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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Four 2006 Liberal leadership candidates ? who still owe a combined $400K ? won?t be taken to court by Elections Canada
OTTAWA ? Former candidates who still owe money from the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign won?t be taken to court by Elections Canada, the country?s elections commissioner has ruled.
Instead, Yves Cote suggested Tuesday that the candidates pay the money back in a timely manner.
Conservatives have been demanding that Elections Canada impose penalties on Liberals who?ve failed to pay back loans taken out during their December 2006 leadership contest.
But the law as it is currently written is unenforceable, Cote said.
?The commissioner has concluded that the Act, as currently drafted, lacks sufficient clarity to support enforcement action in the criminal courts with respect to loans or claims that remain unpaid following the expiry of an extension,? Elections Canada said in a statement.
?Therefore, no enforcement action can be taken against the leadership contestants in relation to their unpaid debts.?
As of Tuesday ? that is, nearly seven years after the leadership race in which Liberals picked Stephane Dion to lead them ? four candidates still owed money.
Dion owed the least, at $7,500 while Ken Dryden still owed a hefty $225,000.
Hedy Fry had $69,000 in outstanding debt while Joe Volpe had yet to repay $97,800.
The candidates were given several extensions of the original 18-month deadline to repay their loans.
I strongly encourage the contestants involved to make every effort to raise funds through individual contributions, repay all outstanding debts and report all transactions to Elections Canada
Regardless of his ruling, Cote urged the candidates to pay back the owed money out of respect for the spirit of the law.
?Despite the difficulties in enforcing the (Canada Elections Act), I believe it is clear that Parliament intended that leadership contestants act diligently to repay their campaign expenses,? said Cote.
?I strongly encourage the contestants involved to make every effort to raise funds through individual contributions, repay all outstanding debts and report all transactions to Elections Canada.?
The Tories introduced legislation in November 2011 designed to fix problems that chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand has said render the Canada Elections Act incoherent and ineffective.
But the proposed law has never been passed ? something the Liberals say needs to happen.
?We agree with (Elections Canada?s) assessment that the system needs improvement and we are willing to work with other parties on suitable legislation,? Liberal party national director Jeremy Broadhurst said in an email.
The Liberals partly blame the Conservatives for tying the hands of leadership candidates midway through the party?s 2006 contest by reducing the maximum individual contributions that could be made to a candidate to $1,100 from $5,400.
Earlier this year, the federal Liberal party revamped its own rules governing how much debt could be racked up by leadership candidates after some members were labelled as deadbeats for not paying back their 2006 loans.
Going beyond legal deadlines to pay back electoral loans is not uncommon for any party.
Elections Canada has not fined or jailed any of the candidates from the 2006, 2008 or 2011 elections, although 105 of them owed a combined $1.6-million beyond the 18-month deadline for repaying loans.
Some 18 months after the May 2011 general election, 39 candidates still owed a collective $741,326.
Centrica H1 earnings rise 2 pct on North Sea output
LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - British utility Centrica posted a 2 percent rise in adjusted earnings over the first half of the year, spurred by higher output from North Sea gas fields.
The company made 767 million pounds ($1.2 billion) in adjusted earnings and overall revenue rose 14 percent to 13.7 billion, Centrica (LSE: CNA.L - news) said on Wednesday.
Its upstream business posted a 16 percent rise in operating profit to 802 million pounds as production from its Norwegian fields more than doubled year on year.
Operating profit at the company's U.S. retail arm increased by 6 percent and Centrica emphasised North America was more attractive than the UK for acquisitions.
"The low gas price makes acquisitions in North America relatively attractive compared to the UK, where costs are increasing," Centrica said in its half-year statement.
The utility on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Hess Corp's energy retail business for about $1 billion.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/centrica-h1-earnings-rise-2-063726110.html
Japan's Military Endangers the U.S.
AP Photo
Since returning to office in December, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has done little to reassure his neighbors that Japan comes in peace. Within his first two weeks of office, he ordered a review of his country's defense guidelines, which his defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, described as "a priority we must work on with no letup." On July 26, Japan's Defense Ministry released interim results of the review, urging significant military upgrades. It included plans to create an amphibious island defense force, and hinted at the possibility of preemptive strikes against foreign military targets.
TAGGED: United States, Japan
Source: http://www.realclearworld.com/2013/07/31/japans_military_endangers_the_us_150297.html
Finland's Next Gaming Phenom? Grand Cru Raises $11M From ...
Almost at a steady pace, Helsinki has produced a hit gaming company every couple of years: Rovio?s Angry Birds blew up in 2009 and then Supercell took the crown as one of the highest-grossing iOS game developers in the world last year through Clash of Clans and Hay Day.
Is the next one Grand Cru?
Named after the French wine classification, the 25-person startup has been quietly working on a game called the Supernauts, which has been called a more mainstream and accessible take on Minecraft.
Early on, they picked up funding from Supercell-backer Lifeline Ventures and now they?ve racked up an additional $11 million from strategic investors like Qualcomm Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners and lead investor Idinvest Partners.
Their funding comes at a time when the Helsinki gaming community is abuzz with the success of companies like Supercell and Rovio and as dozens of other tiny startups splinter off with talent from both these companies and then longer-standing studios like Remedy and Digital Chocolate?s local office. To an outside observer, it may seem pretty random that Helsinki keeps churning out world-class gaming companies, but the community has deep roots because of these older gaming companies, the existence (and then decline) of Nokia and longstanding events like Assembly, which has been an annual mecca for developers and enthusiasts for more than 20 years.
Grand Cru?s executive team is pretty experienced in the field: CEO Markus Pasula ran RealNetworks? studio Mr. Goodliving, while chief technology officer Mikko Wilkman came from Habbo Hotel-maker Sulake and chief marketing officer Thorbjorn Warin ran marketing at German social game maker Wooga.
The company has yet to launch its first game but they?ve been quietly at work on its flagship title for about two years. It?s like a more cartoonish and social version of Mojang?s 8-bit megahit game Minecraft. Players solve puzzles and create shareable worlds while traveling to a flooded Earth to rescue humans.
They don?t have a timeline for when it will be released.
?We will launch it when it?s ready,? Warin said. ?We?ve put two years into the game. We will not fumble on the finish line and we have taken a very extensive process in developing the game.?
Supernauts is done in third-person and the artistic style is quite different in feel and form.
?We?ve spent six months perfecting the camera controls and user interface,? Warin said. ?There aren?t very many 3D games for a casual audience.?
He said the game?s social features are much deeper than what you?d see in a typical casual game.
?We don?t want to have the standard stuff, where you visit your friends and they give you stuff,? he said. ?We have proper multiplayer competitions.?
They plan to use the funding to launch Supernauts, and Warin said the company is taking after the Supercell model of building a gaming company gradually instead of staffing up really aggressively.
?We?re not going to grow too quickly and go on a crazy hiring spree. We?re not going to be cranking out new products every six to nine months,? he said. ?We want to make sure the people we hire have a good, strong cultural fit with people who want to make games with the same level of ambition that we have.?
Grand Cru was founded in 2011 by six Finnish game industry veterans. We are out to revolutionize mobile and social gaming. THE MISSION We believe that people want to play together. We believe that if given the right tools, they will create beautiful things together. As gamers, we have seen this in countless hardcore games. Our mission is to bring these tools to everybody, gamer or not. Make social gaming actually mean something and let all the people participate in the...
? Learn moreFacebook stock briefly passes IPO price
Shares of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) rose above the company's $38 initial offering price Wednesday for the first time since the day of its public launch, but it dipped slightly below that watermark level in early trading.
Wall Street snapped up Facebook shares following a recent earnings report that showed the social network had dramatically improved its ability to make money off traffic from mobile device users.
Patrick Hoge covers technology for the San Francisco Business Times.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bizj_eastbay/~3/2dfs53_tb5g/facebook-stock-passes-ipo-price.html
Facebook may face prosecution over Carolina Picchio's suicide in Italy
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Carolina Picchio, 14, jumped from a window to her death after bullying on Facebook
- Her sister and friends say they reported the abusive content to Facebook, but nothing happened
- The Novara prosecutor is looking into filing a criminal complaint against Facebook
- Facebook says it encourages reporting of abuse and removes content that breaches its rules
Novara, Italy (CNN) -- Like many girls her age, Italian teenager Carolina Picchio shared her pictures, thoughts and emotions on Facebook.
But after a video of the 14-year-old allegedly showed up on Facebook in which she appeared to be drunk and disoriented at a party, social media became a source of torment.
In a wired world, children unable to escape cyberbullying
An ex-boyfriend and his friends posted a steady barrage of abusive, offensive messages aimed at Carolina. And what started out online spilled into her daily life at school, and among her friends in the prosperous northern Italian town of Novara.
Unbeknown to her family, it all became too much for her to handle. In the early hours of January 5, she jumped out of her bedroom window, landing headfirst on the concrete below.
Thousands of messages
Carolina's sister, Talita, and some of the teenager's friends say they reported the abusive messages from her ex-boyfriend to Facebook in the hope they would be removed. But, they say, nothing happened.
When bullying goes high-tech
"He was insulting her, mistreating her," Talita said. "We naturally spoke about it with her but she told us not to worry."
Now the Novara prosecutor, Francesco Saluzzo, is looking into the possibility of filing a criminal complaint against Facebook for failing to remove offensive content that may have led to Carolina's suicide.
"In the case of Carolina, it appears some of her friends, some of her relatives, asked for the removal of some of this strong content, and it wasn't removed -- and this played a role in her decision to commit suicide," he said.
Besides the abusive messages on Facebook, on the day leading up to her death, Carolina had received 2,600 vulgar messages via the messaging service WhatsApp, the prosecutor's documents show.
'Have you hurt me enough?'
Carolina left a final letter addressed to her tormenters, which her mother, Cristina Zocca, shared with CNN.
"Are you happy now?" the teenager asked. "Have you hurt me enough? Have you had enough revenge?"
Asked for the company's response, a spokesman for Facebook said, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of Carolina Picchio and our hearts go out to her family and friends.
How to protect your child from online bullies
"Harassment has no place on Facebook and we actively encourage teens and parents to report incidences of bullying using the links located throughout the site.
"We remove content reported to us that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and we escalate reports of harassment and bullying to law enforcement where appropriate."
Italian media reported in May that eight teenage boys ages 15 to 17 were being questioned by authorities on suspicion of incitement to suicide and possession of child pornography.
But Carolina's mother believes Facebook and other social networks must do more to confront the reality of online bullying.
"My battle is to make the social networks responsible, so that there are protections for minors," she said.
"We can't allow for more Carolinas, or other mothers who must cry and be deprived of the lives of their daughters."
Carolina's uncle has posted a video on YouTube dedicated to the teenager and her death.
It has become a rallying point in Italy for the fight against online bullying.
Journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/world/europe/italy-facebook-suicide/index.html?eref=rss_latest
Red Lion's football pride runs deep
Past players and coaches stand behind the Lions' effort to win a historic District 3 Class AAAA title Saturday night.
York, PA - In its proud football history, Red Lion has never seen a game quite like this one.
It has seen teams like this one. Teams more dominant than this one. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Red Lion program produced some of the most successful squads York and Adams counties have ever seen.
But a game like this? Not quite.
"This thing they're in now is totally foreign to me," said former longtime Lions coach Don Dyke, who led the school to three-straight unbeaten seasons in the 1970s. "This is a whole different animal, I mean the playoffs."
When eighth-seeded Red Lion (10-3) steps onto the turf at Hersheypark Stadium tonight at 6 for its District 3 Class AAAA final with seventh-seeded Cumberland Valley (11-2), it will pen a new chapter in the long narrative of Lions football.
It will be Red Lion's first district championship game appearance since the playoffs were created in 1982.
With a win, Red Lion would become the YAIAA's first quad-A district football champion.
More than that, this Lions team could further cement a place in its program's own rich legacy, a tradition that dates back to the overpowering Red Lion teams of the mid-1960s.
"I just think it's great," said Sam Neff, a two-way standout on those 1960s squads. "I think this team wasn't expected to do quite as well as they did. To go to the district finals is something."
Neff, a former quarterback and defensive back, was an integral part of the Red Lion teams that won a staggering 37 straight games -- a streak that stretched from 1963 to 1967.
Red Lion piled up points those years. During the 1965 season, the Lions finished 10-0 and outscored opponents by a combined 439-60.
"We had great guys," said Ron Fitzkee Sr., 81, who coached those teams. "The one thing that I remember is the total involvement and interest and support from our entire Red Lion area community. I think that they were really a big part of our ability to succeed.
"We filled that stadium week in and week out."
And not just Red Lion's Horn Field, either. Neff, who went on to play football at Maryland, recalled how Lions fans followed their team all over the county.
"I remember that we had a preseason scrimmage (one year)," said Neff, 60, who now teaches at Red Lion. "And the coach I don't think wanted a lot of people to go there. So he kept it a secret.
"By the time we left that Friday morning, there were about 30 cars behind the bus following us."
A few years later, under Dyke's watch, Red Lion cobbled together a similar three-season unbeaten stretch, encompassing the 1972, 1973 and 1974 campaigns. Those teams produced some of most talent the school has ever seen; most notably Scott Fitzkee, Ron's son and a three-sport star, who went on to play football at Penn State.
"They were just an unbelievable group of kids," the 70-year-old Dyke said. "They just enjoyed each other's company."
But there were no district or state playoffs then. And so those teams never got a chance to test themselves beyond the league.
Not the case this year.
After struggling to replicate the successes of the 60s and 70s -- Red Lion hadn't won a district playoff game before this season -- the Lions have positioned themselves to make history, both for their program and for the YAIAA.
The community seems to have taken notice, too. On a typical gameday, Lions coach Pat Conrad said he gets between 10 and 20 text messages, mostly from past players.
"Just the sense from a lot of community members," Conrad said. "They're excited about where we are and where the program is in general."
Conrad was a first-year assistant at Red Lion in 1998 for one of the school's last notable teams. That squad finished 9-2 and lost in the District 3 semifinal to none other than Cumberland Valley.
Tonight, the Lions could produce perhaps the program's proudest moment to date. Many of Red Lion's past standouts, including Neff, Dyke and Ron Fitzkee, plan to be in attendance.
Already, they insist, Red Lion's run has been one its players won't soon forget.
"I still see (former teammates) today," Neff said. "Guys that didn't go to college and play football, but they talk about how special that time was.
"I think for this team, that's what they're going to remember. They're going to remember they went to the district finals, and maybe even won it. Who knows?"
jclayton@ydr.com; 771-2045
Also of interest
? Red Lion's Scott Fitzkee ranks as York/Adams Greatest Athlete? Story answers much about great athlete Hinkey Haines of Red Lion, including origin of his nickname.
Humane Society University Opens Registration for Fall 2013 Online ...
July?30,?2013
Anyone interested in advocacy and making a difference for animals can register for Humane Society University Fall 1 2013 classes.
Humane Society University's School of Continuing Education provides career enhancement and skill development for professionals and volunteers in the dynamic and growing fields of animal welfare and animal sheltering, as well as law enforcement, the non-profit sector, and advocacy or education work.
Online courses will include topics such as:
- ?Non-Legislative Targets: Changing Corporate Policies,? which will provide students with the strategies to be an effective animal advocate in the corporate arena;
- ?Managing Conflict and Resolving Problems,? which will help students address the interpersonal challenges faced in the field of animal welfare; and
- ?Small Animals: Care and Adoption,? which will focus on how to address the needs and habits of a range of small and exotic animals, including rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters and who are the best matches for these animals.
All registrations must be received by August 1.
Source: http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news_briefs/2013/07/HSU-opens-fall-2013-registration-073013.html
Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview on nyt ladattavissa
Microsoft julkisti t?n??n esiversion Windows 8.1 Enterprise -k?ytt?j?rjestelm?st?. Uusi versio tuo mukanaan useita uudistuksia ja kehitysaskeleita mm. mobiiliominaisuuksien, tietoturvan, hallittavuuden ja virtualisoinnin saralla.
Yritykset ja kaupalliset tahot voivat ladata ja k?ytt??nottaa esiversion testikoneilleen t??ll?.
Katso lis?? aiheesta Windows for your Business -blogista.
Video: Tonight: Pope says he won't judge gays, rising gas prices, changing definition of cancer
Unusual fishing tournament lets sharks off the hook
Shark fishing tournaments have been popular off the coast of New York's Long Island for decades, and they've always ended with dead sharks on the dock. This year, 64 sharks were reeled in during a tournament off the coast of Montauk, and for the first time, they were all released back into the water. Chip Reid reports.
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsVideo/~3/K7r6B_fI7gg/
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Union County being pitched to industry, agriculture, commercial projects for jobs
photo courtesy MONROE UNION COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Monroe Union County Economic Development will market three areas of Union County to build jobs and investment.
Monroe and Union County economic development officials want to market three distinct areas of the county for new business and industry, according to a plan approved by the Union Board of County Commissioners.
?It?s really a three-layer cake,? says Chris Plat?, executive director of Monroe Union County Economic Development. ?It?s almost impossible to market Union County as a unit.?
Those three regions of the county will be branded under Gateway Union County, Monroe Aero and Grow Union County to take advantage of the county?s three strengths, Plat? says.
County commissioners approved the two-year economic-development plan last week.
During the next 48 months, Plat? and his staff will target precision manufacturing, logistics, agri-business and commercial development in an effort to build the county's job base. In addition, businesses already in those sectors will be highlighted for job retention.
This year, Plat? formed a joint city-county economic development agency, replacing the efforts of Union County Partnership for Progress. Both the city and county contribute to Monroe Union County Economic Development.
Ken Elkins covers manufacturing, international business and economic development for the Charlotte Business Journal.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bizj_charlotte/~3/Ukd8Gge3TI8/union-county-being-pitched-to.html
Output Falls in Japan, but Labor Market Expands
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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Tuesday, July 30, 2013
The first decrease in industrial production in five months largely reflected efforts by manufacturers to avoid a buildup of inventory, and they forecast a brisk pickup in July. ? ? ? ? ...
Sprint feels pain of Nextel close, widens 2Q loss
In this Monday, July 29, 2013, photo, a Sprint logo is displayed on a smart phone in Montpelier, Vt. Sprint Reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday, July 30, 2013. (AP Photo/ Toby Talbot)
In this Monday, July 29, 2013, photo, a Sprint logo is displayed on a smart phone in Montpelier, Vt. Sprint Reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday, July 30, 2013. (AP Photo/ Toby Talbot)
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) ? Sprint Corp., the ailing No. 3 of the U.S. wireless business, has had the surgery. Now it's in for a trying recovery period.
In the last few months, Sprint has sold a majority stake to Softbank Corp. of Japan, bought the failing Clearwire network and shut down its own Nextel service, which had dogged its results for years.
Sprint is now racing to make up for lost time. With the help of Softbank's cash, it's quadrupling its capital spending to make up for years of underinvestment in its network, which lags those of competitors in terms of data speed and coverage. That's good for subscribers but not necessarily good for investors who are exasperated with the company's 23 consecutive quarters of losses.
CEO Dan Hesse said Tuesday that he expects Sprint to have a hard time gaining subscribers on its contract-based plans, which generate the most revenue, until next year, when the company fires up new antennas on its cell towers and has phones that can take advantage of them.
Sprint's second-quarter results, reported Tuesday, were hampered by the shutdown of the Nextel network, which it bought in 2005. It was popular for its push-to-talk feature, which let phones work like walkie-talkies. The service, however, wasn't compatible with Sprint phones and didn't support wireless broadband, which is necessary for smartphones. The cost of running two incompatible networks was a big part of the reason Sprint hemorrhaged money for years.
The quarter was "ugly, but no worse than expected," said Kevin Smithen at Macquarie Capital.
Sprint lost more than 2 million wireless customers in the quarter, most of which were on Nextel. Sprint managed to convince only 34 percent of the 1.3 million departing Nextel subscribers to sign up for Sprint service, a lower figure than some analysts expected, given Sprint's past success with conversions.
Sprint gained 412,000 subscribers by buying U.S. Cellular coverage areas in Chicago and parts on the Midwest in May. Separately, it bought out the minority shareholders of Clearwire Corp., a wireless network operator of which Sprint already owned a majority. That acquisition closed after the end of the quarter.
Sprint's net loss grew to $1.6 billion, or 53 cents per share. It lost $1.4 billion, or 46 cents per share, a year ago.
Excluding unexpected charges related to the Nextel shutdown, the adjusted loss came to 31 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of 30 cents per share.
Revenue rose to $8.88 billion from $8.84 billion thanks to the U.S. Cellular acquisition.
Sprint's stock rose 23 cents, or 4 percent, to $5.97 in morning trading. The day's high of $6.02 was the highest level since SoftBank Corp.'s deal to acquire 78 percent of Sprint closed on July 10.
SoftBank paid $21.6 billion for the Sprint stake. Shareholders got $7.65 per share.
Sprint had 53.6 million subscribers by June's end, down from 55.2 million at the end of March.
___
AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima contributed to this report.
Associated PressTaxes may keep NBA free agents away from OKC
With NBA free agency in full swing, many players are looking for the next town to call home.
According to a new study, Oklahoma City may not be as attractive as some other NBA cities.
Americans for Tax Reform has released a study about the tax burden each athlete faces.
The study found athletes in Oklahoma City have to play 2.2 games just to pay their taxes. That number is lower for athletes playing for 10 other teams, including the Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls.
California takes the most from its athletes. They must play 5.5 games just to pay their taxes.
Leah Remini Speaks Out After Leaving Church of Scientology: "I'm Not About to Shut Up"
Leah Remini is opening up in the wake of leaving the Church of Scientology.
"I believe that people should be able to question things. I believe that people should value family, and value friendships, and hold those things sacrosanct. That for me, that's what I'm about," the former King of Queens star told People. "It wouldn't matter what it was, simply no one is going to tell me how I need to think, no one is going to tell me who I can, and cannot, talk to."
She added, "I'm not about to shut up."
NEWS: Kirstie Alley slams speculation she bashed Leah Remini for leaving Church of Scientology
Earlier this month, the New York Post reported that Remini had decided to quit the controversial religion, citing a source's claim that the 43-year-old actress had been subjected to years of "interrogations" and "thought modification" after questioning the leadership of David Miscavige.
When asked for a comment, a rep for the Church of Scientology told E! News at the time, "The Church respects the privacy of parishioners and has no comment about any individual Church member."
The Church later added that allegations of "interrogations" and "thought modification" are "absurd and pure nonsense."
PHOTOS: Celebs outspoken about their religion
Smartphone use way up in Canada, Google finds
Not only is smartphone ownership way up in Canada, users are getting increasingly addicted to their mobile devices, suggests a new report released by Google.
Based on online surveys with 1,000 Canadians earlier this year, the report estimates that 56 per cent of adults were using a smartphone, up from 33 per cent in early 2012.
About eight in 10 smartphone owners said they don't leave home without their mobile device. And two-thirds of them said they had used their phone every day in the past week.
About 35 per cent said they'd become so reliant on mobile connectivity that they'd give up TV before having to part with their smartphone.
"Mobile has become a core part of how people live their lives today," said Google Canada's head of mobile advertising Eric Morris.
"The study shows people are using mobile to change all aspects of their life, whether it's their job, travel, shopping, the way they communicate with others, and specifically trying to understand the world around them."
About 78 per cent of the smartphone users said they connected to social media with their device and 52 per cent said they logged on daily.
Video views increasing rapidly
Morris said he was struck by the number of users who reported they were watching video on their phone. About 75 per cent said they had streamed video on their small screen and almost one in five said they did it daily.
"People watch videos on the biggest screen they have available to them," said Morris.
"Sometimes that's your 50-inch TV at home, sometimes that's your tablet while you're on the couch or in bed, and sometimes that's the smartphone while you're on the couch or travelling or even in the office.
"I think one of the interesting things from this survey is there is a lot of mobile consumption that's being done in the home...on home WiFi."
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/07/29/business-smartphone-use.html?cmp=rss
The BIG day is here! Facebook fans, try our new cheesecake a day early with this...
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Source: http://www.facebook.com/thecheesecakefactory/posts/10151870659954155
AP Exclusive: Signs of Declining Economic Security | Arkansas ...
WASHINGTON - Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.
Hardship is particularly on the rise among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."
"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend, but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.
"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."
While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in government data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.
The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as experiencing unemployment at some point in their working lives, or a year or more of reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.
"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty.
He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama's election, while struggling whites do not.
"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front," Wilson said.
Invisible Poor
Source: http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/93767/ap-exclusive-signs-of-declining-economic-security
Amazon looks to fill 7,000 jobs including many in Kentuckiana
WHAS11.com
Posted on July 29, 2013 at 8:06 AM
Updated today at 9:17 AM
(AP)--Amazon.com Inc. says it is adding 7,000 jobs in 13 states, beefing up staff at the warehouses where it fills orders, and in its customer service division.
The company says it will add 5,000 full-time jobs at its U.S. distribution centers, which currently employ about 20,000 workers who pack and ship customer orders.
The world's largest online retailer has been spending heavily on order fulfillment, a strategy meant to help the business grow, but one that has also weighed on profit margins. The company said last week that it lost money in the second quarter, even as revenue increased.
Distribution center jobs are available in Phoenix; Middletown, Del.; Patterson, San Bernardino and Tracy, Calif.; Indianapolis and Jeffersonville, Ind.; Hebron, Ky.; Breinigsville, Pa.; Charleston and Spartanburg, S.C.; Chattanooga and Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Coppell, Haslet and San Antonio, Texas and Chester, Va.
Amazon said President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the Chattanooga facility on Tuesday. No public schedule was yet posted on the White House website for Tuesday, but the president made what was billed as a major speech on the economy last week, and brought the topic up again in his weekly Internet and radio address on Saturday.
The company is also adding 2,000 jobs in customer service, including full-time, part-time and seasonal. Jobs are available in Winchester, Ky.; Grand Forks, N.D.; Kennewick, Wash. and Huntington, W.Va. Work from home positions are available in Oregon, Washington and Arizona.
More information is at www.workatamazonfulfillment.com and www.amazon.com/csjobs.
Source: http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Amazon-hiribn-217369251.html
Monday, July 29, 2013
Xbox One's controller price revealed | Games Thirst ? Video Game ...
Need an additional controller for your Xbox One? You will need to shell out 59.99$ if you?re in the US, Microsoft Store has revealed through a listing today. What does this mean? It?s 10$ more than a current Xbox 360 controller.
Additionally, the controller plus a Play and Charge kit bundle is 10$ less than the Xbox 360 set, at the price of 74.99$.
An official Microsoft Wired Headset is priced at 24.99$.No UK prices have been announced, but the current Store has a price of ?34.99 for the regular Wireless Controller, suggesting a ?40-?45 price tag on the Xbox One pad.
Xbox One will launch, in November priced at ?429.99.
Fated Wings
Could I reserve girl five please? I can't wait until this roleplay starts.
Follow me down the pathI will walk beside you
Guiding and showing you the way
I will not leave you
I will be standing on the path watching you
If you ever feel alone
Close your eyes
You will see 6 sets of foot prints
2 belonging to you, 4 to me
Then you will know that I have not left you
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf...
And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/-wPhPyATqng/viewtopic.php
Amazon unveils new hiring spree ahead of Obama visit
By Alistair Barr
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc unveiled a new hiring spree on Monday ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to one of the Internet retailer's giant distribution warehouses this week.
Amazon said it is looking to fill more than 5,000 new full-time jobs at 17 of its fulfillment centers across the United States. That's roughly a 25 percent increase in full-time fulfillment center staff, which currently number more than 20,000 in the country.
Amazon has been building lots of new fulfillment centers closer to customers in recent years as the company tries to speed up delivery of online orders and reduce shipping costs.
Amazon needs a lot of workers to pick, pack and ship orders alongside high tech robots that whiz around its warehouses. The company's demand for employees is so strong that it has created special programs to woo candidates.
Last year, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos used the front page of the company's website to announce a Career Choice program that pays thousands of dollars for warehouse employees to take technical and vocational courses in high-demand areas including engineering, information technology, transportation and accounting.
Amazon made its latest hiring push as President Obama is due to visit a company fulfillment center in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Tuesday to speak about jobs in the United States.
The President will discuss proposals to jumpstart private sector job growth and make America more competitive, according to a White House spokeswoman.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Chris Reese)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amazon-unveils-hiring-spree-ahead-obama-visit-040314538.html
Social media helps track property lost in Holocaust
Social media 
8 hours ago
Oded Balilty / AP
Cati Holland poses for a picture at her house in the Israeli city of Hadera. Holland found out from an Israel-based social media genealogy company that is using the Internet to help match property stolen by the Nazis to heirs of the victims she was eligible for compensation for her grandmother's Berlin store seized by the Nazis more than 70 years ago.
When Cati Holland checked her email a few weeks ago, she was surprised to find a message saying she was eligible for compensation for her grandmother's Berlin store that was seized by the Nazis more than 70 years ago.
It wasn't spam or a phishing attempt or even a legitimate note from a German official working to track down victims and their heirs. Rather, it was from an Israel-based social media genealogy company that is using the Internet to help match property stolen by the Nazis to heirs of the victims.
"My grandmother told me so many stories about the store ? about the beautiful dresses and fancy hats they made, the wealthy customers who wore them," Holland, 75, told The Associated Press by phone from Hadera, Israel.
"But we always thought everything had been lost after my parents fled the Nazis. It never even occurred to us to claim any kind of restitution. I was completely surprised about that email."
Since the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945, Germany has paid around 70 billion euros ($92 billion) in compensation to the victims of the Holocaust. More than two million people have received lump sum payments or an ongoing monthly pension. The state of Israel has received around 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion), according to the German finance ministry.
Part of the compensation was earmarked for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, a private New York-based organization that works to secure restitution for survivors and their heirs. Descendants can come forward to claim their family's assets until the end of 2014 if they find their original property on a recently released list by the Claims Conference, called the Late Applicants Fund.
Over the years, the search for the heirs has become more complicated because most of the Holocaust survivors have died. Descendants also don't always have detailed knowledge of their family's former assets.
But the rise of social media has offered new opportunities to track heirs and close the books on one of the darkest chapters of German history.
"We are only just seeing the huge impact that social media will have on Holocaust history," said Robert-Jan Smits, the director-general of the European Union's commission for research and design. "We are moving from dusty archives to digitized databases."
One of the driving forces behind the new push has been Gilad Japhet, CEO and founder of Israel-based MyHeritage, a social media website with about 70 million registered users worldwide that lets individuals build their own family trees online.
Oded Balilty / AP
MyHeritage CEO, Gilad Japhet poses for a portrait at the company offices In the israeli town of Or Yehuda.
A few months back, Japhet read a report about the Claims Conference's list of over 40,000 buildings, stores and factories that could not be matched with their original owners. Japhet matched some names on the list to the millions of names that users had posted on MyHeritage's family trees online.
"I thought my chances of finding any of the names on the website of MyHeritage were not looking good since experts have been searching for them for decades. But I still wanted to give it a chance," Japhet said. "I chose some very rare names from the list and to my surprise the second name I put in was already a match."
Japhet put together a team of five employees and had them write a computer program that automatically matches the names on the Claims Conference's list with those on the virtual family trees. So far, they have been able to match about 150 names on the list with names on the family trees. They expect to continue working on this project for several more months.
In the case of Cati Holland, MyHeritage initially contacted her son-in-law Eran Karoly. He had posted a family tree which included Recha Cohn, Holland's grandmother and the owner of the Berlin store, which was located on the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm boulevard in the western part of the city. Holland's grandparents escaped to South America shortly after the Nazis took over in the early 1930s and ended up in Israel many years later.
Holland filed an application for restitution to the Claims Conference and is now waiting for a response. The level of compensation depends on various factors, such as the value of the property and how many people will apply until 2014.
"I filled out the forms and sent in birth certificates and several photos," Holland said.
The Claims Conference itself says it has "received hundreds of applications" for the Late Applicants Fund but can't say for sure how many of them were due to MyHeritage.
Applicants who qualify for restitution will have to wait until the program's deadline on December 31, 2014, the Claims Conference's chairman Reuven Merhav wrote in an email.
As for Japhet and his team, they have made clear to the claimants that they don't want any money in return for their efforts.
"In my emails to the users, I always write that we don't want any money for doing this, nor part of any restitution they will get," said Japhet. "We do this as a mitzvah ? which in Judaism is a good deed."
AP researcher Randy Herschaft contributed reporting from New York.
? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Stocks open lower as markets await Fed meeting
stocks 
11 minutes ago
Stocks dipped in opening trading on Monday as investors hesitated to jump in ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting and another heavy week for quarterly earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 32 points lower in early morning action, dragged by Boeing, after posting a fifth-consecutive weekly rally last week.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also declined at the open. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded below 13.
Most key S&P sectors opened in the red, led by financials and industrials.
About one-fifth of the S&P 500 companies report earnings in the coming week. About half of the S&P 500 has reported earnings so far, with 68 percent beating earnings estimates, and 56 percent topping revenue forecasts, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
On the economic front, pending home sales data were being reported later on Monday.
However, market attention will mostly be on the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting, which starts on Tuesday and may give an indication of when the central bank's massive asset purchase program will be tailed back. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank will also meet this week.
"All of them are expected to touch on the subject of forward guidance, albeit to various extents," Credit Agricole analysts wrote in a research note. "The clarity of the symphony will determine the level of support to the risk appetite. Should any of them be more explicit (continuing its stimulus policies) about forward guidance, the market can be expected to react in a positive way."
(Read more:Changes to Fed 'forward guidance' could lead to this)
The gross domestic product for the second quarter will be reported on Wednesday and the key payrolls report on Friday.
In Europe, shares traded higher after French food group Danone posted better-than-expected second-quarter revenue. However, shares of Dutch delivery firm TNT fell after it reported a second-quarter operating loss, and Ryanair shares dropped after the budget airline kept its forecast for full-year net profit, but warned of a tough market.
(Read more: No green shoots in southern Europe yet: Ryanair)
European markets were also lifted by the announcement of a $35.1 billion merger between the world's second and third biggest advertising agencies, U.S.-headquartered Omnicom and France's Publicis.
(Read more: Global ad market a buzz over $35 billion new giant)
Earlier, Asian equity markets declined across the board, as renewed fears of an economic slowdown in China hindered gains. Japanese stocks fell to a new four-week low on the back of the strengthening yen. The dollar-yen hit a new one-month low of 97.61 leading to a sell-off across the export-heavy Nikkei index.
? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved
Cambodian opposition rejects poll results, demands inquiry
By Prak Chan Thul
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's main opposition party on Monday rejected election results given by the government, which said long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen's party had won, and called for an inquiry into what it called massive manipulation of electoral rolls.
The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), whose campaign was given a boost by the return from exile of leader Sam Rainsy, said it wanted an investigation committee set up with representatives from the political parties, the United Nations, the election authority and non-governmental organizations.
"There were 1.2 million to 1.3 million people whose names were missing and could not vote. They deleted our rights to vote, how could we recognize this election?" Sam Rainsy told a news conference.
"There were ghost names, names only on paper, over a million people that may been turned into votes. We cannot accept this result," he said.
The CNRP said the committee should report back by August 31.
On Sunday, the government said Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) had won 68 seats in the 123-seat parliament to the CNRP's 55. Even that would have been a huge setback for the authoritarian leader, who has been prime minister for 28 years.
The CPP, backed by a compliant Cambodian media and with superior resources, had been confident of victory.
Analysts, however, had predicted a reduction in its majority after the merger of two main opposition parties, as well as the return of Sam Rainsy.
The CPP had 90 seats in the outgoing parliament and the parties that united to form the CNRP had 29, with minor parties holding the remaining four.
Sam Rainsy called for calm after the government gave the results late on Sunday and thanked the Cambodian people for "their dignified participation in this election".
He appealed to his youthful supporters not to cause trouble. "We call for peace and reconciliation," he said.
Voting on Sunday, like the campaign itself, was for the most part peaceful, although a crowd angered by alleged irregularities set fire to two police cars outside a polling station in the capital, Phnom Penh.
The United Nations organized an election in 1993 that put Cambodia on a rocky path towards stability after decades of turmoil that included the 1975-79 "Killing Fields" rule of the communist Khmer Rouge.
Under Hun Sen, a former junior commander in the Khmer Rouge who broke away during their rule, Cambodia has been transformed into one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economies, helped by garment exports plus aid money and investment from China.
But economic growth has been accompanied by a rise in social tension over poor factory conditions and rural land rights in a country of 14 million people where a third of the people live on less than 65 U.S. cents a day.
(Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Paul Tait)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cambodian-opposition-party-rejects-poll-result-wants-inquiry-032938491.html
Parker scores record 23 to lead West over East
UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) ? Candace Parker put on a show in her All-Star debut.
Parker scored a record 23 points to lead the West to a 102-98 victory over the East on Saturday.
"I didn't know what to expect," Parker said. "I hadn't been to one, and this was really special. Being with all these great players and share stories, that's why I'll remember from this All-Star game more than what happened on the court."
The Los Angeles Sparks star was voted a starter for the 2011 game, but couldn't play because of a knee injury. She also missed the 2009 game because she was still recovering from the birth of her daughter.
"Things happen," Parker said. "I learned not to question them and go on my path and take whatever comes. It happened to work out this way."
The wait was worth it as Parker, who earned the game's MVP honors.
While the award was special, Parker and her West teammates were more excited that got the victory for retiring star Tina Thompson.
"We didn't want her to go out with a loss," said Parker, who was quickly heading back to Los Angeles after the game to get to a family reunion that she was hosting.
Thompson, who made her record ninth All-Star appearance, announced her retirement at the end of the season. She had a rough game missing all five of her attempts from the field, but still enjoyed the moment.
West coach Cheryl Reeve put her back in the lineup with a few seconds left to get one final ovation from the fans.
Parker's stellar game helped the league overcome the loss of Brittney Griner and top vote-getter Elena Delle Donne, who sat out because of injuries. The pair have been an attendance and ratings boon for the league.
Griner has missed Phoenix's last five games with a sprained left knee and Delle Donne suffered a concussion in Chicago's game Wednesday. They were poised to make history as the first pair of rookies from the same class to start the WNBA All-Star game.
But Griner sat on the bench, while Delle Donne recovered at home in Delaware.
"It hurts not being able to play, but I'm having a lot of fun just cheering," Griner said.
Even though the rookies couldn't play, the WNBA had seven other first-time All-Stars in the game. That didn't even include Parker.
Despite joking before the game that she was "too old" to dunk, Parker threw down a few in warmups.
After a quiet first half, she helped rally the West after the break. With her team trailing by 11 early in the third quarter, Parker scored seven straight points. After the foul by Tamika Catchings, Parker flexed her muscles and used a nifty stutter-step from the wing for an easy layup. Parker finished off her run with another lay-in.
After Sparks teammate Kristi Toliver hit back-to-back 3-pointers to the tie game, Ivory Latta hit her own 3-pointers to give the East an 81-74 advantage heading into the final period.
Parker, who finished with 11 rebounds, and Toliver wouldn't let the West lose for the fourth time in the past five All-Star games. Parker broke Swin Cash's All-Star game record of 22 points with a layup midway through the fourth quarter.
East coach Lin Dunn, who it was announced will be inducted into the women's basketball Hall of Fame next year, joked that there was a simple reason her team came up short.
"They had Candace and we didn't," she said laughing.
Trailing 100-98 with 30 seconds left, the East had a chance to take the lead, but Cappie Pondexter missed a 3-pointer. Parker got the rebound and Toliver sealed the win by hitting two free throws.
"I see it every day," Parker said of her Sparks teammate. "She's one of the best shooters ever. I was proud of the way she came out and played within herself."
Toliver, who was playing in her first All-Star game, scored 19 of her 21 points in the second half to help the West rally.
"Being here this weekend was a lot of joy," she said. It was humbling to be here but I feel like I belong."
The game also featured the return of referee cam, with Lamont Simpson wearing a device that looks like a pair of glasses. The veteran official caught a pre-game dance off between the East and West. Maya Moore floored the sell-out crowd by breaking out the old-school dance move the worm. She repeated the move when she was introduced as a starter.
Simpson admitted that after he first wore the ref cam in June, he received a lot of emails and texts from friends.
In the fourth quarter, Simpson approached Latta on the court and joked that "there's never been a technical foul in the history of the All-Star game."
In another first, the game was coached by two women for the only time in its 11-year history. Lin Dunn of Indiana coached the East and Reeve of Minnesota was in charge of the West.
Reeve had four Minnesota Lynx players on her West squad. Moore and Seimone Augustus were voted as starters. Reeve chose Lynx center Rebekkah Brunson to replace Griner in the starting lineup.
Minnesota point guard Lindsay Whalen was the first sub in for the West, replacing Taurasi. That produced four Lynx players, who also were on the 2011 All-Star team, on the court at the same time.
The four Lynx stars combined for 24 of the West's 29 points in the first quarter.
___
Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/parker-scores-record-23-lead-west-over-east-214935002.html
If you're getting a Chromecast, here's everything you need to know!
The Google Chromecast is one of the hot tickets in the tech world right now, and while it has somewhat limited functionality compared to something like an Apple TV, there's a lot to be said for it. It's only $35 for starters, and has cross-platform functionality ? though Google's idea of cross-platform is still limited to ChromeOS and the Chrome browser, iOS and Android. That's great news for us however, as with Netflix and YouTube initially ? and likely Google Play Music when it finally makes the jump to iOS ? supported already, we can get in on the action. So, if you're tempted, keep on scrolling for everything you need to know!
Setup
Our buddies over at Android Central have been playing with the Chromecast for a few days now, and have put together a pretty comprehensive setup guide. On Android there's a handy app available in Google Play to help you get going, but if you're going to be using your Chromecast with your Mac and or your iOS device, you'll need to use the Mac to get setup. Head over to the Google Chromecast page where you'll find a download link for the Chromecast app for your Mac. Once installed, it's a matter of a few simple steps to get your Chromecast dongle set up on your home WiFi network, and then you should be good to go.
Playing your content on your TV
Andrew from Android Central has put together a great walkthrough video on what to do when you're up and running with your Chromecast in order to get your stuff onto your TV. Though demonstrated on an Android device, the basic principles are pretty much the same on iOS, so it's definitely worth a watch.
Netflix is one of the initial partners for Chromecast, and Android Central's Jerry Hildenbrand has tested things out with the Netflix iOS app, and all appears well so far. When your YouTube and Netflix apps are on the same networks as your Chromecast, you should see the magic buttons appear in front of you.
Using the browser
Chromecast can mirror full screen browser tabs from your Mac or PC to your TV in the same way you mirror content from your mobile device. This is very similar to the AirPlay we know and love, though only works for content within the confines of Chrome on your computer. And, with the Google Cast Chrome extension installed, you can also beam YouTube videos over directly from the browser. Pretty neat.
Jump into the forums!
The Android Central forums are buzzing about the Chromecast right now, and is without a doubt the best place you can go to get tips and tricks, share your own thoughts, and generally jump into some great discussions about Google's $35 dongle. As more folks get their hands on one, and more services partner up, the discussions will only get better. And, with your Mobile Nations Passport, you can just head on over there and get started!
Your thoughts
If you've already picked up a Chromecast, or are planning on doing so soon, we'd like to hear your thoughts on it. What is it that attracts you to it, that makes it a compelling purchase for you? In particular, what drives you to the Chromecast over something such as an Apple TV? We'd love to hear from you!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/XXabpLhLFeY/story01.htm
Reports: Syrian Troops, Hezbollah Consolidate Gains in Homs
Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters are reported to be consolidating their control over a key rebel district in the strategic central city of Homs.
State-run television broadcast live coverage Sunday from Khaldiyeh, an embattled northern neighborhood in Homs, saying the army now controlled most of the area. Video showed extensive destruction, including rubble-strewn streets and bodies it says were of fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that "the army and Hezbollah control a major part of Khaldiyeh after having gained ground over the past 24 hours."
The opposition Syrian National Coalition dismissed the reported military advances in Khaldiyeh as "fictitious victories," accusing the government of having extensively bombed the area. The SNC said what it called a "tactical withdrawal" by Free Syrian Army fighters is "not indicative of [President Bashar] al-Assad?s ability to maintain control over the area."
On Saturday, pro-government forces captured the ancient Khalid Ibn al-Walid Mosque in Khaldiyeh, which rebels had controlled for more than a year.
The mosque was a focal point of the anti-government uprising and had been the launch pad for several anti-government demonstrations.
Syrian rebels have controlled much of Homs since the civil war broke out more than two years ago. The main highway from Damascus to the north and Mediterranean coast runs through the city, which is also close to the Lebanese border.
Meanwhile, the SNC, Syria's main exiled opposition group, condemned the reported execution of scores of government soldiers by rebels in a northern Syrian village several days ago and said it was forming a commission of inquiry to investigate the incident.
?
Syrian activists say rebels killed 150 government soldiers, some after they surrendered, last week in the village of Khan al-Assal, outside Aleppo, the country's largest city.
The SNC said initial reports showed "armed groups" not affiliated with the main rebel coalition were involved. It did not elaborate, but the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front says its fighters participated in the battle.
Dear 2013 NFL Season: HURRY UP AND GET HERE!
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Judge deliberates in GI's WikiLeaks trial
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) ? A military judge is deliberating the fate of an Army private accused of aiding the enemy by engineering a high-volume leak of U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors argue that Pfc. Bradley Manning is a glory-seeking traitor. His lawyers say Manning is a naive whistleblower who was horrified by wartime atrocities but didn't know that the material he leaked would end up in the hands of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.
Army Col. Denise Lind began deliberating Friday after nearly two months of conflicting evidence and arguments about the 25-year-old intelligence analyst. A military judge, not a jury, is hearing the case at Manning's request.
Lind said she will give a day's public notice before reconvening the court-martial to announce her findings. The most serious charge is aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence in prison.
Manning's supporters say that a conviction would have a chilling effect on government accountability by deterring people from disclosing official secrets to journalists. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a telephone press conference Friday that if Manning is convicted of aiding the enemy, it will be "the end of national security journalism in the United States."
He accused the Obama administration of a "war on whistleblowers" and a "war on journalism."
Prosecutors contend Manning knew the material would be seen across the globe, including by bin Laden, when he started the leaks in late 2009. Manning said he didn't' start leaking until February 2010.
"Worldwide distribution, that was his goal," said the military's lead prosecutor, Maj. Ashden Fein. "Pfc. Manning knew the entire world included the enemy, from his training. He knew he was giving it to the enemy, specifically al-Qaida."
During closing arguments, defense attorney David Coombs said Manning was negligent in releasing classified material but lacked the "evil intent" that prosecutors must prove to convict him of aiding the enemy.
After Coombs finished his three-hour-long argument, there was a smattering of applause from Manning supporters, who were quickly hushed by the judge.
Meanwhile, Lind banned one of Manning's most visible supporters from the trial Friday "to prevent harm or intimidation" of trial participants. An Army spokeswoman said the subject was a member of the media who posted threatening messages online. Clark Stoeckley, a college art instructor from New Jersey, confirmed he was the one booted.
Stoeckley attended the court-martial as a sketch artist, arriving each day in a white box truck with bold words painted on the sides: "WikiLeaks TOP SECRET Mobile Information Collection Unit."
A tweet Thursday night from an account Stoeckley used said: "I don't know how they sleep at night but I do know where." It was removed Friday and Stoeckley told The Associated Press on Twitter he couldn't comment.
Inside the courtroom, a few spectators smiled ? as did Manning ? when Coombs mocked the testimony of a former supervisor who had said Manning told her the American flag meant nothing to him and that she suspected before they deployed to Iraq that Manning was a spy. Coombs noted that she had not written up a report on Manning's alleged disloyalty, though had written ones on him taking too many smoke breaks and drinking too much coffee.
Manning also faces federal espionage, theft and computer fraud charges. The Crescent, Okla., native has acknowledged giving WikiLeaks some 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and videos. But he says he didn't believe the information would harm troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security.
After his arrest in May 2010, Manning was held alone for nine months in a windowless cell 23 hours a day, sometimes with no clothing. Jailers at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., said they considered him a suicide risk. Lind later ruled Manning had been illegally punished and should get 112 days off any prison sentence he receives.
Coombs' courtroom style was usually deferential and mild-mannered, but he ratcheted up his comments for the closing arguments.
Coombs called the government's final remarks "a diatribe ... fictional ... fantastical," and said it leaped to conclusions and contradicted itself in areas where prosecutors could not prove something with facts.
The defense attorney also countered one of Fein's arguments that attempted to show Manning was seeking fame: A photo Manning took of himself, smiling in front of a mirror while on leave in Maryland. Fein said it showed a "gleeful, grinning" Manning who was proud to have leaked documents and to be "on his way to notoriety," which he wanted.
Coombs asked the judge to take a closer look at the photo, pointing out that Manning was wearing makeup and a bra.
"What you see is a young man who is cross-dressing," Coombs said as Manning's face tightened slightly in a pained look.
"Maybe, just maybe ... he is happy to be himself for that moment," Coombs said of Manning's struggle to fit into the military at a time he was confused about his gender identity and serving openly was illegal for gays.
Coombs also showed three snippets of video from a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack that Manning leaked, showing troops firing on a small crowd of men on a Baghdad sidewalk, killing several civilians, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver. Coombs said the loss of civilian lives shocked and horrified the young soldier.
"You have to look at that from the point of view of a guy who cared about human life," Coombs said.
The verdict and any sentence will be reviewed, and could be reduced, by the commander of the Military District of Washington, currently Maj. Gen. Jeffery S. Buchanan.
___
Associated Press writer Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-deliberates-gis-wikileaks-trial-071825287.html
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Researchers Reveal How Great White Sharks Store Energy
New findings provide novel insights into the biology of these ocean predators.
Written by Rob JordanGreat white sharks are not exactly known as picky eaters, so it might seem obvious that these voracious predators would dine often and well on their migrations across the Pacific Ocean. But not so, according to new research by scientists at Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The researchers' findings, published July 17 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reveal previously unknown details of how great white sharks power themselves and stay buoyant on non-stop trips of more than 2,500 miles. The discoveries have potentially broad implications for conservation and management of coastal waters.
"We have a glimpse now of how white sharks come in from nutrient-poor areas offshore, feed where elephant seal populations are expanding ? much like going to an Outback Steakhouse ? and store the energy in their livers so they can move offshore again," said researcher Barbara Block, a professor of marine sciences and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "It helps us understand how important their near-shore habitats are as fueling stations for their entire life history."
Just as bears put on fat to keep them going through long months of hibernation, ocean-going mammals such as whales and sea lions build up blubber to burn on their long migrations. Until now, little was known about how sharks, which carry fat in their massive livers rather than external blubber, make similar voyages.
In a study initiated by a summer project of Stanford undergraduate student Gen Del Raye, researchers first looked at a well-fed juvenile great white shark at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They documented over time a steady increase in buoyancy as the shark's body mass increased, presumably due to the addition of stored oils in its liver.
The researchers then turned to detailed data records from electronically tagged white sharks free-swimming in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Using these data, which include location, depth and water temperature, the scientists identified periods of "drift diving," a common behavior of marine animals in which they passively descend while momentum carries them forward like underwater hang gliders.
By measuring the rate at which sharks sink during drift dives, the researchers were able to estimate the amount of oil in the animals' livers, which accounts for up to a quarter of their body weight. A quicker descent meant less oil was present to provide buoyancy. A slower descent equated with more oil.
"Sharks face an interesting dilemma," said Sal Jorgensen, a research scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "They carry a huge store of energy in the form of oil in their massive livers, but they also depend on that volume of oil for buoyancy. So, if they draw on those reserves, they become heavier and heavier."
Buoyancy consistently decreased over the course of each studied shark's migration, indicating a gradual but steady depletion of oil in the liver. In other words, they were primarily running on energy stored up before they embarked on their journeys.
"The most difficult thing about this research was finding a way to bring all of the different sources of data together into a coherent and robust story," said Del Raye.
Part of that story is the importance of calorie-stocked coastal feeding grounds, not just for mammals such as whales, but also for sharks readying for long-distance migrations. Could the same be true for other ocean animals such as sea turtles and a variety of fish? The study may help answer that question too through a novel technological approach that can be applied to ongoing studies of other large marine animals.
Rob Jordan is the communications writer for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.?
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Catholics hear pope's call to shake up church
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? In the thick of his historic visit to Brazil this week, Pope Francis urged young Catholics to make a "mess" in their dioceses and break out of their spiritual cages.
Francis' exhortation during a special meeting with Argentine faithful on Thursday, won him acclaim as a renegade leader of the world's biggest church. But it also left many of his followers with their own interpretations of the pontiff's words about the need to shake up the church.
Some said they thought Francis wanted them to object more forcefully when taught ideas that clash with church doctrine. Others said it meant hitting the streets and pushing for social change.
"If in my biology class they speak about abortion, I should raise my hand and say I don't believe in that," said Maria Alejandrina de Dicindio, a 54-year-old Argentine catechism teacher who had traveled to Rio to see her pope, a fellow Argentine. "The youth should open their mouths when it's their turn."
For Mexican pilgrim Gilberto Amado Hernandez, the pope's message meant he should start showing the world Jesus Christ's message of love.
"It's difficult to meet young people who want to get close to Christ," Amado said. "We have to show them that faith is something beautiful."
Francis himself didn't specify what to do, but he has displayed his own mold-breaking ways throughout this week's visit to Rio de Janeiro and rural Sao Paulo state, his first overseas trip as pope.
The first pontiff from the Americas worried security officials by riding through massive crowds atop an open-sided popemobile rather than the fully enclosed, bulletproof vehicle his last two predecessors used. He's also ventured straight up to well-wishers to kiss babies and bless children and met privately Friday with juvenile offenders.
While speaking to his fellow Argentines Thursday, Francis said Catholics should make a concerted effort to get outside their own worlds.
"I want to see the church get closer to the people," he told them. "I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures, because these need to get out."
His final message: "Don't forget: make trouble."
In his own way, he lived those words as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, before being selected as pope in March.
Then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope largely abandoned the kinds of luxuries favored by other high-ranking church officials. He rented out the archbishop's luxurious suburban mansion, living instead in a spartan room in a downtown church office building. He also rode subways and buses around town rather than keep a chauffeur.
Francis' visit to a Rio slum on Thursday wasn't his first such venture. He made regular unescorted trips to dangerous slums as archbishop and saw to it that every major "misery village" in Buenos Aires had a chapel and a priest to spread the Lord's word.
He also encouraged young people and the laity to take on leadership roles in parishes that were previously held by priests, so that church members would have much more say in what happens in their communities. Though the Catholic Church openly supported Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, Francis later approved sainthood investigations for priests who were killed by the military government.
Yet biographer Sergio Rubin said Francis the archbishop also had a very keen sense of politics and took care to act prudently, choosing his battles and avoiding challenging superiors in ways that would backfire.
He wasn't so gleeful and devoted to the crowd, seemingly mindful that he didn't yet have the power to make a big splash in the church, according to an Argentine Catholic official who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to talk publicly about church politics.
Instead, Francis molded the church in Argentina in quieter ways by recruiting and promoting a new generation of outgoing priests in his own model, and not only fellow Jesuits used to living among lay people.
His replacement as archbishop, Mario Poli, had impressed Bergoglio by earning a degree in social work from the public University of Buenos Aires. In a book of dialogues with a friendly rabbi, Francis said, "This is a much better situation, because in the (university) you become acquainted with real life, the different points of view there are about it, the different scientific aspects, cosmopolitanism. . It's a way of having your feet well planted in the earth."
The shake-up message is also one he's applying as pope to the Vatican's staid and dysfunctional bureaucracy. Francis has made clear that big change is on the way, naming commissions of inquiry to investigate the scandals at the Vatican bank and propose an overarching reform of the entire central governance of the Catholic Church.
The pontiff has dived into crowds that have greeted him at the Vatican and in Brazil.
During two raucous rides down Copacabana beach, he's waved, smiled and stopped repeatedly to accept gifts thrown at him from the crowd. At one point, Francis gave away his own white skullcap and put on another one tossed in from the street.
For Argentine student Ana Paula Garrote, Francis was showing Catholics they needed to live that type of spirit.
"For me, the pope wanted to say that we should go out into the streets, not stay in the parishes, and not be ashamed of talking about God," Garrote said.
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Michael Warren reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja contributed to this report from Rio de Janeiro.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/catholics-hear-popes-call-shake-church-070731053.html
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