University of Illinois receives grant to study ozone resistance in corn

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Dec-2012
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Contact: Nicholas Vasi
nvasi@illinois.edu
Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

National Science Foundation funds 5-year, $5.7 million grant

Champaign, Ill., December 13, 2012 The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a fiveyear, $5.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop ozone-resistance in corn. These strains have the potential to combat the losses climate change and air pollutants have caused in crop yield. A team at the Institute for Genomic Biology in the Genomic Ecology of Global Change (GEGC) research theme will lead the research.

"Ozone can cause major damage and yield reductions in crops," says Lisa Ainsworth, Associate Professor of Plant Biology and principle investigator on the grant. "Our estimates are that ozone is costing roughly $700 million in losses in U.S. corn production." Ainsworth is also a research scientist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and an affiliate of the GEGC theme.

The team includes co-investigators Andrew Leakey, Assistant Professor in Plant Biology, and Pat Brown, Assistant Professor in Crop Sciences, both of the University of Illinois, and Lauren McIntyre, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Florida.

"Ozone can damage and stress cells by generating free radicals in cells, causing them to age more quickly," says Leakey, who will utilize SoyFACE (Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment), an outdoor facility for growing crops under a variety of atmospheric climatic conditions, to further this research.

Brown adds a major issue with ozone is that farmers cannot perceive it, as they could with a fungal infection or insect infestation. Developing strains resistant to ozone will not only increase yield but also reduce corn prices.

A further component of the grant will focus on outreach, including a camp for middle school and high school girls to investigate the impact of pollen on changes in climate, and a new website aimed at middle-school students called Plants iView. The site will host interactive, educational lessons dealing with plant-science topics, and those lessons will be available to local students as well as teachers across the country.

###

About the Institute for Genomic Biology:

The Institute for Genomic Biology is dedicated to transformative research in agriculture, human health, the environment, and energy use and production, with program areas in systems biology, cellular and metabolic engineering and genome technology. The IGB's mission to advance life sciences research and stimulate bioeconomic development is fulfilled in a number of ways, including pioneering research in bioenergy, critical climate change studies and promising work in regenerative medicine, drug development and understanding cancer at the cellular level. Learn more at www.igb.illinois.edu.


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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Nicholas Vasi
nvasi@illinois.edu
Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

National Science Foundation funds 5-year, $5.7 million grant

Champaign, Ill., December 13, 2012 The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a fiveyear, $5.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop ozone-resistance in corn. These strains have the potential to combat the losses climate change and air pollutants have caused in crop yield. A team at the Institute for Genomic Biology in the Genomic Ecology of Global Change (GEGC) research theme will lead the research.

"Ozone can cause major damage and yield reductions in crops," says Lisa Ainsworth, Associate Professor of Plant Biology and principle investigator on the grant. "Our estimates are that ozone is costing roughly $700 million in losses in U.S. corn production." Ainsworth is also a research scientist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and an affiliate of the GEGC theme.

The team includes co-investigators Andrew Leakey, Assistant Professor in Plant Biology, and Pat Brown, Assistant Professor in Crop Sciences, both of the University of Illinois, and Lauren McIntyre, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Florida.

"Ozone can damage and stress cells by generating free radicals in cells, causing them to age more quickly," says Leakey, who will utilize SoyFACE (Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment), an outdoor facility for growing crops under a variety of atmospheric climatic conditions, to further this research.

Brown adds a major issue with ozone is that farmers cannot perceive it, as they could with a fungal infection or insect infestation. Developing strains resistant to ozone will not only increase yield but also reduce corn prices.

A further component of the grant will focus on outreach, including a camp for middle school and high school girls to investigate the impact of pollen on changes in climate, and a new website aimed at middle-school students called Plants iView. The site will host interactive, educational lessons dealing with plant-science topics, and those lessons will be available to local students as well as teachers across the country.

###

About the Institute for Genomic Biology:

The Institute for Genomic Biology is dedicated to transformative research in agriculture, human health, the environment, and energy use and production, with program areas in systems biology, cellular and metabolic engineering and genome technology. The IGB's mission to advance life sciences research and stimulate bioeconomic development is fulfilled in a number of ways, including pioneering research in bioenergy, critical climate change studies and promising work in regenerative medicine, drug development and understanding cancer at the cellular level. Learn more at www.igb.illinois.edu.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/ifgb-uoi121312.php

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Cal State Fullerton on lockdown as police search for robbery suspects

FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) ? Students at Cal State Fullerton have been told to stay inside with doors locked while police search the campus for suspects in an armed robbery at a Riverside County jewelry store.

The search is centered on three buildings along Nutwood Avenue on the southeast edge of the campus, said Chris Bugbee, the school's director of public relations. Students were alerted via text message to shelter in place.

Occupants of Mihaylo Hall at the College of Business were evacuated.

"We saw all these cops coming through with - I think they were like AKs or something. They were pretty big guns. And they eventually told us we had to leave the campus," student Nate Chu told KABC-TV.

At least five suspects fled the scene of the robbery Wednesday in Moreno Valley and were stopped in Fullerton, Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn told KCAL-TV.

One person was detained and four others ran off.

One suspect carjacked a silver sedan and led police on a high speed chase along busy freeways and through residential streets before surrendering to more than a dozen officers some 60 miles away in Los Angeles.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-search-calif-campus-robbery-suspect-013556454.html

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Tobacco companies see Africa as fertile ground

DIEPSLOOT, South Africa ? On the sunny side of a dusty township street, next to the metal gates of a school, Lucas Moyana's little shop is just a board propped on four plastic crates like a child's lemonade stand. For a couple of coins, he sells being cool, sells being free.

A schoolboy in uniform hurries up, barely glancing at the cookie packets, lollipops and candies, grabs a Dunhill cigarette from a red box, puts a match to it and drops 22 cents on the table before hurrying away.

Moyana is at his stand, just a few yards from the school gates, most days from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Asked why he set up next to the school, he looks awkward. "I just decided this was a good spot," he says vaguely, basking in the hot spring sun. Every few minutes, a customer tosses some change onto his table, plucks a cigarette, lights it.

Africa is Big Tobacco's last frontier, and companies are conquering the continent stick by stick. Even a child can afford the cost of a single cigarette, 16 cents for Moyana's cheapest brand.

South Africa has some of the toughest regulations on the continent. Unlike in the United States, though, where the sale of packs with fewer than 20 cigarettes is prohibited, selling cigarettes single, or "one-one," is not specifically banned here.

It's twice as profitable for Moyana to sell cigarettes one-one. He doesn't even bother to display sealed packs. And although it is illegal here to sell cigarettes to anyone younger than 18, he doesn't turn them away.

Tobacco use is declining in the developed world. It's reached a plateau in the strongest market, Asia. But it is growing in Africa, because of the continent's booming population and rapidly expanding middle class.

"This is a major battleground," says Yussuf Saloojee of South Africa's National Council Against Smoking. "The African population is very young. If they can hook customers now, they've got customers for the next 40 or 50 years. So the prospects of an increasing market share are very good."

***

In Diepsloot, there's a way of walking that shows you almost own the township. Johnnie Thobejane's pace is quiet but powerful, and so slow that time seems trapped in every step.

At 20, he and his friends are still making their way through school, and they buy lollipops sometimes, when they don't mind looking like kids. But a cigarette costs the same as a lollipop, so when they have a few dimes, they mostly buy cigarettes from Moyana's stall.

Thobejane has been smoking since he was 13 and says all his male school friends do as well.

"All of them, they smoke," he says with a laugh. "It's like the smoking department."

In South Africa, tobacco advertising is banned, but Thobejane and his friends don't need a TV commercial.

"It keeps me rollin', keeps me walkin'. It's cool," says Thobejane, speaking like an American hip-hop artist.

He goes through six cigarettes a day, because that's what he can afford.

Across the continent, young men like Thobejane are at the heart of tobacco companies' campaign to capture the African smoker. Few African women smoke, but 20% to 30% of men in many African countries do, more than half of them younger than 35, according to a 2011 World Health Organization report. In South Africa, 35% of men smoke, one of the highest rates in sub-Saharan Africa.

African activists' battle to protect the young echoes those fought and won in the United States and Europe decades ago. The tobacco industry went to South Africa's top court recently to defend its constitutional right to advertise cigarettes, and lost.

"The market is so severely restricted that you can't really aggressively market the product. Restrictions are getting more and more strict, right across the continent," says Francois van der Merwe, chairman of the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/Eeus-51jp7o/la-fg-south-africa-smoking-20121213,0,7117049.story

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Study probes impact of climate change on cold-blooded animals

Dec. 12, 2012 ? A new study by biologists at Mercyhurst University focuses on the influence of climate change, particularly warmer winters, on the survival and potential fecundity of cold-blooded animals.

Cold blooded animals, or ectotherms, do not have an internal mechanism for regulating body temperature. Instead, they rely on solar energy captured by the environment.

The purpose of the Mercyhurst study, a collaboration of Michael Elnitsky, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology; and students Drew Spacht and Seth Pezar, is to assess the current and future impacts of climate change on the overwintering energetics and microenvironmental conditions of the goldenrod gall fly (Eurosta solidaginis). Larvae of the goldenrod gall fly have long served as model organisms for studying the strategies used by freeze-tolerant animals for winter survival.

"We used historical temperature data to estimate the overwintering (November through March) energy use of larval gall flies," Elnitsky said. "Based upon the relationship between metabolic rate and temperature, the estimated energy utilization during winter has increased by more than 30 percent over the last 50 years."

Further, with continued climate change, each additional 1?-degree C rise in temperature during winter is projected to increase energy use by 12 percent. The consequence of this is that the amount of energy remaining at winter's end directly determines how many offspring the goldenrod gall fly can produce.

"Unlike some other insects that are benefiting from a changing climate, goldenrod gall fly populations would be predicted to decline," Elnitsky said.

The research team has begun similar assessments of the impacts of a changing winter climate for other arthropods, such as deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) that transmit Lyme disease bacteria and the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), an invasive insect destroying hemlock forests throughout the eastern U.S.

The Mercyhurst group presented their research at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) in Knoxville, Tenn., last month. Spacht of Erie and Pezar of Madison, Ohio, were awarded the President's Prize in the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology section for their poster presentation. The President's Prize is the award given to the top undergraduate presentation in each section at the conference, which was attended by more than 4,000 scholars.

Also at the conference, Chris Strohm, a 2011 Mercyhurst biology graduate and currently a graduate student in entomology at the University of Kentucky, was awarded second place among graduate students in the Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity section.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/dx4bHNqnOnk/121212162715.htm

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Inquest: Nurse in British royal hoax found hanging

FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

A policeman stands on duty outside Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha's death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A policeman stands on duty outside Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha's death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A policeman stands on duty outside as media gather at Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha,s death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

(AP) ? A nurse duped by a hoax call from Australian DJs about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was found hanging in her room and left three notes, a coroner's inquest was told Thursday.

Coroner's officer Lynda Martindill said nurse Jacintha Saldanha was discovered hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her nurses' quarters on Friday by a colleague and a member of security staff at London's King Edward VII Hospital. She also had injuries to her wrists.

Martindill said an attempt to revive Saldanha failed. The case is being treated as an apparent suicide.

Police detective chief inspector James Harman said Saldanha, 46, also had injuries to her wrists.

He told the inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court that two notes were found at the scene and another among Saldanha's belongings. He said there were no suspicious circumstances, meaning nobody else was involved in Saldanha's death.

Harman said that police were examining the notes, interviewing the nurse's friends, family and colleagues and looking at emails and phone calls to establish what led to her death.

He also said detectives would be contacting police in the Australian state of New South Wales to collect "relevant evidence."

Saldanha answered the phone last week when two Australian disc jockeys called to seek information about the former Kate Middleton, who was being treated for severe morning sickness. The DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, and Saldanha was tricked into transferring the call to a nurse caring for the duchess, who revealed private details about her condition.

The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, apologized for the prank in emotional interviews on Australian television, saying they never expected their call would be put through. The show was taken off the air and the DJs have been suspended indefinitely.

Australia's media watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, said Thursday it was launching an official investigation into whether radio station 2DayFM breached its broadcasting license conditions and the industry code of practice.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox opened and adjourned Saldanha's inquest until March 26.

Wilcox expressed "my sympathies to her family and everybody who has been touched by this tragic death."

In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies unexpectedly, violently or in disputed circumstances. Inquests do not determine criminal liability or apportion blame.

Saldanha, who was born in India, lived in Bristol in southwestern England with her husband and two teenage children.

The family was not in court. Lawmaker Keith Vaz, who has spoken on their behalf, said the nurse's loved ones "need time to grieve."

Vaz said a memorial Mass would be held Saturday at London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-13-Britain%20Royal%20Pregnancy%20Hoax/id-77c31d9bf8e64642bac7b6db087aa52b

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BlackBerry 10 L-Series resurfaces, this time in Vietnam

Blackberry 10 LSeries resurfaces, this time in Vietnam

Keep in mind that nothing is set in stone until the official unveiling of BlackBerry 10 on January 30th, but it seems that a lucky soul in Vietnam has captured the clearest look yet of the device that'll "reinstall faith in RIM." These seemingly legitimate snapshots of the L-Series reveal an attractive touchscreen slab that features a removable back cover -- complete with an NFC antenna -- which also provides access to the phone's micro-SIM and microSD slots, along with a removable 1,800mAh battery. Fans of the unique play / pause toggle will find it happily sitting within the metallic volume rocker, and you'll also notice micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports occupying the left-hand side. With such a clean design, we can only hope that RIM can keep the carrier's requests for customization at bay -- some of 'em straight up don't have a knack for aesthetics. Be sure to follow the break for a couple extra peeks of this oft-leaked device, or hit up the source link for the full gallery.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/11/blackberry-10-l-series-resurfaces-in-vietnam/

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Google CEO Larry Page talks Apple, Android monetization and an eventual Motorola Nexus device

Google CEO Larry Page talks Apple, Android monetization and an eventual Motorola Nexus device

It's been a little while since we last heard from Larry Page, talking up Google Plus's adoption rate over the summer and, most recently, supposedly chatting with Tim Cook about the patent war that looms over both companies. Now he's letting his voice be heard again, sitting down with Miguel Helft from Fortune about a variety of topics, including the company's recent dealings with Cupertino. He call's Apple's "island-like approach" to its platform "somewhat a shame for users." He continues:

What I was trying to say was I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn't suffer as a result of other people's activities. I try to model that. We try pretty hard to make our products be available as widely as we can. That's our philosophy. I think sometimes we're allowed to do that. Sometimes we're not.

Availability and sharing, he says, is key to the success of Android, and Google Plus is a big part of that. "We had 18 different ways of sharing stuff before we did Plus. Now we have one way that works well, and we're improving." And when will they make some actual revenue from Android? " I think we're in the early stages of monetization. The fact that a phone has a location is really helpful for monetization."

Finally, on the question of why Google hasn't launched a Nexus device from Motorola yet, Page says quite simply "we haven't owned the company long enough." While he stops well short of pledging such a device is coming, he does say that Google is continuing to develop "amazing innovative devices" with multiple partners, and that the company will do everything it can to keep those partners, both old and new, happy.

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Source: Fortune

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/11/google-ceo-larry-page-talks-apple-android-monetization-and-an-e/

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Big asteroid flying by, no threat to Earth

Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:09pm EST

(Reuters) - A large asteroid that flies in nearly the same orbit as Earth will make a close pass by the planet, but there's no chance of an impact - at least for hundreds of years, astronomers said on Wednesday.

The asteroid, named Toutatis, flies by Earth every four years. During its closest approach on Wednesday, the celestial rock will pass about 4.3 million miles (7 million km) from Earth, which is about 18 times farther away than the moon.

"There is no danger of a collision with Earth," NASA astronomer Lance Benner said in a statement.

The 0.6-mile (4.3-km) long asteroid circles the sun in an orbit that is very closely aligned with Earth's, making it a potentially hazardous object for the future.

The asteroid was first spotted in 1934 and its orbit was confirmed in 1989. In 2004, Toutatis passed by Earth just four times farther away than the moon, much closer than this week's encounter.

Astronomers are using radar and optical telescopes to get a better fix on the asteroid's location, its unusual spin and the flight path in hopes of refining estimates on where it will travel in the future.

"We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of years," Benner said. "These new observations will allow us to predict the asteroid's trajectory even farther into the future."

(Reporting by Irene Klotz in Phoenix; Editing by Jane Sutton and Eric Beech)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/n9E5t-i4riU/us-space-asteroid-idUSBRE8BB1TB20121212

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Will Albany's New Coalition Pass Cuomo's Campaign Finance ...

money-bagGovernor Andrew Cuomo has made enacting campaign finance reform part of his ?litmus test? for judging the new coalition in the New York State Senate. Based on their recent statements, it seems he may only get half of the reforms he wanted from the new merger the Independent Democratic Conference and the State Senate Republicans.

In his State of the State address last January, Mr. Cuomo called for a two-pronged approach to campaign finance reform; limiting contributions and establishing a system for publicly-financed campaigns. Progressive good government groups have echoed the need for these two elements of campaign finance reform.

In the new IDC/GOP coalition, leadership duties in the Senate are shared between State Senator Jef Klein, the IDC?s head, and the Senate?s Republican leader Dean Skelos. Though his breakaway group?s alliance with the Republicans blocked Democrats from controlling the Senate chamber, Mr. Klein has vowed the IDC will be committed to advancing key components of the Democratic agenda, such as a minimum wage hike and reform of stop-and-frisk. He also told the Associated Press the IDC will be committed to ?serious campaign finance reform,? though he has not detailed what exactly that might entail.

With their conservative upstate constituency, New York?s Republicans have never been enthusiastic about overhauling campaign finance laws. In an interview with Capital Tonight?s Liz Benjamin last week, the IDC?s leader, State Senator Jeffrey Klein, expressed his own skepticism New Yorkers would back public financing and suggested the issue be left ?to voters.

?This is an important issue, if you?re gonna ask some people, you know, in upstate New York or other areas of upstate that we?re actually gonna use tax dollars to fund our elections, let?s see how they feel about that,? Mr. Klein said.

Mr. Skelos is not likely to accept all of the policy priorities of more liberal senators like Mr. Klein. Based on Mr. Klein?s comments, it seems public financing of campaigns could be an area where the IDC and their new Republican partners find some room for compromise. In the same Capital Tonight interview, Mr. Klein?s fellow IDC member, State Senator Diane Savino, said she supports public matching money for campaigns, but she suggested lawmakers can ?start with? bringing down contribution limits first.

?There are some people who like myself believe that it can?t be real campaign finance reform if it doesn?t have public matching money. You know, There are other people who think that we can take baby steps, we can start with reducing the contribution limits, that they?re too high in New York State, that the amount of money that can be contributed to a state party is ridiculously high,? Ms. Savino said. ?There?s a lot of room and I think what we should do is, let?s put it all out there, let?s find out what the people of the state want.?

Mr. Cuomo has taken substantial heat from progressives over the perception he could have done more to block the new coalition and establish a Democratic State Senate majority. In an appearance on Fred Dicker?s radio show yesterday, the governor disputed this criticism by saying it is his job to ?pass progressive legislation? rather than involving himself in the ?internal dynamics of the Legislature.? Though he defended not doing more to block the coalition, Mr. Cuomo promised to ?make my voice heard? if the Senate does not pass the items on his agenda. Thus far, in the early days of the new coalition Mr. Cuomo said he was encouraged by what he described as ?an increased decibel level around the progressive elements of the agenda? he was unable to pass last year; ?stop and frisk reform, a minimum wage increase and campaign finance reform.

?Now, if anything, you hear more energy, more discussion and more commitment. Everybody now, everyone is fighting for the same agenda items I was trying to pass last year?Minimum wage, stop-and-frisk, campaign finance, everyone is saying that they?re going to support that,? Mr. Cuomo told Mr. Dicker.

With the IDC members seemingly leaning toward enacting contribution limits without establishing public financing, it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to placate Mr. Cuomo.

Source: http://politicker.com/2012/12/will-albanys-new-coalition-pass-cuomos-campaign-finance-litmus-test/

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