New York, Oct.13 (ANI): A civil rights veteran and a Democrat representing the state of Georgia, has accused Republican presidential candidate John McCain of sowing seeds of hatred during his campaign.

Representative John Lewis said that the negative tone of McCain's campaign reminds him of the hateful atmosphere that segregationist Governor George Wallace fostered in Alabama in the 1960s.

Republican candidate John McCain on Saturday called Lewis' remarks "shocking and beyond the pale."

In a statement issued Saturday, Lewis said McCain and running mate Sarah Palin were "sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."

He noted that Wallace also ran for president.

"George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights," said Lewis, who is black.

"Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."

One of the seminal events of the civil rights movement was the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. Four black girls died in the blast, which was linked to a Ku Klux Klan group.

Late Saturday, Lewis released another statement saying it was not his "intention or desire" to directly compare McCain or Palin to Wallace.

"My statement was a reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior," he said.

"I am glad that Sen. McCain has taken some steps to correct divisive speech at his rallies. I believe we need to return to civil discourse in this election about the pressing economic issues that are affecting our nation."

Lewis' comments follow widely reported examples of anger at McCain rallies that has been aimed at Obama, the first black man to be a major party's nominee for president.

During some rallies featuring McCain and Palin, supporters have shouted "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar" and even "off with his head."

McCain drew boos at a town-hall meeting Friday in Minnesota when he defended Obama after a supporter said he feared what would happen if Obama were elected president. He also cut short a woman who said Obama was an Arab, and he called his rival "a decent, family man."

On Saturday, McCain called on Obama to repudiate Lewis' remarks. While dismissing the comparison to Wallace, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Lewis was on target in other ways.

"John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for president of the United States 'pals around with terrorists,"' Burton said in a statement.

McCain rejected any comparison to Wallace.

"I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track," McCain said. (ANI)

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Washington, Aug 27 (ANI): Tennis ace Andy Roddick is set to exchange wedding vows with fiancee Brooklyn Decker next spring.

The former Wimbledon champ will marry model/girlfriend in an intimate ceremony in Texas.

"That's where we spend most of our time," Contactmusic quoted him as saying

"It'll be very small, probably about 20 or 30 people," he added.

The couple met in New York City last year and announced their engagement in April this year. (ANI)

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Washington, Sept 27 (ANI): Scientists at University of Michigan have discovered a key HIV accessory protein, called HIV-1 Nef, that thwarts the body's normal immune response - a finding that may pave the way for more powerful AIDS drugs.

While current anti-HIV drugs are life saving, they cannot root the virus out of the body. Infected cells are able to live on, undetected by the immune system, and provide the machinery for the virus to reproduce and spread.

"There's a big hole in current therapies, in that all of them prevent new infection, but none attack the cells that are already infected and hidden from the immune response," said Kathleen L. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the study's senior author and a U-M associate professor in both internal medicine and microbiology and immunology.

She added: "People have to be on the existing drugs, and when they're not, the virus rebounds. If we can develop drugs that seek out and eradicate the remaining factories for the virus, then maybe we could eradicate the disease in that person."

HIV-1 Nef is known to keep immune system cells from doing their normal jobs of detecting and killing infected cells.

The new study shows how Nef disables two key immune system players inside an infected cell. These are molecules called major histocompatability complex 1 proteins (MHC-1) that present HIV antigens to the immune system, and CD4, the cell-surface receptor that normally locks onto a virus and allows it to enter the cell.

According to Collins. MHC-1 is similar to motion detectors on a house, which send the first signal to a monitoring station if an invader breaks in.

"The immune system, especially the cytotoxic T lymphocytes, are like the monitors who get the signal that there's a foreign invader inside the cell, and send out police cars. The 'police' are toxic chemicals produced by T lymphocyte cells, which kill the cell that harbors the invader," she said.

Nef's actions allow active virus to hide undetected and reproduce by in effect pushing the MHC-I proteins into an infected cell's "trash bin" so they fail to alert the T lymphocytes. Also, once a cell has been infected, Nef destroys CD4. thus, new virus is encouraged to spread to uninfected cells.

While Nef's activities are variable and complex, the new findings suggest that the many pathways involved may end in a final common step. That could make it possible to find a drug that could block several Nef functions.

Now, researchers are screening drug candidates to find promising Nef inhibitors. Such drugs, which are at least 10 years away from use in people, would supplement, not replace, existing anti-viral drugs given to HIV-infected people. The new drugs would target the reservoirs where the virus hides.

Collins said that in developing countries, the new drugs could have a huge impact. Today, children born with HIV infection start taking the existing anti-HIV drugs at birth.

She said that it's very hard to continue costly treatments for a lifetime. But if children could be cured within a few years, global HIV treatment efforts could spread their dollars further and be much more successful.

The study appears online in the journal PLoS Pathogens. (ANI)

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London, Oct 3 (ANI): A recently uncovered Roman structure at Richborough, England, which has been estimated to be a dock dating back to the 14th century, has turned history on its head, by proving that at the height of medieval Sandwich's power and wealth as a port, boats were still mooring at Richborough.

According to a report in The Guardian, this discovery is unique because according to the conventional history of the site, Richborough had been completely filled with silt 800 years earlier, the once magnificent Roman fort and large town left abandoned and desolate.

The medieval dock was neatly constructed by joining up double-decker-bus-sized lumps of Roman walls which tumbled and slid down from the ramparts of the fort further up the slope.

It is built on the shingled Roman shore, one of the key sites in the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, and can be securely dated to the 14th century, since the construction technique is identical to the medieval town walls of nearby Sandwich.

The little dock, still filling with water seeping from under the railway line, proves that at the height of medieval Sandwich's power and wealth as a port (the town is now as landlocked as the fort), boats were still mooring at Richborough.

"This really leaves us with a lot of questions," English Heritage archaeologist Tony Wilmott said.

Richborough Roman fort now stands among farm fields and scrap metal yards, in the shadow of power station cooling towers, on a windy ridge two miles from the sea.

Its sea channel and dock gave shelter from the shifting sands and silty water off Ramsgate, infamous among sailors throughout history. Thousands of shipwrecks still lie buried in the mud.

The fort was once one of the most imposing Roman sites in Britain, and despite being used as a convenient builder's suppliers for cut stone for centuries, its towering broken walls and huge earth banks are still commanding.

Finds from the new excavation include fragments of white marble from the huge triumphal arch built to mark the conquest of Britain.

Most of this was later stripped and ground down to make limestone mortar for an Anglo Saxon shoreline fort; nothing remains of the arch except the foundations.

The amphitheatre and town still lie buried under green fields and, as the coastal edge of the site eroded, massive sections of the outer wall collapsed and tumbled down the slope.

Some landed upside down, chalk foundations in the air, still held together by the strength of the Roman cement. (ANI)

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