GWEN IFILL: In 2009, then Private Marrocco lost both arms and both legs in a roadside bombing outside Baghdad. Then, just over a month ago, he received a rare double arm transplant. Today, he was discharged from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

DR. W.P. ANDREW LEE, Johns Hopkins Medicine: Only six other patients have undergone successful double hand transplants in the U.S., and Brendan's surgery was the most extensive and complicated arm transplant performed.

GWEN IFILL: Sergeant Marrocco said he is already seeing signs of progress.

BRENDAN MARROCCO: I don't really have feeling or movement in the hands yet, but we will get there. I can move my elbow. This was my elbow, the one I had before. I can rotate a little bit. This arm is pretty much not much movement at all.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june13/transplant_01-29.html

(Reuters) - A senior Chinese official said on Friday that the United States should cut back on printing money to stimulate its economy if the world is to have confidence in the dollar.

Asked whether he was worried about the dollar, the chairman of China's sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, Jin Liqun, told the World Economic Forum in Davos: "I am a little bit worried."

Jin said he was confident that the Obama administration and Congress would ultimately solve the debate over the so-called fiscal cliff, "but of course the printing machine will have to slow down for people to have full confidence in the dollar".

China is the biggest purchaser of U.S. Treasury bonds, using its enormous foreign currency reserves primarily to buy U.S. securities as a long-term investment.

"There will be no winners in currency wars. But it is important for a central bank that the money goes to the right place," Li said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/25/us-davos-currencies-idUSBRE90O10620130125

It could soon cost you more to shop with a credit card at some stores. As of this Sunday, Jan. 27, merchants who accept credit cards issued by Visa and MasterCard will be allowed to add a service charge to the purchase price.

Visa and MasterCard had always prohibited merchants from doing this. They agreed to change the rules and allow the surcharge as part of the settlement of an antitrust suit brought by retailers.

The surcharge is supposed to equal the actual cost of processing the credit card transaction, which is typically 1.5 to 3 percent. Under the agreement, the fee is capped at 4 percent. The surcharge can vary based on the type of card. For example, it could be higher for a rewards card or premier card.

Merchants still cannot add a surcharge to debit card transactions.

http://m.nbcnews.com/business/attention-shoppers-another-credit-card-fee-here-1C8086499

(Reuters) - Visits to Hawaii soared to a record high last year, boosted by an increase in flights and a weaker dollar, tourism officials said on Thursday.

Almost 8 million people visited the Aloha State in 2012, more than a third of a million more than the previous record set in 2006 and a rise of 9.6 percent on 2011, the Hawaii Tourism Authority said.

The surge in visitors to the tropical islands - famed for their pounding surf and lush mountains - was matched by a record $14.3 billion in spending, according to preliminary statistics.

As well as being a top holiday destination for U.S. visitors, the islands are also a popular spot for Japanese tourists who accounted for nearly 1.5 million of the state's visitors in 2012 - a 17 percent rise.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/25/us-usa-hawaii-tourism-idUSBRE90O16M20130125

Hacktivist group Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort."

The first attack on the website was early Friday morning. The second - successful - attack came around 9pm PST that evening.


By 3am PST ussc.gov was down (it has since been dropped from the DNS), yet as of this writing the IP address (66.153.19.162) still returns the defaced site's contents.

It appears that via the U.S. government website, Anonymous had distributed encrypted government files and left a statement on the website that de-encryption keys would be publicly released (thus releasing the as-yet unkonwn information held on the stolen files) if the U.S. government did not comply with Anonymous' ultimatum demands for legal reform.

http://www.zdnet.com/anonymous-hacks-us-sentencing-commission-distributes-files-7000010369/

ALGIERS — Several Egyptian members of the squad of militants that lay bloody siege to an Algerian gas complex last week also took part in the deadly attack on the United States Mission in Libya in September, a senior Algerian official said Tuesday.

The Egyptians involved in both attacks were killed by Algerian forces during the four-day ordeal that ended in the deaths of at least 38 hostages and 29 kidnappers, the official said. But three of the militants were captured alive, and one of them described the Egyptians’ role in both assaults under interrogation by the Algerian security services, the official said.

If confirmed, the link between two of the most brazen assaults in recent memory would reinforce the transborder character of the jihadist groups now striking across the Sahara. American officials have long warned that the region’s volatile mix of porous borders, turbulent states, weapons and ranks of fighters with similar ideologies creates a dangerous landscape in which extremists are trying to collaborate across vast distances.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday about the Libyan attack that killed the American ambassador and three staff members, raised the specter of regional cooperation among extremists soon after the mission in Benghazi was overrun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/africa/some-algeria-attackers-are-placed-at-benghazi.html?_r=0

Rives Miller Grogan has something to say. The way he says it keeps getting him in trouble at the U.S. Capitol.

Now, after the 47-year-old Californian allegedly climbed 40 feet up a tree near the Capitol reflecting pool and tried to shout down President Obama’s inaugural address on Monday, a judge has ordered him to stay away not only from Capitol building but from the District entirely.

Grogan, an antiabortion activist, eluded capture for five hours on Monday. A Capitol police spokesman said he annoyed onlookers below by loudly shouting.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/police-charge-tree-climbing-protester-from-inauguration/2013/01/22/663477e8-64cb-11e2-b84d-21c7b65985ee_story.html

Wow what a wacko. Check out the pic of this guy in the tree. He needs some serious help.

It all happened so fast, she says. Her four-year-old daughter -- the youngest of three sisters -- was healthy and happy one day, feverish with the flu the next day.

"Friday, she started to have fever so I took her to the doctor right away, and her doctor prescribed her Tamiflu because they suspect she has the flu," Cabasag said.

After the first dose, Jianna's fever went down, but only for a while.

"So, I believed the medicine was working. I said 'thank God,' but early afternoon Saturday she fell feverish again," Cabasag said.

She was given a second dose of Tamiflu, but on Sunday morning it got worse. She was sweating, her hands and feet freezing, and little Jianna was too exhausted to move. Cabasag rushed her to the Emergency Room.

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/EXCLUSIVE-Mother-grieves-after-4-year-old/a_m462iH4E2Y-6ZknNl1Tg.cspx

This story scares me...her mother did everything right, had her daughter vaccinated and got her to the doctor and tamiflu early. Moreover the little girl was healthy prior to her illness. How can this happen?

Newspapers may soon have to re-open their Tokyo bureaux, shut down long ago when the investment bubble burst and one Lost Decade stretched into another.

We all watch with disbelief as China and Japan rattle sabres over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, so like the seemingly minor events that drew Europe's alliance systems into conflict from 1911 onwards.
Both graduated to fighter jets last week: Japan sending in F-15s; China deploying J-10s, and mobilising the East China Sea fleet for live ammo drills.

China's purpose is clear. It is testing the US security umbrella, and Washington's willingness to risk conflict to back Asian allies. There is a minority in Beijing who think America is a busted flush, a mistake made repeatedly by different powers over the last hundred years.

The possibility that the world's three largest economies could come to blows -- as feared by US defense secretary Leon Panetta -- is a sobering thought.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9814218/Revolutionary-Japan-is-suddenly-the-centre-of-world-affairs.html

Bad cholesterol, depression, high blood pressure; these are all conditions that often prompt a trip to the pharmacy. But now, physicians are administering a different treatment entirely: produce. Doctors at select clinics across the country are writing some obese patients "prescriptions" for fruits and vegetables.

The Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program provides daily $1 subsidies to buy produce at local farmers markets. FVRx, as it is also known, is funded through Wholesome Wave, a non-profit organization which operates from private donations. Each member of a family gets the $1 prescription so, for example, a family of five would end up getting $35 per week to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Janet Lopez is a cashier at a sporting goods store and lives in Washington, D.C. with her two children, brother and mother. She and her family are part of the Unity Health Care clinic's prescription program and have been buying the subsidized produce since May. She said they all have been eating more fruits and vegetables because of the program.

“It is an encouragement because now I actually see that my kids love all of this stuff and before I couldn’t get it because it wasn’t cheap. Not only that but I also didn’t know how healthy it actually is,” Lopez said.

In addition to subsidies, FVRx has patients meet with their physicians to check up on their health including their height, weight, blood pressure and body mass index. The program also offers exercise and cooking classes.

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/07/23/doctors-write-a-prescription-for-produce/

What a great idea! We need more of this.