Fatal shipwreck calls Australia's refugee policy into question

The second such incident in less than a week comes on the heels of an announcement that Australia won't accept new boat arrivals.

By Jeremy Ravinsky,?Correspondent / July 24, 2013

A woman shouts slogans against the Australian Labor Party (ALP) during a rally in support of asylum seekers outside an ALP meeting in Sydney July 22, 2013. Australia announced tough new measures to stem a dramatic increase in refugee boats from Indonesia on Friday, with a deal to send all boat arrivals to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for assessment and eventual settlement. The meeting, to vote on party reforms, is the party's last meeting before federal elections.

Daniel Munoz/Reuters

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Jeremy Ravinsky is an intern at the Christian Science Monitor's international desk. Born and raised in Montreal, Canada, Jeremy has lived in Boston for a number of years, attending Tufts University where he is a political science major. Before coming to the Monitor, Jeremy interned at GlobalPost in Boston and Bturn.com in Belgrade, Serbia.

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Another boat filled with Australia-bound asylum seekers has sunk off the coast of Indonesia. The incident, which has left at least nine people dead, comes almost two weeks?after a similar incident saw the drowning of a 1-year old boy.?

These most recent tragedies throw Australia?s controversial refugee policy into the spotlight, particularly after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd?s announcement last week that all refugees arriving by boat would be turned away.

In this latest incident, authorities believe 204 asylum seekers ? mainly from Sri Lanka, Iran, and Iraq ? boarded a small ship that was only intended to carry 150 passengers in the Indonesian coastal town of Jayanti, reports the Associated Press. The boat, which was headed toward Australia, sank nine hours into the trip. Initial reports indicated that survivors told rescuers there were only about 100 life jackets onboard and that when the boat went down, people who didn't have life jackets clung to pieces of wood.

Indonesia is a popular starting point for refugee hopefuls, as it lies just over 300 miles away from Australia?s Christmas Island.

So far, 189 people have been rescued while nine are confirmed dead, including three children. It is uncertain how many people are still missing.?

Australia is no stranger to tragic incidents involving desperate asylum seekers trying to gain access to the country.?Just two weeks ago, a boat carrying almost 100 migrants, many women and children,?sank off the coast of Christmas Island, reports The Christian Science Monitor. And a 1-year-old baby boy was among the victims.

Since 2009, more than 800 people have drowned trying to make it to Australia, according to figures from the Department of Immigration. Refugee advocates claim the number is much higher because it doesn?t take into account boats that have disappeared without a trace after setting out from the Indonesian island of Java.

Refugee policy is a controversial and oft-debated issue in Australia. The country's history of accepting refugees has come into conflict with concerns over the steep increase in boat arrivals and the implications for Australia?s economy and sovereignty. However, opposition parties have argued that the government's tough stance on the issue has incentivized the use of smugglers, who cram refugees onto boats of dubious quality.

Mr. Rudd announced on July 19, that all refugees arriving in Australia by boat would be transferred to a processing center in Papua New Guinea, where they would remain if their claims were accepted, according to a separate Monitor story last week. More than 15,000 asylum seekers have travelled by boat to Australia this year so far.

Rudd, who came to power last month after unseating former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has not always held such a hardline position. In 2008, he closed down the offshore refugee processing centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea that former Prime Minister John Howard had opened as part of his much criticized ?Pacific Solution,? wrote the Monitor in 2009. Instead, refugees were diverted to Christmas Island, where their asylum claims were heard on Australian territory.

But in the face of increasing boat arrivals, the Australian government reopened the offshore detention facilities in 2012. Now, Rudd has hardened the already controversial policy, in a move that has been harshly criticized ?by human rights groups, with Amnesty International accusing it of shirking its moral obligations to help the world's most vulnerable people,? reports Reuters.

The policy change comes ahead of upcoming elections in November, where the issue of asylum seekers is sure to be important. However, this most recent sinking has not changed Rudd?s stance, according to the BBC.

Mr Rudd said that the sinking underlined the need for a policy shift, saying the government had to send "a very clear message to people-smugglers to stop sending people by boat to Australia."

"We are seeing too many drownings, we are seeing too many sinkings, too many innocent people being lost at sea."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/ef88B7CGMaE/Fatal-shipwreck-calls-Australia-s-refugee-policy-into-question

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Google TV Hackers Open a Shell on the Chromecast; More Hacks To Follow

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Source: slashdot.org --- Sunday, July 28, 2013
Via Engadget comes the news that Google's latest (and quickly sold-out) toy, the Chromecast, may soon be hacked out of one-trick-pony status; just a few days after it came out, the folks at GTV Hacker have successfully turned their attention to the Chromecast, and managed to exploit the device's bootloader and spawn a root shell. Some interesting findings, as explained in their blog post: "[I]t?s actually a modified Google TV release, but with all of the Bionic / Dalvik stripped out and replaced with a single binary for Chromecast. Since the Marvell DE3005 SOC running this is a single core variant of the 88DE3100, most of the Google TV code was reused. So, although it?s not going to let you install an APK or anything, its origins: the bootloader, kernel, init scripts, binaries, are all from the Google TV. We are not ruling out the ability for this to become a Google TV 'stick.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. ...

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DLdH9mv7LFM/story01.htm

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GM fires top powertrain exec, several employees over India emissions testing

Winegarden had been GM's top engine executive since 2004, overseeing the development and production of engines across the company's portfolio. Photo credit: GM

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DETROIT -- General Motors ousted its top powertrain executive over irregularities in the automaker's emission-testing programs in India that have forced it to halt sales of two popular models.

Sam Winegarden, GM's vice president for global engine engineering, was let go this week along with about 10 other GM Powertrain employees in the U.S. and India, sources said.

The departures came in the same week that GM announced the recall of 114,000 Chevrolet Tavera utility vehicles in India to address emission and specification problems. Indian media have reported that GM admitted to government officials that employees deliberately fudged emission inspections to meet standards.

In a statement to Automotive News today, GM confirmed that it has "dismissed several employees" over "violations of company policy" related to the Indian recall. A company spokesman declined to confirm Winegarden's departure.

"We take these matters very seriously and hold our leaders and employees to high standards," GM's statement says. "When those standards are not met, we will take the appropriate action to hold employees accountable."

Winegarden had been GM's top engine executive since 2004, overseeing the development and production of engines across GM's portfolio. He joined the company in 1969 as a co-op student at the Buick Motor Division while attending General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, according to a GM bio. In the early 1990s, he was chief engineer for the Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac Group and oversaw the Northstar V-8 and premium V-6 engine lines. He could not be reached to comment.

The Tavera recall, announced Wednesday, applies to 2.5-liter and 2.0-liter models manufactured between 2005 and 2013. The Tavera is built and sold only in India.

GM CFO Dan Ammann said while discussing GM's second-quarter results on Thursday that weak volume in India and warranty costs there contributed to the 64 percent fall in pretax profit at GM's International Operations, to $228 million.

India's Economic Times business daily reported today that GM India has Indian regulators that employees violated testing procedures in order to meet emission specifications. In some cases, to pass inspections, employees swapped out engines in new Tavera models for lower-emission engines in order to meet specifications, the report said.

In a July 18 letter to Indian regulators, GM wrote: "Over a period of time some employees of the company engaged in the practice of identifying engines with lower emission which were fine-tuned and kept aside to be used for installation on vehicles during inspection," according to the newspaper.

GM also admitted to regulators that the reported weight of several models was "manipulated" so the vehicles would be subject to less stringent emission regulations, the newspaper said. It said the government has set up a committee to investigate the case and that GM could face fines and other penalties.

GM India said it halted production and sale of the 2.5-liter Tavera model on June 4 and the 2.0-liter version on July 2. GM said the issues are not safety related and that the company "has since identified a solution to the issues and performed the required engineering validation, and is awaiting regulatory approvals."

Indian media described the Tavera recall as one of the largest ever in the country and GM's first recall in India since 1995.

In June, GM also suspended production of diesel variants of its Sail hatchback and sedan in India, citing quality-control issues, Indian media have reported. The company has said it plans to resume selling the Sail by the end of July but has not decided whether a recall is necessary, reports have said.

You can reach Mike Colias at mcolias@crain.com.

Source: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130726/OEM02/130729911/gm-fires-top-powertrain-exec-several-employees-over-india-emissions

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Republicans and Democrats Invite Activists to Outrage Camp This August

In two weeks, members of Congress depart Washington for their annual August recess. Since 2009, when nascent Tea Party activists swarmed local events held by senators and representatives to oppose health care reform, the break has been seen as an opportunity for contentious debate and easy media. Since 2009, though, that hasn't really happened on any extensive scale. In large part, it's because the elected officials now try to foster outrage directed at their opponents, which sort of neuters the whole thing.

RELATED: What to Expect When Eric Holder's Expecting a Contempt Vote

But they keep trying. Both Organizing For Action (the newly outfitted Obama campaign organization) and the Republican Party just outlined their plans for safe, controlled, focused fury at the other side.

RELATED: Why Isn't Obama Using Jedi Mind Tricks to Solve the Sequester?

The House Republican Conference dropped a 31-page plan in the laps of its members, entitled "Fighting Washington for all Americans." It's clear that the conference isn't unhappy that the plan leaked (which it did, in full). The document serves as an August roadmap for activism.

RELATED: Five Best Monday Columns

Step one is to write an op-ed. What better way to get people excited than an opinion piece in the local newspaper? "Every day I serve in Congress," the sample text reads, "I work to fight Washington." Which is "why I will be travelling throughout the district in August on my 'Fighting Washington for You' tour." (The savvier elected officials will probably rename their own tours.)

RELATED: It's Now Safe for GOP to Say Obama's Jobs Plan Is Lame

Stops on the tour: Constituent meetings ("Conversation with Groups Potentially Targeted by the IRS"), forums ("Millennial Health Care Forum"), issue tours ("Main Street Tour #4Jobs"), town hall meetings ("Emergency Health Care Town Hall," "Emergency Town Hall: Stopping Government Abuse"). For each stop, the guide walks through Organizing 101: email people in advance, alert the press, so on. And tips: "Include visuals in the room, such asa backdrop that includes appropriate hashtags or charts with statistics and facts." An example of a hashtag is "#4Jobs."

RELATED: In Praise of Hostage Taking

The guide asks that members focus on areas in which the party is "on offense." Namely, health care, energy, jobs, and oversight. ?The guide is so specific in its town hall topics for a reason: Agitators can be told that their core issue is off-topic and to swing by the district office later in the week. Any yelling at the GOP events this time, it is hoped, will be at elected officials not in the room.

We'll see how that works. That list, you'll note, omits immigration reform, which?Tea Party activists?earlier this month?promised to raise as an issue during August events.?There's almost no chance that the House will have resolved the issue before the break begins, and even if it does, there's basically zero chance that differences between a House bill and a Senate bill could be resolved. Whether or not House leadership wants it, it seems likely that immigration will come up during one of those emergency town halls.

Especially if Organizing For Action brings its plan to fruition. Last night, the organization announced to a room of supporters that it was preparing for "Action August," according to Politico.

OFA?s preparing a range of under-the-national-radar tactics in conjunction with heading for town halls. Rallies, flyering and district office demonstrations will be aimed at drawing the same sort of local attention that tea party groups managed four years ago, hoping to spook members of Congress worried about the 2014 midterms.

That campaign will begin on August 4, with events promoting healthcare reform. That's one of the focal points of OFA's push, which also includes "climate change, gay marriage, gun control, immigration reform ??and, in targeted states like Texas, reproductive and women?s rights." Politico suggests that the disparate nature of those priorities ??which lacks the cohesive theme of, say, "fighting Washington" ? could hamper organizing efforts. For progressives, this is a tale as old as time. As is OFA's response: "Staff says they?ll avoid dictating from Chicago what shape the efforts take, instead facilitating with organizing information and best practices that will grow out of experiences they?ve had so far."

While OFA's intent is to bolster the policy priorities of the president, its priority list doesn't overlap entirely. On Wednesday, twelve days before the recess begins, the president will unveil a big push on the budget and economy ??not exactly subjects conducive to energetic grass roots activism, but clearly ones that will rise in importance once elected officials return to Washington.

Prompting the question: What's the point? Even the heralded Tea Party push of 2009 failed to block healthcare reform. Where's the indication that activism on tangential issues during the doldrums of August ??particularly activism undertaken with the blessing of the elected officials ??will result in policy? In some ways, the detailed GOP proposal and OFA theme seem more like rival summer camps: something to do, replete with activities, that's then largely forgotten once school starts again. But you'll always have the memories.

Photo: A Tea Party rally in early 2009. (AP)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-democrats-invite-activists-outrage-camp-august-141500463.html

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Smokey the Bear Meets the 21st Century in These Firefighting UAVs

Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. But that doesn't stop them from happening with frightening regularity and increasingly destructive force. To better understand and predict the atmospheric conditions that lead to these wildfires, one research team wants to float an armada of disposable, self-guided sensor-toting UAVs into the flames' maw. Finally, all those years of making paper airplanes in the back of the class are finally paying off.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Y5SIx6jkbLY/smokey-the-bear-meets-the-21st-century-in-these-firefig-873241341

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Bill Clinton 'sings' big summer hit 'Blurred Lines'

20 hours ago

When you blur the lines between fantasy and reality as well as the folks at baracksdubs, it's clear where former President Bill Clinton comes down in the song-of-the-summer battle.

By mixing Clinton's words over Robin Thicke's hit "Blurred Lines," baracksdubs has hit viral video gold once again. The YouTube channel describes the new creation as "the womanizer of womanizers" singing "the other song of the summer."

Parts of Clinton speeches are used to create such lyrical snippets as: "But you're a good girl / The way you grab me / Must wanna get nasty / Go ahead, get at me."

But the highlight might be when President Obama is briefly added to the mix at the :25 mark, singing part of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" from a campaign event in New York in January 2012.

With 104 million views on YouTube, "Blurred Lines" has been a popular choice for video mash-ups all summer. The song was played over the top of re-imagined intros for "The Cosby Show" and "Full House." And Jimmy Kimmel got in on the act, among others.

Baracksdubs previously dubbed Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" the song of the summer, and mixed the president over yet another Pharrell Williams hit, below.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/bill-clinton-sings-big-summer-hit-blurred-lines-6C10720162

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Carbon Energy Ltd. (CNXAY: OTCQX International) | Home Country News Release - Carbon Energy Signs MOU for UCG Project in Argentina

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Home Country News Release - Carbon Energy Signs MOU for UCG Project in Argentina

Jul 23, 2013

OTC Disclosure & News Service

Milton, QL, Australia - Carbon Energy Ltd. has filed a Home Country News Release - Carbon Energy Signs MOU for UCG Project in Argentina To view the full release click here (link to PDF).

The above news release has been provided by the above company via the OTC Disclosure and News Service. Issuers of news releases and not OTC Markets Group Inc. are solely responsible for the accuracy of such news releases.

Source: http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/CNXAY/news?id=66252

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Deal of the Day: LLOYD Flex Case for HTC One

The July 22 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the LLOYD Flex Case for HTC One. Made from shock absorbent and scratch resistant TPU, the Flex Case provides great protection for the HTC One from day to day use and drops. This case features a slim design and our very own Lloyd mascot on the back. Color options include black, clear, smoke and green.

The LLOYD Flex Case is available for just $8.00, 60% off today only. Backed by our 60-day return policy and fast shipping!

Never miss a deal. Sign up for Daily Deal alerts

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/aJr6Gq_NHgM/story01.htm

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Proteomics can improve breast cancer treatment - Medical Xpress

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a protein that could help physicians decide what type of therapy patients with hormone driven breast cancer should go through. In a study, published in Nature Communications, they show that high levels of a protein called retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARA) in breast tumors can be linked to an insufficient response to the cancer drug tamoxifen. The findings are based on a novel proteomics technique, developed at the Science for Life Laboratory.

About 80% of all breast cancer tumors depend on the female hormone estrogen to grow. Estrogen acts by binding to so-called estrogen receptors (ER) in cancer cell. Substances that block the action of estrogen have been shown to prevent the growth of many of these tumors. The goal after surgery is to prevent the growth of any cancer cell that might still be in the body after surgery. A common drug used for this purpose is tamoxifen, which blocks the action of estrogen in the breast tissue by binding to the ER of breast cells.

"This drug has been shown to be very effective, however about one third of the patients do not respond to treatment and their breast tumors return", says Dr. Henrik Johansson, first author of the Nature Communications publication. "In our study, we show that in these cases the breast tumors often contain high amounts of RARA, which indicates that this protein has an important role in hormone driven breast cancer."

Under the management of Associate Professor Janne Lehti?, the research team behind the current study has put a lot of effort into studying resistance mechanism in breast cancer. This time researchers aimed to find markers that separate the groups of patients that will benefit from tamoxifen treatment from those that do not. Amongst other things, they studied protein quantities in breast cancer cell lines and made a comparison between cell lines resistant and sensitive to tamoxifen, respectively.

"In our laboratory we have developed a method that improves protein detection, which makes it possible to detect small differences in protein levels for a large number of proteins in tumor cells", says Dr. Janne Lehti?. "With this method we found many interesting proteins, of which one is RARA."

The team continued to investigate RARA in two independent groups of breast cancer patients. The results show that patients with breast cancer tumors containing high levels of RARA had an increased risk of tumor recurrence, compared to patients with low levels of the protein.

"The relationship between RARA and ER is complex, and something we will continue to investigate", says Janne Lehti?. "However, we believe that we have identified a way to tailor breast cancer treatment to fit the individual patient, and that there also are other possibilities for technology development, which may benefit public health care in the future."

The technique used in this project, so-called quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomics, has been developed by the researchers in collaboration with the Swedish pharmaceutical company GE Healthcare. Janne Lehti?'s research group is based at the Department of Oncology-Pathology at Karolinska Institutet as well as at the Swedish national research facility Science for Life Laboratory. Researchers from Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg, Link?ping University and Karolinska University Hospital, Solna in Stockholm County also took part in the study. The Swedish Research Council, the European Union's seventh frame program and the Swedish Cancer Society, amongst other bodies, funded the research.

Explore further: Osteoporosis drug stops growth of breast cancer cells, even in resistant tumors

More information: Nature Communications, online 19 July 2013, doi: 10.1038/ncomms3175

Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-07-proteomics-breast-cancer-treatment.html

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X-Men: Before The Last Stand.

Character Relationships:

Kitty Pryde and Bobby Drake are dating.

Jessie Liles and Evan Danials( Spyke) Are going to eventually date.

Kitty Pryde and Jessie Liles( who is taken by me) are friends.

Bobby Drake and Spyke are friends.

Spyke and Kitty are friends.

Bobby and Jessie are friends.

Rogue and Jessie are sort of friends.

Kitty and Rogue are friend/enemies.

Rogue and Spyke are enemies.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/mU5o5cD6bd4/viewtopic.php

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Todd: Bring baseball back to Montreal

MONTREAL - It was somewhere between Yoenis C?spedes clouting the bejeepers out of Bryce Harper in the Home Run Derby and Chris Sale on the mound in the All-Star game itself, dangling like a skeleton from a coat-hanger and throwing pitches that are outlawed between consenting adults in Georgia.

That?s when it hit me: I miss baseball. Not baseball on television ? even without the pricey packages, there?s more than enough. I mean baseball that is 30 minutes away by m?tro, baseball with players you care about, baseball where you can smell the popcorn, see the second baseman cheating to the bag, dodge the occasional screaming foul ball.

Because baseball may be gone from Montreal ? but it isn?t dead.

Funny how baseball (?poor, schnooky baseball,? George Vecsey once called it) hangs around, even in a town where every 9-year-old can recite the numbers in Ryan White?s contract.

Funny too how the Expos seem more alive today than they did that sad day when they played their last game at the Big O.

If you were watching the Jays and the Rays Saturday afternoon, you probably saw the ExposNation crew in left field, a thousand Expos fans making Major League Baseball sit up and take notice.

?Today,? said Matthew Ross, chairman of the ExposNation Committee, ?was a clear demonstration that Expos fans are still passionate about their team and want baseball back in Montreal.

?Our hope is that this event will lead to sponsorship in order for us to put on related events, to further the cause of bringing a MLB team back here.

?We want to start a season-ticket drive to present to prospective investors and the government.?

A cynic might say the Expos had a stronger presence in Toronto this weekend than they had at the Big O during the last years of their existence ? but this isn?t a time to be cynical.

Personally, I would love to see Major League Baseball back in Montreal and I would do anything in my power to make it happen.

Unfortunately, that ?in my power? does not include the ability to kick in a billion dollars to help revive the Expos.

But my name isn?t Stephen Bronfman, Pierre Karl P?ladeau, Geoff Molson or Guy Lalibert?. There is plenty of goodwill toward an Expos revival waiting to be tapped. It?s a very long way from there to a reborn franchise ? but a deep-pockets investor with a bunch of zeros after his name could close that gap in a hurry.

Meanwhile, out in red-state Alberta: Those were your Montreal Alouettes in Calgary Saturday night, pulling an epic, history-making fold, somehow turning a 24-point first-quarter lead into a 38-27 loss.

We?re tempted to say that, right now, the Expos look more alive than the Alouettes. This was uglier than last call at a trailer-trash roadhouse in Tulsa.

At that, the Als might have pulled it out after blowing the lead ? but with Noel Devine about to score on a kick return, Fred Bennett punched the ball out, Alvin Bowen recovered in the end zone and the Stamps took the ball the other way for a touchdown.

If you didn?t have doubts before, it?s OK to have them now. GM Jim Popp made a brilliant head-coaching hire by thinking outside the box when he brought in Marc Trestman.

This time, he may have gone too far outside the box with Dan Hawkins, a coach with no previous pro experience and little success at the college level.

Game after game, the Alouettes are getting bulldozed in the third quarter, a sign that whatever adjustments Hawkins and offensive co-ordinator Mike Miller are making at halftime, the coaches in the opposing dressing room are out-thinking them.

Trestman might be a walking clich? machine who says ?each and every day? at least 100 times each and every day. He?s also a brilliant coach and he was especially brilliant working with Anthony Calvillo.

Hawkins? As someone said on Twitter yesterday ? so far, Hawkins is Joe Galat to Trestman?s Marv Levy.

Waitin? for the Wings: The best part of the new NHL realignment is that we?ll get to see far more of the Detroit Red Wings. The worst part is that the Canadiens will now have to battle the Wings for a playoff spot.

But unless I?m blind as well as dumb, the new schedule doesn?t have the Habs meeting the Red Wings until Jan. 24 ? and Detroit won?t visit Montreal until Feb. 26. The teams will meet again in Detroit on March 27 and at the Bell Centre on April 5, with a week left in the season.

Personally, I would much rather sacrifice the home-and-home with teams like Nashville, Columbus and Phoenix in return for more of Detroit, Toronto and Boston ? but it won?t happen this year. Other than those late-season meetings with Detroit, the most interesting date on the schedule is Oct. 24, when the Anaheim Ducks, with Saku Koivu signed to a new, one-year deal, will come to the Bell Centre.

Lies, rumours and vicious innuendo: Didn?t find the Tour de France as compelling as the Giro d?Italia this year ? but winner Chris Froome is definitely the anti-Lance Armstrong. Maybe we can?t be absolutely certain that Froome is clean but at least he?s human, humble and sweet-tempered ? three things you?ll never say about Armstrong. ?

Isn?t it sweet to see nice guy Phil Mickelson win another major? Mickelson gets the win and 10 per cent of the media coverage ? while 90 per cent goes to Tiger Woods and the relentlessly self-promoting Lindsey Vonn, who has finally found a way to get her picture on every sports-related website in the universe. ?

Another date to circle on your NHL calendar is Jan. 14, when Koivu?s Ducks meet the Kings outdoors in Los Angeles. To be followed, five months later, by the Stanley Cup final ? outdoors in Qatar. ?

Now Sepp Blatter wants to move the absurd Qatar World Cup from summer to winter. What? And miss a chance to see English soccer hooligans perishing while facing 120-degree heat without their customary 20 pints a day? ?

Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel might not be a big idiot like Ryan Leaf. But he is definitely a little idiot. ?

And our newest addition to the Fennis Dembo Hall of Fame, a golfer who is already one of the immortals: Kiradech Aphibarnrat.

Heroes: Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana, Richie Porte, Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, Hideki Matsuyama, Steve Williams, Blake Geoffrion, Yoenis C?spedes, Manny Machado, Yasiel Puig, Chris Sale, Chris Davis, Miguel Cabrera, Clayton Kershaw, ExposNation, Scott Flory and last but not least, Kiradech Aphibarnrat ? just because.

Zeros: Tiger Woods, Lindsey Vonn, Chris Xuereb, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Lance Armstrong, Victor Cruz, Charles Barkley, interleague baseball, the designated hitter, Bryce Harper, Johnny Manziel, Pierre Gauthier, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.

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Twitter: jacktodd46

Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F299/~3/qRtqtPH1Ctw/story.html

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Strong earthquake in western China kills 47 people

BEIJING (AP) ? A strong earthquake in a dry, hilly farming area in western China knocked down power lines and damaged scores of homes early Monday, killing at least 47 people and injuring nearly 300, the local government said.

The quake hit near the city of Dingxi in Gansu province, a region of mountains, desert and pastureland. Residents described shaking windows and swinging lights but little major damage and little panic. Tremors were felt in the provincial capital of Lanzhou 177 kilometers (110 miles) north, and as far away as Xi'an, 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the east.

"You could see the chandeliers wobble and the windows vibrating and making noise, but there aren't any cracks in the walls. Shop assistants all poured out onto the streets when the shaking began," said a front desk clerk at the Wuyang Hotel in the Zhang County seat about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the epicenter. The clerk surnamed Bao refrained from identifying herself further, as is common among ordinary Chinese.

With a population of 26 million, Gansu is one of China's more lightly populated provinces, although the New Jersey-sized area of Dingxi has a greater concentration of farms in rolling hills terraced with fields for crops and fruit trees. Dingxi has a total population of about 2.7 million.

The deaths and injuries were reported in Min County and other rural southern parts of the municipality, Dingxi Mayor Tang Xiaoming told state broadcaster CCTV. Tang said damage was worst in the counties of Zhang and Min, where scores of homes were damaged and telephone and electricity services knocked out.

Su Wei, leader of a 120-member rescue team from the paramilitary People's Armed Police, told state broadcaster CCTV that they were on their way to the epicenter, but progress was being slowed by mud and rock slides blocking the road.

The Chinese Red Cross said it was shipping 200 tents, 1,000 sets of household items, and 2,000 jackets to the area and sending teams from both Lanzhou and Beijing to help with relief work and assess further needs.

Heavy rain is expected in the area later in the week, raising the need for shelter and increasing the chance of further landslides.

The government's earthquake monitoring center said the initial quake at 7:45 a.m. (2345 GMT Sunday) was magnitude-6.6 and subsequent tremors included a magnitude-5.6.

The quake was shallow, which can be more destructive. The center said it struck about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) beneath the surface, while the Gansu provincial earthquake administration said it was just 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) deep.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude of the initial quake as 5.9 and the depth at 10 kilometers (6 miles).

Initial measurements of an earthquake can vary widely, especially if different monitoring equipment is used.

Dingxi is about 1,233 kilometers (766 miles) west of Beijing.

China's worst earthquake in recent years was a 7.9-magnitude temblor that struck the southwestern province of Sichuan in 2008, leaving 90,000 people dead or missing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/strong-earthquake-western-china-kills-47-people-060214683.html

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Europe investigates Apple's iPhone tactics: Report

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Source: http://technolog-discuss.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/20/19587561-europe-investigates-apples-iphone-tactics-report

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After 3 bodies found, Ohio police to resume search

Law enforcement and FBI stand at the back of a boarded-up home where bodies were found earlier in the day Saturday, July 20, 2013 in East Cleveland, Ohio. Police say three bodies have been found in plastic bags in East Cleveland. Police Commander Mike Cardilli said a woman's body was found Friday in a garage and two other bodies were found Saturday _ one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Joshua Gunter) MANDATORY CREDIT; NO SALES

Law enforcement and FBI stand at the back of a boarded-up home where bodies were found earlier in the day Saturday, July 20, 2013 in East Cleveland, Ohio. Police say three bodies have been found in plastic bags in East Cleveland. Police Commander Mike Cardilli said a woman's body was found Friday in a garage and two other bodies were found Saturday _ one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Joshua Gunter) MANDATORY CREDIT; NO SALES

A investigator looks through a boarded-up house on Shaw Ave. near the location where bodies were found earlier in the day Saturday, July 20, 2013 in East Cleveland, Ohio. The house is on the northwest corner of the intersection of Shaw Ave. and Hayden Ave. Police say three bodies have been found in plastic bags in East Cleveland. Police Commander Mike Cardilli said a woman's body was found Friday in a garage and two other bodies were found Saturday _ one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Joshua Gunter) MANDATORY CREDIT; NO SALES

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) ? Police plan to expand their search Sunday for possibly more victims after three bodies were found wrapped in plastic bags in a Cleveland suburb.

The bodies, believed to be female, were found about 100 to 200 yards apart, and a 35-year-old man was arrested and is a suspect in all three deaths, though he has not yet been charged, East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said Saturday.

The suspect is a registered sex offender and has served prison time, the mayor said. In police interviews, the man led them to believe he might have been influenced by convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell, Norton told The Associated Press.

"He said some things that led us to believe that in some way, shape, or form, Sowell might be an influence," the mayor said.

Sowell was found guilty in 2011 of killing 11 women and hiding their remains around his Cleveland home from June 2007 to July 2009. Police found their mostly nude bodies throughout the house after a woman escaped and said she had been raped in there.

Sowell's victims ranged in age from 24 to 52, all were recovering or current drug addicts and most died of strangulation; some had been decapitated, and others were so badly decomposed that coroners couldn't say with certainty how they died.

Prosecutors described him in court papers as "the worst offender in the history of Cuyahoga County and arguably the State of Ohio." He was sentenced to death.

On Saturday, Police Commander Mike Cardilli announced that a woman's body had been found Friday in a garage and two other bodies were found a day later ? one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house.

All three people are believed to have been killed in the last six to 10 days.

Police did not know the identities of the three victims. Norton said police believe the three were female, although the bodies had not yet been examined by the medical examiner.

Norton said the bodies were each in the fetal position, wrapped in several layers of trash bags. He said detectives continue to interview the suspect, who used his mother's address in Cleveland in registering as a sex offender, the mayor said.

Cardilli said the man was arrested after a standoff with police Friday. Police did not immediately release the suspect's name. He was jailed in East Cleveland, the mayor said.

"The person in custody, some of the things he said to investigators made us go back today," the mayor said.

Police searched vacant houses over about three blocks in the neighborhood Saturday and planned to expand their search Sunday, Norton said.

The police, FBI, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department went through yards and abandoned houses and used dogs trained to find cadavers.

The neighborhood in East Cleveland, which has some 17,000 residents, has many abandoned houses and authorities want to be thorough, the mayor said.

"Hopefully, we pray to God, this is it," he said.

The Cleveland area has had its share of gruesome news in recent years. In May, three women who separately vanished a decade ago were found captive in a run-down house. Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, has been charged with nearly 1,000 counts of kidnap, rape and other crimes.

Castro is accused of repeatedly restraining the women, sometimes chaining them to a pole in a basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. The charges say one of the women tried to escape and he assaulted her with a vacuum cord around her neck. He also fathered a daughter with one captive, authorities said.

He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-07-21-Ohio%20Bodies/id-041e00a2f00240e29d347418c97139da

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A sus 91 a?os, Expectaci?n busca 6.900 euros para exhumar a su madre asesinada de dos tiros el 20 de julio del 36

Dos disparos de la Guardia Civil acabaron con su vida el 20 de julio de 1936 cuando recorr?a las calles de Sos del Rey Cat?lico en busca de su hija. Con 91 a?os, Expectaci?n quiere exhumar los restos de su madre para enterrarlos dignamente, y busca ayuda econ?mica con una campa?a de crowdfunding en la red.

El 19 de julio de 1936, una columna formada por militares y guardias de asalto llegaba a la comarca zaragozana de las Cinco Villas para someter a la poblaci?n. Un d?a despu?s entraban en Sos del Rey Cat?lico.

Un grupo de civiles armados se enfrent? a las fuerzas franquistas a las afueras del pueblo. Hubo dos muertos y varios heridos. Horas m?s tarde, cuando terminaron los disparos y la localidad viv?a una tensa calma, una mujer vestida de negro sali? de casa y recorri? angustiada las calles en busca de su hija menor, Expectaci?n.

Minutos despu?s se oy? el sonido seco de un disparo. Luego, son? otro. Los dos alcanzaron a la mujer por la espalda y qued? tendida en el suelo. Ambos disparos salieron del cuartelillo de la Guardia Civil.

Se llamaba Saturnina Arbea Villacampa, y a la noche fue enterrada de forma an?nima en el cementerio municipal sin avisar a sus familiares. Expectaci?n Morch?n, de 91 a?os, intenta recoger los pocos miles de euros que necesitan para exhumar los restos de su madre y enterrarla dignamente.

Entidades por la Memoria Hist?rica tienen localizados sus restos, cuentan con todos los permisos necesarios y pretenden iniciar la exhumaci?n de Saturnina este verano, para lo que han iniciado una campa?a de crowdfunding con la que recaudar los 6.900 euros necesarios, de los que ya han recaudado m?s del 60%.

Source: http://elventano.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-sus-91-anos-expectacion-busca-6900.html

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Michael Buble will NOT be singing at your wedding! *cries

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Source: www.heatworld.com --- Saturday, July 20, 2013
Michael Buble has made a name for himself as being (let's face it) a bit of a romantic so who?s better than him to sing at your Wedding? But Buble wants people to know he doesn't do weddings. *Slowly wipes... ? ? ? ? ...

Source: http://heatworld.feedsportal.com/c/34180/f/619442/s/2ef043d3/l/0L0Sheatworld0N0CCeleb0ENews0C20A130C0A70CMichael0EBuble0Ewill0ENOT0Ebe0Esinging0Eat0Eyour0Ewedding0Ecries0C/story01.htm

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All in the eyes: Disney Research demos technology for richly ... - Phys

Face-to-face communication begins with the eyes, a crucial factor in the design of interactive physical characters. By employing 3D printing, Disney Research, Pittsburgh has developed a new technology that is uniquely expressive, robust and adaptable for creating interactive characters' eyes.

The technology, PAPILLON, will be demonstrated at ACM SIGGRAPH 2013, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, July 21-25 in Anaheim, California.

The classic approach in the entertainment industry is to build mechanically actuated eyes. Though these animatronic eyes can be compelling, they are complex, expensive and difficult to scale down to small characters. The animatronic approach also isn't suitable for characters derived from animated movies or cartoons whose eyes are non-realistic and highly exaggerated.

An alternative, video projection, can be very expressive; it's possible, for instance, to project hearts onto the eyes to express affection, or question marks to suggest confusion. They also don't have moving parts. But creating an optical path to the eyes is difficult in small characters and projection doesn't always work well for complex faces or for eyes that stick out or are deeply sunk into the face.

The advent of 3D printing, however, has made it possible to create customized optical elements, or "printed optics." These elements include such structures as light pipes, which can direct and bend light much like a fiber optical element. PAPILLON can thus enable video projection in even small characters and at a fraction of the cost of bundled fiber optics, said Eric Brockmeyer, a Disney Research, Pittsburgh research associate. Printed optics also enables unusual eye shapes and placements.

For the SIGGRAPH demonstration, the Disney Research, Pittsburgh team has created three characters ? Beep, Boop and their dog-like pet Iggy ? that are each about the size of softball. Though immobile, they have wildly expressive eyes. The characters respond to the gestures of human visitors and will demonstrate a broad range of possible interactions, such as playing music together.

"One of our goals was to create minimal displays, to figure out how much resolution do you really need to express emotion," Brockmeyer said. "It turns out you really don't need that much to convey a compelling interactive experience."

The arbitrary shapes of the display surface made possible by 3D printing would create a challenge for conventional video projection, but the PAPILLON team developed an algorithm based on Fibonacci spirals that minimizes distortions and other visible artifacts when images are projected onto the eyes.

"PAPILLON is a technology that is scalable and flexible," said Ivan Poupyrev, a senior research scientist who leads the interaction team at Disney Research, Pittsburgh. "We envision it being used for building interactive toys, supplemental characters for videogames, robots or perhaps eventually even human prosthetic eyes."

In addition to Poupyrev and Brockmeyer, the research team included Moshe Mahler, James Krahe, Yuri Suzuki and Alex Rothera of Disney Research, Pittsburgh and Joanne Dauner, Disney Research, Pittsburgh intern and visual communications student at the Berlin University of Arts.

Explore further: Disney's magical vision calls for 3-D printed optical elements (w/ Video)

Provided by Disney Research

Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-eyes-disney-demos-technology-richly.html

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Cancer survivor's dream helps bring tumor-detecting technology to Cook Children's

by STEVE STOLER

WFAA

Posted on July 19, 2013 at 6:42 PM

Updated yesterday at 12:38 AM

A little girl who survived brain cancer wanted to give other children a better chance of surviving, so she and her family went on a $4-million mission.

Austin Roberts was six years old when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Doctors in Los Angeles removed her tumor. Neurosurgeons used what's known as intraoperative MRI, allowing them to see high resolution images of Roberts' brain during surgery.

"If they would of gone into surgery and not known how close it was to the motor cortex and damage that area, I would've been paralyzed on the left side of my body," Roberts said.

Now 18, Roberts leads a normal life. She's cancer-free and ready to start college. Once cured of cancer, she and her family set out on a five-year mission to raise $4.5 million to bring the same iMRI technology to Cook Children's hospital in Fort Worth.

"So, if you get all the tumor out that's a big deal because that means your patient is probably cured," said Dr. Dave Donahue, a neurosurgeon at Cook Children?s.

By 2007, Roberts' dream was realized. As a result, neurosurgeons at Cook Children's performed their 500th surgery this week using the technology that allows them to better see tumors as they operate, so they can remove all of it.

"It makes me so happy that what I went through is coming out to benefit others," she said.

Donahue believes using iMRI has resulted in shorter hospital stays and fewer repeat surgeries to remove parts of tumors left behind.

Email sstoler@wfaa.com

Source: http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Brain-cancer-patients-dream-realized--effective-tumor-detecting-technology-at-Cook-Childrens-216219001.html

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To Avoid Looking Like A Criminal, Don't Commit ... - Right Wing News

Written By : Ann Coulter
July 18, 2013

Black liberals keep bemoaning the danger to their own teenage sons after the ?not guilty? verdict in George Zimmerman?s murder trial. To avoid what happened to Trayvon Martin, their boys need only follow this advice: Don?t walk up to a stranger and punch him, ground-and-pound him, MMA-style, and repeatedly smash his head against the pavement.

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The Justice-for-Trayvon crowd keeps pretending there hasn?t been a trial where the evidence overwhelmingly showed that Trayvon committed the first (and only) crime that night by assaulting Zimmerman. Instead, the race agitators are sticking with the original story peddled by the media, back when we had zero facts. To wit, that Zimmerman had stalked a young black child and shot him dead just for being black and wearing a hoodie.

Dozens of these hair-on-fire racism stories are retold in my book,?Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. In the golden age of racial demagoguery, they came at a pace of about one a year. Al Sharpton was usually involved.

A normal person would hear some of the more outlandish allegations and think, ?I can?t believe it!? not meaning, ?Wow! What a blockbuster story!? but rather, ?I would like to hear the facts because I literally don?t believe it.? (That was much of America?s reaction to the media?s claim last year that a neighborhood-watch captain in Florida had hunted down a black teenager and shot him dead just for wearing a hoodie.)

Whenever a much-celebrated claim of racism turned out to be false ? which was almost always ? you?d just stop hearing about it. There would never be a clippable story admitting that the media?s harrumphing had been in error:?Attention, readers! That story we?ve been howling about for several months turned out to be a complete fraud.

A little time would pass, and then we?d get an all-new, excited ?America is still racist? media campaign. Journalists are incapable of learning that they should get all the facts before launching moral crusades.

As a result, the official record shows: A few hate crimes and some unverified hate crimes with no clear resolution one way or another. As long as the fraudulent hate crimes didn?t get counted as strikeouts, liberals always looked like Ted Williams.

Since they didn?t keep an accurate batting average, I did it for them in?Mugged.

The case most like George Zimmerman?s is the Edmund Perry case. In 1985, Perry, a black teenager from Harlem who had just graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, mugged a guy who turned out to be an undercover cop. He got shot and a few hours later was dead.

Instead of waiting for the facts, the media rushed out with a story about Officer Lee Van Houten being a trigger-happy, racist cop. When that turned out to be false, The New York Times looked at its shoes. It was the kind of story the elites wanted to be true. It should be true.?We had such high hopes for that one. Damn!

The initial news accounts stressed not only that Perry was a graduate of Exeter on his way to Stanford, but that he was unarmed. (In all white-on-black shootings, the media expect the white to have RoboCop-like superpowers to detect any weapons on the perp as well as his resume.)

A few weeks after the shooting, The New York Times called Perry ?a prized symbol of hope.? In a telling bit of obtuseness, The Times said that ?all New Yorkers have extraordinary reasons to wish for the innocence of the young man who was killed.? I doubt very much that the cop being accused of being a murderous racist hoped for that.

An article in The Village Voice explained: ?[L]ike so many other victims in this city,? Perry was ?just too black for his own good.?

Luckily for the policeman, Perry had mugged him in a well-lit hospital parking lot. Twenty-three witnesses backed the officer?s story in testimony to the grand jury. (Unlike Zimmerman, Van Houten?s case was at least presented to a grand jury.)

As I wrote in ?Mugged?: ?God help Officer Van Houten if he had been mugged someplace other than a hospital parking lot with plenty of witnesses.? Such as, for example, a dark pathway in The Retreat at Twin Lakes. There weren?t 23 witnesses backing Zimmerman?s story, only about a half-dozen. But, as with Van Houten, the evidence overwhelmingly corroborated Zimmerman?s story.

In Van Houten?s case, even after it was blindingly clear that Perry had mugged him, the truth was only revealed amid great sorrow. When the facts were unknown, the cop was a racist. When it turned out Perry had mugged the cop, it was no one?s fault, but a problem of ?violence,? ?confusion? and ?two worlds? colliding.

Perhaps, someday, blacks will win the right to be treated like volitional human beings. But not yet.

As with Zimmerman?s case this week, some journalists pretended to have missed the court proceedings that supported the self-defense story. Even after the grand jury?s refusal to indict Van Houten, Dorothy J. Gaiter of the Miami Herald wrote about Perry in an article titled ?To Be Black and Male Is Dangerous in U.S.? She asked: ?How do you teach a boy to be a man in a society where others may view him as a threat just because he is black??

Van Houten said he was jumped, knocked to the ground, punched and kicked by Edmund Perry. Grand jury witnesses backed his story. Isn?t it possible that Van Houten saw Perry as a threat for reasons other than ?just because he is black??

(And please stop talking about Martin?s ?hoodie?! Zimmerman wasn?t worried about the hoodie; he was worried about being beaten to death.)

Instead of turning every story about a black person killed by a white person into an occasion to announce, ?The simple fact is, America is a racist society,? liberals might, one time, ask the question:?Why do you suppose there would be a generalized fear of young black males? What might that be based on?

Throw us a bone. It?s because a disproportionate number of criminals are young black males. It just happens that when Lee Van Houten and George Zimmerman were mugged by two of them, they survived the encounter.

Source: http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/to-avoid-looking-like-a-criminal-dont-commit-a-crime/

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Ivorian leader: Nigeria pulling troops from Mali

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Source: www.foxnews.com --- Thursday, July 18, 2013
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara says Nigeria is withdrawing some of its 1,200 Troops in Mali to fight an Islamic uprising back home. The announcement comes 10 days before elections in Mali, which is fighting its own uprising by Islamic extremists. The Nigerians were in a force of 12,600 African Troops in Mali under a U.N. peacekeeping mandate preparing to take over from 4,500 French soldiers. Ouattara told to reporters Thursday as chairman of a summit of West African nations in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. Nigerian military sources indicated most Troops would be returning home. They spoke on condition of anonymity because formalities have not been completed with U.N. officials. Troops fighting under a state of emergency in northeast Nigeria have complained that they have not been rotated for months. ...

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/VEt2U_fWijs/

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Congrats to the DePaul University Women's Basketball Team for its No. 2 ranking...

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New York Mayor Bloomberg may also cure dementia

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his latest health initiative this week: He?s banning elevators! OK, not really. But he did say he was planning to introduce legislation that would inspire New Yorkers to take the stairs by making staircases in buildings more accessible.

As with all of Bloomberg?s noble health-conscious initiatives, which have included banning trans-fats and trying to curb super-sized, nutrition-less sodas, the announcement was met with a contingent of eye-rolls. From my colleague Tina Susman?s story:

"I might go down the stairs, but if there's an elevator, why in the world would I want to walk up stairs?" Felicity Moore said, aghast, when asked if she might be more inclined to climb steps in an office building if signs encouraged her to do so.?

If the City Council actually approves Bloomberg?s plan, you can expect nanny-state objectors to come out in full force.

But Bloomberg doesn?t care about the haters. He?s on a mission to help cure obesity, a national epidemic linked to such deadly conditions as diabetes and heart disease, by implementing laws and programs that encourage critical lifestyle changes.

His battle of the bulge may benefit New Yorkers in another meaningful way too.

According to two observational studies in Europe, healthier lifestyles may decrease dementia. Gwen Ifill of PBS' "NewsHour" spoke to Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine, about the findings on Wednesday?s program. An excerpt from the encouraging segment:

The so-called silver tsunami that we have all been scared of has just downgraded from grade five to grade four.

So, the key thing to keep in mind is we're not out of the woods, but what these two studies are telling us is that successive generations or even slightly younger cohorts separated by as little as 10 years apart may not have the same risk.

So in other words, our children or our grandchildren may not have the same risk for Alzheimer's that we do. The second thing I think that these studies are pointing out is if the risk for Alzheimer's is going down with successive generations, then that is good news because it indicates that it is likely to be due to environmental or lifestyle effects.

In other words, many of the public health interventions that have been put into place since the 1970s, such as encouraging Americans and people all over the world to exercise more, cutting down on smoking, the disappearance of the Marlboro Man, if you will, eating healthier, and indeed better education, I think all of these things might be having an effect.?[Note: Emphasis my own.]

There are studies that have been done in Sweden, in the U.S., in many countries that show the same essential decreasing incidence rates, if you will, for Alzheimer's in successive generations.

That said, these are also called observational studies, so these are not clinical trials, where people are sort of randomly assigned to different treatment arms. So, we cannot be sure, but I think the signs from all these different studies in multiple countries all are pointing in the same direction.

See, life coach Bloomberg is onto something!

You can watch the entire segment below.

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Follow Alexandra Le Tellier on Twitter @alexletellier

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpinionLa/~3/Ogp4TK91m7k/la-ol-mayor-bloomberg-stairs-obesity-dementia-20130718,0,7325678.story

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Obama defends health care law, slams GOP for "re-fighting" battle over bill

By Carrie Dann, NBC News

More than three years after signing a massive health care system reform into law, President Barack Obama on Thursday worked to sell the legislation?s benefits to an American public still largely skeptical about the overhaul.

Highlighting nearly half a billion dollars in insurance rebates going back to consumers due to the law's requirement that insurers spend 80 cents on the dollar towards medical care, Obama said the law is "doing what it's designed to do."?

"Generally speaking, what we've seen is that health care costs have slowed drastically in a lot of areas since we passed the Affordable Care Act," Obama said in remarks at the White House. "We have a lot more work to do, but health care inflation isn't sky-rocketing the way it was."

Noting that there are still many who are "rooting" for the legislation's failure and cheering "glitches" in its implementation, Obama said that the positive effects of the bill are starting to become evident to consumers.?

Pool / Getty Images

President Barack Obama delivers a statement in the State Dining Room of the White House July 17, 2013 in Washington, DC.

"You're getting better protections," he said. "You're getting more value for each dollar that you spend on your health care."?

A NBC/WSJ poll last month showed that just 37 percent of the public believes the law is a good idea, compared to 49 percent who say it?s a bad idea.

The president?s remarks at the White House come after the administration announced the delay of one key part of the law ? the requirement that larger employers provide health care for workers or pay a fine.

With Republicans arguing that it?s unfair to delay requirements for businesses but not for individual health care buyers, the GOP-led House of Representatives passed a pair of bills Wednesday to push back both the employer and individual ?mandates? in the law. But those votes were merely symbolic, with the Senate sure to ignore the House?s actions and the White House promising to veto them.

Flanked by supporters who say they've benefited from falling costs and insurance rebates, Obama slammed congressional Republicans for "re-fighting these old battles" instead of moving forward on other needed legislation.?

The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd talks about the president's attempt to argue that the implementation of health care reform is working.

"Maybe they think it?s good politics," he said. "But part of our job here is not to always think about politics."

Obama acknowledged opposition to the health care law but said that opponents have politicized the legislation without taking into account its benefits.?

"Some of them seem to think this law?s about me," he quipped. "It?s not. I already have really good health care."?

In a new report released by the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration says that competition created by the new regulations will lower health care premiums by about 20 percent.

That figure is based on data released by states about proposed premiums for 2014 in the individual and small group health care markets, compared to previous estimates derived from Congressional Budget Office estimates.

This story was originally published on Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:54 AM EDT

Source: http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/18/19541474-obama-defends-health-care-law-slams-gop-for-re-fighting-battle-over-bill?lite

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Student loan deal would be a mixed bag for borrowers

consumer

Kelli Grant CNBC

1 hour ago

Mario Tama / Getty Images file

Federal student loan debt has topped $1 trillion, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau announced Wednesday. All outstanding student loan debt, including private loans as well as federal, tallies $1.2 trillion.

The Senate could vote soon on a student loan fix, but parents and students may not have reason to rejoice.

After Congress was unable to reach a compromise, rates for new federal subsidized Stafford loans doubled on July 1, from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. A Senate deal reached Wednesday evening would reportedly set a cap for Stafford and PLUS loans, and peg their rates to the 10-year Treasury note.

Under the proposal, undergraduates could borrow at an expected rate of 3.86 percent for the 2013-14 academic year. Graduate students could borrow at 5.4 percent and parents at 6.4 percent.

House Speaker John Boehner, D-Ohio, was encouraged by the proposal. "(The Senate bill) follows the structure of the House bill: market-based reform, market-based rates, similar what the president called for and what the House has already passed," Boehner said, "So when we see the details, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to put this issue behind us."

(Assuming the proposal becomes law, rates would retroactive to July 1, benefiting consumers who have already taken out federal loans for the coming school year, said Joseph Hurley, a certified public accountant and chief executive of Savingforcollege.com.)

Student loan rates would reset every year on July 1. Undergraduate rates would be capped at 8.25 percent, graduate rates at 9.25 percent and parents' rates at 10.5 percent.

The lower rate provides a little relief for students like Blake Crist, 21, who has relied on a mix of sources, including subsidized and unsubsidized loans, work study and scholarships, to finance his degree in integrated marketing communications from Ithaca College in New York.

"Just the thought of finding a job when you graduate is scary enough," said Crist, who hopes to work in marketing. "It becomes terrifying when you have to worry about paying off loans." He expects the proposed deal will keep his payments a bit lower than they might be, otherwise.

Later students may not see the same benefit. "It's still going to be, effectively, an interest rate increase masquerading as a decrease," said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors Network. Students currently enrolled will benefit from the low interest rates, but as the economy recovers and rates rise, today's high school students could end up paying more than 6.8 percent. "It's far from a permanent solution," he said.

That said, government-subsidized loans are still the cheapest option for student borrowing. Private loans often have higher rates that fluctuate, and may charge students interest while in school or during periods of deferment.

Under the proposed deal, that wouldn't change. "It may not be as cheap down the road, but then, comparable rates will be up too," Hurley said.

But the rate deal doesn't alleviate what experts say is the real problem with student loans: The amount of debt, rather than its cost.

Federal student loan debt has topped $1 trillion, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau announced Wednesday. All outstanding student loan debt, including private loans as well as federal, tallies $1.2 trillion.

On an individual basis, the average college senior in 2011 had student loan debts of $26,600, according to The Project on Student Debt, up from $25,250 in 2010.

"There's no cheap way to do undergrad right now," said Jonathan Meier, 18, of Manchester, Conn. An incoming freshman heading to Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey to study quantitative science, Meier plans to take on $5,500 in unsubsidized loans each year.

Kantrowitz said the cost of college, up about 4 percent in just the last year, has outpaced available grant money. The cost to attend a private college in 2012-13 totaled $39,518, according to the College Board, while in-state public colleges ran $17,136.

Read more: The Most expensive colleges in America

Higher costs force families to take on more loans or choose alternatives like a lower-cost college, which may affect students' ability to graduate on time, he said, and some families are priced out of attending college entirely.

With growing loan debt and higher rates on the horizon, it's more important for families to take steps to prepare financially for college by saving and hunting for scholarships. "Every dollar you save is a dollar you don't have to borrow," Kantrowitz said. For students in school, installment plans for tuition can help spread out the cost, potentially enabling families to pay more out of current income instead of taking out loans.

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