Clinton fingers FBI head in election loss

Clinton blames Comey letters for stopping her momentum and turning out Trump voters

Hillary Clinton blamed the renewed FBI inquiry into her State Department email system for blunting her momentum in the presidential election and the closure of that inquiry two days before Election Day for energizing voters for Donald Trump.

"There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful," Clinton told top donors on a farewell conference call Saturday.

"But our analysis is that (FBI Director James B.) Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum," she said.

"We dropped, and we had to keep really pushing ahead to regain our advantage - which going into the last weekend, we had. We were once again up in all but two of the battleground states, and we were up considerably in some that we ended up losing. And we were feeling like we had put it back together," she continued.

The surprise announcement of a revival of the shuttered FBI inquiry came at a time when the campaign was riding high, Clinton said.

"After the third debate we felt so good about where we were," she said.

Trump's performance in the Oct. 19 debate was widely panned, especially his refusal to say that he would respect the outcome of the election if he lost. Democrats called him a sore loser.

"We were up considerably in all but two of the battleground states where we were tied or one behind, according to our data," Clinton said. "We were tied in Arizona. We just had a real wind at our back," before the first, stunning letter from Comey.

Clinton's campaign insisted the reopened inquiry would turn up nothing, and many Democrats accused Comey of partisan motives. He was once a registered Republican. Clinton did not make that accusation Saturday.

But Clinton did say that what should have been good news essentially backfired. Comey on Sunday issued another letter to Congress, concluding that the nine-day examination of newly discovered emails had turned up nothing to change his earlier conclusion that there had been no criminal conduct.

"Just as we were back up on the upward trajectory, the second letter from Comey essentially doing what we knew it would - saying there was no there there - was a real motivator for Trump's voters," Clinton said.

A day earlier, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri had told the same group of donors something similar - that the news angered Trump voters and caused a spike in turnout, while Clinton's projected turnout fell.

"Trump spent the last four days of this campaign engaged in a nonstop attack on me personally, and the result is the result," Clinton said.

The Democrat focused on the outside events she said affected her campaign in the last three weeks of the election. She said nothing about other, larger forces at work - Trump's message of change in a restive time, his pledge to represent the aggrieved working class, the difficulty of any political party winning a third consecutive presidential term, her own limited attention to economic anxiety or the sexism and discomfort that surrounded her attempt to become the first female president.

Palmieri had pointed blame at much of that one day earlier. Neither she nor Clinton herself addressed the fact that Clinton's decision seven years ago to use a private system for her government communication had opened the door to the FBI inquiry in the midst of her second run for the White House. Clinton has said the decision was a mistake.

"I am heartbroken," she said Saturday, with a sad laugh. "I'm not going to pretend otherwise. This is a very, very tough loss and especially because everyone worked so hard."

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Jamaicans for Rio 2016

Jamaica's 14 on path to Rio 2016

Qualifiers for diving, gymnastics at the Olympic Games

By Paul Burrowes

At least 14 Jamaicans have so far cemented a ticket to Rio 2016, which will mark the country's 17th appearance at the Summer Olympic Games set this year for August 5-21 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jamaica will make a return to diving, after 16-year-old Betsy Sullivan first represented the country at the 1972 Games in Munich, West Germany.
Betsy finished 29th of the 30 divers competing in the 3m springboard, won by American Micki King, who beat Sweden's silver medallist Ulrika Knape and East German Marina Janicke, who finished third.
King, who was 28 then, was the oldest competitor in the event. A career officer in the United States Air Force since 1966, she retired from diving after the Munich Games.
She later retired from the Air Force in 1992 with the rank of colonel.
Yona Knight-Wisdom will become the second Jamaican to participate in diving at the Olympics when he too participate in the 3m springboard in Rio 2016.
Knight-Wisdom earned his place after finishing in the top 18 at the 2016 FINA World Cup.
He actually finished second, scoring 459.25 points, after winner Rommel Pacheco of Mexico, 504.40 points. American Kristian Ispen was third with 457.60.
Interestingly that FINA World Cup was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on February 19-24.
Meanwhile, Alia Atkinson, now 27, will take part in her fourth Olympic Games. She hopes to better her fourth place in the 100m breaststroke at the 2012 London Games.
Atkinson could also compete in the 200m breaststroke and the 50m freestyle, as she did in 2004 in Athens and in 2012.
In artistic gymnastics, Toni-Ann Williams has become the first Jamaican to qualify  for the Olympics. She claimed her spot after competing in the Olympic Test Event in Rio de Janeiro.
Williams qualifed after finishing 38th in the individual all-around with a score of 52.931. She was most outstanding on the vault, scoring 14.066, or 19th overall, of the 65 who competed.
For the men, Caled Faulk failed to qualify for Jamaica as he finished 63rd of the 64 who competed in the individual all-around.
The other Jamaicans heading to Rio come from athletics, mainly Kemoy Campbell in the men's 5000m, Damar Forbes in the men's long jump, O'Dayne Richards in the men's shot put, Jason Morgan and Fedrick Dacres in the shot put, Natoya Goule and Simoya Campbell in the womens' 800m, Aisha Praught in the women's 3,000m steeplechase, Kimberly Williams and Shanieka Thomas in the women's triple jump and Danniel Thomas in the shot put.
However, for athletics, the athletes must confirm their place at the National Championships at the end of June at the National Stadium.
Jamaica have also already qualified for the 4x100m and 4x400m relays for men and women.

Not a performance enhancer

Meldonium's creator: Drug used to improve sexual performance

MOSCOW (AP) -- The Latvian scientist who developed meldonium says some male athletes who have taken the recently banned drug have used it in order to improve sexual performance.

The drug, which is typically recommended for heart disease patients, was banned for 2016, prompting at least 172 failed tests worldwide, including Maria Sharapova.

Ivars Kalvinsin, who created the drug, says many male athletes take meldonium ''not as a sports performance enhancer but in order to improve their sexual performance.''

Last week, the World Anti-Doping Agency said athletes could be cleared if only minute traces of the drug were found in their system.

A diamond is forever, but trends do change

This is the ultimate engagement ring for American brides

Years of marketing have taught Americans that “A Diamond is Forever.” That lesson is proving insusceptible to the changing whims of fashion, not to mention cultural shifts toward marriage.
In a survey of about 13,000 recently engaged or married people in the U.S., 84% said they chose an engagement ring with a diamond stone, as opposed to 8% who selected another kind of precious stone. The survey was conducted by wedding planning website The Knot.
The Knot’s data on various ring style selections yields the following portrait of the No. 1 style of engagement ring today: The ring features a clear, round-cut diamond center stone weighing between 0.5 and 2 carats. The ring band is white gold, and the center stone accompanied by side stones or accent stones.

Ring trends are very much subject to the dips and swings in commodity pricing. White gold, a silver-colored alloy of gold with nickel, platinum, or another metal, continues to be a popular, cheaper alternative to platinum (it has served that purpose as far back as the 1920s). For ring shoppers looking for a hue other than silver, rose gold, which is a mix of silver, copper and gold, became popular five to six years ago, coinciding with a peak in gold prices of nearly $1,900 an ounce in 2011.
The round diamond cut popular today is a return to decades-old styles and a shift away from the princess cuts of the 1970s and oval cuts of the 1980s, which were largely influenced by the oval cut of Princess Diana’s sapphire ring.
The price tag for a ring fitting this No. 1 style varies widely depending on diamond quality, size and jeweler brand. A one-carat diamond ring with two side stones and a platinum band at Tiffany & Co. TIF, +0.24%  costs over $15,000. At Jared, a similar style in white gold instead of platinum costs about $1,800.
Engagement ring trends tend to evolve slowly, starting in urban areas and boutiques and then gradually over years and even decades making their way to national outlets like Zales, Kay and originator of the “Diamond is Forever” slogan, De Beers.

What the “ultimate” ring looks like at major jewelers: Clockwise from left: the Tiffany model features a platinum band and 1-carat diamond and costs $15,900; a Jared ring with 1-carat diamond center stone, white gold band and two side stones is priced at $1,799.99; a similar model from Zales sports a 0.5-carat diamond and costs $937.30; Brilliant Earth’s three-stone diamond ring with a 0.55-carat center stone costs $4,045.

One emerging trend today is “halo” settings -- a center stone circled by smaller accent diamonds.
“A halo setting really makes your ring look more dramatic, and a lot of brides are drawn to that,” said Kellie Gould, Editor-In-Chief of The Knot. “It makes your diamond look larger.”
The halo setting was seen in just 7% of rings in 2011; that number has tripled since then, with The Knot reporting halo settings now seen in 22% of rings.

Rings designed by Lauren Wolf at her shop Esqueleto in Oakland, Calif. Her rings are made using mostly “flawed” diamonds, or diamonds that wouldn’t otherwise sell at traditional jewelers. “Environmental and ethical concerns come up all the time,” Wolf said. About 40% of her customers care about where the diamond came from, she says.

Millennials in urban areas are increasingly driving interest in unique rings that combine vintage and modern aesthetics.
“People are gravitating toward organic, natural designs,” says Lauren Wolf, an Oakland, Calif.-based designer. Her rings use repurposed diamonds that likely wouldn’t sell at a traditional jeweler.
“There’s been a huge explosion in what some would call a flawed diamond,” she said. These diamonds are appealing to buyers looking for cost-efficient, environmentally friendly options that are one-of-a-kind.
“Everybody got cookie-cutter product overload,” she said.

Engagement rings on display at Esqueleto in Oakland, Calif.

American brides increasingly are taking a bigger role in choosing an engagement ring, with 51% pointing out styles they like while shopping, and 36% telling their partner which ring to buy outright, according to data from The Knot. Eleven percent of women said they dropped a hint by leaving ring ads or pictures laying around.
The average person spends $5,978 on an engagement ring, up from $5,403 in 2013 and $5,095 in 2011, according to The Knot. Wolf says the average customer at her store in Oakland, Calif., called Esqueleto, spends between $2,000 and $6,000.
She says younger people today are largely ignoring the “Two Month’s Salary rule” that originated in a campaign De Beers ran in the 1980s, suggesting that’s how much one should spend on a ring.
“The idea was you really had to show you were making a huge commitment through the ring,” Wolf said.
“A ring used to be a huge investment. Now millennials don’t want that.”

Meldonium reprieve

WADA opens way for athletes to avoid sanctions for meldonium

LONDON (AP) — In a dramatic change that could lead to numerous doping cases being thrown out, athletes who tested positive for meldonium may be able to avoid sanctions because of a lack of scientific evidence on how long the recently banned drug stays in the system.

The World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday provisional suspensions can be lifted if it is determined that an athlete took meldonium before it was placed on the list of banned substances on Jan. 1.

“It's not an amnesty as such,” WADA President Craig Reedie told The Associated Press.

WADA said 172 positive tests for meldonium have been recorded so far in various sports and countries - many in Russia - since the drug was prohibited. The highest profile case involves Maria Sharapova, who announced last month that she tested positive during the Australian Open in January.

Some athletes who have tested positive have claimed meldonium remained in their systems for months even though they stopped using it last year. Sharapova did not specify when she had last used meldonium.

The Latvian-made drug, which is typically prescribed for heart conditions, was widely used as a supplement by athletes in Eastern European countries. The drug increases blood flow, which improves exercise capacity by carrying more oxygen to the muscles.

In a notice to national anti-doping agencies, WADA acknowledged that “there is a lack of clear scientific information” on how long it takes for meldonium to clear the system.

While several studies are currently being carried out by WADA-accredited laboratories, preliminary results show that long-term excretion of meldonium can take weeks or months, it said.

As a result, it is possible that athletes who took meldonium before Jan. 1 “could not reasonably have known or suspected”  that the drug would still be present in their bodies after that date, WADA said.

“In these circumstances WADA considers that there may be grounds for no fault or negligence on the part of the athlete,”  the statement said.

Reedie said the notice was sent out to all national anti-doping bodies on Tuesday. It was released first publicly by Russia's anti-doping agency on Wednesday before being posted on WADA's website.

''It is designed to explain the science that we know,'' Reedie told the AP in a telephone interview. ''The issue that it deals with is the time this drug takes to come out of the system. It's an attempt to clarify the many questions that we've been asked.''

In a separate statement, WADA stressed that meldonium remains a banned substance and athletes face the rule of strict liability whereby they are responsible for any prohibited drug found in their body.

''Meldonium is a particular substance, which has created an unprecedented situation and therefore warranted additional guidance for the anti-doping community,'' Reedie said.

The Russian sports ministry and national Olympic committee welcomed the WADA statement, and the country's officials suggested there could be a mass amnesty of Russian athletes.

Russian tennis federation head Shamil Tarpishchev told the R-Sport agency he hoped that Sharapova would be able to play at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August, while the head of the Russian swimming federation suggested there could be a swift return to competition for suspended world champion Yulia Efimova.

''In no way does this serve as an 'amnesty' for athletes that are asserted to have committed an anti-doping rule violation,'' WADA spokesman Ben Nichols told the AP in an email. ''Rather, it serves as guidance for how anti-doping organizations should assess the particular circumstances of each individual case under their jurisdiction.''

The meldonium cases have no bearing on the ongoing suspension of Russia's track and field team following a WADA commission report into what it called state-sponsored doping.

Sharapova, a winner of five Grand Slam titles, said she had been taking meldonium for medical reasons over a 10-year period and had not seen a WADA notice last year that the drug would be banned starting in 2016.

Sharapova was provisionally suspended by the International Tennis Federation pending a disciplinary hearing.

''We can confirm that the case is ongoing and that there will be a hearing,'' ITF spokesman Nick Imison told the AP on Wednesday. ''I have seen the statement from WADA and obviously any ongoing cases will take that information from WADA, but it won't affect the fact that there is an ongoing case.''

Sharapova's lawyer said WADA's statement was ''proof of how poorly'' the agency handled meldonium issues in 2015.

''The notice underscores why so many legitimate questions have been raised concerning WADA's process in banning meldonium as well as the manner in which they notified players,'' attorney John Haggerty said in a statement. ''This notice should have been widely distributed in 2015, when it would have made a difference in the lives of many athletes.''

WADA said prosecution of meldonium cases can be ''stayed'' and provisional suspensions lifted if the concentration of the drug in the system is between 1 and 15 micrograms per millileter and the test was carried out before March 1, or if the level is below 1 microgram per millileter and the doping control was conducted after March 1. In both cases, the drug could still be in the athletes' system from before Jan. 1.

The agency said doping cases should be pursued, however, in the case of athletes who admit having taken meldonium on or after Jan. 1. The same applies to cases where the concentration of the drug is above 15 micrograms per millileter and where the level is between 1 and 15 and the drug test was after March 1.

Rio confident of Zika measures

Rio officials confident of measures in place against Zika

Nawal El Moutawakel (2nd L), chairman of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coordination Commission, gestures, accompanied by Rio 2016 Olympic Games Organising Committee President Carlos Arthur Nuzman (2nd R) and Rio 2016 Committee Chief Executive Officer Sidney Levy (R), after a news conference during the IOC Coordination Commission's 10th visit to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 13, 2016


RIO DE JANEIRO - Rio de Janeiro Olympic officials are confident that measures in place will protect visitors from the Zika virus when the games open in less than four months.

The focus on Zika returned to the Olympics after United States health officials said enough evidence exists to say the virus causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads.

''We'll continue to follow the advice and guidance of the World Health Organization to the letter,'' Rio spokesman Mario Andrada said on Thursday. ''And we'll continue to keep our partners informed, including the national Olympic committees and the international federations, about information regarding the Zika issue.''

The confirmation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came just hours after a team of Olympic inspectors completed their last visit to Rio.

Nawal El Moutawakel, the head of the inspection team, did not get a single question about Zika in a 45-minute news conference.

Rio officials say stagnant water is being drained around venues. Air conditioning will be installed in the athletes' village, and visitors will be encouraged to use repellent, and wear long sleeves and trousers.

Officials are hopeful the cooler, drier weather when the games open will reduce the mosquito population.

Brazil is at the center of the outbreak, with Rio de Janeiro getting special attention with 10,500 athletes and up to 500,000 foreign tourists expected for South America's first games.

A top official at the CDC said ''there is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly.''


The CDC said the virus was spread primarily though mosquito bites, but also can be transmitted through sex, and was particularly worrisome for pregnant women.

Reach out for the sun

Avoiding Sun as Dangerous as Smoking

Nonsmokers who stayed out of the sun had a life expectancy similar to smokers who soaked up the most rays, according to researchers who studied nearly 30,000 Swedish women over 20 years.

This indicates that avoiding the sun "is a risk factor for death of a similar magnitude as smoking," write the authors of the article, published March 21 in the Journal of Internal Medicine. Compared with those with the highest sun exposure, life expectancy for those who avoided sun dropped by 0.6 to 2.1 years.

Pelle Lindqvist, MD, of Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Sweden, and colleagues found that women who seek out the sun were generally at lower risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and noncancer/non-CVD diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and pulmonary diseases, than those who avoided sun exposure.

And one of the strengths of the study was that results were dose-specific — sunshine benefits went up with amount of exposure.

The researchers acknowledge that longer life expectancy for sunbathers seems paradoxical to the common thinking that sun exposure increases risk for skin cancer.

"We did find an increased risk of...skin cancer. However, the skin cancers that occurred in those exposing themselves to the sun had better prognosis," Dr Lindqvist said.

Some Daily Exposure Important for Health

Given these findings, he told Medscape Medical News, women should not overexpose themselves to sun, but underexposure may be even more dangerous than people think.

"We know in our population, there are three big lifestyle factors [that endanger health]: smoking, being overweight, and inactivity," he said. "Now we know there is a fourth — avoiding sun exposure."

Sweden's restrictive guidance against sun exposure over the past 4 decades may be particularly ill-advised, the study finds, in a country where the maximum UV index is low (< 3) for up to 9 months out of the year.

Use of sunscreen is also widely misunderstood in the country and elsewhere, Dr Lindqvist said.

"If you're using it to be out longer in the sun, you're using it in the wrong manner," he said. However, "If you are stuck on a boat and have to be out, it's probably better to have sunscreen than not to have it."

Women with more pigmentation would be particularly well-served to stop avoiding sunshine, he said, adding that many people in India, for instance, follow guidelines like those in Sweden to avoid sun year round.

And because melanomas are rare among women with darker skin, benefit goes up in those populations when weighing sun exposure's risk against benefits, Dr Lindqvist said.

Age and Smoking Habits

The researchers studied sun exposure as a risk factor for all-cause mortality for 29,518 women with no history of malignancy in a prospective 20-year follow-up of the Melanoma in Southern Sweden cohort.

The women were recruited from 1990 to 1992 when they were 25 to 64 years old. Detailed information was available at baseline on sun-exposure habits and potential confounders such as marital status, education level, smoking, alcohol consumption, and number of births.

When smoking was factored in, even smokers at approximately 60 years of age with the most active sun-exposure habits had a 2-year longer life expectancy during the study period compared with smokers who avoided sun exposure, the researchers note.

The authors do, however, acknowledge some major limitations. Among them, it was impossible to differentiate between active sun-exposure habits and a healthy lifestyle, and they did not have access to exercise data.

Role of Vitamin D Still in Question

The results add to the longstanding debate on the role of vitamin D in health and the amount of it people need, but this study doesn't resolve the question.

"Whether the positive effect of sun exposure demonstrated in this observational study is mediated by vitamin D, another mechanism related to ultraviolet radiation, or by unmeasured bias cannot be determined. Therefore, additional research is warranted," the authors write.

"From Irish studies we know that vitamin D deficiency makes melanomas more malignant," Dr Lindqvist said.

"This is in agreement with our results; melanomas of [those not exposed] to the sun had a worse prognosis."

This study was supported by the Clintec at the Karolinska Institute; ALF (Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Region Skane); the Swedish Cancer Society; and the Swedish Medical Research Council. Funding was also received from Lund University Hospital; the Gustav V Jubilee Fund; the Gunnar Nilsson Foundation; the Kamprad Foundation; and the European Research Council. The authors declared no relevant financial relationships.