WASHINGTON—Brenda L. Jones, 46, of Lothian, Maryland, pled guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge stemming from a scheme in which she and others embezzled more than $900,000 from her former employer, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Jones pled guilty before the Honorable Reggie B. Walton, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. No sentencing date was set. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Jones faces a likely sentence of 24 to 30 months in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. As part of the plea agreement, Jones agreed to a money judgment of at least $908,924, representing the amount of proceeds from the crime. She also is subject to an order to make restitution. The investigation in this case is continuing.

According to a statement of offense submitted to the Court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri L. Schornstein, Jones worked from July 2005 until July 2006 at XM Satellite Radio (now known as Sirius XM Radio, Inc.), a corporation based in Washington, D.C., as an administrator in the Accounts Payable Department, a branch of the controller’s office. Jones’s duties included responsibility for payments to commercial vendors.

From 2005 until at least 2008, Jones and another XM Satellite Radio employee embezzled more than $908,000 from the company. They secretly diverted at least 26 payments, which were supposed to go to XM vendors, to bank accounts held by Jones. They also covered up the activities by altering data in the company’s accounting system. Jones then gave a portion of the monies to the other XM employee. More than $690,000 of the money went into Jones’s accounts after she had left the company.

In announcing the plea, U.S. Attorney Machen and Assistant Director McJunkin praised those who worked on the case, including the special agents of the FBI’s Washington Field Office as well as Legal Assistant Jared Forney of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They also commended the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri L. Schornstein, who is prosecuting the case.

Butler and a co-defendant, Steven Lewis 30, were convicted by a jury in June 2011 of second-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, and other charges. A third defendant, Tawanda Sheffield, 34, was convicted by the same jury of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury as a result of her having lied to police and a grand jury in an effort to fabricate an alibi for Butler’s whereabouts at the time of the home invasion.

The verdicts followed a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The Honorable William M. Jackson sentenced Butler today. In September, Judge Jackson sentenced Lewis to 58 years in prison and Sheffield to a seven-year prison term. All three defendants are from Washington, D.C.

According to the government’s evidence, on December 11, 2008, at about 8:10 a.m., a uniformed Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer assigned to the Third Police District was flagged down by a citizen who stated that someone had been shot inside a residence in the 600 block of Kenyon Street NW. The officer went to that location and found Franklin Johnson, 37, a part-time resident of the house, lying dead on the floor, with multiple gunshot wounds. A five year-old child had also sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen but ultimately survived.

Shortly thereafter it was revealed that two masked, armed men dressed in black had stormed the house and, upon encountering resistance from Johnson and a female friend, fired multiple rounds into Johnson with both guns. In the process, they shot the 5-year-old victim. One of the home invaders was also shot by the other in the melee.

The police investigation soon revealed that the getaway vehicle was a burgundy van with which both defendants were connected. Further links were established when the police followed up on a false stolen vehicle report for the burgundy van, a report that the van had been set ablaze behind Lewis’s residence, another report that falsely claimed that the van had been stolen by unidentified subjects, and a report that Butler had been admitted to a hospital suffering from the gunshot wound that was later shown to have been received in the course of the home invasion.

At trial, the government was able to build its case against Butler and Lewis by marshaling the defendants’ own admissions to police and others, cell phone evidence demonstrating their presence at various locations relevant to the home invasion and its aftermath, and DNA evidence proving that during the struggle inside the Kenyon Street house, the decedent’s blood had been left on Butler’s pants.

“A 64-year prison sentence is a fitting punishment for this criminal’s role in a terrifying home invasion that left one man dead and a five-year-old boy grievously wounded,” said U.S. Attorney Machen. “Not even the lies of a friend who tried to concoct a false alibi for this killer allowed him to escape the consequences of his masked attack. This defendant will spend more than six decades in prison and another gunman will spend nearly as much time behind bars. The defendant’s friend will herself spend seven years in jail for trying to cover up his crime.”

In announcing the sentences, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the efforts of MPD Detectives Jed Worrell and Jacqueline Middleton—the lead investigators in the case—as well as assisting Detectives Randal Parker, Brian Wise, Thomas Braxton, William Xantan, Hosan Nasr and Mike Pepperman; MPD Sergeant Dan Wagner; MPD Mobile Crime Laboratory Officers James Holder, John Holder, George Klein, Brenda Floyd, Jay Gregory, Keith Slaughter and Petheria McIver; MPD Officers Paris White and Oscar Pedrozo; Detective David Gurry and Corporal Ja’Net Pettus-Golston, of the Prince George’s County Police Department; MPD Forensic Laboratory analysts Nicole Kaye and Nikia Coomber; Robert Freese, a contract firearms expert employed by MPD’s Firearms Examination Unit; the special agent who worked on the case from the FBI, and Dr. Marie L. Pierre-Louis, Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia.

That collaboration has resulted in unlocking experimental sound recordings made more than 100 years ago by Alexander Graham Bell and associates.

The recordings, now available for listening by the public, can be found at http://irene.lbl.gov/volta-release.html.

In the early 1880s, three inventors—Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, collectively making up the Volta Laboratory Associates—tried to record sound. In one experiment, on Nov. 17, 1884, they recorded the word “barometer” on a glass disc with a beam of light. This disc, along with nearly 200 other experimental recordings, was packed up for safekeeping and deposited at the Smithsonian Institution.

In the past year, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell; and National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout worked jointly to recover sound from those recordings. Using high-resolution scans made from the original Volta discs, they were able to hear the word “barometer.”

The team has successfully submitted six discs—all experimental recordings made by Volta—to the sound recovery process known as IRENE/3D (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), a process developed by Berkeley Lab in 2003-04 and installed at the Library of Congress in 2006 and in 2008.

The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage, such as scratches and skips. Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file.

IRENE/3D research has been supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Department of Energy, the University of California, the Andrew P. Mellon Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, with more than 147 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library’s Preservation Directorate is the oldest and largest library preservation facility in the nation. The directorate’s mission is to ensure long-term, uninterrupted access to the Library’s collections, either in original or reformatted form. It focuses on solving preservation problems facing collections of all types, whether traditional, audiovisual or digital. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/preservation/.

via Library Unlocks Experimental Bell Recordings – News Releases (Library of Congress).

There were no animals in the barn,  and no injuries to animals or humans have been reported. The barn was a total loss.
The  cause of the fire is being investigated by the state fire marshal

The suspect fled the bank on foot in the direction of Route 7.

Members of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office are currently canvassing the area and are interviewing witnesses.

If you were in this area around the time of the reported robbery and saw any suspicious activity possibly related to this robbery, you are asked to contact the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center at 703-777-1021.

“First Night Leesburg is a difficult project to pull off under the best of times,” added Milton Herd, Bluemont Chairman of the Board and Posse member. “We definitely want to thank our incredible partners, volunteers and sponsors who have helped Bluemont build the support for First Night Leesburg project since 1986. Now seems like a good time to step back and assess how to best continue this remarkable community project in the future.”

Leesburg Town Manager John Wells announced the decision to cancel First Night at Monday’s Town Council work session, explaining, “After 25 years of celebration, Bluemont’s production of First Night Leesburg is taking a break this New Year’s Eve due to unforeseeable circumstances beyond control.”

Wells continued, “Bluemont thanks the Leesburg community for their continuing support and looks forward to future quality events and celebrations.”

First Night Leesburg is a family-focused, community celebration of the arts held on New Year’s Eve in downtown Leesburg. It is a non-profit Bluemont community project created each year by more than 120 volunteers and an estimated 750 hours of preparation, presentation, and clean-up. It involves families, businesses and civic organizations from all over our community.

Each year since 1986, First Night Leesburg has presented a wonderful variety of performing groups and activities at dozens of indoor sites within walking distance in downtown Leesburg between 6pm and 12 midnight. Last year, First Night Leesburg presented 45 artist groups in 92 performances at 17 indoor sites and was attended by approximately 3,500 – 4,000 Town residents and visitors.

A popular tradition here in Leesburg, First Night’s Midnight Grand Illumination finale brings many hundreds of friends and families together to the center of our beautiful, colonial downtown. Together we usher in the New Year with a candle-lit sing along and a dramatic countdown as the Old Courthouse bell peals out twelve times for good fortune for us all in the new year.

“Again, we are none of us happy with the cancellation of 2011’s First Night Leesburg,” concluded Peter Dunning, Bluemont President. “We do however want to thank you all for your good help in building Bluemont and First Night Leesburg. We will be working over the next months on a transition plan to assure the future of Bluemont’s programs in the community. If you’d like to help, please contact us at transitionplan@bluemont.org.”

The suspect is described as white, around 5 feet 10 inches tall, 180 pounds, with dark hair. He wore a black leather jacket, with a black hoodie underneath and black jeans.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Solvers by phone at 1-866-411-TIPS/8477

The Family Kwanzaa Celebration program from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. is ideal for children and their parents. Conducted by Culture Kingdom Kids, educator Jessica Smith will teach families fun and creative ways to celebrate the seven days of Kwanzaa through a variety of interactive performances, hands-on activities and crafts. “Culture Queen,” the superhero mascot of Culture Kingdom Kids, will also make a special appearance. Families will be culturally enriched and better prepared to celebrate Kwanzaa in their homes and communities. Admission is $5 per person, and advance reservations are recommended.

Then, at 4:30 p.m., attend a free screening of “The Black Candle: A Kwanzaa Celebration.” This vibrant documentary from M.K. Asante uses Kwanzaa as a vehicle to explore and celebrate the African-American experience. Filmed across the United States, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, “The Black Candle” is a timely illumination on why the seven principles of Kwanzaa are so important to African Americans today. Narrated by Maya Angelou, it traces the holiday’s growth out of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s to its present-day reality as a global, pan-African holiday embraced by over 40 million celebrants. This viewing is part of “Movies with a Mission,” a series of films about the African Diaspora that seek to inform and inspire dialogue.

Kwanzaa, a seven-day cultural celebration that begins December 26 and ends January 1, was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga who designed the celebration as a way for African Americans to reaffirm their heritage, culture, and community bonds.  Dr. Karenga chose the Swahili word “Kwanzaa,” meaning “first fruits of the harvest,” to identify the celebration and to express seven principles that came from the African American value system for life: Unity (Umoja), Self-Determination (Kujichagulia), Collective Work and Responsibility (Ujima), Cooperative Economics (Ujamaa), Purpose (Nia), Creativity (Kuumba), and Faith (Imani).

For more information, visit www.alexblackhistory.org or call 703.746.4356.

By Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mareshah Haynes

ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 21, 2011 – When former Air Force Senior Airman David Sharpe adopted a pit bull puppy from a rescue shelter 10 years ago, he thought he was saving her life. In a dramatic twist of events just a few months later, she ended up saving his.

Former Air Force Senior Airman David Sharpe embraces his dog, Cheyenne, at their home in Arlington, Va., Sept. 22, 2011. Sharpe is the founder of Pets 2 Vets, a nonprofit organization that pairs shelter animals with veterans who live with post-traumatic stress disorder. Sharpe credits Cheyenne with saving his life. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Mareshah Haynes Â

Sharpe was on the verge of taking his life.As he sat on the kitchen floor of his apartment with a .45 caliber handgun in his hand — “ready to finish the fight with the demons that followed me back from the war” — that pit bull puppy, named Cheyenne, sat down on the floor next to Sharpe and licked his ear. It made him laugh — something he hadn’t done much. Something clicked for him, he said, and his reason for living became clear at that moment: to care for Cheyenne.

Sharpe had been suffering from an undiagnosed case of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. As a security forces airman stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Va., he went on his first deployment in December 2001 to Saudi Arabia, where he came face to face with a Taliban sympathizer who would change his life.

Sharpe said he had been working with the man for a while, though he was mostly quiet and kept to himself. One day he found the man laughing hysterically in the guard shack and asked what was so funny. The local man pointed to a picture in an Arabic newspaper of the planes crashing into the twin towers and he said he praised Allah the day this happened. Sharpe said he got angry with the man and told him to stop talking like that. Then he turned to walk away.

“I turned around and I heard a couple of ‘clicks’ and ‘clacks’ and this little guy is pointing his [submachine gun] right at me,” Sharpe said. “I froze for a few seconds, but it felt like days. I looked at him and pulled my M-16 up and charged it. We were yelling at each other and then a [British] guard came in and pointed his weapon at the guy, and then a French guard came in the side door and pointed his weapon at the British guard.”

Once the incident de-escalated, Sharpe had to recount it to his unit leaders numerous times. With the official procedures for debriefing such an incident completed, Sharpe was referred to the chaplain.

“I went and saw the chaplain, and that lasted for all of about two minutes,” Sharpe said. “[The chaplain said], ‘Tell me what happened, Airman Sharpe.’ I said, ‘I don’t even want to talk to you right now, sir. No offense — I just want to be left alone.’”

Sharpe said the chaplain told him to come back when he was ready, but Sharpe never went back. He finished the rest of his deployment without incident and returned home to Virginia, but things did not go back to “normal” for Sharpe.

“I started having nightmares about this guy taking his weapon and pointing it in my face,” he said. “I had visions of the bullet going through my head and coming out the other side. I woke and I started crying, and then I started calling myself a bunch of names and saying to myself, ‘Suck it up.’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

Sharpe said he began having violent outbursts with his family and friends over the simplest of questions, especially about his deployment. He began starting fights with strangers and even turned on his friends. One friend in particular continued to reach out to Sharpe.

“One of my friends came to check up on me and said, ‘Hey, there’s this pit bull rescue I want to check out. Do you want to come with me?’” Sharpe said. “I said, ‘Absolutely. I want to get a fighting dog — I’m a fighter.’ So I went, and there were about eight puppies running around in a pen, and all of them were all over me. But there was one that was off in the corner, and that was the one I chose.”

Sharpe said when he took Cheyenne home he felt better immediately. Though he was happier since he had gotten his new companion, he said, he continued to have violent outbursts. During one outburst in the kitchen of their apartment, Cheyenne watched and waited for Sharpe to calm down.

“I picked her up and took her back to my bed, and I just lost it — started crying, bawling,” Sharpe said. “She didn’t say anything. She inched her way up [to my face]. She knew something was wrong. She just started licking the tears off my cheek. It makes you laugh, it tickles, and I immediately starting feeling relief, because I didn’t have anyone [saying] to me, ‘How do you feel now? Are you glad you got that off your chest?’ She never asked. I told her on my own terms.”

Sharpe didn’t realize it at the time, but he and Cheyenne were engaging in a form of pet therapy. She would be his confidant on the road from that lonely night on the cold linoleum floor when he considered suicide to being a champion for other veterans with the same struggles.

“Pet therapy helps people who have PTSD to reconnect with the world,” said Megan O’Connell, a clinical nurse specialist at Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center at Fort George G. Meade, Md. “It helps to create a routine, a sense of connection, when you have to feed the dog and make sure the dog is watered, that it has all of its shots. It helps you. It forces you to become part of this world and to start to reintegrate.

“Especially dogs — they react to body language,” O’Connell continued. “If your body language is stressed, they want to come over, because they want you to stop being stressed, so they pay a lot of attention to you. It makes you feel like they care and they’re listening, and that makes you feel comfortable to want to open up more.”

In the meantime, Sharpe separated from the Air Force after six years of service. A few months later, after watching a TV news special about service animals, Sharpe came up with the idea to pair up shelter animals with veterans living with PTSD. He called the program Pets 2 Vets.

Sharpe took $3,500 of his personal savings to get started. Unlike other programs, P2V provided companion animals to veterans versus other programs that provided service animals to perform physical tasks for disabled veterans.

Initially, Sharpe would pick up veterans who were recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and take them to local shelters to interact with the animals. As the program grew, P2V provided an avenue for veterans to adopt their own companion animals as well as give veterans at Walter Reed an opportunity to visit shelter animals during their recovery.

About a year after Sharpe founded P2V, he reached a milestone. He was finally ready to talk to a human about his experiences while deployed. After meeting with doctors from the Veterans Affairs Department, Sharpe was diagnosed with PTSD and depression — five years after he separated from the military, and nine years after the incident in Saudi Arabia.

“One of the problems with PTSD is that it really destroys people’s trust,” O’Connell said. “They feel disconnected. One of the things a dog can do is help to be that bridge to trust. Unless you’ve had a bad experience, most people have very positive feelings toward pets, so people are more willing in a lot of ways to talk to the dog or relate to the dog than they are to another person, especially if they’ve been through a traumatic experience.”

Although the battle with PTSD is never over, P2V has placed more than 50 shelter animals with veterans, and Sharpe is now married to his long-time friend, the former Jenny Fritcher. Later this year, David, Jenny and Cheyenne will welcome a baby boy into their family.

“I always say Cheyenne brought me to Jenny,” Sharpe said. “If it wasn’t for Cheyenne, I wouldn’t have this beautiful wife and beautiful life. She saved me.”

The suspect is described as white with a stocky build. He was in his 20’s, around 6 feet tall, had sandy blonde hair, and was unshaven. He wore an olive green jacket, a brownish green t-shirt, and dark pants.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Solvers by phone at 1-866-411-TIPS/8477

In a nested case-control study of 327 non-smoking FDNY 9/11 rescue workers, metabolic syndrome biomarkers measured within six months of exposure to WTC dust predicted decline of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) over the next six years.

“Study participants with dyslipidemia, elevated heart rate or elevated leptin levels had a significantly increased risk of developing abnormal lung function during follow-up,” said Anna Nolan, MD, MS, assistant professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. “In contrast, elevated amylin levels reduced the risk of developing abnormal FEV1 levels.”

The findings were published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

This case-control study was nested within a larger longitudinally followed cohort. All subjects had normal lung function prior to 9/11. Cases (n = 109) were defined as having FEV1 values below the lower limit of normal at follow-up, while controls (n = 218) were defined as having FEV1 at or above the lower limit of normal. Biomarkers were available for 71 cases and 166 controls. Lung function in cases continually declined in the median 28 months between baseline and follow-up examinations, while lung function improved in controls.

In a model adjusting for age, race, body mass index and WTC arrival time, dyslipidemia (triglycerides≥150mg/dL and HDL<40mg/dL) increased the odds of being a case three-fold, elevated heart rate (≥66 bpm) increased the odds more than two-fold, and elevated leptin (≥10,300 pg/mL) increased the odds three-fold. Elevated amylin levels (≥116 pg/mL) decreased the odds of being a case by 84 percent. “This is the first report in humans showing an association between amylin and lung function,” Dr. Nolan said. “There are amylin receptors in the lungs, and amylin has been shown to reduce leptin resistance. The protection offered by amylin in this study may have been mediated by these effects.”

“These findings suggest that systemic inflammation, a hallmark of the metabolic syndrome, may play a role in promoting lung function impairment in patients with particulate exposure,” Dr. Nolan said. “Given the high prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in industrialized nations and the rising incidence in developing nations with high ambient particulate levels, the relationship between these disorders is of considerable importance.”

The study had a few limitations. Use of a single cohort of rescue workers limits extrapolation of these results to other cohorts. There was no unexposed control group in this study, so replication of these findings in populations with and without exposure to particulate matter is needed. Finally, other possible causes of lung dysfunction were not explored.

“Our findings in WTC rescue workers highlight the importance of conducting rapid medical monitoring and sample banking following a disaster,” said Dr. Nolan. “If we can identify individuals at greater risk of developing lung function impairment, we can initiate appropriate interventions earlier.”

Focusing on statistics from Minnesota, researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute report on the inadequacy of quality of care indicators for nursing home residents with behavioral and psychological systems related to dementia in a study published in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

“Measuring quality of care is complicated, but we really need to do a better job,” says Arif Nazir, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and the study’s first author. A geriatrician, Dr. Nazir serves as the president of the Indiana Medical Directors Association. Medical directors are physicians who provide care to those residing in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. “We are a society that looks to scores for everything from cars to hotels, but for nursing homes, scorecards aren’t the endgame.”

The 80-and-above age group is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population. One out of every five individuals in this age group is in a nursing home or will require nursing home placement in the future, the majority due to dementia.

Poor ratings may cause facilities with the most experience with dementia to be overlooked or rejected by those seeking placement for a family member who needs these services. A low score is given, for example, for worsening of behavioral and psychological symptoms associated with cognitive impairment. However, this decline is due to the natural progression of the disease, and not necessarily because quality of care is poor according to the study.

“Since quality measures for dementia behaviors are not appropriately evaluated, that throws the entire rating system off,” Dr. Nazir said. “A facility with a large number of cognitively impaired residents and with staff members who are trained to help them will receive a lower score than a facility with fewer cognitively impaired residents. The scoring system for nursing homes doesn’t accurately evaluate the quality of care provided to individuals with dementia, and it needs to be changed.”

In addition to looking at scorecards, he suggests families also investigate the patient-to-staff ratio; whether prompt quality medical care is available to residents when needed; cleanliness of the facility; and proximity to family members who may visit. He also recommends consulting the checklist on the U.S. government website http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare for other considerations before making a nursing home placement decision.

He strongly counsels against using only the one-to-five-star ratings (indicating much below average to much above average) on the federal and state websites to make a placement decision.

Nursing homes’ quality indicators are used for regulation and facility quality improvement as well as public reporting. “Our study stresses the importance of having nursing home quality indicators tailored to the special needs of dementia residents, including the quality of their lives as well as their physical needs,” said study co-author and sociologist Greg Arling, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine, Regenstrief Institute investigator and IU Center for Aging Research center scientist.

“The federal nursing home quality reporting system is currently being revised. It will be interesting to see how these revisions impact the way degree of cognitive impairment and specialized Alzherimer’s units are rated,” Dr. Arling said.

Avastin will still remain on the market as an approved treatment for certain types of colon, lung, kidney and brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme).

“This was a difficult decision. FDA recognizes how hard it is for patients and their families to cope with metastatic breast cancer and how great a need there is for more effective treatments. But patients must have confidence that the drugs they take are both safe and effective for their intended use,” Dr. Hamburg said. “After reviewing the available studies it is clear that women who take Avastin for metastatic breast cancer risk potentially life-threatening side effects without proof that the use of Avastin will provide a benefit, in terms of delay in tumor growth, that would justify those risks. Nor is there evidence that use of Avastin will either help them live longer or improve their quality of life.”

Avastin’s risks include severe high blood pressure; bleeding and hemorrhaging; heart attack or heart failure; and the development of perforations in different parts of the body such as the nose, stomach, and intestines.

Today’s decision, outlined in Dr Hamburg’s 69-page opinion, involves Avastin used in combination with the cancer drug paclitaxel for those patients who have not been treated with chemotherapy for their form of metastatic breast cancer known as HER2 negative. This indication must now be removed from Avastin’s product labeling.

Dr. Hamburg’s decision is based on an extensive record, which includes thousands of pages submitted to a public docket, data from several clinical trials and the record from a two-day hearing held in June, 2011.

Avastin was approved for metastatic breast cancer in February 2008 under the FDA’s accelerated approval program, which allows a drug to be approved based on data that are not sufficiently complete to permit full approval. The accelerated approval program provides earlier patient access to promising new drugs to treat serious or life-threatening conditions while confirmatory clinical trials are conducted. If the clinical trials do not justify the continued approval of the drug or a specific drug indication, the agency may revoke its approval. In this case, the accelerated approval was based on promising results from one study that suggested that the drug could provide a meaningful increase in the amount of time from when treatment is started until the tumor grows or the death of the patient.

After the accelerated approval of Avastin for breast cancer, the drug’s sponsor, Genentech, completed two additional clinical trials and submitted the data from those studies to the FDA. These data showed only a small effect on tumor growth without evidence that patients lived any longer or had a better quality of life compared to taking standard chemotherapy alone – not enough to outweigh the risk of taking the drug.

FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which is responsible for the approval of this drug, ultimately concluded that the results of these additional studies did not justify continued approval and notified Genentech it was proposing to withdraw approval of the indication.

Genentech did not agree with the Center’s evaluation of the data and, following the procedures set out in FDA regulations, requested a hearing on the Center’s withdrawal proposal, with a decision to be made by the Commissioner. That two-day hearing, which took place June 28-29, 2011, included recommendations from the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC), voting 6-0 in favor of withdrawing approval of Avastin’s breast cancer indication. After the hearing, the public docket remained open until Aug. 4, 2011. (In an earlier meeting of the ODAC, that committee had voted 12-1 in favor of the removal of the breast cancer indication from the Avastin label).

“FDA is committed to working with sponsors to bring promising cancer drugs to market as quickly as possible using tools like accelerated approval,” Dr. Hamburg said. “I encourage Genentech to consider additional studies to identify if there are select subgroups of women suffering from breast cancer who might benefit from this drug.”

The President’s action makes federal funding available to commonwealth and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the Remnants of Tropical Storm Lee in Caroline, Essex, Fairfax, King and Queen, King George, Prince William, and Westmoreland counties and the independent City of Alexandria.

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures for all counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Donald L. Keldsen has been named as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.  Keldsen said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the commonwealth and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

The Milken Family Foundation National Educator Awards are designed to recognize and reward elementary and secondary school teachers, principals and administrators who promote excellence and innovation in public education. Beech is the 37th Virginia educator to be recognized with the award since 1999.

“Neil Beech is an instructional leader who brings out the best in his students and teachers,” Wright said. “He is a pioneer in the areas of virtual instruction and teacher training; he has left his mark on every school where he has taught or led.”

Beech developed Prince William County’s first virtual earth science course, including curriculum, assessments and lesson plans. Under his leadership, Advanced Placement participation at Osbourn Park High has increased significantly, as has the English and mathematics achievement of students with disabilities.

Beech was named principal of Osbourn Park High in 2010 after serving as assistant principal since 2007. He joined Prince William County Public Schools as a biology teacher at Brentsville District High in 2001 and received the division’s Outstanding Performance Award in 2005.

Beech came to the United States from his native Great Britain as a Visiting International Fellow. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Sheffield Hallam University in England, a master’s in secondary science from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and completed a master’s in administration and supervision at George Mason University.

Educators are recommended for Milken Family Foundation National Educator Awards without their knowledge by a panel appointed by each participating state’s education department. Recipients of the awards are selected on the basis of multiple criteria related to instructional practice, student achievement, accomplishments outside the classroom and leadership.

The Milken Family Foundation National Educator Awards were established in 1985. The awards program is the largest of its kind in the country. Since the inception of the program, the Milken Family Foundation has distributed more than $63 million in awards to more than 2,500 educators in 48 states and the District of Columbia.

John Thomas Gallihugh, 30, wanted for felony child abuse, was taken into custody Monday, November 07, 2011, by members of the United States Marshals Service and the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office (Maryland).

Gallihugh, a Loudoun County resident with no fixed address, was sought by Loudoun County Sheriff’s Investigators after they learned in October 2011 that a 3-year-old boy received physical injuries from the suspect. A warrant was obtained for his arrest on charges of felony child abuse. Gallihugh also has a criminal capias for failure to appear in court for an assault and battery of an adult that occurred in June 2011.

Authorities learned the suspect was in the Frederick County, Maryland area and he was apprehended this morning.

Gallihugh is currently being held at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center and is awaiting extradition to Loudoun County, Virginia.

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The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has voted to deny an Open Video Systems (OVS) Franchise agreement to OpenBand Multimedia.

In September, the Board voted to add a two-week termination clause and a reduction in the term length from 12 years to four. OpenBand rejected those terms and has not negotiated with the county since then.

The county will hold OpenBand to the terms of the expired franchise agreement until June 2012 when OpenBand must transfer video services to another company or be in violation of the county OVS ordinance.

OpenBand currently serves several communities, including Broadlands SouthernWalk, Lansdowne on the Potomac, Lansdowne Village Green and parts of Leisure World.