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Living with cancer: ‘Sometimes people do stare, or try hard not to’

Emily Church — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:18:03 +0000

Reuters correspondent Deborah Charles, 42, learned she had breast cancer on Nov. 6, 2007. She writes about her diagnosis — infiltrating ductal carcinoma — and how her life’s changed in a four-part series here.

Send comments or questions on her stories below. Or share your own. Have you or a friend gone back to work after a cancer diagnosis?

Too easy to get a home loan in recent years?

Emily Church — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:05:06 +0000

Subprime isn’t a major part of the U.S. mortgage market but mounting losses for the lenders in the sector are pushing the whole market around. The biggest percentage loser on the Nasdaq Tuesday is Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co.(LEND).

More than two dozen subprime lenders have quit the industry over the past year. An update from the Mortgage Bankers Association Tuesday, that late payments and foreclosures on U.S. homes reached rose in fourth quarter, is keeping the pressure on.

SeekingAlpha.com carries a report from Credit Suisse analyst Ivy Zelman that forecasts a 20 percent drop in new home sales. Among other views, Torsten Slok, senior economist at Deutsche Bank, tells Reuters that “mortgage delinquencies went up, but it’s not in dangerous territory. If you look at historical levels, we are still below previous peaks hit during the recession of 2001.”

Are you concerned about the impact of the subprime mortgage meltdown? Do you think it has been too easy to get a home loan in recent years? Should the government bring in controls to prevent such lending?

Iraq invasion ‘about dumbest move ever made’

Emily Church — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:33:17 +0000

There’s room for reform at the United Nations, starting with the Security Council, but the organization is doing more good than not, Ted Turner, the CNN founder and the largest individual donor to the UN, said on Tuesday. “It’s the seventh inning and we’re down by two runs,” he said, citing global warming, nuclear proliferation, growing population and environmental degradation. “We’ve already got a catastrophe on our hands.” Turner was interviewed before an audience on Tuesday by Paul Holmes, Reuters Political and General News Editor, at the Reuters headquarters in New York. See archived coverage of the event here

Turner addressed some of the questions from readers. Steve Bolin asked “Why should we trust an organization like the UN where dictators and despots, and countries that allow the slavery of children have an equal vote?” Turner noted that every country has “different rules and they’re constantly changing… We have a president who admitted secret prisons.”

A question from a ‘Friend of Ted’ drew a sharper response. ‘Friend’ asked whether he felt his donations to the UN Foundation “created one bureaucracy fund another.” Turner called the notion “ridiculous… You have to have management, otherwise you’ll have chaos.”

Turner’s picks and pans

Picks

– Parliament of Man, a book by Paul Kennedy, on the history of the United Nations.

– Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic candidate for president, is “very responsible, a great leader,” Turner told the audience, referring to the former vice president’s campaign to combat global warming. ”We’ve got to have good leadership now; we can’t afford to waste another 8 years.”

– Female politicians. “Men should be barred from public office” for a long spell to bring about a kinder and gentler world, he said.

Pans

– U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 did ‘incalculable damage” to the U.S. Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II each rank as “dumb moves” for Turner, but he said it’s possible the U.S. invasion of Iraq “might be the dumbest; we lost so much. Before Iraq, we were one of the most popular nations on earth and now we’re one of the most feared and distrusted.

– Iran nuclear policy in the West. “It’s a joke to say Iran can’t have nuclear weapons,” he said. “Why don’t we say Israel or India or Russia can’t have them… We’ve got to get rid of all nuclear weapons as quickly as we possibly can.”

New Orleans facing ‘hard three to five years’

Emily Church — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:54:35 +0000

You asked Peter Henderson, reporting from New Orleans for Reuters, how the debris clean-up is going in the city and along the coast. “There are still massive debris piles and twisted houses all over the worst hit areas, including Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward,” Henderson writes back. Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday told Lower Ninth Ward residents “it would be a hard three to five years. Water in the Lower Ninth is still not potable,” he added.

And as for NickA, who asked why the rebuilding in Louisana is lagging Mississippi’s recovery, Henderson writes: “I visited the coast about a week ago and it is still flattened. Most of the debris is clear but, aside from the casinos in Biloxi, there is hardly any sign of rebuilding on the coast.” (Pictures by Reuters, New Orleans 2006)

More replies from Henderson

c reimer: What has the City of New Orleans been doing for the last Year? What has the State of La. been doing for the Last Year?
Henderson: Trying to clean up and rebuild. The success is a matter of debate. One important issue: Federal funds to homeowners are expected to start flowing very soon. Mayor Ray Nagin largely blames slow funding for not repairing faster, and also notes the incredible scale of the devastation. The city re-elected him in May, and he was greeted with cheers at a press conference in the Lower Ninth Ward on Sunday, but he has plenty of critics who say he does not have a grand plan for rebuilding.

Jan from Houston: When Katrina hit, the US Army Corps of Engineers had almost completed Hurricane Protection Project, intended to secure the levees and shield the city (1-20 feet below sea level) from Cat. 3 storms. 80% of the city was flooded by Katrinas Cat. 3 Surge. Whats the story? Is this just going to take time to get right? Hows the debris clean-up looking?Henderson: Army Corps chief Lt. Gen. Carl Strock said recently that protection was probably better now because of a few improvements such as flood gates which close the canals that storm waters rushed into last year, but he declined to say the city could survive a Category 3 storm. Also, closing the flood gates sharply reduces the city’s ability to pump out rainwater collecting in the streets, which could also mean flooding. In addition to repairs to get the levee system up to required standards (repairs to date were intended to bring it to pre-Katrina levels, which were below standards in some cases), the Corps is preparing a report due Dec. 2007, on what would be necessary to provide Category Five hurricane protection.

CarlB says: … What we have is a system which is fighting with the river instead of working with it.
Henderson: The book Rising Tide by John Barry addresses this head on. It explains how humans have attempted to tame the rivers and how the system of only using levees failed in the 1927 flood. Now there are ’spillways’ to reduce pressure, at least. I am only half way through the book but it is very detailed.

SuzyQ says: As Carl B says - work with not against Nature then they might not be so disappointed with the results
Henderson: Many critics in the city make similar points and complain of a leadership void. Mayor Ray Nagin’s answer to that question is that individuals and the market should decide on where to rebuild. The current effort is focused on neighborhood plans which will be integrated into a master plan by the end of the year.

PhilB says: What has the mayor of N.O. or the governor of Louisiana learned from the experience?
Henderson: I’ll ask that question.

Daphiny says: New Orleans will always be a part of my heart , and im hoping to return oneday, not this year , maybe next . but i will return
Henderson: You are not alone. Half of the city’s roughly 450,000 pre-Katrina residents are still displaced, and while many of them appear to be packed into surrounding suburbs, I daily meet people traveling hundreds of miles to look at their houses and try to decide what to do.

One year after Katrina: Questions on New Orleans

Emily Church — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:56:08 +0000

There’s plenty of frustration to go around at the slow pace of rebuilding, Peter Henderson has discovered. He’s reporting for Reuters from the city, interviewing people like Sigma Frazier. The 76-year-old is convinced neither the city nor the federal government has been helping enough. (Read more here).

He’s also met some newcomers, like Guatemalan Antonio Santos, 31, who moved from Houston since jobs were plentiful and wages were up to 50 percent higher. (Read more here)

Do you have a question or comment for Henderson about the state of life in New Orleans? Post to the comment link below and he’ll respond here. (Update on pictures: Top picture, New Orleans, August 2005, and Spike Lee at the premiere for “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts”, Aug. 18)

Maybe I’ll stay at home…

Emily Church — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 18:45:19 +0000

Airline stocks stumbled after British police said they foiled a bomb plot on jetliners. Investors fear people are going to travel less. Cancelled flights and images of travelers pouring the contents of their carry-on luggage into clear plastic bags in U.S. and British airports may discourage even more flying.

Some analysts expect an overreaction is taking place. Are they right or are you planning to travel less on planes?

News photography and Photoshop

Emily Church — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:46:10 +0000

(Editor’s note: Reuters.com asked Gary Hershorn, News Pictures Editor for North America, to discuss some of the tools photojournalists have used in the past — and what they use now — to produce pictures. On Monday, Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database after a review showed he had altered two images. You can see the images and reactions from readers here. Reuters, also the publisher of this report, tightened procedures for photographs from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah and apologized for the case. You can read the company’s statement here. You can send a comment to Hershorn from the link below and read his interview with NPR today here)

Photojournalism tools

News photographers routinely process images using Adobe Photoshop software. But there has been a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what was allowed in making prints in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is all that is acceptable today.

Back in the days of the darkroom, we used very basic tools to develop prints. In black and white printing, the contrast of a picture was controlled by a paper’s grade. The higher the number of the paper, the higher the contrast. In the wire agency darkooms I’ve worked in, we typically used grades 3,4 and 5. We allowed “dodge and burn” to lighten or darken areas. A dodge tool was made by taping a small piece of cardboard the size of a quarter onto a paper clip. A burn tool was a piece of cardboard the size of an 8×10 sheet of paper with a hole in the center. If a print had dust spots caused by a dirty negative, we used Spotone, a photographic paint that was dabbed onto a print with a very fine paint brush to eliminate the unsightly marks.

One other tool that was allowed when printing color pictures was changing color balance. This was done by placing filters between the light source of the enlarger and the paper that the image was being printed on.

When we moved to scanning negatives and then to shooting digital, we began using Photoshop. This program allows us to do the same things we did in the darkroom. Changes in contrast, dodging and burning and color balance are now done with software. The most controversial tool in Photoshop that we use is the cloning tool. The only accepted use of this tool is to clear dust from the image. We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to using the cloning tool to change content, and by that we mean removing something that exists in a photo, moving or replicating it or adding to a photo.

The tools we use in Photoshop are levels, curves and saturation for changing contrasts; and, color balance to bring the image back to the way the natural eye would see the color. Here is what we tell our photographers in the Handbook of Reuters Journalism.

Photoshop is a highly sophisticated image manipulation programme. We use only a tiny part of its potential capability to format our pictures, crop and size them and balance the tone and colour. For us it is a presentational tool.

The rules are no additions or deletions, no misleading the viewer by manipulation of the tonal and colour balance to disguise elements of an image or to change the context.

Photoshop is a powerful image processing program with many more tools to help photographers produce the best quality image they can for the type of photography they do. There is not a Photoshop program for use by news photographers and another for advertising, where image-changing is tolerated. What we in the news photo community need to regulate is what tools are used for photojournalism and what are not.

Ask the turf master

Emily Church — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:41:00 +0000

Wondering why the rough is so tough at Winged Foot Golf Club, home to U.S. Open this year? How tricky have they made the greens? Whether the course, one of the best in America, will handle the tens of thousands following their favorite players? Will the weather impact the course?

Tim Moraghan is the man to ask. As the U.S. Golf Association’s agronomist for championships, Moraghan is probably closer to the conditions in tournament golf play than anyone. Send a question or a comment to Moraghan to the link below. Reuters sports reporter Larry Fine is covering the U.S. Open and expects to meet up with Moraghan on Friday. We’ll post his replies then.

In pictures

Emily Church — Tue, 23 May 2006 14:58:44 +0000

Bono accepts a traditional gift during a visit to the cotton-growing town of Dafara, 60km (40 miles) from Mali’s capital Bamako, May 22, 2006. Mali is one of Africa’s five big cotton producers next to Chad, Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal that are demanding the U.S. dramatically cuts the subsidies it pays its farmers.
22 May 2006 REUTERS/Rainer Schwenzfeier

See slideshow of pictures African trip here.

Ask Bono

Emily Church — Thu, 18 May 2006 10:43:46 +0000

Desire a question for Bono? Here’s your chance. Reuters correspondent Lesley Wroughton is traveling with the Irish rock star and activist in Africa. Send questions or comments to him via the comment link to this post below.

Patricia Laverley, for one, writes Bono’s doing a fine job, but wonders “how he chooses his destinations.” If he were serious, she posted, “he should focus on war ravaged countries such as Sudan, Sierra Leone, etc. and develop alliances with African organizations in the region.”

Patrick wonders “why does it take a celebrity like Bono to get the West engaged in Africa?”

Marvin posts “when will MNCs use their enormous global PURCHASING power to enable African firms to participate as suppliers… Can DATA champion this cause and can I help?
God bless everything youre doing, Bono.”