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(CNN) — A human embryo, containing about a couple hundred cells, is smaller than the period at the end of a sentence. Scientists need strong microscopes to see these precursors to life, and to take from them stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell in the body.

Earlier this week a breakthrough in this field was announced. A group of researchers published in the journal Cell proof that they had created embryonic stem cells through cloning. The scientists produced embryos using human skin cells, and then used the embryos to produce stem cell lines.

“It is an incredibly powerful approach with potential to generate almost any tissue in the body, genetically identical to the patient,” said Jeff Karp, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Creating an embryo just from an egg and a skin cell seems like magic, but just how practical would the subsequent stem cells be? And does it actually amount to cloning?

What they did

Normally, an embryo is created when sperm enters the egg and it starts to divide. But, in the Cell study, Shoukhrat Mitalipov and colleagues at Oregon Health and Sciences University began with skin cells from an 8-month-old baby that had a genetic disease. They did not use sperm.

To create each embryo, they took the DNA out of an egg, so that it was hollow, and replaced it with the skin cell’s DNA instead. The baby’s DNA was the only genetic material being used.

With the help of chemicals, the egg started to divide just like a normal fertilized egg would. Then, within several days, embryos genetically identical to the baby were created, from which stem cells were derived.

Understanding the stem cell breakthrough

Indian clinic’s stem cell therapy real?

Heart stem cells repair muscle damage

Embryonic stems research is inherently controversial because in order to use the stem cells for science, the embryo, which is a collection of cells that could develop into a fully formed human, is destroyed, even though embryos in these procedures are left over from in vitro fertilization.

However, Mitalipov said the embryos created in his study, from skin cells and eggs, would not grow babies. That would have required additional technology, and it wasn’t part of the study.

While cloning stem cells is a technical breakthrough, there’s already a method of deriving embryonic-like stem cells that doesn’t require the use of embryos at all: induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, said Dr. George Daley, who is director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and an international expert in stem cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells can come from any cell in the human body, including skin cells, so they don’t have the moral quandaries surrounding them. Researchers have developed methods of inserting genes to “turn back the clock” on cells that have already specialized, so that they can turn into anything again. It doesn’t matter what the cell was before; it can now be reprogrammed as any kind of cell researchers want.

The new study involves a complex method that requires women to donate eggs, and a demanding manipulation of cell components on a tiny scale, Daley said.

What remains to be seen is whether these cloned embryonic stem cells are more useful therapeutically than the noncontroversial induced pluripotent stem cells, and questions linger about their effectiveness.

What’s the best type of stem cell

Ethical questions aside, researchers say they need to explore both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in order to see what works best for various diseases and conditions.

Safety concerns linger around induced pluripotent stem cells because they were first created inserting four new genes.

“Remember, this was a genetic manipulation that was done to generate those cells, and there is concern that (for) anything you derive from them and you put back in the patient as graft, you may be at risk,” said John Gearhart, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the leading pioneers of stem cell research.

New techniques have been developed, however, to make induced pluripotent stem cells without permanent genetic modifications that were associated with tumors.

In mice, Daley and colleagues have shown that stem cells derived from the nuclear transfer of cells to make embryos — the technique described in Mitalipov’s paper — were indeed closer to natural embryo stem cells than induced pluripotent stem cells. The differences were so subtle that they may not be meaningful, however, he said.

Is it cloning?

The new study involves something similar to the cloning technique that led to the birth of Dolly, the famous cloned sheep that was born in July 1996. But making embryos for reproduction would require more advanced, complex techniques than were used in the new study — and serious scientists do not endorse human cloning for reproduction.

Mitalipov, senior author on the paper, laughs when asked if he wants to clone a person. “No, of course not,” he said.

“We tried the same approach to clone monkeys, because we’d been interested for biomedical research to produce cloned monkeys, and it never worked,” he said. “We’ve been working for a decade in that area.”

Mitalipov and colleagues had no intention of this research leading to the birth of a cloned human.

Researchers say there have been so many health problems in cloned animals, including Dolly herself, that it would not be ethical to attempt to create a cloned human.

“No legitimate scientist would be stepping forward to apply this in reproductive cloning, or for fertility work,” Daley said. “I would argue that really there are no good medical reasons to generate a cloned baby.”

So what is it good for?

There’s one important area where experts say Mitalipov’s method could have tremendous implications: Mitochondrial disease.

The mitochondria are the “power plants” of cells, supplying them with chemical energy. DNA in the mitochondria is inherited entirely from the mother’s egg, unlike the DNA in the cell’s nucleus, which comes from both parents.

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA can lead to deadly diseases, and their associated mutations are passed down to each new generation. Induced pluripotent stem cells preserve these harmful mutations, says Mitalipov.

A cell’s mitochondrial DNA develops mutations over the course of a lifetime, little by little, and may result in diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes, Milapotov said. It’s possible, he says, that one day there will be stem cell treatments for aging and age-related diseases.

The only way to ensure that stem cells derived from an adult patient do not have mitochondrial DNA mutations would be to use the technique demonstrated in the new study, Milapotov said: Creating embryos with cells from the patient’s own body, and healthy eggs, for the purpose of deriving embryonic stem cells.

“You want 0 miles in that rejuvenated cells that you want to put back into these patients,” he said. “The 0 mileage engine is in the egg.”

Mitalipov’s group also demonstrated in a 2012 Nature study that it could be possible to, using genetic techniques, reconstruct embryos that would not have the unhealthy mitochondrial mutations. This is not cloning, but draws on similar knowledge, and could cure a family’s genetic disease lineage in the future.

What’s next?

Daley estimates human clinical trials in stem cells will start within one to three years, but perhaps it could take a decade or more before the impact of stem cell therapy becomes widespread.

Gearhart is confident that the more we learn how to manipulate stem cells safely, there will be safe way to provide them to patients who need them. But there are different levels of risk for different uses. There will always be a risk-benefit calculation to be made, he said.

Different areas of stem cell research have proven to be harder than others. Beta cells for type I diabetes have been “a very difficult nut to crack,” Gearhart said, but there have been promising developments in repairing the heart, something that his lab has worked on, as well as for eye diseases.

“I think it’s going to be exciting times over the next several years when it comes to this,” he said.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/stem-cells-cloning/index.html?eref=edition

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Editor’s note: This is part of CNN’s “Life’s Work” series, which features innovators and pioneers who are making a difference in the world of health and medicine.

(CNN) — You probably feel pretty attached to your memories — they’re yours, after all. They define who you are and where you came from, your accomplishments and failures, your likes and dislikes.

Your memories help you separate friends from enemies. They remind you not to eat too much ice cream or drink cheap tequila because you remember how horrible it felt the last time you indulged.

Or do you?

One conversation with Elizabeth Loftus may shake your confidence in everything you think you remember. Loftus is a cognitive psychologist and expert on the malleability of human memory. She can, quite literally, change your mind.

Her work is reminiscent of films like “Memento” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” where what you believe happened is probably far from the truth — whether you’re the eyewitness to a crime or just trying to move past a bad relationship.

“She’s most known for her important work on memory distortion and false memories,” says Daniel Schacter, a psychology professor at Harvard University who first met Loftus in 1979 and describes her as energetic, smart and passionate. “It’s made people in the legal system aware the memory does not work like a tape recorder.”

In fact, Loftus’ research shows your memory works more like a Wikipedia page — a transcription of history created by multiple people’s perceptions and assumptions that’s constantly changing.

Eyewitness testimony

One of Loftus’ first experiments, published in 1974, involved car accidents. In the lab she played videos of different incidents and then asked people what they remembered seeing. Their answers depended greatly on how she phrased the question.

For instance, if she asked how fast the cars were going when they “smashed” into each other, people estimated, on average, that the cars were going 7 mph faster than when she substituted the word “hit” for “smashed.” And a week after seeing the video, those who were asked using the word “smashed” remembered seeing broken glass, even though there was none in the film.

Even a preposition can make the difference in an eyewitness account, Loftus found. In a subsequent study she asked people if they saw “a broken headlight” or “the broken headlight.” Those who were asked about “the” broken headlight were more likely to remember seeing it, though it never existed.

Police officers’ biggest mistake is talking too much, Loftus says. “They don’t, you know, wait and let the witness talk. They are sometimes communicating information to the witness, even inadvertently, that can convey their theory of what happened, their theory of who did it.”

This is particularly troubling when witnesses are identifying a perpetrator in a lineup. One of Loftus’ studies found even facial recognition can be “contagious” — if a witness overhears another witness or police officer describe a misleading facial feature, they are more likely to describe the criminal with that feature.

It’s not all the cops’ fault. “Misinformation is out there in the real world, everywhere,” Loftus says. “Witnesses talk to each other … they turn on the television or read the newspaper if it’s a high-publicity event. They see other witnesses’ account. All of these situations provide opportunities for new information to supplement, distort or contaminate their memories.”

Loftus has testified in and consulted on hundreds of trials over the past several decades, usually for the defense. Many were high-profile cases, including those of the Hillside Strangler, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Oliver North and Phil Spector.

She’s not bothered by defending people others sometimes see as vicious criminals.

“DNA testing … has revealed that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have been convicted in crimes, and they’re completely innocent,” she says, noting that they’re often convicted because of unreliable eyewitness testimony.

Repressed memories

Perhaps Loftus’ most powerful — and controversial — work came in the 1990s when she first began manufacturing false memories.

In 1990, Loftus got an intriguing call from the defense attorney for George Franklin, father of Eileen Franklin. In her mid-20s, Eileen Franklin claimed she remembered seeing her father rape and murder her best friend as a child. The prosecution said she had repressed the memory up until that point.

Loftus testified at the trial about the fallibility of memories but could not say whether she had ever studied repressed memories such as Eileen Franklin was maintaining. George Franklin was convicted, and Loftus went back to the lab.

After doing some research, she became convinced a therapist might have led Eileen Franklin to suspect her father in the murder. Therapists were essentially guiding patients to remember false events, Loftus believed — asking leading questions and telling their patients to imagine an event that might have happened.

For example, if a woman came in with an eating disorder, her therapist might say “80% of patients with an eating disorder were abused. Were you?” Then the therapist might ask the patient to think about who might have abused her and when.

While Loftus couldn’t definitively prove that repressed memories weren’t real, she could show that it was possible to implant a memory of a traumatic event that never happened.

Loftus recruited 24 students and their close family members for her 1995 study “The Formation of False Memories.” She asked each family member to provide her with three real childhood memories for their student, and then sent these memories in a packet, along with one false memory, to the study participants. The false memories were about getting lost on a shopping trip and included real details, such as the name of a store where they often shopped and siblings they were likely with.

The students were told all four memories were real and had been supplied by their family member. After receiving the packet, the students identified whether they remembered each event and how confident they were that it had happened to them. In follow-up interviews the researchers asked them to recall details from the events they remembered.

Seven of the 24 students “remembered” the false event in their packets. Several recalled and added their own details to the memory.

“It was pretty exciting to watch these normal, healthy individuals pick up on the suggestions in our interviews, and pick up the false information that we fed them,” Loftus says.

Loftus continued her experiments, convincing study participants they had broken a window with their hand, witnessed a drug bust, choked on an object before the age of 3 and had experienced other traumatic events. And she continued to testify in cases involving repressed memories.

“I don’t think there’s any credible, scientific support for this notion of massive repression,” Loftus says. “It’s been my position that, you know, we may one day find (the evidence), but until we do, we shouldn’t be locking people up.”

Unhealthy habits

Loftus soon began to wonder if she could influence other behaviors. What if she could convince people they had a negative experience with unhealthy food as a child? Would they eat less of it as an adult?

Using her finely tuned “recipe” for memory implantation, she guided study participants to believe they had gotten sick eating strawberry ice cream as children.

A week later, researchers asked about the ice cream incident. Many participants had developed a detailed memory — what Loftus calls a “rich false memory” — about when they had gotten sick. Subsequent studies showed this memory affected the participant’s actual eating behavior.

It seemed obvious to Loftus that there was potential here to fight obesity. Therapists couldn’t lie to their patients, but parents could convince kids that they didn’t like ice cream or other fattening foods. Critics raged that she was advocating lying to children.

“Which would you rather have?” Loftus replied simply. “A kid with obesity, heart problems, shortened lifespan, diabetes — or maybe a little bit of false memory?”

Schacter, who also studies memory, objects to the term “playing around” with someone’s mind. He, Loftus and others like them are simply trying to understand what’s going on in our memories, he says. “We’re assessing the limits of memory, the accuracy of memory. … Almost by definition we think we’re remembering accurately, even though we’re not.”

Already this year Loftus has co-authored studies on false memories related to alcohol, politics and stressful events. In one, called “Queasy Does It,” Loftus’ team took the same methods they used to persuade people to eat less ice cream and applied them to vodka or rum. Loftus says this research could potentially be used to help addicts in the future.

Her lab at the University of California Irvine is also working to identify the individual differences that make people more or less susceptible to memory alteration.

Sometime Loftus worries about crossing into unethical territory — like when she created false memories in military personnel who were training to survive as prisoners of war. When the study published, she feared “we were going to basically be giving (our enemies) a recipe for how to do bad things to other people and then contaminate their memory.”

But as a scientist, she says sharing how to implant memories — so we can potentially learn how to protect against it — is better than burying the information.

Walking the line

In 2006, Loftus attended a talk by legal scholar Adam Kolber on the legal and ethical implications of memory-dampening drugs. According to Kolber, neuroscientists had made significant strides in creating medications victims could take after a traumatic event to dampen the intensity of their memories. Kolber contended that while those drugs could hamper legal proceedings, “We have a deeply personal interest in controlling our own minds that entitles us to a certain freedom of memory.”

Loftus was fascinated. “I thought to myself, ‘I would want (the drugs),’” she says. Her colleague disagreed. So like any good experimental psychologist, Loftus started a study.

She asked people if they were the victim of a vicious crime, would they want to take the drug? Eighty percent said no. Well, maybe they want to be able to testify against the perpetrator, Loftus thought. So she ran it again — this time asking if they would take the drug after seeing their military buddy blown up by an IED overseas. Eighty percent refused.

“I thought, maybe I need to explain to them just how bad post-traumatic stress disorder is,” she remembers. So she did. “And they still don’t want the drug.”

The results taught Loftus just how much people cherish their memories.

“Even if it’s going to be a harmful memory, they don’t want to let it go,” she says. “(This is) why sometimes I get such resistance to the work I do. Because it’s telling people that your mind might be full of much more fiction than you realize. And people don’t like that.”

But you don’t need a psychological researcher to distort your memory in a lab, Loftus says. People distort their own memories all the time — they remember getting better grades than they did, voting in more elections than they did, having kids that walked or talked earlier than they actually did. Loftus calls this “prestige-enhancing memories.”

We all want to remember ourselves as just a little bit better than we really are, Loftus says, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Scientists call it “depressive realism,” and say depressed people may just remember things more accurately than the rest of us.

“A little bit of memory distortion might be good for people,” Loftus says.

This from the woman who has the power to make us remember traumatic childhood events that never happened. Hey, at least we still like ice cream.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/lifeswork-loftus-memory-malleability/index.html?eref=edition

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Editor’s note: This story contains graphic language that some readers may find offensive.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (CNN) — For the 160-plus inmates at the U.S. prison camp here, each sunrise brings a new day that most would rather starve than endure.

For the American troops who guard them, each day brings a daily rain of obscenities and filth — sometimes physical as well as verbal.

More than a decade after the first inmates arrived at the U.S. base where prisoners from the U.S. war on terror are being held, Guantanamo Bay is a facility in crisis.

From the 700-plus detainees it once held, only 166 remain. Of those, more than half have been approved for transfers out, but languish as the Obama administration and Congress battle over whether to shut down the facility. A handful are facing trial before military commissions, a process that has been criticized as both inefficient and unfair.

“The commissions are a joke,” inmate Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani wrote to his lawyer in March. “If you lose you go to prison for life. If you win, you’re held indefinately (sic) for life.”

Al-Afghani has been held in Guantanamo since 2008, transferred there after being held by the CIA. The Pentagon said he was one of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s “most trusted facilitators and procurement specialists.”

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is home to the U.S. naval base that has held terror suspects since January 2002. Early in the war on terror, the Bush administration argued these detainees were “enemy combatants” who didn’t have the protections accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Click through for a look inside the controversial facility. Pictured: A detainee stands at an interior fence at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009.

A Navy sailor surveys the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009. Shortly after his first term began, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay within a year, but the move do so has stalled. Congress passed legislation preventing detainees from being transferred into the United States. However, the administration says Obama remains committed to closing the facility, also known as Gitmo.

U.S. military guards move a detainee inside the detention center in September 2010. At its peak, the detainee population reportedly exceeded 750 men at Guantanamo.

Muslim detainees kneel during early morning prayers in October 2009. Cells are marked with an arrow pointing in the direction of Mecca, regarded as Islam’s holy city.

A soldier stands near a placard on the fence line of the detention facility in January 2012.

A Quran sits among a display of items isssued to detainees in September 2010. The suspects are given a prayer mat and a copy of the Muslim holy book as well as a toothbrush, soap, shampoo and clothing.

A U.S. military guard walks out of the maximum security section of the detention center in September 2010.

A German shepherd police dog undergoes training exercises in October 2009 at Guantanamo Bay.

A camp librarian views artwork painted by detainees in September 2010.

A detainee rubs his face while attending a “life skills” class inside the Camp 6 high-security detention facility in April 2009.

A seat and shackle await a detainee in the DVD room of the maximum security Camp 5 detention center in March 2010.

U.S. Marines join in martial arts training at the U.S. naval base in September 2010.

Members of the military walk the hallway of Cell Block C in the Camp 5 detention facility in January 2012.

Guards move a detainee from his cell in Cell Block A of the Camp 6 detention facility in January 2012.

A detainee waits for lunch in September 2010. The cost of building Guantanamo’s high-security detention facilities was reportedly about $54 million.

Marines get an early-morning workout at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009.

A bus carries military guards from their night shift at the detention center in September 2010.

A military guard puts on gloves before moving a detainee within the detention center in September 2010.

Members of the U.S. Navy move down the hallway of Cell Block C in the Camp 5 detention facility in January 2012.

before preparing to move a detainee in September 2010.” border=”0″ /A U.S. military guard holds shackles before preparing to move a detainee in September 2010.

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Photos: Inside Guantanamo Bay

Gitmo prisoners being force-fed

Ex-Gitmo prosecutor: ‘Close it now’

Why is Gitmo still open?

More than half are on hunger strikes. Some will take liquid nutritional supplements, but about 30 are being force-fed — a practice condemned by human rights groups and the American Medical Association. The military has brought in additional medical staff to manage the protest.

Opinion: Stop force feeding inmates

Most of the inmates have been moved to two blocks, dubbed Camp V and Camp VI. For the most part, they look like a typical civilian prison, with two tiers of cells that face out onto a room full of metal tables. The air conditioning delivers a chilly blast when walking in from the muggy tropical air outside.

The detainees used to be allowed to live communally, but that ended after a raid turned up homemade weapons. Now they’re held in individual cells with heavy steel doors. They’re allowed to watch movies and even some news programs in recliners in media rooms — with their feet shackled to the floor.

They’re guarded by Americans, some of them not yet old enough to drink, who face a daily torrent of abuse.

“They use extremely vulgar language towards females, and I’ve had a lot of experience with that, unfortunately,” said one young woman who serves as a guard there. “Especially Caucasian females — they do not like us at all.”

The military would not allow her to be identified, and even her nametag displayed only a number. But she says she’s 21 and has already served a tour as a guard at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In Guantanamo, the prisoners call her a bitch. A whore. A slut. But worse than the name-calling is what the guards call “splashing” — flinging urine or feces on the guards. It happens to someone “every single day” for the last month and a half, she said.

“They’ll say things like, ‘I’ll piss all over your face,’ ” she said. “They’ll say, Oh, you’ve had shit thrown on you, been disrespected,’ or ‘Nobody wants you, you’re trash now.’ “

The cell doors have what are called “splash boxes” through which food is passed. They’re designed to minimize contact with inmates and reduce splashing, but they don’t eliminate it.

The walls and floors are quickly scrubbed down, but bits of feces are still visible stuck to the foam ceiling tiles in the units. The young guard said those “splashed” — and she’s been among them — are sent to the camp hospital, notified of any diseases their assailant may carry, have their blood tested — “and then you go right back to work.”

The prison camp opened in 2002. President Barack Obama came into office vowing to close the prison camp, and told reporters in April that he still wants to shut it down.

Opinion: Terror threat from Gitmo prisoners is exaggerated

“I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he told reporters in a White House news conference. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us, in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

But Congress has forbidden the administration from moving the detainees to prisons stateside. The administration halted transfers of 56 inmates from Yemen in 2010 because of what Obama called the “unsettled situation” in that country, an al Qaeda hotbed.

A handful of the detainees have faced trial before military commissions. Cases are pending against a number of others, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed organizer of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. But they’re progressing at a glacial pace, while some low-ranking inmates who pleaded guilty have been returned to their home countries.

“It’s a bizarre, perverted system of justice where being convicted of a war crime is your ticket home,” former Air Force Col. Morris Davis, once the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, told CNN’s “Amanpour” program Tuesday. “And if you’re never charged, much less convicted, you spend the rest of your life sitting at Guantanamo.”

Davis quit his post in 2007, declaring that the prosecutions of several suspected terrorists had become “deeply politicized.”

The frozen status of the detainees has fueled the hunger strikes, which grew from about a half-dozen inmates at first to more than 100 now.

“This is kind of the only option they have left, to say, ‘Hey, we’re still here. We are still your problem. Are you just gonna let us rot in here until the end of time?’ ” said Cori Crider, a lawyer who represents several detainees.

About 30 of them refuse to take even liquid nutritional drinks and have to be fed through tubes shoved down their noses.

The American Medical Association has criticized the practice, calling it a violation of the profession’s core ethics. “Every competent patient has the right to refuse medical intervention, including life-sustaining interventions,” AMA President Jeremy Lazarus wrote in an April letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The Pentagon says the feeding program is lawful and humane. But Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the detention facility, acknowledges that the options for the administrators are dwindling.

“If anybody’s had a can of Ensure or Muscle Milk, it says right on it it’s not designed to be a long-term, sole source of nutrition,” Durand said. “So there are long-term consequences of getting all your meals through a liquid supplement.”

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence reported from Guantanamo Bay. Matt Smith reported and wrote from Atlanta.

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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (CNN) — Every day, the workers in the Guantanamo Bay kitchen cook three squares for the detainees held here.

And every day, up to 100 of the 166 inmates send them back. They’re protesting their ongoing imprisonment by going on hunger strikes for what is now 100 days.

Not only has Guantanamo Bay become a lightning rod for America’s critics — it’s no prize for America’s taxpayers, either.

Running the prison camp costs the Pentagon more than $150 million a year — just over $900,000 for each of the 166 detainees at the facility, located on a Navy base on the eastern end of Cuba. By comparison, costs for a typical federal prison inmate run about $25,000 a year; at the “supermax” prison in Colorado that holds domestic terrorists Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, it’s about $60,000.

And despite calls by President Barack Obama himself to close the 11-year-old facility, the military is about to spend millions more to upgrade the prison camp.

“We have to always plan to conduct that mission from now into the future,” said Army Col. John Bogdan, commander of the military’s Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo. “And the policymakers will decide when that mission’s over.”

Daily life at Guantanamo: Hunger strikes, sprays of filth

The renovation plans include a $50 million overhaul for Camp VII, the most secretive part of the compound. The inmates there include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed organizer of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington; accused co-conspirators Walid bin Attash and Ramzi Bin al-Shahb; and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the man accused of leading the plot to bomb the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

They face trial on war crimes charges before the military courts set up to try al Qaeda and Taliban figures. Most of the rest of the prisoners face no charges at all.

Because the facilities were hastily built and never thought to be permanent, the prison camp may need as much as $170 million more in repairs, said Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, the chief of U.S. forces in the region.

“This is really a kind of thrown-together operation,” Kelly told the House Armed Services Committee in March. “It’s really not 11 years long. It’s really one year, 11 times.”

The kitchens are “literally falling apart,” Kelly said, and the barracks that house the 1,900 troops assigned to the prison camp need replacing. And since everything has to be brought in from outside, it all costs about twice as much, he said.

Guantanamo at a boiling point

The decrepit remains of previous units — the original Camp X-Ray, where detainees were first housed in chain-link cages, and the successive Camps I-IV — still stand on the way to the infirmary. Weeds grow up among the rusted gates, empty watchtowers and abandoned exercise equipment, all within a mile of the facilities where the remaining prisoners are held.

A total of 86 of the 166 detainees have been approved for transfer out, but both the Obama administration and Congress have effectively halted the moves. The last transfer took place in September, and the State Department office tasked with finding countries that would take the others was closed in January.

And the indefinite imprisonment the detainees face has fueled the wave of hunger strikes, which have progressed to the point where about 30 inmates are being force-fed.

“It’s kind of a tough mission,” the camp’s senior medical officer, who was interviewed on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told CNN. “This is kind of an ugly place sometimes.”

The battle to force feed Gitmo detainees

The inmates are given a last chance to drink a nutritional supplement before being force-fed. If they refuse, they’re strapped to a chair and a plastic tube is shoved up their noses, down their throats and into their stomachs.

The Pentagon says the feeding program is lawful and humane. The inmates are given a numbing gel and the thin tubes are lubricated before being inserted, they say.

“Nobody’s expressed to me that this hurts,” the senior medical officer said.

But Cori Crider, a lawyer for hunger striker Samir Moqbel, called it “an incredibly agonizing process.”

“You don’t get farther than about here, into your throat, before the tears start streaming down your face. … He said he had never felt so much pain like that in his life,” she said.

Photo: Inside look at Guantanamo

The practice has been condemned by human rights groups and the American Medical Association, which says every patient has the right to refuse even life-sustaining treatment. But the senior medical officer said that when a prisoner is on the verge of harming himself, “suddenly it’s not a very abstract decision.”

“It’s very easy for folks outside this place to make policies and decisions that they think they would implement,” he said.

“There’s a lot of politics involved” in the AMA’s opposition he added, “And I’m sure there’s lots of politics that they need to answer to as well.”

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence reported from Guantanamo Bay. Matt Smith reported and wrote from Atlanta.

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London (CNN) — Millions of people across Europe and beyond are gearing up to watch pop acts from 26 countries take to the stage Saturday night in the Eurovision Song Contest final.

Organizers expect more than 100 million people to tune in for the contest, hosted this year in the Swedish city of Malmo, since Sweden won in 2012.

After an opening ceremony in which all the performers will join together in a song, the first act on stage will be French singer Amandine Bourgeois.

But the odds are on a Scandinavian nation to take the title again, with Denmark and Norway the bookies’ favorites.

Semi-finals were held this week to earn 20 of the places in the final.

Five nations — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom — get an automatic entry to the final because they are the biggest financial contributors. The previous year’s winner also automatically qualifies, as the host nation.

Eurovision is widely loved for its combination of over-the-top costumes, kitsch pop songs, sometimes questionable talent and international rivalries.

After all the finalists have performed live Saturday, the voting begins.

The 39 countries involved in the contest award a set of points from one to eight, then 10and finally 12 for their favorite songs. They can’t vote for themselves and they must announce the score in both English and French.

Television viewers can cast votes in their respective countries through telephone hotlines, which count for half the final tally. The remainder of the vote is cast by national expert juries, who based their scores on a dress rehearsal performance Friday night.

Many perceive the voting to be tactical, with neighbors or members of regional blocs, such as the former Soviet nations, appearing to base their scoring on geopolitical alliances rather than artistic merit.

Contestants can come from any member country of the European Broadcasting Union, which includes several non-European nations, including Israel, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Whoever wins, victory may not be welcomed by everyone back home since that nation bears the expense of hosting the following year’s event — a commitment that’s more of a burden at a time of wide austerity in Europe.

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(CNN) — Actor Edward Furlong tried to hide, but ended up caught and behind bars in California for allegedly violating a protective order filed against him by an ex-girlfriend, authorities said.

West Hollywood, California, deputies responded at 5:44 p.m. Thursday to a call about a possible violation of a protection order, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Friday in a news release.

They found the suspect — the 35-year-old actor best known for his role in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” — hiding on a nearby property. He was arrested and brought to a sheriff’s substation in West Hollywood, authorities said.

Actor Edward Furlong was arrested again on Friday, May 17, after allegedly violating a protective order filed against him by an ex-girlfriend. Furlong is seen here in a police booking photo after his arrest for alleged domestic violence, the arrest which resulted in the protective order, on January 13, in Los Angeles.

Country music star Billy Currington has been indicted on charges of terroristic threats and abuse of an elderly person on April 15 in his native state of Georgia.

Actress Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth were arrested early April 19 in Atlanta after Toth was pulled over for suspected drunken driving with Witherspoon in the car, the Georgia State Patrol said.

Rapper Gucci Mane turned himself in to authorities on March 26 after a warrant was issued for his arrest on aggravated assault charges in Atlanta.

Singer Bruno Mars was arrested on September 19, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on a drug charge. He later accepted a “deferred adjudication” deal in 2011.

Lohan poses for a mug shot on March 20, 2013, after accepting 90 days in a “locked in” drug rehab facility for misdemeanor charges.

Stanley Kirk Burrell, aka MC Hammer, was arrested February 21 in Dublin, California, for allegedly obstructing an officer.

Actor Stephen Baldwin was arrested December 6 on a charge of failing to file New York state personal income tax returns for three years, according to a statement released by the Rockland County district attorney’s office.

William J. Drayton, 53, also known as Flavor Flav, was arrested October 17 in Las Vegas and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and battery in a case involving his fiancee of eight years, police said.

Border Patrol agents in Texas arrested singer Fiona Apple on September 18, saying they found marijuana and hashish on her tour bus.

Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, 26, was charged with vandalism and public intoxication in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 16.

Actress Amanda Bynes was booked for suspicion of driving under the influence in Hollywood, California, on April 6 after she got into a fender bender with a marked police car. She later tweeted President Barack Obama and asked him to fire the cop who made the arrest.

Los Angeles police took this 2011 mug shot of party girl Lindsay Lohan for violating her probation for a 2007 drunken driving conviction. She later cleaned up her act — and the L.A. County Coroner’s office — by completing community service as a morgue janitor.

Bad boy actor Charlie Sheen is no stranger to Hollywood scandal. He posed for this mug after a 2009 arrest related to a domestic violence dispute.

This mug was snapped after Mel Gibson, now notorious for getting himself into trouble, was arrested and charged with drunk driving in 2006.

Nicole Richie was sentenced to four days in jail for DUI in August 2007. She spent 82 minutes in custody.

Musician Randy Travis was arrested August 7 for misdemeanor DWI and felony retaliation after he was involved in a one-vehicle accident and found buck naked in the roadway. He was later released on bond.

Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, was booked on gun charges twice in June 2000. Police said both arrests stemmed from fights — the first over his estranged wife, Kim, and the second against rival rap group Insane Clown Posse.

threw it at a window. Brand was free on bond after turning himself in to New Orleans police. ” border=”0″ /Funny-man Russell Brand landed himself in the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office on March 16 when he snatched a photographer’s iPhone and threw it at a window. Brand was free on bond after turning himself in to New Orleans police.

Rapper Jay-Z was arrested in 1999 for allegedly stabbing a record executive in a New York night club. He pleaded guilty in 2001 and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

Matthew McConaughey was arrested in Austin, Texas, in 1999 after police allegedly found him dancing naked and playing bongo drums in his house. He paid a $50 fine for disturbing his neighbors with the show.

Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, posed for this mug in 1994 when he was arrested at 19 for allegedly dealing heroin and crack cocaine.

Robert Downey Jr.’s drug problems are almost as famous as his talent. He served time in the late 1990s on a drug conviction, was arrested in November 2000 for drug possession, and was busted again in April 2001 in Culver City, California.

Wayne “Lil Wayne” Carter was booked on drug charges in Arizona in 2008 and sentenced to a year in prison.

Kiefer Sutherland got this mug shot after surrendering to serve a 48-day sentence for his third DUI arrest.

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was arrested for drunken driving after failing a field sobriety test in 2005.

“Gossip Girl” star Chase Crawford was arrested in June 2010 in Austin, Texas, and charged with possession of marijuana. He was charged with a misdemeanor because he had less than 2 ounces, according to a police report.

Jane Fonda was arrested in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1970 after a scuffle with police in the airport. U.S. Customs agents allegedly found a large quantity of pills in her possession.

The Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, Sheriff’s office took this mug shot of the famous “Home Alone” star Macaulay Culkin after they found marijuana, Xanax and sleeping pills in his possession. He was briefly jailed before being released on bond.

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Photos: Celebrity mug shots

The protective order was imposed after the actor was arrested following a domestic disturbance at the same address in January, the sheriff’s department said. He was then charged with felony domestic violence and domestic battery.

The actor, who was already serving probation, is being held on $100,000 bond, according to Los Angeles County jail records.

After his breakthrough role as John Connor in 1991′s “Terminator 2″ alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Furlong went on to play roles in a number of movies, including “American History X,” and TV projects, such as “CSI-NY.”

CNN’s Tresha Lindo contributed to this report.

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(CNN) — Jose Mourinho bemoaned the “worst season of my career” after seeing his Real Madrid side slip to a 2-1 extra time defeat to capital rivals Atletico in the final of the Copa del Rey.

Mourinho, who is widely tipped to return to take charge of English Premier League Chelsea, made his feelings clear to the media after seeing his last chance of silverware this season slip away.

In the last few weeks, Real have lost in the semifinals of the Champions League to Borussia Dortmund and seen arch-rivals Barcelona clinch the Spanish La Liga title.

A season which started with such promise after beating Barca to win the Spanish Super Cup has petered out and left the “Special One” frustrated.

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“This is the worst season of my career with a title that is not sufficient to satisfy Real Madrid and therefore it is a bad season.

“With a final, a semifinal, second place in the league and the Supercup, what for many would be a good season, for me is the worst.”

Pressed on his likely move to Chelsea, Mourinho refused to be drawn. “I have a contract for three more years and I have still not sat down with the president to talk about my future,” he said.

“I have to be honest. Until the day that the president sits down with me and the club does something official it has to be like this.”

Read: Will Mourinho stay or go?

If the match in the Santiago Bernabeu Friday night is to prove Mourinho’s swansong at Real, it didn’t go as planned.

It wasn’t the best of nights for his talisman Cristiano Ronaldo, either, as he saw red in the dying minutes.

Mourinho was ordered to leave the touchline by the referee for protesting a decision late in the second half as Atletico won their first Copa del Rey in 17 years.

The scrappy contest that featured more than a dozen yellow cards and two reds was settled by Miranda’s header in the eighth minute of extra time on a night when it seemed Atletico, which hadn’t beaten their city rivals since 1999, were destined to lift the trophy.

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After Ronaldo opened the scoring in the 14th minute with a typically impressive header, Diego Costa leveled on a counter attack in the 35th after superb work by striking partner Radamel Falcao.

Real Madrid struck the post three times prior to the game entering extra time and Atletico keeper Thibaut Courtois made two stunning saves to preserve the victory and help end his team’s three-match losing streak in Copa finals.

The affair turned ugly in the dying minutes, with Ronaldo given a straight red card for kicking out at Gabi and players from both benches having to be separated. Courtois fell to the ground when struck by an item thrown from the stands at Real’s home stadium.

Mourinho believed his team should have lifted the cup and had been plain unlucky.

“The result is 1-1 and it is not normal to hit the post three times,” he said. “You don’t have to be a magician of football to think that the result is not fair, that Atletico are not the deserved winners of the final.

“The refereeing is forgotten, the shots off the post are forgotten, all that remains is that the winner is Atletico.”

Winning manager Diego Simeone was simply delighted while acknowledging their fortune.

“It was an incredible game. We had the luck you need to have to be champions,” he told gathered reporters.

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(CNN) — Tomas Berdych may have upset World No.1 Novak Djokovic but found Rafael Nadal an altogether tougher proposition in the semifinals of the Rome Masters Saturday.

Nadal was at his impeccable best to sweep aside the big-hitting Czech 6-2 6-4 to reach his eighth straight ATP Tour final since returning to action in February after a long-term injury.

Berdych’s defeat of Djokovic in the quarters would have done wonders for his confidence, but it took precisely one game for a reality check to set in.

Nadal came out firing on all cylinders to break his opponent immediately and he was never headed.

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The crowd at the Foro Italico were treated to a clay court exhibition, particularly in the first set as the 26-year-old Spaniard broke Berdych a second time to rub it in.

The second set was closer and Berdych, who broke Djokovic’s service as the Serbian served for the match in the previous round, gave himself a glimmer of hope by holding fast to four games apiece.

But he was broken for a third time as Nadal stepped up a gear before wrapping up his passage to the final where he will play either Roger Federer or Benoit Paire, who were playing the second semifinal later Saturday.

Read: Nadal survives scare in Rome last 16

“He starts really well and, of course, it’s Rafa and we know how he plays on clay,” Berdych said.

“It was a good start for him. Yesterday I had one chance that I did take and I won, and today I had one chance that I didn’t take and I lost.”

Nadal had achieved the incredible feat of winning all 100% of points after his second service as he made it 13 straight wins on the tour over the unfortunate Berdych.

He will be heavy favorite to win his 24th Masters 1,000 crown Sunday before heading to Paris for his defense of the French Open crown.

Earlier, women World No. 1 Serena Williams ended the hopes of Romanian qualifier Simona Halep with a routine 6-3 6-0 win in their semifinal.

15-time grand slam champion Williams is on a 23-game winning streak and will look to extend that against No.3 seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.

The American is 32-1 on clay since last year — her only loss against Virginie Razzano at Roland Garros last year.

“I don’t know if I feel better on clay this year or last year,” Williams told the WTA Tour website.

“I felt great last year and I feel great this year too. I love playing on clay and have done very well on it, even at Roland Garros.”

Azarenka beat Italian seventh seed 6-0 7-5 Sara Errani in their last four clash.

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(CNN) — At least 10 suspected terrorists were killed and 65 others captured as Nigerian troops continued their “massive deployment” against insurgent groups, a defense ministry spokesman said Saturday.

Among the groups targeted by the military was Boko Haram, in the country’s northeast. Government forces stopped an attempt by insurgents to infiltrate Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, as they fled from various camps that are under attack, the military said.

Troops also seized weapons, including rocket propelled grenade launchers, the ministry said.

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The Lets Play community is enormous on Youtube with many play-throughs of pretty much any game imaginable.

Nintendo is going after Youtube “Lets Play” video creators that have uploaded videos of their titles and demanding any ad revenue they may have collected from them.

The gaming giant is registered as a Youtube partner and logged its copyright content in the Youtube database in February this year. Any ad revenue from a video featuring Nintendo content will now as a result go to Nintendo as opposed to the video’s uploader.

Videos that have not had ads placed in them by their creators but that feature Nintendo content will also have ads placed in them retroactively with their revenue compensating the company.

In a statement to Gamefront, Nintendo explains that the move will affect very few fan videos and that this is a part of an initiative to make sure that its content is enjoyed in an ‘appropriate and safe way’, implying that the company simply wants to exercise some control over the Lets Play scene. Also, it is not looking to take these videos offline.

‘We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property,” said a Nintendo spokesperson in the statement.

In a blog post published on Develop by Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell, encourages other developers not to follow Nintendo’s lead as they risk cutting out a key publicity channel. He points out that the PR his title received from the Lets Play community resulted in Thomas Was Alone outselling Assassin’s Creed 3 on Steam, a significant achievement for an indie title.

The amount of ad revenue earned by even the more established Lets Play video creators is unlikely to be terribly significant and will vary depending on the type of ad and the value attached to your viewership.

Youtube’s ad guidelines do also state that videos which contain video game footage are not eligible for monetisation which suggests that Lets Play videos have been breaking the platforms guidelines for some time anyway.

The Lets Play community is understandably shaken by Nintendo’s move. Zack Scott, a Lets Play creator with an enormous catalogue of videos that have accumulated more than 81 million views said that he will not be doing any more videos on Nintendo games while they are taking this stance.

‘I think filing claims against LPers is backwards. Video games aren’t like movies or TV. Each play-through is a unique audiovisual experience. When I see a film that someone else is also watching, I don’t need to see it again. When I see a game that someone else is playing, I want to play that game for myself,’ said Scott on Facebook.

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