Huffington Magazine Issue 70 | Page 8

Enter FROM TOP: SAM HODGSON/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES; PATRICK SMITH/GETTY IMAGES; JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES 2 3 4 POINTERS HUFFINGTON 10.13.13 YELLEN MAKES HISTORY President Obama nominated Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen to be the Fed chair on Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Yellen would be the first female chair in history. She would take over from current Fed Chair Ben Bernanke in January. “She is a proven leader and she’s tough — not just because she’s from Brooklyn,” Obama said. “Janet is exceptionally well-qualified for this role.” Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers had been seen as a top contender for the nomination, but he took his name out of the running amid harsh criticism. 12 YEARS, AND UP TO $6 TRILLION AND THE NOBEL PRIZE GOES TO… Monday marked 12 years since the war in Afghanistan began, and at least 2,146 U.S. military members have died. The full withdrawal of troops has been delayed because Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the U.S. and its allies have violated the country’s sovereignty, and the U.S. wants a deal that will allow a continued presence past the 2014 scheduled pullout. A study this year revealed that the combined cost to taxpayers for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs won the Nobel Prize in physics for their research on the “God particle,” formally known as the Higgs boson particle, which explains why matter has mass. Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel won the prize in chemistry “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” The Nobel Prize in medicine went to James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof for uncovering key findings about the cell’s transport system. “My first reaction was, ‘Oh, my God!’” Schekman said in a statement. “That was also my second reaction.”