University fat cats enjoy '£50m grace and favour luxury'

University vice-chancellors were last night at the centre of renewed allegations that on top of lavish salaries they benefit from perks including palatial grace-and-favour homes and extravagant expenses.
Research shows how many college heads are riding a taxpayer-funded gravy train at a time when higher education has seen its funding slashed and students in England are being forced to pay up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees.
And since many of the posts are part-time, vice-chancellors can also boost their salaries by taking lucrative positions at other companies.

Gravy train: With the rise in fees making it even harder to go to Universities such as Oxford, revelations about VC's pay won't go down well

An investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches found that out of 100 leading British universities, around half of vice-chancellors have been given a free property as part of their salary package.
Properties worth some £50million are estimated to be available to the academics.
At Bath University vice-chancellor Glynis Breakwell – who last year earned £342,000 – lives in one of the city’s most prestigious Georgian crescents.
A spokesman for the university said ‘it wanted to establish an official residence to promote its role in civic society’.

 

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Another with an imposing grace-and-favour mansion is Professor Brian Cantor from the University of York, an institution facing a £1.48million cut in its state funding.

Part-time position: Baroness Blackstone rakes in £235,000 as the vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich

Professor Cantor earns £255,000 a year and also raked in £135,000 in expenses for the three years from 2006 and 2009 for a range of overseas trips to Hong Kong, China, the U.S., South Korea, Japan, India and New Zealand.
In the past academic year alone Professor Cantor claimed £10,000 for journeys in a chauffeur-driven car, including one two-mile trip between the vice-chancellor’s house and the university’s Heslington East campus, for which he claimed £70.
Another claim was for a return trip from York to Heathrow Airport, at a cost of £634.50.
The Dispatches team is also set to reveal, in the Cashing In On Degrees documentary to be screened tonight, that Professor Cantor rents out a four-bedroom chalet near Mont Blanc.
He charges £1,100 a week in rent and the main point of contact is his secretary at the university.
Professor Cantor told the programme he thought ‘it is entirely appropriate and unexceptional to use the university office as the contact point for emergencies’. The programme will also reveal how many vice-chancellors were found to be moonlighting in other jobs.
Nancy Rothwell, vice-chancellor at Manchester University, enjoys a £92,000-a-year position with drugs firm AstraZeneca on top of her £322,000 university post.
And Peter Gregson at Queen’s University Belfast is lucky enough to have a £55,000 job at Rolls Royce as well as his £252,000-a-year academic position.
Meanwhile, some vice-chancellors have their membership fees of private clubs paid from the public purse.
Professor Chris Jenks from Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London, is a member of the capital’s Chelsea Arts Club and the Atheneum in Pall Mall. Brunel University said as no free accommodation is provided for the vice-chancellor the university pays his club subscriptions so they can be used for official entertaining purposes.

The Mail revealed salaries of the VC's

Last month the Daily Mail revealed the former head of Gloucestershire University, Patricia Broadfoot, was the highest earning vice-chancellor in the UK last year.
She earned £494,000, £71,000 more than the second-highest earner – Oxford University’s vice-chancellor Professor Andrew Hamilton.
Professor Broadfoot’s staggering salary came as her university struggled with debts of more than £3million.

THE £235,000-A-YEAR PART-TIMER

AS THE vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich, Baroness Tessa Blackstone picks up £235,000 a year.
But incredibly the post is just a part-time one for the 68-year-old.
The Labour peer, who is a former higher education minister, also has three other taxpayer-funded positions bringing her a total of about £87,000 a year.
She claims the full daily attendance allowance of £300 – around £27,000 a year – for sitting in the House of Lords.
Her attendance record for the two years between April 2008 and 2010 is an average of 92 days a year.
The Baroness is also chair of the British Library, where she earns £37,000 a year, and Great Ormond Street Hospital where she rakes in £23,020 a year.
Her partner James Strachan was head of the spending watchdog the Audit Commission until 2005.
He now sits on the board of the Financial Services Authority as a non-executive director, earning £65,000 a year, and has a range of other positions at the Bank of England and the University of Cambridge.
A University of Greenwich spokesman  said: ‘She is an outstanding leader and that her external engagements benefit the university is one of the strengths she brings to the job.’

NTSB: Cracks Found in 3 More Southwest Planes

Inspectors have found small, subsurface cracks in three more Southwest Airlines planes that are similar to those suspected of causing a jetliner to lose pressure and make a harrowing emergency landing in Arizona, a federal investigator said.

Southwest said Sunday in a statement that two of its Boeing 737-300s had cracks and will be evaluated and repaired before they are returned to service. A National Transportation Safety Board member told The Associated Press later Sunday that a third plane had been found with cracks developing.

The cracks found in the three planes developed in two lines of riveted joints that run the length of the aircraft.

Nineteen other Boeing 737-300 planes inspected using a special test developed by the manufacturer showed no problems and will be returned to service. Checks on nearly 60 other jets are expected to be completed by late Tuesday, the airline said.

That means flight cancelations will likely continue until the planes are back in the air. About 600 flights in all were canceled over the weekend after Southwest grounded 79 of its planes.

NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said Boeing was developing a "service bulletin" for all 737-300 models with comparable flight cycle time as the Arizona jet, which was 15 years old and had about 39,000 takeoff and landing cycles.

There are 931 such models in service worldwide, 288 of which in the U.S. fleet.

Boeing's bulletin would strongly suggest extensive checks of two lines of "lap joints" that run the length of the fuselage. The NTSB has not mandated the checks, but Sumwalt said the FAA is likely to make them mandatory.

Friday's flight carrying 118 people rapidly lost cabin pressure after the plane's fuselage ruptured -- causing a 5-foot-(1.5-meter)long tear -- just after takeoff from Phoenix.

Passengers recalled tense minutes after the hole ruptured overhead with a blast and they fumbled frantically for oxygen masks. Pilots made a controlled descent from 34,400 feet (10,485 meters) into a southwestern Arizona military base. No one was seriously injured.

The tear along a riveted "lap joint" near the roof of the Boeing 737 above the midsection shows evidence of extensive cracking that hadn't been discovered during routine maintenance before the flight -- and probably wouldn't have been unless mechanics specifically looked for it -- officials said.

"What we saw with Flight 812 was a new and unknown issue," Mike Van de Ven, Southwest executive vice president and chief operating officer, said. "Prior to the event regarding Flight 812, we were in compliance with the FAA-mandated and Boeing-recommended structural inspection requirements for that aircraft."

Sumwalt said that the rip was a foot (30 centimeters) wide, and that it started along a joint where two sections of the plane's skin are riveted together. An examination showed extensive pre-existing damage along the entire tear. Further inspection found more cracks in areas that had not torn open.

The riveted joints that run the length of the plane were previously not believed to be a fatigue problem and not normally subjected to extensive checks, Sumwalt said.

"Up to this point only visual inspections were required for 737s of this type because testing and analysis did not indicate that more extensive testing was necessary," Sumwalt said.

That will likely change after Friday's incident, he said.

The FAA declined to say if it was requiring other operators to check their aircraft for similar flaws.

The NTSB also could issue urgent recommendations for inspections on other 737s if investigators decide a problem has been overlooked. The agency's investigation has not determined that the cracks caused the rupture, but it is focused on that area.

Federal records show cracks were found and repaired a year ago in the frame of the same Southwest plane.

A March 2010 inspection found 10 instances of cracking in the aircraft frame, which is part of the fuselage, and another 11 instances of cracked stringer clips, which help hold the plane's skin on, according to an AP review of FAA records of maintenance problems for the Arizona plane.

The records show the cracks were either repaired or the damaged parts replaced. Cracking accounted for a majority of the 28 problem reports filed as a result of that inspection.

It's common for fuselage cracks to be found during inspections of aging planes, especially during scheduled heavy-maintenance checks in which planes are taken apart so that inspectors can see into areas not normally visible.

The Arizona jetliner had gone through about 39,000 cycles of pressurizing, generally a count of takeoffs and landings. Cracks can develop from the constant cycle of pressurizing for flight, then releasing the pressure.

Southwest officials said it had undergone all inspections required by the FAA. They said the plane was given a routine inspection Tuesday and underwent its last so-called heavy check, a more costly and extensive overhaul, in March 2010.

The decompression happened about 18 1/2 minutes after takeoff from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after the pilots reached their cruising altitude. They immediately donned their oxygen masks, declared an emergency and briefly considered returning to Phoenix before the cabin crew told them of the extent of the damage, Sumwalt said.

"They discussed landing in Phoenix, but quickly upon getting the assessment decided to divert to Yuma because it was the closest suitable airport," he said.

The plane's voice and data recorders were being examined in Washington, and Sumwalt said they worked well and showed no sign of a problem before the incident.

Southwest operates about 170 of the 737-300s in its fleet of 548 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, a spokeswoman said. The planes that were grounded over the weekend have not had their skin replaced.

Southwest said "based on this incident and the additional findings, we expect further action from Boeing and the FAA for operators of the 737-300 fleet worldwide." Boeing did not immediately return messages left Sunday.

US Airways operates 19 of the older-model 737-300s. Airline spokeswoman Liz Landau said they have not been grounded and no additional inspections are being done.

In July 2009, a football-sized hole opened up in-flight in the fuselage of another of Southwest's Boeing 737s, depressurizing the cabin. Sumwalt said the two incidents appeared to be unrelated.

A fuselage failure, although extremely rare, can have deadly consequences. In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open while the jet flew from Hilo to Honolulu. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and plunged to her death, and dozens of passengers were injured.

Don't go back to the dark days, begs mother of PC killed by car bomb in Omagh

The grieving mother of a young Catholic constable murdered in Northern Ireland urged her country not to ‘go back to the dark days of fear and terror’ last night.
The grim shadow of the Troubles returned when newly recruited PC Ronan Kerr, 25, was killed by a car bomb outside his home in Omagh on Saturday.
The killing provoked condemnation from David Cameron, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Sources said it could be the first in a new campaign of murderous attacks on policemen by extremist republican group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) and claimed the terrorists were plotting a ‘spectacular’ during the Queen’s visit to the Irish Republic next month.
The group is targeting fellow Catholic members of their community who sign up to the increasingly diverse Police Service of Northern Ireland.
But PC Kerr’s mother Nuala last night bravely spoke of her son’s love of the police – and urged other Catholics to defy the terrorists by joining the force.
Flanked by her surviving sons Cathair and Aaron and daughter Dairine, 17, nurse Mrs Kerr: ‘This is a time when we are striving for a neutral police force for the good of our country – and I urge all Catholic members not to be deterred by this. We all need to stand up and be counted and to strive for equality.
‘We don’t want to go back into the dark days again of fear and terror. We were so proud of Ronan and all that he stood for. Don’t let his death be in vain.
‘He had all the attributes of a great police officer – fair, empathetic, intelligent, humorous, a great communicator and loyal to all who knew him. And he just loved his work.
‘I would appeal to the public for any information, no matter how small, about this callous crime. Please come forward so that justice can be done.’

 

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Widow Mrs Kerr had been planning to celebrate Mother’s Day yesterday with PC Kerr and his siblings. Cathair was flying from his home in Australia to be with the family and learned of his brother’s death during a stopover on Saturday.
The car bomb that killed PC Kerr, who completed his training course in December, went off on Saturday afternoon as he left his shared house on the edge of Omagh to drive to work.
It exploded minutes after 2,000 people participating in a fun run and half marathon had jogged by on the main road a few yards away.
The blast – the first killing of a member of the security forces by dissident republicans for two years – was yet another shock for Omagh, where in August 1998 29 civilians and two unborn children were murdered by a massive bomb planted by the Real IRA.

Grieving: Mother Nuala Kerr, centre left, has called on anyone who has any information to come forward after her son was murdered

After that failed attempt to halt the peace process caused widespread revulsion, some extremists declared a ceasefire, but more militant terrorists, disgusted by the IRA and Sinn Fein’s acceptance of peace, vowed to fight on.
One faction became ONH, which last year blew up Catholic police officer Peadar Heffron, 33, a Gaelic footballer, with a car bomb similar to that used on Saturday. He lost a leg.
Last night a source close to the dissidents said further attacks on Catholic policemen and during the Queen’s visit would not need massive numbers.
He pointed to the 1979 IRA murder of Lord Mountbatten in his boat in Mullaghmore harbour, County Sligo, as proof of the kind of result a small, tightly knit team could ‘achieve’.

Storm brewing: Shocking graffiti referring to the murder of Ronan Kerr - and it seems tensions are set to rise

Speaking in Belfast, the source said: ‘The spate of attacks on cops will go on and on. And Catholic cops in particular will be specifically targeted.
‘It’s easy to target Catholic officers, as they come from our community and it’s relatively easy to find out which local young people have joined up.
‘They got lucky with Kerr. He was close by them, living amongst Catholics, and it’s a nationalist town and people talk. He was pointed out.’
Matt Bagott, Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland – which has seen Catholic membership triple to 30 per cent in recent years – said ‘a potent and dangerous minority’ had ‘killed a peacemaker, a modern-day hero’. ‘A mother has lost her brave son, made all the more horrific that it is Mothers’ Day today,’ he added.
Mr Cameron said: ‘Those who carried out this wicked and cowardly crime will never succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to a dark and bloody past.’
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, once an IRA leader but now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, said PC Kerr’s killers had ‘betrayed the community’ and had ‘no role to play in our future’, while Mrs Clinton called for the terrorists to be brought to justice.

KILLERS WHO STILL CLAIM HISTORY IS ON THEIR SIDE

By Ruth Dudley Edwards

Poor Omagh. With the cold-blooded murder of Constable Ronan Kerr, tragedy has made it famous again. This little town achieved a notoriety it never wanted in August 1998 when a car bomb killed 29 people, including one woman pregnant with twins.
What shocked the world was not just the horror of the carnage wreaked on shoppers on that sunny Saturday afternoon, but that this had happened at a time when Northern Ireland was thought to be at peace, following the Good Friday Agreement.
Supposedly signalling an end to paramilitary brutality, the accord meant that unionists (who wanted to keep the province part of the United Kingdom) would share power with nationalists (who wanted a united Ireland). There would be no constitutional change without majority agreement. Democracy had triumphed over terror.

Destruction: The scene in the Highfield Close area of Omagh after Kerr was murdered in an under-car bomb attack

But as republicans Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness made peace, some of their old colleagues were busy planning a continuation of their war. The people who made the bomb that brought death, mutilation and bereavement to Omagh were furious that the IRA had ‘sold out’.
One of them was Michael McKevitt, the head of what became known as the Real IRA, who had once been an IRA quartermaster but had resigned in protest when the leadership renounced violence. He was married to Bernadette Sands, whose brother Bobby was the first hunger striker to die in the Maze prison during the bitter propaganda struggle with the British government.
McKevitt and the other die-hards claimed they were the guardians of the sacred flame of Irish republicanism, who would settle for nothing short of outright victory. To them, the Omagh outrage was business as usual.
When terrible things happen, it is human nature to want to believe that the suffering has not been in vain. And so it was in 1998. The Pope, monarchs, presidents and prime ministers all declared that the Omagh atrocity would draw a permanent line under political violence in Ireland.
The Irish people, we were assured, would no longer stand for such evil being perpetrated in their name. The authorities said they were determined to bring the murderers to justice and guaranteed the Real IRA and their associates, the Continuity IRA, would be hunted down. These were empty words, however.
Both the British and Irish governments were so afraid of alienating mainstream republicans that they refused to contemplate imprisonment for terror suspects – the only thing that would have taken the men of violence off the streets.

Far from over: Young PC Kerr is the latest victim of Irish nationalism - and sadly he won't be the last

So, hardline republicans continued their campaign of violence, trying to kill and maim in the name of Irish unity. Although heavily penetrated by informers, the Real and Continuity IRAs still pose a threat, as does a newer splinter group, Oglaigh na hEireann (often translated as ‘Soldiers of Ireland’).
MI5 deserves great credit for having foiled dozens of murderous plots and saved many, many lives.
Yet no one is able to cut off all the heads of this vicious hydra.
In March 2009, two soldiers and a policeman were shot dead; and in the last three years, two policemen have lost legs to bombs. 
Catholic police officers have been the favourite target, for they are seen by these warped minds as traitors colluding with the enemy. Constable Kerr fitted their foul bill perfectly. His killers hope his murder will deter Catholics from joining the Northern Ireland force.
There is nothing new about any of this. Whereas today, Martin McGuinness is Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and condemns the murderers of policemen, when he and Gerry Adams ran the Provisional IRA, police were at the top of their target list.
In the Troubles, from 1963 to 1998, more than 300 officers were murdered by paramilitaries, most of them by the Provisional IRA.
Politicians and the media call the present group of republican murderers ‘dissidents’, but these murderers consider themselves mainstream. They won’t end the violence until Ireland is united – as they carry on the war that the Provisional IRA abandoned.
Although they constitute only a few hundred and don’t command widespread support, there is a worrying ambivalence at the heart of the Irish government’s attitude to political violence.
For the truth is that today’s republican assassins – the killers of Constable Kerr – see themselves as proud heirs of the Irish heroes of 1916 who declared war on the British Empire on the road to independence.
When Bertie Ahern (the Irish leader who secured the Good Friday Agreement with Tony Blair) denounced the Real IRA, he did so with a photograph of his hero Patrick Pearse, leader of the 1916 Easter Rising against the British, on his office wall.
In 2016, Ireland will celebrate the centenary of the Easter Rising. Until the Irish people come to accept that the men they call their founding fathers used illegitimate means in fighting their British rulers, the so-called ‘dissident’ killers of Constable Ronan Kerr will claim they have history on their side.
The young, novice police officer is but the latest victim of perverted Irish nationalism. Sadly, he won’t be the last.

Lawmakers Bicker Over Budget 'Deal' as Shutdown Deadline Looms

AP

Shown here are House Speaker John Boehner, left, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Lawmakers vied for the political high ground Sunday, as they prepared to enter what could be the final stretch of this year's budget negotiations. 

With Washington careening toward a Friday deadline to either come up with a plan or face a partial government shutdown, Democrats and Republicans continued to bicker over whether there is or is not a compromise on the table. 

Aides to both parties confirmed to Fox News that policymakers are indeed working off a skeleton of a proposal that cuts $33 billion from last year's spending levels -- without such a starting figure, budget staff would be unable to write a bill. But lawmakers performed what amounts to a political dance in describing those negotiations, with Democrats sounding as if all that needs to be done is cross a few T's. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., repeated the claim Sunday that the two sides have "agreed on a number." 

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also said lawmakers are working off a proposal to cut $33 billion from last year's levels. "I'm quite optimistic," he said.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, though, has said several times this past week that there is no deal until all the details are worked out. After President Obama called Boehner and Reid over the weekend, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the speaker "reminded the president that there is no 'deal' or agreement on a final number, and he will continue to push for the largest possible spending cuts." 

Boehner claims to be pushing for a package that more closely resembles the House-passed bill, which contained $61 billion in cuts. 

Both sides are trying to protect themselves politically in case talks fall through. A failure to draft a bill for the rest of the year means they would have to either craft another unpopular stopgap bill or face a partial shutdown. 

Right now, staffers are trying to whip up a budget proposal that achieves $33 billion in cuts. That number could rise, particularly if Democrats shoot down too many of the Republicans' policy riders -- which targeted organizations like Planned Parenthood for specific spending cuts. 

Some GOP lawmakers are urging the party to hold its ground while others have indicated a willingness to back off the $61 billion figure. 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Sunday he'd "like to cut more" but that it's up to Reid to take the next step. 

Members of Congress nevertheless kept up the drumbeat of accusations, with the GOP accusing Senate Democrats of dropping the ball and Democrats accusing House Republicans of listening too much to the "extreme" Tea Party. Reid went so far as to call Republicans' House proposal "mean-spirited," saying it goes after "poor little children" by cutting funding to Head Start, an assistance program for low-income children. 

Both parties tried to use the latest jobs report to bolster their arguments. 

That report, released Friday, showed the unemployment rate dipping to 8.8 percent, with the economy adding 216,000 jobs -- nowhere near where the economy was before the recession, but a marked improvement over where it was just a few months ago. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions said the job growth could be imperiled by failing to deal with the national debt. 

The debt "creates a threat of a crisis that could put us back into recession," Sessions said on ABC's This Week." "We have got to make changes now." 

But Schumer, speaking alongside Sessions, said the job gains show why lawmakers can't cut the budget too aggressively. 

"We have to deal with the deficit very seriously. But we also have to deal with the economy and job growth," Schumer said. "And we don't want to snuff that out." 

The ongoing debate over the fiscal 2011 budget is just a prelude to the debate over the 2012 budget proposal. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that the GOP proposal, set to be unveiled Tuesday, would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, through spending caps and changes to entitlement programs. 

Democrats, in response, accused Republicans of protecting corporate interests at the expense of seniors, laying the groundwork for another bitter debate. 

But Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested the course of the long-term struggle over the federal budget will be set now. 

"What we do on the rest of this year's budget will be a strong indicator of how willing and how serious we are about dealing with our debt problem," he told "Fox News Sunday." 

Rubio reiterated his pledge to vote against raising the debt ceiling unless it's "the last time we do it" and is accompanied by "meaningful reforms." 

Cornyn, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," made a similar pledge. 

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., though, said, "it just frightens the heck out of me that anyone responsible would say, let's go ahead and light the fuse that might create the next economic meltdown." 

"You've got to believe cooler, saner heads will prevail on the debt limit as well," he said on the same program.

7 Car Brands With Bad Reputations for Quality

Fiat

Quality means different things to different car buyers--everything from reliability to fuel efficiency to utility. It's nebulous, but it can make or break the launch of a new vehicle or the success of a car company, affecting everything from positive press to negative word-of-mouth reviews.

Some brands still rise to the top of the charts when shoppers get asked about the quality of different automakers' new vehicles--and some brands sink to the bottom based on those factors.

ALG, an automotive data company specializing in setting residual values for leased vehicles, sets out twice a year to see which brands fare better in the minds of consumers, and which fare worse. Polling between 3000 and 4000 consumers, the company comes up with ALG Perceived Quality Score, which rates auto brands on the "emotional connection" buyers have to the brands, based on a possible score of 100.

The most recent survey gives many automakers a reason to cheer: Toyota and Lexus, despite their recent strings of recalls, still sit at or near the top of the quality charts. As ALG points out, bad press can take years to detach itself from an automaker's reputation, but Toyota seems to have made it through charges of unintended acceleration without much damage. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda and Ford continue to fare very well, as well.

For other automakers, the most recent survey isn't much good news. A trio of struggling brands is now tied up with the new cellar dweller for perceived quality, while two others fight visibility problems. One brand with a relatively poor showing is on the way up, though.

Which ones rank at the bottom? They start with the newest brand on the American car market:

Fiat

Italy's Fiat hasn't even been back on the U.S. market for long, but it's starting in the basement. As ALG points out, the brand will have to erase distant memories of terrible vehicles from the 1970s before it can convince legions of American buyers that the stylish, entertaining 2012 Fiat 500 subcompact is worth its $15,500 base price. Fiat earned the lowest score in the most recent PQS, at 37.5.

Smart

Struggling Smart, with a score of 39.8, hasn't had a great 2011 thus far. Its U.S. dealers are being reabsorbed into Mercedes-Benz, and plans to sell a Nissan-based four-door have been cancelled. The very small Fortwo is selling slowly probably because its lack of utility and gas mileage that's lower than some larger, gas-engined cars. Is a fix in the works? Smart USA says yes, and points to electric Fortwos and other future products as its ticket out of the doldrums.

Dodge

The first of Chrysler's three brands in the survey, Dodge's score of 45.5 doesn't come as much of a surprise, since reliability ratings regularly fall behind those of the other domestics. Significant improvements to its best sellers--the 2011 Grand Caravan, 2011 Journey and the Avenger--could have a dramatic effect on its showing down the road, though.

Suzuki

One of the few Japanese automakers to miss out on the sales boom of the last decade, Suzuki's thin brand presence and lack of distinctive vehicles probably has more to do with its low score of 46.8, since vehicles like the Kizashi sedan have been well-received. 

Chrysler

The flagship brand of Chrysler is down to three vehicles, including the 2011 Chrysler 300. Save that classy sedan, it's the lack of new, differentiated products coupled to less than stellar reliability ratings that's landed Chrysler a score of 47.1 in the study.

Kia

Kia shows how quickly an automaker's reputation can shift. Its rating of 49.3 is on the rise, and the automaker's new vehicles--the 2011 Sorento, Soul, Sportage and Optima--consistently rank high in consumer surveys. The Sorento, in fact, recently earned the company's first Recommended pick from choosy "Consumer Reports."

Jeep

With a clear brand image, Jeep doesn't have the marketing problems that Chrysler's other brands have--but the troubled reliability of its hallmark product, the Grand Cherokee, can't have helped it much in an overall score of 52.7.

Dodgers rally in seventh to take opening series against Giants

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Dodgers scored four runs in the seventh inning to beat the San Francisco Giants 7-5 Sunday and give them a 3-1 opening series victory over their arch-rivals.

Marcus Thames slugged a RBI triple in the seventh to break a 3-3 tie as the Dodgers scored four runs in the inning.

San Francisco, who had tied it by the top of the seventh after Pat Burrell hit a home run to follow Pablo Sandoval's in the second, fought back with a run in the eighth.

The World Series champions also had the tying run at the plate in the ninth after Aaron Rowand's lead-off home run, before Dodgers' closer Jonathan Broxton got the final out.

Giants' starting pitcher Barry Zito, who was involved in a car crash last week, threw six innings and allowed three runs in a no-decision.

Reliever Dan Runzler was credited with the loss after he allowed four runs in one-third of an inning.

Japanese starter Hiroki Kuroda pitched seven innings, allowed three runs and struck out five in his first win of the season for Los Angeles.

The Dodgers took an early 3-0 led in the first, with outfielder Matt Kemp hitting a two-run home run as he continued his powerful start to the season. He finished the four-game series hitting 5-for-12.

"I feel great right now. Our confidence level is up, we had a good series and did what it takes to win ball games," Kemp told reporters.

"We're having a lot of fun. Our main focus is to work hard, and we're pulling for each other and doing what it takes."

Scientists develop genetically modified cows that produce 'human' breast milk

Babies could be fed on ‘human’ milk produced by cows in the wake of the latest developments in genetic modification.
Scientists have bred 300 cattle that have been given human genes to make their milk contain the same nutrients and fat content as breast milk.
They believe the product could offer mothers an alternative to conventional infant formula.

Field of scientific development: Could dairy cows in the UK be producing human milk in the future?

But the move was condemned last night by campaigners who questioned its safety.
Human milk differs from cows’ milk in several important ways. It contains high quantities of nutrients beneficial to a baby’s growth and immune system.
Cows’ milk is much harder for a baby to digest, has less fat and fewer carbohydrates and contains no antibodies that protect against disease.
Prof Ning Li, who led the  research at the China Agricultural University, said the milk they produce would be as safe as ordinary cows’ milk.

Mother knows best: Developers say the new milk could help mothers who cannot breastfeed their babies and do not want to use formula

‘The milk tastes stronger than normal milk,’ he said. ‘Within ten years, people will be able to pick up these human-milk-like products at the supermarket.’
But Patti Rundall, of Baby Milk Action, said: ‘We need to have rules in place to safeguard human health.
‘There could be incredible risks with these products that we don’t know about. Cows’ milk is never going to be like breast milk. It’s never going to be a living product like breast milk.
‘Breast milk is species specific – there is no element of risk.’
Writing in the respected journal Public Library of Science One, Prof Li’s team said they used cloning technology to introduce human genes into the DNA of Holstein dairy cows.
One variety of the GM cows produced milk containing lysozyme – an antimicrobial protein found in breast milk that protects babies from infection. They also created cows that produced human lactoferrin, a protein which boosts the immune system.
A third human milk protein called alpha-lactalbumin was also expressed in the milk. Prof Li claims his team has boosted the milk’s fat content by a fifth and changed the levels of solids to make it close to the composition of human milk.
But campaigners said the creation of GM cattle was bad for animal welfare. In two experiments by the Chinese in which 42 GM calves were born, just 26 survived. Ten died soon after birth and six died within six months.
A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said: ‘Offspring of cloned animals often suffer health and welfare problems, so this would be a grave concern. Why do we need this milk – what is it giving us that we haven’t already got?’

 

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Helen Wallace, of watchdog GeneWatch UK, said: ‘There is a question about whether milk from these cows is going to be safe for humans, and it is really hard to tell that unless you do large clinical trials.’
China’s rules on GM food are more relaxed than those in Europe. The GM milk would not be allowed on sale in Britain unless it was approved by the European Union and passed stringent safety tests.
Some British scientists said the research could be of huge benefit.
Prof Keith Campbell, a biologist at Nottingham University and a member of the team that cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, said GM animals were not a threat to health unless scientists deliberately gave them a gene that made their milk toxic.
‘Genetically modified food, if done correctly, can provide huge benefit for consumers in terms of producing better products,’ he said.
The modified milk could help boost sales of dairy products in Asia, where more than nine in  ten people are lactose intolerant and cannot consume cows’ milk without suffering stomach upsets and cramps.
Prof Li’s team were  working with the Beijing GenProtein Biotechnology Compan

SF Giants fan hospitalized as LA cops seek 2 men

A savage beating by two men outside Dodger Stadium left a San Francisco Giants fan in a medically-induced coma as police on Saturday urged any witnesses to help identify the attackers.

The assault after Thursday's season opener between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the rival Giants left a 42-year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz in critical but stable condition.

Police released composite sketches of the two suspects, who were wearing Dodgers clothing.

Detective Larry Burcher said security cameras had yielded nothing of great value, but investigators were confident there were many witnesses with valuable information. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of the suspects.

The two suspects cursed and taunted three men in Giants gear as thousands of fans left the stadium after the 2-1 Dodger victory, Detective T.J. Moore said.

The Giants fans ran and two got away, but the assailants caught up to one in the parking lot, struck him on the back of the head and as he fell, he hit his head on the asphalt, Moore said.

Both attackers then kicked the victim, then ran, Moore said. They fled in a four-door sedan driven by a woman with a boy, Moore said.

The victim's friends returned and found him on the ground.

Police have not released his name, but friends and family told his hometown paper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, that his name was Bryan Stow, a married father of two who works for a San Jose ambulance company.

Family members were at County-USC Hospital, where doctors put him in a coma to deal with his brain injuries, according to City News Service.

Rebecca Mackowiak, Stow's co-worker at American Medical Response, started a fund to help pay his medical bills.

"He is a really friendly guy and easygoing," she told the Sentinel. "There's not one person in this world who knows him who would think of him as a fighter."

The Dodgers said they were co-operating with investigators and wished the victim a speedy recovery.

After offering the reward, Antonovich called for enhanced security and strict limits on alcohol sales at Dodger Stadium, which is owned by the team and regulated by Los Angeles and the state Alcohol Beverages Control Board.

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt defended the organization, saying the violence was awful but that it can't always be stopped.

"I'm quite confident that all of our measures were in place, and it's just one of those things that you could have 2,000 policemen there and it's just not going to change that random act of violence. It's a sad, sad thing," McCourt said at the dedication of a Dodger-sponsored Little League field in South Los Angeles. "Let's keep in mind that opening day is 56,000 people, it's a lot of people, and the incidents we had relative to that were very, very few. But, that said, one is too many."

Southern California ballparks have seen violence in recent years. In April 2009, a man stabbed his friend in the Dodger Stadium parking lot after the team's home opener. Arthur Alvarez said he acted in self-defense and was acquitted by a jury.

Two months later at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, an off-duty police officer shot and wounded two men who assaulted him in the parking lot after a game.

The West Coast rivalry began on April 18, 1958, the first game played in California after both teams had moved from New York. The Dodgers beat the Giants 6-5 in a game played before nearly 79,000 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.