Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor.

It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

"It puts a lot more wood behind the arrow if we need it," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures.

Part of the rationale behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a relatively young firm, founded in 2009. Some of the companies it backed two or three years ago are now at later stages, potentially requiring larger cash infusions to grow further.

Google Ventures has taken an eclectic approach, investing in a broad spectrum of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Every year, it typically funds 40-50 "seed-stage" deals where it invests $250,000 or less in a company, and perhaps around 15 deals where it invests up to $10 million, Maris said. It aims to complete one or two deals annually in the $20-$50 million range, Maris said.

LACKING SUPERSTARS

Some of its investments include Nest, a smart-thermostat company; Foundation Medicine, which applies genomic analysis to cancer care; Relay Rides, a carsharing service; and smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks. Last year, its portfolio company HomeAway raised $216 million in an initial public offering.

Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest. The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals.

Soon it could have even more cash to play around with. "Larry has repeatedly asked me: 'What do you think you could do with a billion a year?'" said Maris, referring to Google chief executive Larry Page.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Cancer trials can lack clear information on biopsies

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People participating in cancer drug trials aren’t always given the most straightforward explanation of possible risks and benefits from invasive procedures that may be involved, according to a new study.

Biopsies of tumor tissue can help researchers figure out how well a test drug is working – but the invasive, sometimes painful procedures are typically of little benefit to study participants themselves.

The new findings show more than five percent of biopsies in such trials may result in complications, but that informed consent documents spend less time explaining those risks than they do for simple blood draws, which are much less invasive.

“Most of these procedures don’t have any therapeutic value for patients, they are burdensome, they’re painful and they carry risk,” said Jonathan Kimmelman, from the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

“Before you do a procedure like that on patients, you really want to have their adequate informed consent,” Kimmelman, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

“The only reason (patients) should submit to them is to contribute to science in some way,” and not with the hope the biopsies will help them get better, he said.

For the new study, researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston reviewed 57 cancer trials by their institution that involved tumor biopsies for study subjects and were conducted in 2005 through 2010.

In 38 of those trials, a biopsy was mandatory for all participants, often as a way for researchers to tell if the drug in question had worked as intended. In some other cases, biopsies were used as pre-study checks to see if patients had the right type of tumor for a certain targeted drug.

Lead author Dr. Michael Overman and his colleagues found almost all informed consent documents didn’t specifically address the research alternatives to biopsies or the lack of likely benefits for patients themselves. The average document had just 39 words addressing the potential risks from study biopsies, compared to 48 words for blood draws.

In those trials, 576 patients had a total of 745 tumor biopsies – including lung, liver and head and neck biopsies. Thirty-nine of those resulted in complications, such as lung air leaks and bleeding, and six in major complications requiring patients to be hospitalized or to get further surgery, according to findings published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Overman said one of the problems has been that until now, there hasn’t been enough available data for study investigators to give patients a reliable estimate of their chance of a biopsy-related complication.

“The informed consent documents that are used are not always as clear as they could be,” Kimmelman said.

He added that not all cancer studies requiring biopsies are of the highest quality. And some don’t make it into the published scientific literature, where they could potentially help determine if a drug is approved or could guide treatment decisions for future patients.

“I think a lot of patients understandably think that when they’re volunteering for these studies they’re giving tissue for what is cutting-edge science, and sometimes that’s true, but not always,” Kimmelman said.

Both researchers agreed that as more targeted drugs are designed for patients with very specific types of cancer, research biopsies will become increasingly necessary to determine how well those drugs are working on the tumor itself.

“I think giving biopsies is a good thing. I think you learn from it, but you need to do it in an honest fashion,” Overman told Reuters Health.

Especially in early drug studies, the patients involved typically have few established treatment options.

“This is where we should say (to patients), ‘This is an experimental therapy, an experimental biopsy, and you don’t have to do it,’” Overman said.

SOURCE: http://bitly.com/U9NXK1 Journal of Clinical Oncology, online November 5, 2012.

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Giffords' husband faces shooter in court

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Gabrielle Giffords came face to face Thursday with the man who tried to kill her last year, but chose not to speak.

Her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, did all the talking for her, as the couple told Jared Lee Loughner how the 24-year-old's deadly rampage at the former congresswoman's political meeting had upended her life.

"Her life has been forever changed. Plans she had for our family and her career have been immeasurably altered," Kelly said at Loughner's sentencing. "Every day is a continuous stuggle to do those things she once was so good at."

Loughner showed no emotion, and looked at the other victims. His mother sobbed nearby.

"Mr. Loughner, you may have put a bullet through her head but you haven't put a dent in her spirit and her commitment to make the world a better place," Kelly said.

Giffords kissed Kelly when he was done. He grabbed her hand and they walked away, with her limping.

Earlier, Loughner told U.S. District Judge Larry Burns that he will not be speaking at the hearing where he is expected to be sentenced to life in prison.

Loughner pleaded guilty three months ago to 19 federal charges under an agreement that guarantees he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. The deal calls for the dismissal of 30 other charges and a sentence of seven consecutive life terms, followed by 140 years in prison.

Both sides reached the deal after a judge declared that Loughner was able to understand the charges against him. After the shooting, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and underwent forcible psychotropic drug treatments.

At the hearing, Loughner, who wore dress pants and a dark brown shirt with a tie, heard from his victims.

"We've been told about your demons, about the illness that skewed your thinking," said Susan Hileman, at times visibly shaking, to Loughner. "Your parents, your schools, your community, they all failed you.

"It's all true," Hileman said. "It's not enough."

"You pointed a weapon and shot me three times," she said, staring directly at Loughner. He looked back at her. "And now I walked out of this courtroom and into the rest of my life and I won't think of you again."

Some victims, including Giffords, welcomed the plea deal as a way to move on. It spared victims and their families from having to go through a potentially lengthy and traumatic trial and locks up the defendant for life.

Christina Pietz, the court-appointed psychologist who treated Loughner, had warned that although Loughner was competent to plead guilty, he remained severely mentally ill and his condition could deteriorate under the stress of a trial.

When Loughner first arrived at a Missouri prison facility for treatment, he was convinced Giffords was dead, even though he was shown a video of the shooting. He eventually realized she was alive after he was forcibly medicated.

It's unknown whether Pima County prosecutors, who have discretion on whether to seek the death penalty against Loughner, will file state charges against him. Stephanie Coronado, a spokeswoman for Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, said Wednesday that no decision had been made.

It's unclear where Loughner will be sent to serve his federal sentence. He could return to a prison medical facility like the one in Springfield, Mo., where he's been treated for more than a year. Or he could end up in a prison such as the federal lockup in Florence, Colo., that houses some of the country's most notorious criminals, including Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski.

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Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery sifting through the wreckage could injure trapped survivors. Crowds of bystanders gathered as rescuers sifted through cement and glass.

The fatality at the Melcom Shopping Center at Achimota, a suburb of Accra, was confirmed by Public Affairs Officer of the Ghana Fire Service Billy Anaglate. “We are still working to find out the fate of others who may be trapped under,” he said.

Other officials told The Associated Press that the death toll was likely to rise.

An AP reporter at the scene saw at least one man pulled from the debris, covered in dust and who was then whisked into an ambulance.

A Greater Accra Regional Public Affairs officer, deputy superintendent Freeman Tettey, confirmed that one person died and told the AP that 51 have been rescued and sent to hospitals around the capital.

“I was on my way to the shop when l saw it crumpling down,” Kojo Boadi, an eyewitness, said.

President John Mahama declared the scene a disaster zone and cut short his election campaign in the north of the country to be able to visit the site. The presidential election is scheduled for December.

The five-story store opened in February is part of the Melcom chain owned by Indian immigrant magnate, Bhagwan Khubchandani. His late father arrived in Ghana in 1929 as a 14-year-old to work as a store boy in the-then Gold Coast.

The store sells a variety of cheap, imported household goods and appliances that are popular with working-class Ghanaians.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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UK PM warns of witch-hunt against gays in pedophile scandal

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Thursday that speculation about the identity of an unidentified member of his ruling Conservative party accused of sexually abusing children could turn into a witch-hunt against gay people.

Cameron, who leads a troubled two-party coalition, ordered an investigation this week after a victim of child sexual abuse in Wales said a prominent Conservative political figure had abused him during the 1970s.

The claims, which follow the unmasking of late BBC star presenter Jimmy Savile as one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, have stoked concern that a powerful pedophile ring may have operated in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I have heard all sorts of names bandied around and what then tends to happen is of course that everyone then sits around and speculates about people, some of whom are alive, some of whom are dead,” Cameron said during an ITV television interview.

“It is very important that anyone who has got any information about any pedophile no matter how high up in the country go to the police,” he said.

Britain’s interior minister warned lawmakers this week that if they named suspected child abusers in parliament they risked jeopardizing future trials.

MPs benefit from “parliamentary privilege” – meaning they can speak inside parliament freely without fear of legal action on a host of legally sensitive issues that might otherwise attract lawsuits.

Reports of child abuse have provoked fevered speculation on the Internet about the identity of the Conservative figure from the era of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

When the ITV interviewer passed Cameron a piece of paper with the names of people identified on the Internet as being alleged child abusers, Cameron said:

“There is a danger if we are not careful that this could turn into a sort of witch-hunt particularly against people who are gay.”

“I am worried about the sort of thing you are doing right now – giving me a list of names you have taken off the Internet,” Cameron said.

The BBC aired a program last week in which Steven Messham, one of hundreds of victims of sexual abuse at children’s care homes in Wales over two decades, said he had been sexually abused by a prominent Conservative political figure.

However, the BBC reporter said he could not name the figure because there was “simply not enough evidence to name names”.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple's shares slide 4 percent to five-month low

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Obama win clears health law hurdle, challenges remain

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama‘s re-election eliminates the possibility of a wholesale repeal of his signature healthcare reform law, but leaves questions about how many of the changes will be implemented as the national focus shifts to tackling the U.S. debt and deficit.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the biggest overhaul of the $ 2.8 trillion U.S. healthcare system since the 1960s, aims to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans beginning in January 2014.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney had vowed to repeal the law if elected, calling it a costly government expansion despite the fact that the reforms are based on healthcare legislation he signed as governor of Massachusetts.

“There’s sort of an immediate acceptance that this law will stay in place in some meaningful way,” said Chris Jennings, a top healthcare adviser to former Democratic President Bill Clinton. “It’s sort of like a big barrier has been removed.”

Shares in hospitals and insurers that cater to Medicaid, the government insurance for the poor, rose slightly on Wednesday as markets expected the reform laws to be enacted. But health insurers with large employer-based businesses were off slightly, as the health reform law sets limits on their profits and mandates on coverage.

Obama still faces challenges in Congress. Republicans who retained control of the House of Representatives are expected to press for healthcare reform concessions, including delaying and 7scaling back a planned expansion of Medicaid, during negotiations to cut the federal deficit later this month.

But Julie Barnes, director of healthcare policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said Tuesday’s victory should give the president added leverage to set the healthcare segment of any deficit-cutting compromise largely on his own terms.

“President Obama has the opportunity to make bold leadership moves toward a bipartisan compromise on healthcare and the economy,” she said. “He has the standing to demand that each party see the investment all Americans have in reforming our broken healthcare system.”

DID MEDICARE HELP OBAMA?

In a related issue, Obama’s staunch defense of Medicare, the healthcare program for the elderly and disabled, may have helped his re-election, giving him an edge in close states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Obama and his allies vigorously attacked Romney’s plan to convert the popular program that provides guaranteed benefits to one that gives beneficiaries a fixed payment to help them purchase their own health coverage.

Polls show older Americans oppose the idea by margins of 2-to-1, though it was unclear to what extent that opposition translated into votes.

Major provisions of the Affordable Care Act call for cooperation from individual U.S. states, including an expansion of Medicaid and the introduction of subsidized health insurance exchanges for individuals to buy their own coverage.

Governors and legislatures in as many as a half-dozen Republican-majority states oppose those plans and can refuse to act on them.

Other states may be ill-prepared for implementation but could begin to take action now that repeal is no longer a threat. States have until November 16 to say whether they intend to set up their own exchanges. Most will need to partner with the federal government to have one ready by 2014.

Soon after Obama emerged the winner, reform advocates called on his administration to encourage state support for Medicaid by assuring governors and legislatures that $ 930 billion in federal funds for financing the expansion will be pumped into struggling state budgets.

“This guarantee is essential for governors as they decide whether their programs should cover more low-income adults. It is therefore crucial that upcoming federal budget decisions give governors clear assurances that this funding is stable and won’t be reduced,” said Ron Pollack of Families USA, a Medicaid advocacy group.

The healthcare law that Republicans deride as “Obamacare” has already survived repeated attacks and emerged mostly intact.

The Supreme Court upheld the reforms in a landmark June ruling, but empowered states to opt out of the planned Medicaid expansion without losing federal funding for current programs.

The reform law is still the subject of about two-dozen lawsuits seeking to overturn a requirement that church-affiliated institutions cover birth control for employees.

(Editing by Michele Gershberg, Marilyn Thompson and David Storey)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Election night was a good night for Calif., civility and statheads

By Jeff Greenfield

Forgive me if I don’t offer thoughts on the impending Republican civil war, the effect of Hurricane Sandy, the demographic nightmare confronting the GOP, or prospects for the 2016 Iowa caucuses now just a short 1,100 days or so away.

There’s plenty of that for your Wednesday pleasure. But Tuesday night produced other news that’s worth your attention.

First, California voters made two decisions that will have a profound impact on the state’s fiscal and political life. They approved Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to increase sales taxes and income taxes on the affluent to ease the state’s perennial budget dilemma. (California’s 34-year-old Prop 13 requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature to increase taxes, an all-but-unreachable level.) Had Prop 30 failed—and most thought it would—the already draconian cuts in California’s schools, public universities and other services would have been just a prelude to further slashes.

In another decision, the state’s voters rejected Proposition 32, which would have banned labor unions and corporations from raising money for state political purposes through paycheck deductions. Because corporations rarely use this tactic, Prop 32’s real impact would have kept tens of millions of dollars from aiding Democratic Party candidates in the state—one reason why business interests contributed some $120 million in a futile effort to pass the proposition.

While Democrats might cheer the result, it also means that labor unions will continue to hold outsize power with the party—meaning that Brown’s efforts to rein in pension benefits for public employees may have gotten a lot harder.

Second, civility in the House of Representatives just took a step forward, as two of the most rhetorically combative members lost re-election. Allen West, a Florida Republican and tea party favorite who once declared that “there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party,” lost his seat. Across the aisle—way, way across the aisle—Pete Stark of California, a 40-year veteran whose temper tantrums are the stuff of legend, was defeated by a fellow Democrat.

On the other hand, Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann narrowly survived re-election, meaning we may be treated to at least two more years of her idiosyncratic approach to history (locating the battle of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire) and medicine (vaccines cause mental retardation because someone she just met told her so). And Florida’s Alan Grayson, who once said the Republican health care plan was for older people to die quickly, will return to the House. Cable news networks now have their hot-ticket debaters for the coming year.

Third, the ability of the Obama campaign to target supporters and lure them to the polls and the ability of analysts like the New York Times’ Nate Silver to predict the outcome of a race with near precision, means that those of us who got into politics because we were told there’d be no math have got to get a clue.

If you care at all about politics, your two pieces of required reading are Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise” and Sasha Issenberg’s “The Victory Lab.” Silver explains why predictions from the world of sports, finance, science and politics fail, and should offer a permanent rebuke to those pundits who write and speak in gaseous terms of gut instincts, vibes and a mystical ability to detect sweeping forces that will drive elections. Issenberg’s book details precisely how the combination of behavioral psychology and data crunching enables campaigns to find supporters and persuade them to go to the polls.

This just-concluded campaign demonstrated forcefully that if you do not understand this brave new world, you will not understand politics, no matter how well you know the history of the Electoral College.

Finally, let me end with a concession. I plan to spend this day searching the websites of all of those who so confidently asserted why and how Obama was destined to lose. I’m particularly eager to read the wisdom of Dick Morris, the most consistently, hilariously ignorant pollster/strategist, who wrote just a few days ago “Here Comes the Landslide.” His continued employment is an inspiration to all those who believe that a career should in no way be limited by a total lack of competence.

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Canada firms to capitalize on nuclear trade with India

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Canadian firms will be able to export uranium and nuclear reactors to India for the first time in almost four decades under an agreement between the two nations, their prime ministers said, but more work is needed to implement the deal.

Once implemented, the agreement will end a ban on nuclear cooperation Canada imposed in 1976 after India secretly exploded its first nuclear bomb in 1974, commonly called the “Smiling Buddha”, using material from a Canadian-built reactor in India.

“Being able to resolve these issues and move forward is, we believe, a really important economic opportunity for an important Canadian industry, part of the energy industry, that should pay dividends in terms of jobs and growth for Canadians down the road,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday on a visit to New Delhi.

A negotiator with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks, said that what remained was a careful legal review of the language; translation into French and Hindi; and then a signing.

This is not expected to take very long, he said. The two sides have set up a joint committee to liaise on nuclear issues, but he said it would not be negotiating.

India aims to lift its nuclear capacity to 63,000 MW in the next 20 years by adding nearly 30 reactors. The country currently operates 20 mostly small reactors at six sites with a capacity of 4,780 MW, or 2 percent of its total power capacity, according to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.

Canada’s ambassador to India, Stewart Beck, said on Monday his country wanted to be able to track all nuclear material, but that India felt it only needed to report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It was not clear who made concessions in the talks and how effective the safeguards would be to ensure that Canadian material did not get used again for making nuclear weapons.

However, the CNSC official said India would now be required to notify Canada of any transfers to a third country and trade could only go to facilities that are safeguarded by the IAEA.

PROBABLY BEATING AUSTRALIA

Harper said the CNSC had worked to “achieve all of our objectives in terms of non-proliferation”.

Canada is in a race against Australia, its strategic ally but a commercial rival in the uranium business. Australia is also trying to nail down safeguards under which it too could sell uranium to India.

“We are effectively ahead of the Australians,” the CNSC official said, noting however that Russia and Kazakhstan were already supplying into India.

Opening up the Indian market would be a big help to Canada’s Cameco Corp, which is the world’s largest publicly traded uranium producer but which recently cut its long-term output targets due to the Fukushima disaster.

“Anytime we can reduce the roadblocks to selling our product around the world is always helpful,” Cameco chief executive Tim Gitzel told Reuters in Canada. “It opens a new market for us with the appropriate safeguards in place. So this is good news.”

Another potential beneficiary is Canadian engineering firm SNC Lavalin Group Inc, which bought the government’s commercial nuclear division, which designed the Candu reactor that is in use in numerous countries.

“As far as the sales of reactors goes, we would normally now request that Canada be accorded the same treatment as the Russians, the French and the Americans and that a site be designated in India for the implementation of at least a twin- unit Candu nuclear power station,” SNC Lavalin International President Ronald Denom, part of Harper’s delegation in India, told Reuters.

He also said it should open up the market to service the existing reactors in India.

Harper also said Canada welcomed foreign investment, after the country temporarily blocked Malaysian state oil firm Petronas’ C$ 5.17 billion ($ 5.19 billion) bid for gas producer Progress Energy Resources on October 20.

Late on Friday, Canada extended to December 10 its review of a $ 15.1 billion bid made in July by China’s CNOOC Ltd for Canadian energy producer Nexen Inc.

“Those decisions have to be taken looking at the global evolving economy in which we operate,” Harper said.

($ 1 = C$ 0.9965)

(Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Toronto; Additional writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Michael Roddy)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Dad’s Army” star Clive Dunn dies aged 92

LONDON (Reuters) – British actor Clive Dunn, best known as a bumbling old butcher in the popular World War Two sitcom “Dad’s Army”, has died, his agent said on Wednesday.

Dunn passed away on Tuesday, Peter Charlesworth said, adding that he believed the actor died in Portugal where he has lived for many years. He was 92.

As Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army – a hit television series in the 1960s and 1970s about a group of local volunteer members of the Home Guard – Dunn was famous for catchphrases such as “Don’t panic!” and “They don’t like it up ‘em.”

He also had a No. 1 hit song with “Grandad” in 1971, which he performed several times on TV music show “Top of the Pops”.

Dunn was born in London in 1920 and enrolled in an acting academy after leaving school.

He played several small roles in films in the 1930s before serving in the army in World War Two, ending up in prisoner-of-war and labor camps for four years.

After the war he worked in music halls before enjoying success as Jones in Dad’s Army.

Underlining his ability to play characters far older than his real age, he followed Dad’s Army with a five-year run in children’s comedy series “Grandad” as an elderly caretaker.

According to the BBC, he is survived by his wife Priscilla Morgan and two daughters, Jessica and Polly.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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