' scales propel them up tree trunks

In the second part of the current study, the researchers combined their music with boring videos (showing, for example, someone walking or drinking coffee). They found the addition of the video seemed to eliminate the exciting effect of the distorted music. However, the negative emotions associated with the distortion in the music did not go away.

Since humans rely heavily on their vision, the viewers may have discounted the alarm signals in the music when they saw the benign scene in the video, Blumstein said.

In the future, the researchers plan to look at the physiological responses ? such as changes in respiration and heart rate ? when music contains these sorts of characteristics, Blumstein said.

"I think that composers of music in TV and film have been exploiting these sensitivities without realizing it," Bryant said. "There are natural sounds in the world that arouse us, and somebody who produces music has an intuitive sense of it even if they are not aware of the evolutionary reasons why that may be the case."

The results were published online June 12 in the journal Biology Letters.

Follow LiveScience? writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

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"Gone With the Wind" actress Ann Rutherford dies

FILE - This Nov. 5, 1971 file photo shows actress Ann Rutherford in New York. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/HF)

FILE - This Nov. 5, 1971 file photo shows actress Ann Rutherford in New York. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/HF)

This undated image from the film "Gone with the Wind" provided by New Line Cinema shows, from left, Ann Rutherford, Vivien Leigh and Evelyn Keyes. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/New Line Cinema)

FILE - This July 26, 1972 file photo shows actress Ann Rutherford gazing at old sets on the MGM studio?s Lot 2 in Los Angeles where she and Mickey Rooney filmed the Andy Hardy series. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/JLR, file)

FILE - This April 22, 2010 file photo shows actresses Ann Rutherford, left, and Anne Jeffreys at the premiere of the newly restored feature film "A Star Is Born" in Los Angeles. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg, file)

FILE - This April 10, 2011 file photo shows actress Ann Rutherford at the 22nd Annual Glaad Media Awards in Los Angeles, Calif. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/Katy Winn, file)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Ann Rutherford, the demure brunette actress who played the sweetheart in the long-running Andy Hardy series and Scarlett O'Hara's youngest sister in "Gone With the Wind," has died. She was 94.

A close friend, Anne Jeffreys, said she was at Rutherford's side when the actress died Monday evening at home in Beverly Hills. Rutherford died of heart problems and had been ill for several months, Jeffreys said.

Rutherford's death was first reported by the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/MEPubi ).

"She was a dear person, a very funny lady, wonderful heart, was always trying to do things for people," said Jeffreys, a leading lady of many films of the 1940s and a star of the 1950s TV sitcom "Topper."

Rutherford was a frequent guest at "Gone With the Wind" celebrations in Georgia and, as one of the few remaining actors from the movie, continued to attract fans from around the world, Jeffreys said.

"She loved it. It really stimulated the last years of her life, because she got thousands of emails from fans," Jeffreys said. "She was in great demand."

She was also known for the Andy Hardy series, a hugely popular string of comical, sentimental films, that starred Lewis Stone as a small-town judge and Mickey Rooney as his spirited teenage son.

Rutherford first appeared in the second film of the series, "You're Only Young Once," in 1938, and she went on 11 more. She played Polly Benedict, the ever-faithful girlfriend that Andy always returned to, no matter what other, more glamorous girl had temporarily caught his eye. (Among the other girls: Judy Garland and Lana Turner.)

It was said she won the part of Carreen ? the youngest of the three O'Hara sisters in "Gone With the Wind" ? because Judy Garland was filming "The Wizard of Oz."

Rutherford told the Times in 2010 that MGM head Louis B. Mayer was going to refuse her the role, calling it "a nothing part." But Rutherford, who was a fan of the novel, uncharacteristically burst into tears and he relented.

Rutherford plays the sister who, early in the film, begs to be allowed to go to the ball at Ashley Wilkes' plantation. "Oh, Mother, can't I stay up for the ball tomorrow? ... I'm 13 now," she says in a sweet voice.

In 1989, she was one of 10 surviving "GWTW" cast members who gathered in Atlanta for the celebration of the film's 50th anniversary.

"Anyone who had read the book sensed they were into something that would belong to the ages, and everyone was in a frenzy to read the book," she said.

"The specialness of this is with each generation of young people who are touched by 'Gone With the Wind,'" she said. "As long as there are little children, there will always be a Mickey Mouse. ... On an adult version, 'Gone With the Wind' does that."

Rutherford concurred with other cast members that no matter what else they had done, "Our obituary will say we were in 'Gone With the Wind' and we'll be proud of it."

In a 1969 Los Angeles Times interview, she lamented that the "permissive generation" of the 1960s wasn't getting the old-fashioned parenting that the fictional Andy Hardy got.

"Someday someone will have to sit down with today's youth and give them a man-to-man talk," she said.

She also joked that "my life has reached the point where I'm now 'camp.'"

Rutherford was born in 1917, according to the voter records reviewed by The Associated Press. Some sources give other dates. The daughter of an opera tenor and an actress, she began performing on the stage as a child.

She launched her movie career in Westerns while still in her teens, often appearing with singing cowboy hero Gene Autry and sometimes with John Wayne.

She joined MGM in 1937, playing a variety of roles for several years before leaving the studio to freelance.

Among her other films: "Whistling in the Dark," with Red Skelton, 1941, and its two sequels, "Whistling in Dixie" and "Whistling in Brooklyn"; "Orchestra Wives," with bandleader Glenn Miller, 1942; and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," with Danny Kaye, 1947.

She largely retired from the screen in 1950, but appeared in a couple of films in the 1970s, "They Only Kill Their Masters," 1972, and "Won Ton Ton ? The Dog Who Saved Hollywood," 1976.

Her first marriage, to David May in 1942, ended in divorce; they had two children. In 1953, she married producer William Dozier, a union that lasted until his death in 1991. He was best known as the producer of the "Batman" TV series.

Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett O'Hara, died in 1967. Evelyn Keyes, who played the middle O'Hara sister, Suellen, died in July 2008.

Rutherford recalled that the night of the "Gone With the Wind" premiere in Atlanta, author Margaret Mitchell invited the cast, including Leigh and co-star Clark Gable, to her home for scrambled eggs. Gable and Mitchell disappeared.

"Clark Gable and Margaret were hiding in the bathroom, Clark on the edge of the tub and Margaret you know where, just talking," she chuckled. "They had to get away from the photographers."

___

This report includes biographical material written by former AP writer Polly Anderson.

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

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Meryl Streep scolds studios for "big tentpole failures"

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The studio bean counters behind "Battleship" and "John Carter" should listen up: Meryl Streep wants your job.

"In the last five years, five little movies aimed at women have brought in over 1.6 b-b-billion dollars at the worldwide box office," the three-time Best Actress Oscar winner told a ballroom full of the most prominent women in the entertainment industry on Tuesday night.

"Five little movies - 'The Help,' 'The Iron Lady' believe it or not, 'Bridesmaids,' 'Mamma Mia' and 'The Devil Wears Prada.' And I will bet you that their profits were significant because they cost a fraction of what the big tentpole failures cost," Streep said.

"So why why why (don't studios make these)?" she continued to laughter. "Don't they want the money? Why is it so hard to get these movies made?"

Streep appeared with Viola Davis, NBCUniversal Cable Chairman Bonnie Hammer, actresses Chloe Grace Moretz and Christina Applegate, and the five female film division presidents from Fox as they toplined Women In Film's annual Crystal + Lucy Awards hosted by Jenna Elfman at the Beverly Hilton.

Though not an honoree, Streep's presence - sitting next to her "Doubt" co-star Viola Davis and within the sightline of every speaker - dominated the three-hour dinner and permeated nearly every speech within the International Ballroom.

"She's like our own Queen of England," one WIF executive tells TheWrap.

The tributes began with WIF president Cathy Schulman's welcome ("Meryl Streep said to me while we standing outside, ?every year you guys publish these really discouraging statistics' (on female hires...)'" and concluded with top honoree Davis' public confession in her closing acceptance speech that she framed a card Streep sent her after wrapping "Doubt."

Only five nights earlier, Streep presented Shirley MacLaine with the AFI Life Achievement Award in front of a similar crowd of Hollywood luminaries including Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Julia Roberts and nearly every major studio head.

As an actual honoree, Applegate delivered the most powerful appearance of the night.

Applegate tempered her teary speech detailing her breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent advocacy for early detection via MRI's with humor: "I have a voice, I might be heard?not like at home," relating her inability to convince her daughter that crayons are not a food group.

She related intimate details of learning her breast cancer diagnosis at Cedars-Sinai. Because of a high-risk family history, her doctor-ordered MRI was the exception to the rule. For most, this advanced detection method is cost-prohibitive. Her advocacy since recovering has focused on making the early detection procedure routine.

"I have a voice because of this gig that I've had with all of you, for the last - I think it's been 50 years," she said. "My SAG card says ?Member since 1963', which is weird because I was born in ?71."

Her former on-screen dad, Ed O'Neill, presented her with the Norma Zarky Humanitarian Award.

"I never want to look in the face of a young actress of a color and wonder what's out there for her," Crystal award winner Davis said.

Davis challenged the custom of actresses aging out of the industry. "People always say ?what ever happened to so-and-so, and the next response is always ?oh, she's over 40', that's what happened to her," she said.

"At the age of 46, I'm very proud to be Viola Davis. The higher purpose in my life is not just to do the song and dance, but it's also to rise up and to pull up (others), and to leave the world and the industry a little bit better."

NBCUniversal Cable Chairman Hammer highlighted her roots as a production assistant in Boston public television as she accepted the "Lucy" award, named after Lucille Ball.

It was a big night for Fox, as the honorees included the five female film division presidents that collectively have logged 99 years at the studio: Nancy Utley (President, Fox Searchlight), Emma Watts (President of Production, Twentieth Century Fox), Elizabeth Gabler (President of Production, Fox 2000), Claudia Lewis (President of Production, Fox Searchlight), and Vanessa Morrison Murchison (President of Animation, Fox Animation).

"Our business now desperately needs to stick up for what is a true minority," Fox Film CEO Tom Rothman quipped. "That would be male Jews at Fox."

"I have a Greek partner, I have gentile bosses, and I have five female heads of production," he added (He was referencing co-CEO Jim Gianapolous and Rupert Murdoch respectively.)

"I'm finishing up ninth grade, and I'm in high school," ?Hugo' star Moretz reminded the gathering, giving context to her honor as the Max Mara Face of the Future.

"In high school, we have a name for the group that is assembled here. We call you smart girls. And I want to be a smart girl."

And she had her own Streep-starstruck-confession: They discovered they had once been housed in the same "star-rental" flat on location and bonded over a shared love of its oven.

By 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the 15-year-old Moretz would literally be a woman in film again. She was bound for the set of "Carrie," where she stars as the titular character in the Stephen King remake.

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Weather Channel Anchor Who Says She Was Fired for Military Service Speaks Out in New Interview

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Pa. school union wins 'right' to eat expired food

SHARPSVILLE, Pa. (AP) ? Unionized cafeteria workers in one western Pennsylvania school district have won the right to eat expired food for free ? at their own risk.

The Herald of Sharon, Pa., reports Monday (http://bit.ly/LDdM6d ) that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a grievance against the Sharpsville Area School District last year after school officials "violated established past practice" by no longer allowing workers to eat the expired food for free.

The newspaper got a copy of a settlement approved by the school board last month.

Under the agreement, food items that are past their expiration date or reheated in a way that they can no longer be served to students may still be eaten for free by the cafeteria workers.

Workers must pay for unexpired food they eat.

___

Information from: The Herald, http://www.sharon-herald.com

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Germany's Defense Minister slams "coffee house intellectuals" calling for military intervention in Syria

From Deutsche Welle:? Germany's defense minister on Monday rejected the suggestion that military intervention was the way to go in efforts to bring an end to the fighting in Syria.

In an interview published in the Monday edition of the daily newspaper Tageszeitung, Thomas de Maiziere lamented that ?the continued waffling by people who bear none of the responsibility creates expectations in regions like Syria, thereby causing terrible disappointment.?

De Maiziere added that he found it "hardly bearable that some coffee house intellectuals call for the deployment of soldiers in the world without being accountable for it."

The defense minister's comments came a day after his counterpart at the foreign ministry expressed similar sentiments.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag that those who demand a military response must be fully aware of the risks. Westerwelle added that giving up on a political solution to the Syrian conflict would amount to giving up on the people of Syria.? (photo: AP)

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Outcry in Hong Kong over death of Chinese activist

June 10th, 2012 ? 0 comments ? Filed Under ? by ABMN Staff

Thousands march through Hong Kong demanding a proper investigation into the death of mainland dissident, Li Wangyang. Rough Cut (no reporter narration)

?Outcry in Hong Kong over death of Chinese activist? is categorized as ?world?. This video was licensed from Grab Networks. For additional video content, click the ?video? tab at the top of this page.

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Sale, Dunn carry White Sox past Astros

By RICK GANO

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 7:25 p.m. ET June 9, 2012

CHICAGO (AP) - When Chris Sale is on the mound with his quirky motion and left-handed deliveries that come at all speeds and from all angles, the Chicago White Sox like their chances. Every time.

"Obviously we have all the confidence in the world. We know if we score him a few runs, then normally it's going to be good enough," slugger Adam Dunn said.

That's what happened again on Saturday when Sale pitched eight shutout innings and Dunn had a grand slam in a 17-hit attack that produced a 10-1 victory against the Houston Astros.

Sale (8-2) gave up four singles, struck out seven and walked none while lowering his AL-leading ERA to 2.05 during his fifth straight victory.

"I'm not one to really look at my stats or anything like that. It really doesn't do anything for you," the 6-foot-6 Sale said. "You got a five (ERA) or a one and you still got to go out there and pitch and get outs."

Sale was sent to the bullpen for one game in May after there was concern about some arm soreness. But he had a candid and strong conversation with general manager Ken Williams and convinced the team he should return to the rotation.

"It was kind of crazy there," Sale said. "But everything got figured out and I'm trying to move forward from that."

Sale gave the White Sox a momentary scare in the sixth when he was struck by a comebacker from Jed Lowrie. The ball hit him on the bottom of the left foot, then caught him on the calf. But he was not injured and stayed in the game.

"That ball was smoked. Got to get out of the way of it," he said. "It was kind of comical after the panic went away."

At age 23, Sale is emerging as Chicago's stopper. In his two previous outings, he pitched his first complete game against Seattle and struck out 15 against Tampa Bay.

"He's tough to hit against because he has a lot of different things he can throw. I think a lot of people believe he just goes out and throws 98, 99, that's not what he does," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. "He actually pitches, hits corners, creates angles and things like that that make him extremely tough."

Gordon Beckham had three RBIs and Alejandro De Aza finished with four hits for the White Sox, who sent 10 batters to the plate during a five-run fifth that chased Houston starter Jordan Lyles (1-2). Chicago finished with 17 hits - 16 singles and Dunn's 19th homer, a bases-loaded shot off Rhiner Cruz in the eighth for his 12th career grand slam.

"I just let the fifth inning blow up on me," Lyles said, refusing to blame the poor fielding that jumped started the inning. "I didn't make pitches. I put guys on base that I shouldn't have."

Alexei Ramirez reached on third baseman Matt Downs' throwing error to start the fifth. Jordan Danks had an infield single and Ramirez reached third after a bad throw by second baseman Jose Altuve.

Eduardo Escobar worked a walk to load the bases, De Aza delivered an RBI single, and Beckham followed with a two-run single to right as Escobar made a nice slide around catcher Chris Snyder to score the third run. Dunn hit a sacrifice fly and, after a walk to Paul Konerko, Alex Rios had another RBI single to finish Lyles.

Beckham added an RBI single in the sixth.

"You just can't give a good hitting team like that extra outs," Houston manager Brad Mills said.

The 21-year-old Lyles allowed seven hits and five runs, four earned, with three walks in his 4 1-3 innings. He is now 0-5 in 14 road games, including 12 starts.

Lowrie hit his 12th homer leading off the ninth against Zach Stewart.

NOTES: White Sox LF Dayan Viciedo, who left Friday's game after five innings with tightness in both hamstrings, was out of the lineup. Jordan Danks made his first major league start in left and got two hits. His brother, LHP John Danks, is scheduled for a minor league rehab outing Tuesday. He's been on the DL with a strained left shoulder. ... The White Sox were doing more tests on 3B Brent Morel, who pulled himself out of a rehab game earlier in the week. Morel has been bothered by back problems. ... Houston placed OF Fernando Martinez on the seven-day disabled list Saturday for post-concussion like symptoms. Martinez was complaining of blurred vision. He was hit in the head by a pitch while playing for Oklahoma City on May 26. He was called up to the major league team June 2. Four days later, he may have hit his head diving for a ball against the Cardinals. "The thinking was that might have stirred something up a little bit. He went and saw the doctors on Friday and they wanted more tests done," Mills said. ... Astros INF Chris Johnson, who left Friday night's game in the sixth inning with nausea, was not in the lineup.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Nats punch out Sox again

Gio Gonzalez followed Stephen Strasburg's strong effort a night earlier by pitching 6 1-3 effective innings to carry the Washington Nationals to a 4-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday.

Vogelsong?baffles Rangers, wins 5th straight

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Ryan Vogelsong pitched a season-high 7 2-3 innings and won his fifth straight decision, Nate Schierholtz hit an RBI triple and the San Francisco Giants bounced back from their first shutout of the season to beat the Texas Rangers 5-2 on Saturday.

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Lifestyle Books -- for making positive changes in your life

by Paul Smith
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Lifestyle Books illustrate the way an individual lives. An array of behaviours along with the wits of self as well as fitting in, which such behaviours symbolize, collectively describes a particular lifestyle. In general, these books incorporate areas like social relations, entertainment, consumption and dress. So, if you read lifestyle books you will find a well-formed viewpoint on the whole lot ranging from healthy living to the rich accounts of fashion industry.

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Cooking Books typically includes a compilation of recipes. Modern versions also contain colourful illustrations together with advice on buying quality ingredients and making substitutions. These Books encompass an extensive range of topics involving home cooking techniques, commentary and recipes from well-known chefs, cultural commentary and institute kitchen manuals. Professional cooking books are intended for culinary students and working chefs and sometimes serve as textbooks in culinary schools. These books deal with not only techniques and recipes but also matters of kitchen workflow and service.

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http://www.hrw.org/ Human Rights Watch

Sudan: Crisis Conditions in Southern Kordofan

Nuba Civilians Suffer Indiscriminate Bombing, Severe Hunger

May 4, 2012

? 2012 Human Rights Watch

Civilians in Southern Kordofan have endured 11 months of terror. Children have been maimed, women have been raped, and many people have no idea whether family members detained by Sudanese government forces are dead or alive.

Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director

(Juba) ? The Sudanese government forces are conducting indiscriminate bombings and abuses against civilians in the Nuba Mountains area of Southern Kordofan, Human Rights Watch said today. Such attacks may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and are creating a humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by the government?s denial of access to humanitarian agencies outside government-controlled towns, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch researchers went to the region in mid-April 2012 and interviewed victims and witnesses in three areas. They consistently described almost-daily aerial bombardment by government forces, the destruction of grain and water sources that are critical to their survival, arbitrary detentions, and sexual violence against women.

?Civilians in Southern Kordofan have endured 11 months of terror,? said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, who took part in the research mission to the area in mid-April. ?Children have been maimed, women have been raped, and many people have no idea whether family members detained by Sudanese government forces are dead or alive.?

Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People?s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) are locked in an armed conflict in Southern Kordofan state and neighboring Blue Nile state, both of which lie north of the border with South Sudan, which gained independence in July 2011. Communities in both states were aligned with the southern rebels during Sudan?s 22-year civil war.

The Sudanese government forces? actions are serious violations of international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said. The government should immediately halt indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas, rein in abusive forces, and release civilians captured and now arbitrarily detained by its forces.

On May 2, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning recent cross-border violence between Sudan and South Sudan, but failed to condemn Sudan?s indiscriminate bombing inside its own territory in areas such as Southern Kordofan. The UN Security Council and the African Union should unequivocally condemn these attacks, insist that Khartoum free all civilians unlawfully detained and facilitate access for aid agencies, Human Rights Watch said.

The civilian deaths and injuries from aerial bombing investigated by Human Rights Watch occurred mostly in civilian areas, where witnesses indicated that there was no apparent military target or presence of rebel fighters at the time the attacks occurred.
In recent weeks, fighting between Sudanese and South Sudanese forces in the oil-producing area of Heglig has overshadowed the ongoing crisis in Southern Kordofan, where conflict between the Sudanese government and remnants of the Sudan People?s Liberation Army first erupted in June 2011, and in Blue Nile, where the conflict spread in September 2011. Human Rights Watch also visited Blue Nile State in April.

Human Rights Watch?s most recent research in Southern Kordofan builds on research in the region in August 2011. The April visits were to El Buram, Um Durein, and Heiban, three localities where the government bombing and humanitarian needs are severe. Human Rights Watch visited some areas that were particularly hard hit by fighting in December and February such as the towns of El Taice and Troji, where government soldiers destroyed boreholes and other sources of water and destroyed grain supplies as they withdrew.

Human Rights Watch found that Sudan?s bombing campaign across the Nuba Mountains has killed and injured scores of civilians over the past 11 months. In one such attack, a bomb from an Antonov plane hit Halima Kafi?s home in El Taice, in El Buram, in March. Her brother was inside. ?The bomb fell on the house, and we couldn?t find a single piece of my brother,? she said. Her 9-year-old daughter, Asia, also died immediately. Her 8-year-old son Khamis lost an arm; and 14-year-old Nafisa had shrapnel wounds all over her body.

Thousands of Nuba civilians are hiding from bombs, shelling, and missiles in mountain caves, afraid to return home. Many displaced people interviewed by Human Rights Watch said their homes had been destroyed by the bombing and fighting, and they had lost all of their belongings, including cattle and other livestock looted by government soldiers. The fear of being hit by aerial bombardment prevents civilians from going about their normal lives, including preparing fields for cultivation.

The loss of last year?s harvest, coupled with the Sudanese government?s refusal to allow humanitarian assistance into the Nuba Mountains, has created severe food shortages and prompted many civilians to flee the area.

More than 350,000 people are estimated to be internally displaced within Southern Kordofan, according to Sudanese civil society and humanitarian groups. At least 25,000 have fled to refugee settlements in South Sudan. According to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), an average of over 200 refugees arrived in the Yida refugee camp daily during April, and there has been a marked increase in cases of malnutrition among recent refugee arrivals.

The Sudan government has permitted UN staff to go to Kadugli, in Southern Kordofan, and Damazin and Roseiris in Blue Nile, but has blocked humanitarian aid to the most severely affected areas and rebel-held areas in both states since the conflict began.

The laws of war require all parties to the conflict, including the Sudanese authorities, to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of impartial humanitarian assistance for civilians in need. Although the Sudanese authorities have a right to control the delivery of aid, they may not arbitrarily deny access to humanitarian agencies and must allow access to humanitarian organizations that provide relief on an impartial and non-discriminatory basis if the survival of the population is threatened.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the United Nations and African Union to demand an end to indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas and humanitarian access to populations in need in both Southern Kordofan and neighboring Blue Nile State, and to authorize an independent investigation into serious crimes against civilians in both states.

?Khartoum?s indiscriminate bombing campaign, destruction of water resources and grain supplies, and steadfast denial of access for humanitarian assistance appears designed to starve civilians in the Nuba Mountains,? Lefkow said. ?The suspected presence of rebels in the region in no way justifies brutally killing and starving its people, and destroying their homes and livelihoods.?

Details of attacks on civilians and on their means to survival, arbitrary detentions, and other abuses follow.

Indiscriminate Bombardment
Since early June 2011, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) has continuously carried out indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian areas in the Nuba Mountains, killing scores of civilians and wounding many more, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch investigated airstrikes in El Buram, Um Durein, and Heiban localities. Witness accounts and physical evidence seen by Human Rights Watch, including bomb fragments, unexploded ordnance, and craters, indicate that the government forces have dropped bombs from Antonov planes, fired missiles from fighter jets, shelled, and launched rockets into civilian areas.

People have been killed or wounded in their own homes, while trying to keep safe in mountain caves, and while grazing cattle. All civilians interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had a friend, neighbor, or family member who had died as a result of bombing, or had been injured themselves. Medical staff at a hospital near Kauda told Human Rights Watch that almost all of the close to 100 people they have treated for injuries from bombings over the past 11 months have been civilians.

Human Rights Watch visited a home outside of Um Sirdiba, Um Durein locality, where five members of a single family died when shells hit their home and set it ablaze the night of February 17. There were no apparent military targets in the vicinity. Four sisters who were sleeping in one room burned to death. Their father, Samuel Delami, died soon afterward.

Halima Tiya Turkan, from the town of Ongolo in El Buram locality, was going to bury her brother, who had been killed by a bomb, when she heard the sound of an Antonov plane. She hid in a cave with her daughter, Asha. A bomb exploded at its entrance and bomb fragments flew inside, wounding the mother in the abdomen. ?I didn?t know whether I would live or not,? she said. She was brought to a hospital on February 18, and was still recovering in April.

Early one morning in March, 16-year-old Daniel Omar milked his uncle?s cows and took them to graze not far from their house in El Dar, El Buram locality. He heard the sound of an Antonov plane and lay down on the ground. A bomb landed 10 meters away, immediately cutting off one of his arms. The other was badly injured and was later amputated. ?I still have pain in my wounds,? he told Human Rights Watch researchers.

Around 10 a.m. on April 11, a 10-year-old boy, Kalo Sama, was playing with two other boys near mango trees in a field near Kauda. An Antonov dropped a bomb nearby, and fragments hit him in the left side of his head. His mother told Human Rights Watch that her son was so severely wounded that she did not recognize him when she found him in a hospital. His head is still bandaged and he has difficulty moving the left side of his body.

Churches, hospitals, and schools have also been damaged. Human Rights Watch visited a church in Alganaya, El Buram locality, that was destroyed by a bomb dropped by an Antonov plane on January 13. A home nearby was damaged by a second bomb the same day. A pastor from Um Durein told Human Rights Watch that a church there had been bombed, injuring a 15-year-old boy.

The hospital in the town of Buram was visibly damaged by bomb fragments. Sudanese human rights monitors also told Human Rights Watch that bombing or shelling had damaged a church in Darea, Dalami locality on December 31; a bible school in the town of Heiban on February 1; a clinic in Kurchi, Um Durein locality, on February 6; and a primary school in Um Sirdiba on February 17.

Many civilians told Human Rights Watch that while they had endured near-daily bombing in previous months, the intensity of the bombing diminished in the first two weeks of April while the fighting was taking place between the Sudan and South Sudan armed forces in Heglig.

Human Rights Watch has stated repeatedly that the armed forces? bombing methods, rolling out unguided munitions manually from Antonov planes, is inherently indiscriminate as attacks cannot be directed accurately at a military objective.

International humanitarian law prohibits attacks that do not or cannot discriminate between civilian and military objects. Attacks that may be expected to cause civilian harm disproportionate to the direct and concrete anticipated military gain are also prohibited. The Sudanese military and the SPLA-North, the armed opposition group operating in the Nuba mountains, are obliged to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to the civilian population.

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention
People in El Taice and Troji interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that Sudanese government soldiers, while in control of some areas, arbitrarily detained hundreds of men, women, and children, and then forced them to leave with the troops when they withdrew to government-controlled towns like Kadugli. The whereabouts of hundreds of civilians are unknown.

Eight witnesses from El Taice told Human Rights Watch that in early 2012, the SAF captured an estimated 400 to 500 civilians. El Taice, which is near Kadugli, has changed hands several times over the past 11 months, and was controlled by government forces for brief periods. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the town in late April.

Fatiya Kuchi was hiding in the mountains above the town and saw soldiers climbing into the hills, taking people by force and loading them into vehicles when the government forces left, apparently for Kadugli. ?My mother was taken by SAF with four of my children. My first-born is a girl and she was pregnant. I don?t know if she is dead or alive,? she said. Hanan Kafi Rahal, also from El Taice, estimated seeing 10 large trucks filled with people.

Six civilians from Troji described a similar pattern of forced detentions and subsequent disappearances. Men, women, and children fled up into the mountains when government forces captured Troji in December. Scores of people were detained while trying to gather remnants of the destroyed harvest from their fields or while going to fetch water, or were forcibly removed from places they had taken refuge in the mountains.

Boutros Kuku Jahabiya, a farmer, said,?We were in the mountains and saw that many people were captured. Sometimes SAF would attack the mountains with guns and then when people ran down, SAF would capture them. Also, those in the mountains would get hungry and the only way for them to get food was to go down from the mountains. When they went down, SAF would also capture them.? He named 11 people he believed were taken by government forces and estimated that more than 200 had been captured by the government troops.

People interviewed said they thought these civilians were taken to Kadugli or Kharasana, another town controlled by government forces.

Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, the taking of civilian hostages, and extrajudicial killings are all strictly prohibited under international human rights and humanitarian law, and may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. Both the government and rebel forces are prohibited from ordering the displacement of civilians for reasons related to the conflict unless the security of the civilians or imperative military reasons so demand. Ordering the forced displacement of civilians for reasons related to the conflict, in other circumstances, is a war crime.

Sexual Violence
Human Rights Watch interviewed victims and several witnesses of sexual violence carried out by government soldiers in El Taice.

A 22-year-old woman from El Taice reported that she was taken by Sudanese forces into a trench the troops had dug. ?One threatened me with a gun and the other raped me,? she said.

A mother of seven watched from a hiding place in the mountains as soldiers raped local women. ?There were many ladies,? she said. ?Some were injured. Some were killed and buried.?

Government soldiers raped the mother, aunt, and sister of a young woman from El Taice: ?I saw my aunt being raped. We were in the mountain together, and they came and took her. She was raped near the mountain?afterward they took her to Kadugli.? The young woman?s mother told her that she had been raped by 11 soldiers. ?When my mother came home, she could not even sit down.?
Human Rights Watch previously documented reports of rape in Kadugli and Heiban. Several people also spoke of rape by government soldiers or allied militia in Dalami, Troji, and Dammam, but Human Rights Watch has been unable to confirm specific incidents or interview witnesses from those incidents.

Denial of Access to Essentials of Life
The actions of the Sudanese government, including the destruction of towns across the Nuba Mountains and ongoing indiscriminate bombing, have resulted in a worsening humanitarian situation. Civilians, many of them displaced from their homes and living in mountain caves, urgently need food aid, access to potable water, and healthcare. The government, however, is continuing to restrict humanitarian aid.

Communities in the Nuba Mountains rely heavily on their own agricultural production, planting crops in June and July and beginning to harvest in November. Due to indiscriminate attacks and bombing, many families were unable to cultivate their land in 2011. Many people interviewed said they still are too terrified by the continuing bombing to spend days outside in open fields, or are unable to reach farms located some distance from their homes.

People in Troji told Human Rights Watch that in December, SAF soldiers set fire to stores of grain and to fields, destroyed grinding mills, and looted cattle. Troji was under SPLA-North control from June through the end of 2011, allowing some citizens time to plant crops. But the government attack coincided with the annual harvest. A traditional leader in Troji said that when Sudanese forces came in December, ?they drove with tanks and vehicles over our fields and burned the piles of sorghum that had already been cut and heaped together. They put gas on them.?

Human Rights Watch also heard allegations that government forces intentionally destroyed boreholes and water pumps, limiting access to potable water for some communities. Researchers saw physical evidence of this in El Taice, where a borehole pump in the middle of town appeared to have been intentionally unearthed and hand pumps had been dismantled. Civilians in Troji said that none of the boreholes are functional, and as a result, they drink well water, which is visibly discolored. One man in Troji told Human Rights Watch: ?Before SAF left, they destroyed all boreholes, so we are just drinking water from the wells. This water is dirty, and sometimes causes sicknesses. There were six boreholes in this area, and all were destroyed.?

People interviewed said it was particularly hard for them to get food and water when their towns were under government control. In El Taice and Troji, civilians described hiding in the mountains from government forces. Some of those who ventured down to gather grain or to fetch something to drink were either captured or killed.

The inability to cultivate, the destruction of crops, and restrictions of movement mean that civilians increasingly face serious hunger and risk starvation. Many people said they have been eating leaves, nuts, and wild fruit for months. Sorghum, the staple food, is completely unavailable in some markets, or is extremely expensive. The price of a malwa [about 3.5 kg] of sorghum has apparently risen from 2 or 3 Sudanese pounds to 15 pounds in Kauda. Human Rights Watch heard multiple reports that some people, particularly the elderly and children, have died of hunger or disease, but was unable to confirm the allegations.

Saleh Tiran Talha, 32, told Human Rights Watch that his 2-year-old son and father both died of illness in a cave around Buram town last November. He was unable to find medicine for his son, and was forced to abandon the body of his father when Antonovs flew over as he was going to bury him.

Zahra Jadain, living in mountains around El Taice, said: ?My mother is there in the caves. She is sick and cannot walk. There is no hospital to take her to. I don?t have anything I can do with her. She is complaining of back pain because of running so much and carrying things on her head.?

International humanitarian law prohibits parties to an armed conflict from destroying objects indispensible to the survival of civilian populations and deliberately causing a population to suffer from hunger.

For the past 11 months, the Sudanese government has restricted humanitarian access to Southern Kordofan. The laws of war require all parties to the conflict, including the Sudanese authorities, to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of impartial humanitarian relief for civilians in need.

International Response
The international response to ongoing violence and human rights violations in the two states has been muted, said Human Rights Watch.

While the UN Security Council?s May 2 resolution urged the two parties to the conflict to permit humanitarian access to the population in Sudan and South Sudan affected by the cross-border violence, it stopped short of condemning indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile or calling for an investigation into abuses there.

In February, the African Union, the United Nations, and the League of Arab States proposed a tri-partite agreement to permit humanitarian access to the affected populations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, but the Sudan government has refused to accept this proposal.

An August 2011 report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recommended an independent, thorough, and objective inquiry into alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Kordofan, with a view of holding those responsible to account. Human Rights Watch has also called for an independent investigation into abuses in both Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile.

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur. In December, the ICC prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Sudan?s defense minister, Abduraheem Hussein, for his involvement in the same conflict. Ahmed Haroun, the current governor of Southern Kordofan, is also wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.

Impunity for crimes in Darfur has allowed Sudan to continue committing grave abuses against its own citizens in Darfur and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said.

Background
The outbreak of fighting in Southern Kordofan followed weeks of growing tensions between the northern Sudan ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People?s Liberation Movement (SPLM) over disputed state gubernatorial elections and security arrangements in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the long-running civil war. The election results indicated that Haroun narrowly won the governorship.

Conflict spread in early September to Blue Nile state, where tensions between the two political parties had risen amid delays in carrying out the popular consultations called for in the peace agreement.

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