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AARP, Groups, Set to Stop ComEd's Rate Increase Express

Organizations Urge Illinoisans to Contact Legislators, ICC, to Derail Rate Hikes, Prevent Regulatory Changes

CHICAGO, March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As ComEd seeks yet another huge rate increase affecting millions of Northern Illinois consumers, and pushes for legislation that would allow virtually all utility companies in Illinois to increase their rates automatically for several years, consumers are at risk of being overrun by a Rate Increase Express unless immediate action is taken to stop it before it leaves the station.

AARP, along with the Office of Illinois Attorney General, the Citizens Utility Board, and numerous community organizations today held a rally and a press conference on Chicago's Southside, urging consumers to take action, contact their legislators, call the Illinois Commerce Commission and stop ComEd's Rate Increase Express.

ComEd is seeking a $396 million delivery service rate increase, plus an additional surcharge for $196 million in technology investments, all expected to have a strong impact on customers' monthly bills. The utility giant is also pushing for legislation (House Bill 14) that would circumvent the ICC's regulatory authority and allow for automatic rate increases, silencing the voice of the consumer in the process.

"ComEd has been consistently raising their delivery rates since 2006 and citizens have seen and felt the effects in their wallets," said Bob Gallo, AARP Illinois Senior State Director. "We need to act now because time is running out. Both rate cases must be decided by the Illinois Commerce Commission in May and by the end of May we hope to put enough pressure on the legislature in Springfield to defeat the automatic rate increase legislation."

AARP held a community meeting with hundreds of Southside residents at Trinity United Church of Christ, and a press conference afterwards, with the Association and other advocacy organizations and community groups, as well as representatives from the Attorney General's Office and the CUB. The groups urged residents to call the ICC and their elected representatives in Springfield to defeat both the rate cases, and House Bill 14.

"House Bill Fourteen is not a problem only for ComEd customers in Chicago. This is an issue that involves everybody in Illinois, and we need everybody in the state to get involved," Gallo added.

Individuals can call 800-719-3020 a toll-free number set up by AARP - to tell their legislators to say "NO" to HB 14. They can also call the ICC at 800-524-0795 and give their comments to oppose ComEd's rate cases (docket number 10-0467 and 10-0527).

SOURCEAARP Illinois

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White House urges Mideast leaders to stop violence

The White House urged governments in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain to cease attacks on protesters Friday, while saying fighting in those countries has not risen to the same level as in Libya, where U.S. forces are engaged in military action to stop violence perpetrated by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to intervene in Libya was based not only on the violence that had already occurred there, "but also what was about to occur and the promises made by Gadhafi himself."

Carney said President Barack Obama would offer a clear explanation of how he reached the decision to take military action in Libya in the very near future, though he wouldn't say exactly when such remarks would occur.

The pro-democracy protests that started in Tunisia and Egypt in January have spread throughout the Middle East. The United States has taken a similar position in almost all of the uprisings, urging leaders to engage in political dialogue and calling for all sides to refrain from violence.

Carney made a similar appeal to Middle East leaders Friday.

"The stability and future of this region depends upon the decision by governments to listen to their people, to act on their legitimate aspirations and to open up their systems so that the people of these countries can have a greater stake in the future of their country and their own futures," he said.

The situation in Syria appeared particularly tenuous Friday, with troops opening fire on protesters in several cities and pro- and anti-government crowds clashing on the tense streets of the capital Damascus in the most widespread unrest in years, witnesses said.

Carney brushed aside questions about whether Syrian President Bashar Assad still has legitimacy, and wouldn't say whether U.S. officials had been speaking with Assad.

In Yemen, a key U.S. partner in the fight against terrorism, protesters converged on a square Friday chanting slogans calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite fears of more violence a week after government security forces shot dead more than 40 protesters. Saleh made a rare appearance Friday, saying he's ready to step down, but only if he can leave the country in "safe hands."

And in Bahrain, security forces fired tear gas at anti-government protesters Friday after a prominent Shiite cleric vowed that their demands for the Sunni monarchy to loosen its grip on power would not be silenced by "brutal force."

Carney said the White House is consulting with allies throughout the region as the situations develop.

Early balding linked to risk of prostate cancer

LONDON (Reuters) – A study showing that men who start to go bald at 20 may be more likely to develop prostate cancer in later life suggests they might benefit from early screening or preventative therapy, scientists said on Tuesday.

French researchers compared 388 men being treated for prostate cancer with 281 healthy men and found that those with the disease were twice as likely as the healthy men to have started losing their hair when they were 20.

If the men only started going bald when they were 30 or 40, there was no difference in their risk of developing prostate cancer compared to the healthy group.

"At present there is no hard evidence to show any benefit from screening the general population for prostate cancer. We need a way of identifying those men who are at high risk," said Philippe Giraud of Paris Descartes University, who led the study.

"Balding at the age of 20 may be one of these easily identifiable risk factors and more work needs to be done now to confirm this," he said in a statement.

Giraud, whose findings were published in the cancer journal Annals of Oncology, said men identified as at higher risk of prostate cancer could be selected for earlier screening, or for chemo-prevention therapy using so-called anti-androgenic drugs like Merck's Proscar, or finasteride.

Finasteride is used to treat both prostate enlargement symptoms and baldness. It blocks the conversion of testosterone to an androgen hormone called dihydrotestosterone, which is thought to cause hair loss.

GlaxoSmithKline has a drug in the same class called Avodart, or dutasteride, and is currently seeking approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a license for use in men at higher risk of developing prostate cancer. But an FDA panel advised last month that GSK's application should be rejected.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer and kills an estimated 255,000 men each year.

Androgenic alopecia, also known as male pattern baldness, affects around 50 percent of men in their lifetime.

Previous studies have established a link between baldness and androgenic hormones, and androgens also play a role in the development and growth of prostate cancer.

Giraud and Michael Yassa of the University of Montreal in Canada, who also worked on the study, asked men to fill in a questionnaire about their history of prostate cancer, if any, and to indicate any hair loss they had at ages 20, 30 and 40 using pictures graded from stage I (no hair loss), to stage IV (receding hairline and balding from the top of the head).

The men's doctors also provided patients' medical histories, including any diagnosis of prostate cancer, age at diagnosis, stage of the disease and treatment. The study ran for 28 months.

"The data revealed that any balding at stages II-IV was associated with double the risk of prostate cancer later in life. This trend was lost at ages 30 and 40," said Yassa.

"Further work should be done, both at the molecular level and with larger groups of men, to find the missing link between androgens, early balding and prostate cancer."

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Weir is on the slow road back, and thankful for it

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – If the cashier at a Utah department store recognized Mike Weir, imagine the surprise of seeing the former Masters champion and eight-time PGA Tour winner buying a bag of plastic golf balls.

"No, I don't think I've ever bought those before," Weir said.

It spoke to the severity of pain in his right elbow, where he partially tore tendons a year ago at Hilton Head. Weir tried to play through it the rest of the 2010 season but missed the cut in seven of 10 tournaments and never cracked the top 30 in the other three.

"It was four or five months of poor golf and I shouldn't have been out there," Weir said. "It was kind of a year that was wasted. There's definitely a stubborn side to me, a hockey mentality that I can tough this out. I thought it was bad tendinitis. I was playing every day and it kept getting worse. To play when you're scared to hit the ball is not good."

That's where the plastic golf balls come in.

Weir didn't pick up a club for three months to rest his elbow, and he was eager to get back to work. In the basement of his Utah home, he grabbed a 6-iron to make an easy swing.

"Just the impact of the ball on the tee hurt," Weir said. "I called the doctors and said, 'That hurts.' And they said, 'That's good.' It's scar tissue and I had to break through that."

So he went to the store to buy plastic balls to soften the blow.

"That's how I started my rehab — little dink shots with plastic balls," he said. "After a month of that, I was hitting wedges off the ground."

Weir said he is at 90 percent strength. He can produce any swing, even digging a ball out of the rough without flinching. The Canadian is on a major medical exemption, but has only two tournaments remaining to earn $217,097 for full status the rest of the year.

He is not worried about that. Nor is he worried about a world ranking that has plummeted to No. 214, after ending 2009 at No. 36. This is a Presidents Cup year, and Weir risks being left off the International side for the first time since 1998.

He is not bitter about his lost year. All things considered, Weir feels fortunate.

"I just want to get back," he said. "Honestly, I feel lucky to be playing. When I came back after three months off and was chipping those balls, I thought, 'Wow, this is worst than I thought.' So I feel grateful to be out here. Whether it takes a few months or six months, I feel like I'm on the right track."

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MASTERS FIELD: Through six PGA Tour events this year, four players have earned a spot in the Masters. There are six weeks left before Augusta National again uses the top 50 in the world ranking to issue invitations. Seven PGA Tour events remain where the winner can qualify for the Masters.

Ninety-five eligible players expected to compete at the Masters.

The good news for Augusta National is that everyone currently in the top 50 already is eligible. Depending on how the next seven weeks turn out, the Masters field has a chance to top 100 players for the first time since 1966.

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NEW NO. 1: The LPGA Tour finally gets under way this week in Thailand, and the player to beat is no mystery.

Yani Tseng, the 22-year-old from Taiwan, already has won three majors and was the LPGA Tour player of the year in 2010. She won two tournaments in Australia to rise to No. 1 in the world.

Tseng's goal was to get to No. 1. She just didn't think she would get there before the LPGA season began.

"I still have another 10 months to go," Tseng said. "I just need to be very patient and keep working hard. I still have a lot of things to learn, too."

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O'HAIR'S CUT: Sean O'Hair made his first cut of the year at Pebble Beach, but it's not as if he's off to a slow start.

O'Hair didn't start his season until Phoenix, staying home in Philadelphia as his wife neared her due date. Trevor Ryan was born Jan. 20, giving the O'Hair family — Sean is only 28 — four children.

Plus, the winter was particularly cold. O'Hair hasn't played much golf lately.

"I just wanted to be around the kids, and be around Jackie before the baby was born," O'Hair said.

He finally went down to Florida to get some practice before heading to Phoenix. O'Hair found himself struggling off the tee with the odd snap hook, and found that the parts of his game that should be solid (driving and long irons) have been bad, while his short game has carried him so far.

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COMEDY & MEMORY: Perhaps it was only fitting that Jesper Parnevik's partner at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was comedian Tom Dreesen, a profession Parnevik knows well.

His father, Bo, was one of the most famous comedians in Sweden.

"I asked him if his father was funny at home and he said he really wasn't, which didn't surprise me," Dreesen said. "Most comedians, by nature, are insecure."

Parnevik's favorite memories of his father were on the road in the summer, for that's when they played golf.

"I toured with him in the summer," Parnevik said. "He's the one who got me into golf. He got the golf bug big-time. When he went on summer tours, he only hired musicians and technicians who played golf. And they only did shows by good golf courses. They performed at night, and we played all day."

There was one occasion, however, when young Jesper was too tired to go on.

"He brought me to a show and I got tired," Parnevik said. "I went up on stage and said, 'Daddy, it's time to go home now. I'm tired!' And the crowd went berserk."

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DIVOTS: The PGA Grand Slam of Golf has changed its criteria for alternates. Instead of taking the former major champion with the best record in the 2011 majors, the first alternate will be the defending champion. That would be Ernie Els for this year in Bermuda, provided the Big Easy doesn't qualify by winning a major. ... U.S. Women's Amateur champion Danielle Kang received one of five amateur exemptions to the Kraft Nabisco Championship. The others went to Cydney Clanton, Lisa McCloskey, Kristen Park and Meghan Stasi. The LPGA Tour's first major is March 31 to April 3. ... Lee Trevino, 71, said he will play in the Toshiba Classic on March 11-13 at Newport (Calif.) Country Club. It will be the only official, full-field event he plays this year on the Champions Tour.

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STAT OF THE WEEK: The Dubai Desert Classic, where Tiger Woods tied for 20th, was only the third time in 30 non-PGA Tour events overseas that he finished out of the top 10.

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FINAL WORD: "I really do believe that your game is based a lot on the physical place you were brought up playing golf. ... You'll rarely see somebody with a good golf swing coming from a windy golf course." — Padraig Harrington.