Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Top-seeded Cilic reaches final of Zagreb Indoors
Defending champion Marin Cilic of Croatia beat third-seeded Juergen Melzer of Austria 7-6 (5), 6-4, to reach the finals of the Zagreb Indoors tournament.
The top-seeded Croatian ousted Melzer in straight sets in one hour and 45 minutes on Saturday to raise his 2010 record to 14-1 and give himself a chance at a second title this year and a fifth of his career.
Cilic, 22, won in Chennai, India in January and reached the semifinals of the Australian Open last week to break into the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time this week.
For the first time this week, Cilic's serve was broken in the seventh game …
A country celebration Lovely setting for Service Club event
Perfect weather and one of the prettiest farms in the Midwestconspired to make the Service Club of Chicago's 1999 Day in theCountry one of its most enjoyable in memory.
Richard Duchossois and Judy McKoewn offered the use of his Hill 'nDale Farm in Barrington to the group for its annualmeeting/luncheon/fashion show, and the 125 women who attended reveledin cool breezes, great food, gorgeous furs and stunning fashions forseveral hours.
On arrival, guests had a choice of wine, champagne or a tiny cupof chilled tomato soup. Amanda Puck did double duty, supervising ayummy lunch catered by Chicago's Spago restaurant, and then modelingin the fashion show that followed. …
Obama has security confab, meets Mexico president
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is focusing mostly on foreign affairs Thursday.
In the morning, Obama will join his national security team at the White House for their monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Then the president will hold several meetings with President Felipe Calderon (fay-LEE'-pay kahl-duh-ROHN') of Mexico, including a one-on-one meeting in the …
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
No. 14 Utah spurts to 56-14 victory vs. NMexico
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Terrance Cain might have to give up Utah's starting quarterback job when Jordan Wynn gets healthy.
But if Cain does end up heading back to the bench, he'll have a record to take with him.
Cain completed 20 of 23 passes to set a school record for completion percentage in a game and Shaky Smithson capped a three-touchdown surge in the third quarter with a 73-yard punt return as No. 14 Utah beat New Mexico 56-14 on Saturday night.
"It's great to have that stat but the most important stat is to get the victory," said Cain, who completed 87 percent of his passes. "That's all I'm worried about."
Cain finished with 248 yard and a career-high three …
Please have consideration ; Letters extra
I RECENTLY decided to move back to the Brechfa area having spentmany happy years living in this stunningly beautiful location. Ieagerly started searching for suitable property -- but was abruptlyfaced with the shocking fact that, almost without exception, everyhouse I wanted to view would soon be blighted by any number ofimminent wind turbines -- namely, the proposed development sites ofLlanllwni Mountain, Brechfa East and Brechfa West.
With resignation, I decided to look for a home over a slightlywider area. I had always found the region around Cwmduad to boastsimilar deep, sweeping, forested valleys, akin to those at Brechfa.Happily, I found an ideal property …
Today in History - March 13
Today is Tuesday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2007. There are 293 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On March 13, 1925, a law went into effect in Tennessee prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution.
On this date:
In 1781, the planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
In 1884, Congress adopted Eastern Standard Time for the District of Columbia.
In 1901, the 23rd president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, died in Indianapolis.
In 1933, banks began to reopen after a "holiday" declared by President Roosevelt.
In 1947, the Lerner and Loewe musical "Brigadoon" opened on Broadway. …
Highest Major League Baseball Salaries
| Years Avg Salary |
| Alex Rodriguez, NYY 2008-17 $27,500,000 |
| CC Sabathia, NYY 2009-15 $23,000,000 |
| Johan Santana, NYM 2008-13 $22,916,667 |
| Mark Teixeira, NYY 2009-16 $22,500,000 |
| Manny Ramirez, LAD 2009-10 $22,500,000 |
Fred Berland
Fred Berland, 56, president of the former P. J. Berland Paint &Wallpaper City chain, died Tuesday in Evanston Hospital.
Mr. Berland, who lived in Northbrook, had been ill with braincancer for nine months.
He is credited with building the business from a one-storyoperation in Chicago to 20 stores in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.The Berland stores were sold to Sherwin-Williams Co. in 1984.
Mr. Berland was a Korean War veteran. After selling the paintand …
Google Snaps Up YouTube for $1.65B
SAN FRANCISCO - Internet search leader Google is snapping up YouTube for $1.65 billion, brushing aside copyright concerns to seize a starring role in the online video revolution.
The all-stock deal announced Monday unites one of the Internet's marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars. It came just a few hours after YouTube unveiled three separate agreements with media companies to counter the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits.
The price makes YouTube Inc., a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history. Last year, Google spent $130.5 million buying a total of 15 small companies.
…
Court hears arguments about cross on park land
The Supreme Court appeared divided between conservatives and liberals Wednesday over whether a cross on federal park land in California violates the Constitution.
Several conservative justices seemed open to the Obama administration's argument that Congress' decision to transfer to private ownership the land on which the cross sits in the Mojave National Preserve should take care of any constitutional questions.
"Isn't that a sensible interpretation" of a court order prohibiting the cross' display on government property? Justice Samuel Alito asked.
The liberal justices, on the other hand, indicated that …
Franklin sings M-O-N-E-Y woes
US aims to save Hawaiian monk seal
HONOLULU (AP) — Federal biologists scouring for ways to spare the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal from extinction are embracing a desperate if unorthodox strategy: They want to pluck seal pups from the small, pristine island atolls where they're born and move them closer to Honolulu and other highly populated areas.
Scientists say this counterintuitive step is needed to help save a species that's declining at a rate of 4 percent annually. But it is already proving to be controversial, and even unpopular among fishermen who don't want hungry seals eating their bait and accidentally getting caught in their nets and lines.
The National Marine Fisheries Service plans to …
February existing US home sales rise by 5.1 pct
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes jumped unexpectedly in February by the largest amount in nearly six years as first-time buyers took advantage of deep discounts on foreclosures and other distressed properties.
Economists said sales, while still at levels not seen since 1997, may finally be coming back to life after declining sharply following the stock market plunge last autumn.
Prices, however, are expected to keep falling well into the year. Tens of thousands of homes reman tied up in the foreclosure process and are not yet for sale. Plus, as the recession deepens and job losses mount, many buyers are likely to stay on the sidelines.
"The four-letter word in the housing market is 'jobs,'" said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. "If you're worried about having a job tomorrow, you're not likely to buy a home now."
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes grew 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million last month, from 4.49 million units in January.
It was the largest monthly sales jump since July 2003, with first-time buyers accounting for about half of all transactions. Sales had been expected to dip to an annual pace of 4.45 million units, according to Thomson Reuters. The results, which came after a steep decline in January, mean that sales activity has returned to December's levels, but still remains lower than most of last year.
"If January was a disaster for housing, February may be the rebound month," wrote Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors.
The sales figures don't yet reflect the new $8,000 tax credit designed to lure even more first-time buyers into the market. That should juice up early summer sales, but how much will depend on the overall condition of the U.S. economy.
"If the economy stabilizes around midyear and financial conditions improve, then sales will probably begin to slowly increase as buyers step back into the market," wrote JPMorgan Chase analyst Abiel Reinhart. "An important reason for this is that affordability has already increased sharply, both as a result of lower prices and lower mortgage rates."
The median sales price plunged to $165,400, down 15.5 percent from $195,800 a year earlier. That was the second-largest drop on record and prices are now off 28 percent from their peak in July 2006.
However, in a positive sign, seller asking prices are starting to rise in places like San Diego and Orange County, California, where declines have been severe, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors. That could be an early indication that prices are stabilizing in the most distressed parts of the country.
Meanwhile, in contrast with the housing boom, when buyers took out ever-riskier loans and maxed out their home equity lines, "homebuyers are not over stretching" Yun said. "They want to stay within their budget."
The number of unsold homes on the market last month rose 5.2 percent to 3.8 million, a typical increase for the winter months. At February's sales pace, it would take 9.7 months to rid the market of all of those properties.
"Inventories are still high relative to sales rates, and would probably be even more so if all those wishing to sell their home actually had the house on the market instead of pulling it off in the face of rapidly eroding prices," wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc.
Sellers don't want to compete with foreclosures that have swamped the market, especially in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.
About 45 percent of sales nationwide are foreclosures or other distressed property sales, which typically sell at a 20 percent discount, according to the Realtors group.
That's great news for buyers, who are paying the most attractive prices in years. Plus, interest rates have sunk to historic lows.
The Federal Reserve last week moved to reduce already low rates by printing $1.2 trillion and pumping it into the economy through the purchases of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury debt.
The central bank also will double its purchases of debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $200 billion.
__
AP Business Writer J.W. Elphinstone contributed to this report from New York.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Reservations to Receive FEMA Trailers
WASHINGTON - American Indian tribes throughout the country will receive 2,000 unused trailers that were intended for but never given to Hurricane Katrina victims.
Thousands of trailers have been idling in Arkansas and Texas, prompting criticism about government waste. They originally were purchased to house people displaced by the hurricane, but FEMA officials said regulations against placing the homes in flood plains prevented their use on the Gulf Coast.
Last year, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., urged the agency to donate the trailers to American Indian country, but the agency said federal law dictated the trailers must be used for disaster victims. In September, Johnson pushed through legislation allowing FEMA to sell or donate the trailers.
Nine months later, the trailers will finally be distributed, Johnson said in a statement issued by his office Friday.
"I saw pictures of tens of thousands of empty mobile homes sitting unused in Hope, Ark., while South Dakota's Indian tribes were struggling through a tough winter with inadequate housing," Johnson said in the statement. "There is still much that needs to be done to improve Indian housing, but this is a good step toward addressing this serious problem."
Indian housing has been a problem for decades. According to a 2003 survey, approximately 90,000 Indian families are homeless or "under-housed."
Johnson is out of the Senate recovering from a December brain hemorrhage, but he has been working from home on the issue, said spokeswoman Julianne Fisher.
Fármacos de Ejecución Suelen Provocar Muerte Lenta, Según Estudio
Los f�rmacos empleados para ejecutar a presos en Estados Unidos a veces no funcionan como deber�an y provocan muertes lentas y dolorosas que probablemente violan las prohibiciones constitucionales a los castigos crueles, destaca una nueva revisi�n m�dica a decenas de ejecuciones.
Incluso cuando se aplica correctamente, la inyecci�n letal compuesta por tres f�rmacos parece provocar que algunos reos se asfixien cuando est�n conscientes y no se pueden mover, en vez de provocar un paro card�aco cuando el reo se encuentra sedado, indicaron los a�n cient�ficos en un informe publicado por la revista en Internet PLoS Medicine.
Ning�n grupo cient�fico ha validado jam�s que la inyecci�n letal sea una manera humana de ejecutar a los condenados a muerte, agregan los autores.
La �tica m�dica impide a los m�dicos y a otros profesionales de la salud a participar en las ejecuciones.
El estudio concluye que las dosis t�picas que se utilizan generalmente para todos los reos no toman en cuenta el peso del reo y otros factores claves.
Algunos de los presos son demasiado peque�os y en algunos casos, el anest�sico se consumi� demasiado pronto antes de que la ejecuci�n estuviera completa, dijeron los autores.
"Uno no podr�a usar este protocolo para matar a un cerdo en la Universidad de Miami", sin que se tuvieran pruebas posteriores de que los f�rmacos trabajaron como se esperaba, indic� Teresa Zimmers, una b�ologa que encabez� el estudio.
China shares fall, taking cue from HK tumble
Chinese shares edged lower Monday, taking a cue from losses in Hong Kong, as investors sold to lock in recent gains amid growing uncertainty over the economic outlook.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 16.4 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 2358.04. The index had climbed 4.1 percent last week. The Shenzhen Composite Index for China's second exchange slipped 0.2 percent to 777.39.
Major stock markets across Asia dropped, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 4.7 percent.
Analysts said the Shanghai benchmark was fluctuating around the psychologically important 2,400 level, under pressure after last week's rally.
"Investors were cautious, keeping a wait-and-see position, as the economic outlook is still uncertain," said Zhang Xiang, an analyst for Guoyuan Securities in Beijing.
Big state-owned companies reported poor annual financial results late last week, with the profits of Sinopec, China's biggest oil refiner, diving 47 percent year-on-year, and those of aluminum giant Chinalco falling by nearly 100 percent.
Nonferrous metals led Shanghai's decline after strong gains in previous sessions. Chinalco, or Aluminum Corp. of China, slumped 7.9 percent to 10.49 yuan, and Jiangxi Copper lost 1.9 percent to 23.44 yuan.
Sinopec, or China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., gave up 1.3 percent to 9 yuan and PetroChina Ltd., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer, slipped 2.1 percent to 11.49 yuan.
Bucking the trend, brokerages gained ground after local reports said a long-awaited growth enterprise board for smaller firms has received government approval. Sinolink Securities Ltd. soared by the daily maximum of 10 percent to 34.22 yuan, and Changjiang Securities Co. jumped 7.2 percent to 15.29 yuan.
In currency markets, the yuan weakened to 6.8354 to the U.S. dollar, down from Saturday's close of 6.82959.
News briefs
Soldiers will be
in combat zones
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - American special forces on acounterterrorism training mission will enter combat zones in thesouthern Philippines, but will only use their weapons in self-defense, their commander said today.
Brig. Gen. Donald Wurster also rejected any comparisons betweenthe American war in Afghanistan and the six-month training session inthe Philippines.
"The comparisons are, I think, not terribly dramatic other thanthe fact that we have an ally that wants to destroy terrorism,"Wurster told Associated Press Television News.
"We want to destroy terrorism, and they've asked for certain kindsof help. We're offering that certain kind of help."
That help does not include combat assistance, which was rejectedby the Philippines, Wurster said.
Police search for
body of reporter
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police in Karachi said they had searched 300cemeteries by this morning but did not find the body of reporterDaniel Pearl. A day earlier there were conflicting reports that hehad been killed or that his kidnappers issued a ransom demand.
On Friday a caller contacted the U.S. Consulate in Karachi anddemanded $2 million and the release of the former Taliban ambassadorto Pakistan, senior police officials said.
A Justice Department official subsequently said the telephone callmay have been a hoax.
However, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said it received an e-mail claiming the Wall Street Journal correspondent had been killed.Dow Jones, which owns the Journal, said in a statement Friday, "We'veseen the latest reports, and we remain hopeful they are not true."
Bush's budget
missing minuses
WASHINGTON - So you thought federal deficits were back? Not if youbelieve several tables at the back of President Bush's budget that hewill release Monday.
In what White House officials attribute to technical error, someof the tables inadvertently omitted minus signs. As a result, theadministration's projected deficits of $106 billion this year and $80billion next year appear as surpluses.
"We found a fairly low-cost way to get rid of the deficit," jokedTrent Duffy, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.
Since 13,000 copies of the budget already have been printed andare ready for distribution Monday, Duffy said officials wereconsidering how best to call attention to the error. He said they areconsidering stamping the books with a note that the correct figurescan be found on the White House's Web site.
Myanmar Junta Watches Monasteries
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military government on Monday put monasteries under close watch and cut off the cell phone service of known dissidents to clamp down on the most sustained anti-government protests in a decade.
Demonstrations against the government raising fuel prices and the high cost of consumer goods began Aug. 19 with hundreds of people participating, but their numbers declined as some protesters were detained and toughs belonging to pro-government groups beat others.
Buddhist monks became the highest profile protesters and revived the movement last week after staging a peaceful march against economic hardship in the northern town of Pakokku. Soldiers stopped the march by firing warning shots in the air - the first time they have fired their guns during the recent protests - and government supporters roughed up some monks.
In retaliation, the angry monks next day temporarily took officials hostage and smashed a shop and a house belonging to junta supporters.
Over the weekend, monks formed a group called the National Front of Monks, according to the U.S. Campaign For Burma, which lobbies against the junta. The front has demanded that authorities apologize for the violence, reduce fuel prices, release all political prisoners and begin negotiations with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratic leaders.
It was impossible to get independent verification of the existence of the new group or its demands.
The involvement of monks prompted authorities to post plainclothes police and junta supporters for the first time at monasteries in the key Buddhist cities of Pakokku and Mandalay, as well as the country's largest city of Yangon, to prevent more protests by Buddhist clergy, witnesses said. Monks are held in high regard by the public, and mistreating them during protests could trigger great public ire.
Monks in Myanmar, also known as Burma, historically have been at the forefront of protests, first against British colonialism and later against military dictatorship. They played a prominent part in a failed 1988 pro-democracy uprising that sought an end to military rule in place since 1962.
The demonstrations have been well-publicized, with photos and videos smuggled out to opposition Myanmar media in exile, who then send their reports and images back by radio, satellite TV and the Internet.
Unconfirmed reports have said that the junta has arrested several people for sending abroad information about the protests.
Dissident figures still at large or in hiding - about a dozen top pro-democracy leaders were arrested two days after the protest began - reported Monday that their cell phone service had been cut. Several of them had been giving interviews over the past few weeks to exile media, including the Democratic Voice of Burma, a shortwave radio station based in Norway, and Mizzima News, an online service based in India.
"This is a complete violation of human rights," said Su Su Nway, a prominent labor activist who went into hiding after narrowly escaping arrest at a protest in Yangon. "This proves that the military government is using unlawful and underhanded means to hold its grip on power."
The junta held general elections in 1990, but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won. She has been detained under house for more than 11 of the past 18 years.
A government statement Sunday alleged that top activists planned terrorist acts and received tens of thousands of dollars from Western nations. It also alleged that prominent activist Htay Kywe, who escaped a security dragnet last month, was helped to hide by the embassy of a "powerful country" - an apparent reference to the United States, one of the regime's harshest critics.
The statement also implied that the United States was involved in the opposition groups' plans.
It said the U.S. funded National Endowment For Democracy was trying to sow unrest by donating $2.9 million for operations in Myanmar. The NED is a private, nonprofit organization funded chiefly by the U.S. government to promote democratic institutions around the world by providing cash grants to private groups.
"We reject the accusations and again urge the regime to stop arresting, harassing, and assaulting political activists for organizing or participating in peaceful demonstrations," said a statement received Monday by e-mail from Lloyd Neighbors, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stepped up his pressure on Myanmar's military leaders, saying he was committed to working toward the "full democratization" of the country. He also urged the government to yield to international demands to release Suu Kyi.
It was Ban's strongest statement on Myanmar since the protests broke out last month. It also followed a phone call on Aug. 31 by First lady Laura Bush asking him to condemn the junta's treatment of dissidents and to press for the Security Council to prevent more violence in Myanmar.
Ban had earlier called on Myanmar to exercise maximum restraint in responding to protests and encouraged all parties to avoid provocative action, a statement critics of the junta considered weak.
Former NBA star avoids the most serious charges
SOMERVILLE, N.J. - Although acquitted of the most serious charge,former NBA star Jayson Williams faces the possibility of a retrial,as well as prison time for convictions on attempting to conceal theshooting of a hired driver.
Williams was convicted Friday on four of six lesser charges,related to tampering with evidence and trying to cover up the deathof Costas "Gus" Christofi. He was killed by a shotgun blast asWilliams handled the weapon while showing friends his mansion.
After four days of deliberations, the jury cleared Williams ofaggravated manslaughter but could not reach an unanimous verdict onthe second major charge, reckless manslaughter, which carries up to10 years in prison.
Several jurors said they were split 8-4 on that count, with themajority voting not guilty. Prosecutors have not yet decided whetherto retry Williams.
The jurors said they accepted the defense argument that theshooting was an accident and the weapon misfired.
"Jayson Williams is not a criminal," juror Ann Stengel said. "Washe negligent? Yes. Should he have known better? Yes."
"I never looked over there and saw a cold-blooded killer," jurorAngela Pravata said.
However, they did convict Williams of four charges, includingwitness and evidence tampering.
Together, the four charges carry up to 13 years in prison. ButWilliams would probably receive a sentence of less than five years,the maximum for the most serious count. No date was set forsentencing. The 36-year-old former player could have faced up to 55years in prison if convicted on all eight counts.
Williams displayed no emotion as he stood with his lawyers as theverdicts were read. After he sat down, he leaned back and kissed wifeTanya. He remains free on bail.
He did not speak to reporters as he left the courtroom, holdinghands with his wife.
Defense lawyer Billy Martin said the verdict showed the juryunderstood the investigation was flawed.
"We told the jury there had never been an objective investigation.We told the jury this was an accident," Martin said.
The victim's nephew, Anthony Christofi, told Court TV he wasdisappointed by the split verdict, "but we have to respect thedecision the jury made."
Another Christofi relative, nephew Chris Adams, reacted bitterly.
"He was never held accountable for his actions. He was reckless;he was showing off," Adams said. "He thinks he's a mobster. All thisfame and power went to his head."
The shooting took place as Williams was giving friends and membersof the Harlem Globetrotters a tour of his estate in western NewJersey in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2002.
Testimony showed Williams took a loaded shotgun from a cabinet,cracked it open, turned, uttered an obscenity at the 55-year-oldChristofi and snapped it closed. It then fired once, sending 12pellets into Christofi's chest. He died within minutes.
Five witnesses testified Williams then wiped down the shotgun, andfour said Williams placed it in the victim's hands.
Besides claiming it was an accident, the defense asserted that theformer NBA All-Star was so distraught after the shooting he could notorganize a cover-up.
The verdict came after jurors informed the judge they could notreach a decision on one count.
On Thursday, jurors told Judge Edward M. Coleman they had reacheda decision on six of the charges, but could not agree on two others.
The eight women and four men sat since Feb. 10 and deliberated fornearly 23 hours.
AP-ES-05-01-04 0329EDT
Highway leads to the newest national park
Created by Congress last October, the 77,109-acre Great BasinNational Park contains five alpine lakes and one of the world'slargest groves of bristlecone pines, some 3,000 to 4,000 years old.
With its official dedication yesterday, it is the first newnational park in the contiguous 48 states in 15 years and the 49thnational park in the country. There are four campgrounds with 92campsites.
Motorists driving from the west reach the park by travelingthrough central Nevada on U.S. 50, designated by AAA as the "TheLoneliest Road in America," a barren stretch that runs 283 miles fromFernley east to Ely.
Park Superintendent Al Hendricks says the number of visitorsthis year during the first "unofficial" seven months totaled 35,000,which is putting a smile on the faces of merchants in Ely, about 70miles from the park entrance.
The park already has recorded its first fatality - a hiker whogot caught in a snow storm in July while scaling 13,061-foot WheelerPeak.
Bengals-Bills Stats
| Cincinnati 7 7 7 0_21 |
| Buffalo 7 6 3 17_33 |
| First Quarter |
| Buf_Evans 8 pass from Losman (Lindell kick), 11:44. |
| Cin_Houshmandzadeh 15 pass from Palmer (Graham kick), 8:35. |
| Second Quarter |
| Buf_FG Lindell 23, 1:56. |
| Cin_Holt 100 kickoff return (Graham kick), 1:44. |
| Buf_FG Lindell 21, :03. |
| Third Quarter |
| Buf_FG Lindell 29, 7:31. |
| Cin_J.Johnson 1 pass from Palmer (Graham kick), 3:07. |
| Fourth Quarter |
| Buf_FG Lindell 38, 13:54. |
| Buf_Royal 8 pass from Lynch (Lindell kick), 5:51. |
| Buf_Lynch 56 run (Lindell kick), 2:22. |
| A_70,745 |
| ___ |
| Cin Buf |
| First downs 16 23 |
| Total Net Yards 299 479 |
| Rushes-yards 17-28 35-176 |
| Passing 271 303 |
| Punt Returns 0-0 4-36 |
| Kickoff Returns 6-176 4-81 |
| Interceptions Ret. 1-0 1-8 |
| Comp-Att-Int 26-39-1 25-35-1 |
| Sacked-Yards Lost 0-0 0-0 |
| Punts 6-39.0 2-33.0 |
| Fumbles-Lost 1-0 1-0 |
| Penalties-Yards 5-45 3-25 |
| Time of Possession 24:18 35:42 |
| ___ |
| INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS |
| RUSHING_Cincinnati, R.Johnson 9-11, Watson 4-11, Palmer 3-5, C.Johnson 1-1. Buffalo, Lynch 29-153, Losman 4-21, Wright 1-2, Reed 1-0. |
| PASSING_Cincinnati, Palmer 26-39-1-271. Buffalo, Losman 24-34-1-295, Lynch 1-1-0-8. |
| RECEIVING_Cincinnati, Watson 7-90, Houshmandzadeh 4-45, C.Johnson 3-48, Coats 3-24, Kelly 2-15, Holt 2-13, Chatman 1-15, Dorsey 1-9, R.Johnson 1-6, Maxwell 1-5, J.Johnson 1-1. Buffalo, Evans 9-165, Reed 6-55, Gaines 3-22, Royal 2-35, Schouman 2-10, A.Thomas 1-11, Lynch 1-7, Parrish 1-(minus 2). |
| MISSED FIELD GOALS_None. |
Monday, March 12, 2012
`Talking Heads' Monologues Showcase English Playwright
No, David Byrne and his group, Talking Heads, are not gettingback together again for a Chicago gig.
But "Talking Heads," a series of monologues by the marvelousEnglish playwright, Alan Bennett, will be playing at the SteppenwolfTheatre this summer. And John Mahoney, Steppenwolf veteran andubiquitous movie and television star (Martin Crane in the new hit NBCsitcom, "Frasier"), will be making his directing debut with thisAmerican premiere.
Bennett is the actor-writer who began his career as part of thesatirical revue, "Beyond the Fringe," along with Dudley Moore,Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. In more recent years, his work hasbecome a staple at London's National Theatre (including acontroversial adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows"), as well as inthe West End ("Single Spies").
Many of his works have lacked U.S. productions, in part becausethey are so quintessentially English. PBS watchers may have caught"An American Abroad," the first half of the double bill of "SingleSpies" that starred Alan Bates as the communist spy Guy Burgess. Andthey also may have seen "Love Among the Lentils," one of six episodesin "Talking Heads" - a work originally written for television butlater adapted for the stage.
Steppenwolf will stage three of the six "Talking Heads"monologues - tragicomic studies in loneliness and alienation thatalso reflect the changing nature of contemporary England. Castingwill be announced soon.
The show will open July 17. Tickets: (312) 335-1650. MEXICAN DARING: "Community-based arts" and "multiculturism" werethe most frequently heard buzzwords during the three-day conferenceof the National Endowment for the Arts held in Chicago last week.
But while the conference participants were theorizing, theMexican Fine Arts Center Museum was acting, moving into the secondweek of its two-month performing arts festival, "Del Corazon" ("Fromthe Heart").
In conjunction with the Latino Chicago Theatre Company, themuseum presented the U.S. premiere of Malu Huacuja's "Cielo de Abajo"("Sky Below"), a mesmerizing performance piece showcasing the work oftwo of Mexico City's most daring actresses, Jesusa Rodriguez (whoalso directed) and her Argentinian-born companion, Liliana Felipe.
Rodriguez is renowned for creating an avant-garde theater andcabaret out of a chapel and garage in the Coyoacan neighborhood ofMexico City (the place where painter Frida Kahlo lived). And thispiece, with its decidedly feminist spin on a macho culture, shows whyshe has attracted so much attention.
Taking the form of an all-female version of Orpheus andEurydice, "Cielo de Abajo" depicts a young woman's search for herdead lover in the various layers of the underworld that are part ofMexican mythology. Populated with skeletons and ritual, andexploding with fireworks, the piece is awash in startling images andthick incense, as the two actresses variously transform themselvesinto pre-Columbian clay pots, Aztec human sacrifices and one of thoseclassic, unshakeably earthbound sculptures of an ancient Indian godthat is hilariously demystified when it turns into a talkingsoft-sculpture.
The production audaciously explores the way indigenous Indianand Spanish Catholic concepts of death have become intertwined. Andthough it was performed in Spanish, the show's mix of ancient,contemporary and surreal images made language almost unnecessary.The elaborate braiding of hair, the whimsical musings of a humancactus plant, the reedy sound of a clay pipe, all helped to bring thecomplex culture and psyche of Mexico to life.
CONFERENCE FOOTNOTES: Last week's National Endowment for the Artsconference, which attracted more than 1,000 people from all areas ofarts administration and education, was, above all, a spirit-raisingevent - a celebration of the rebirth of the federal agency after morethan a decade of official disdain.
Will the conference result in the creation of any great works ofart? Definitely not. Will it create a groundswell in Congress forincreased arts funding? Not a prayer.
What it might do, however, is lead to new thinking about howbudgets for the arts can be built into other parts of government.
One subtle but unmistakable message of the conference wasthat the NEA is not so much interested in the individual achievementsof artists as it is in the general integration of the arts into dailylife. Jane Alexander, the NEA's much-admired chairman, is clearlyrefocusing her agency, making it a force for social good rather thana funding source for social rebellion.
Following President Clinton's lead, she is building consensusrather than subsidizing ruckus-makers. In short, she's playing safewith art.
EU imposes arms embargo on Belarus
LUXEMBOURG (AP) — The European Union is banning its members from sending arms or riot gear to Belarus due to what it says is the deterioration of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the country.
The EU said in a statement Monday it will also freeze the assets of some people linked to the regime and ban them from getting EU visas. The assets of three companies will also be frozen, it added.
The statement — issued after a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg — didn't give names or say how many people were involved.
Alexander Lukashenko, the president of the former Soviet republic, has been cracking down on independent journalists and opposition activists since extending his rule through a controversial election last year that sparked street protests.
Nancy with the Laughing Face
RECOVERING THE DUMB GENIUS OF ERNIE BUSHMILLER.
Fifty-one years ago, Andy Warhol co-opted a panel of Ernie BushmilJer's comic strip Nancy. Ever since, the strip's squat, spikehaired protagonist has beguiled artists, theorists, pranksters, essayists, and cartoonists as a patron saint of dorky innocence. But despite decades of meta-Nancy secondary texts, this month marks the initial installment of the firstever comprehensive reprinting of Bushmiller's peak period (1943-59), with Nancy Is Happy (Fantagraphics, $25).
In this, the reading public has a rare opportunity. No, make that a rare challenge - to read Bushmiller without the benefit of recontextualization of any sort. The fact that you laugh at a Nancy gag - and you will - is all on you. There will be no downtown doyenne to comfort you in the knowledge that the gag about, oh, bathroom plungers, or cotton candy, or squirt guns, is an ironically loaded statement on anything at all. No, you'll be stuck in a room alone with Ernie Bushmiller, who will force you to confront your inner stoopid like no other American artist. Indeed, it is genuine, nonironic praise to say of Bushmiller that if you don't get a Nancy joke, you are a moron.
Ernie Bushmiller was born in the Bronx in 1905. At fourteen, he took a job as an office boy at the New York World with the purpose of breaking into its cartoonists' ranks. The World's roster then included founding fathers of comics like Rudolph Dirks (creator of the Katzenjammer Kids) as well as gagmen extraordinaire Milt Gross and Will B. Johnstone (who wrote both stage and movie scripts for the Marx Brothers). With the comic strip itself but thirty years old, these disciples of the daily laugh were as hard-core as you got. As a copyboy, Bushmiller came into daily contact with Algonquin Round Table wits Franklin Pierce Adams, Alexander Woollcott, and Heywood Broun. By and large, they appreciated humor of the artfully absurd, and many years later, Bushmiller would still cite the master of the artfully absurd, Robert Benchley, as an influence.
By the time he was twenty, Bushmiller was assigned a strip about the dating life of a 1 92Os Manhattan flapper, Fritzi Ritz. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced a grade-school-age niece to serve as a foil to Fritzi's glitz - and he christened this good-humored yet stolid straight girl "Nancy." Nancy and her boyfriend, Sluggo, became so popular that they were crowding Fritzi out of her own story Unes as they plied their own kid-centric gags about puppies and milk shakes. To accommodate Nancy, Bushmiller shifted his '2Os Art Deco look and developed the flat, blockier style that became his signature. He also retired Fritzfs drawn-out multistrip narratives for a more compressed format, delivering visual humor on a daily basis, in a handful of panels. By 1938, he retitled the strip Nancy.
Viewed in historical perspective, Bushmiller's transition from stories to nonsensical gags put him radically against the grain of the newspaper comics world. AU around him, great narrative strips such as Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, and Gasoline Alley offered nuanced characters, socially relevant material, and extended story lines (what latter-day comics sophisticates would call "graphic novels"). With the consciously modernist humor of George Herriman's Krazy Kat ending in 1 944, a simpler situation-style comedy dominated. Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Peanuts, Barnaby, and Barney Google (among many) represented the new standard, grounded in reality and strong, familiar characters.
In contrast, Bushmiller offered two de facto credos: "Anything can happen in a comic strip" and "Dumb it down." Nancy lives in a Pee-wee's Playhouse world that allows her to walk on walls or, when housecleaning, accidentally suck up the fourth panel (containing Sluggo) into the vacuum cleaner. With the exception of Thurber, Bushmiller pretty much owned the fantasy humor field until the mid- to late '60s, when R. Crumb showed up in San Francisco.
Bushmiller took his strip's style back to his New York World mentors, playing with the limitless combinations of verbal and visual humor possible in a cartoon. From WWIl on, Al Capp, Walt KeUy, Milton Caniff, and Harold Gray all infused social commentary into their strips, in part because they had something to say - but also to advertise the gravitas of their work. After the war, Greatest Generation humorists such as Charles Schulz, Jules Feiffer, Mort Sah!, Sid Caesar, and Mike Nichols presented themselves as archly intelligent people.
Some appreciated Bushmiller's simplicity without reservation. After the 1938 relaunch, the New Republic declared, "It is possible that 'Nancy' is the best comic today, principally because it combines a very strong, independent imagination with a simplification of the best tradition of comic drawing. 'Nancy' is daily concerned with making a pictorial gag either about or on the affairs of a group of bright unsentimental children who have identical fire-plug shapes, two-foot heights, inch-long names (Sluggo, Winky, Tilly, Nancy) and genial, self-possessed temperaments."
By the 1950s, Bushmiller had achieved a subtle and rich technique. The blocky depiction of his characters masterfully belies the archly complex composition and execution of his gags. His critics assumed a simplistic appearance was the result of a simple mind. In 1957, Mad ran half a dozen parodies of Bushmiller, placing Nancy in the middle of the ultraviolent Dice Tracy or Steve Canyon war comics. In 1961, Andy Warhol used Nancy and other cartoon imagery in his paintings. At the time, comics had little in the way of serious criticism or a shared canon, outside of the appreciation reserved for individual standouts such as Herriman. In other words, artists like Warhol were drawn to material like Bushmiller's strip because it provided a tabula rasa giving them maximum freedom to define it for their public. Warhol's gifts as a graphic designer usually enhanced the imagery he borrowed - his Marilyn, Mao, and Campbell's soup cans remain powerful to this day - but he certainly met his design match in Ernie Bushmiller.
It's not that Warhol mars or defiles Nancy (a B-list vulgarian like Joe Brainard was right around the corner for that). It's just that, thirty years into drawing Nancy, Bushmiller had honed the strip down to a kind of minimalist masterpiece. Warhol applies Easter-egg blues and yellows to a Bushmiller strip and rearranges the panels to emphasize the "cute" and delete Bushmiller's own odd logic. From Bushmiller aficionados, Warhol elicits the same sighs Bauhaus architects must have succumbed to when they saw their modernist buildings kitsched up with the fringe curtains and tacky throw rugs of their bourgeois tenants. Bushmiller's visual economy means Warhol just gets in the way.
And this was Bushmiller's peak period they wrote off. Years later, in 1988, two arch-Bushmillerians, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, published "How to Read Nancy. " Their essay perfectly unpacks a single Nancy strip, published on August 8, 1 959. Its composition, its use of black against whites, how the ground lines themselves play into the climax, and the refusal to offer a fourth panel so the reader must imagine the visual ending - all these features, Karasik and Newgarden argue, betray the subtle genius of Bushmiller. Indeed, that single strip contains so many fundamentals of cartoon storytelling that it provided the foundation of Karasik and Newgarden's comics textbook, How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels (2010).
For the next twenty years after Warhol, artists used the character's simple look as a contextual punch line. Bushmiller's discovery by the art world recalls Chris Ware's comment: "When you don't understand a painting, you assume you're stupid. When you don't understand a cartoon, you assume the cartoonist is stupid. " Working from Warhol's example, artists such as Brainard, Vernon Fisher, Suzan Pitt, and the Hairy Who collective perpetrated a series of Nancy-centered child abductions. In each such outing the artist contrasts Nancy's face with invariably more topical social, political, or aesthetic commentaries. That is exactly the kind of middlebrow Important Statement that Bushmiller worked so hard to avoid. Brainard's The Nancy Book is a collection of his own Bushmiller borrowings, such as the painting that shows Nancy's eyes bugged out in high psychedelic fashion, suggesting the ploddingly obvious title, "If Nancy was an acid freak." Putting Nancy in these images is like nabbing a happy monkey from its jungle and chaining it to an organ grinder. It doesn't take long to figure out which of the two is the genius of the act.
By 1 976, Maurice Horn's World Encyclopedia of Comics had dismissed the original, unappropriated Nancy as the product of a newspaper syndicate staffer armed with a joke book and Nancy rubber stamps, hi 1 982, Bushmiller died, a last direct link to that first generation of New York daily gag cartoonists. The Nancy revival came in the 1 98Os, with a collection of Bushmiller fans based around New York's School of Visual Arts. Here, you were never hipper than Nancy. Karasik, Newgarden, Jerry Moriarty, Art Spiegelman, Kaz, Gary Panter, and much of the Raw cartooning crowd took to Bushmiller with a much better understanding of why Nancy matters. They were joined by a 1980s new wave of archly intellectual - yet never archly didactic - comedy writers for David Letterman, such as Eddie Gorodetsky , George Meyer, and Tom Gammill.
Now, Nancy Is Happy arrives after three decades of proNancy revival and mainstream humor often as archly silly and unreal as Bushmiller's - Letterman, Conan, Pee-wee Herman, The Mighty Boosh, or the grown-up fan base of Yo Gabba Gabba! It bodes well for Bushmiller's legacy that there's finally an audience educated enough to appreciate his brand of dumb.
[Sidebar]
In LUXURY & DEGRADATION, writers explore the ups and downs of the reading season.
[Author Affiliation]
Ben Schwartz lives in Los Angeles. He is the comics editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books and his most recent screenplay, Home by Christmas, made the 2011 Black List.
Call to have MRSA hospital patients treated at home ; Many Mrsa patients could be treated at home, experts said today.
Many Mrsa patients could be treated at home, experts said today.
A new report claims the NHS could save millions of pounds ifpeople infected with the bug were treated away from hospital.
Scientists said those with MRSA were unlikely to spread the bugto healthy people and could take antibiotics at home.
But one leading expert in the field warned the plan may not besafe for everyone.
The study, produced by seven experts and the campaign group,National Concern for Healthcare Infections, said many patients couldbe treated at home.
Contrary to common fears, treating people in the community isunlikely to spread MRSA infection as it generally only infectsthrough open wounds or IV lines, it said.
"In many cases, it is thought that if appropriate treatment wasavailable, it would be possible for the MRSA infection to be treatedoutside hospital," it stated.
"People with MRSA infection are not a danger to healthy people."
The report said studies have suggested that up to a third ofthose with MRSA could be discharged with an oral antibiotic.
Mark Wilcox, professor of medical microbiology at the Universityof Leeds, said: "Treating people with MRSA at home offers multiplebenefits in terms of infection control, and reducing NHS costs andresource use. Many patients would also prefer to be discharged fromhospital to be with their families while they finish theirtreatment, and they should be given that option, where possible."
The report was funded by Pfizer, which produces an antibiotic totreat MRSA, both in IV and tablet form.
But Mark Enright, professor of molecular epidemiology at ImperialCollege, London, said: "If you have got MRSA and it's in yourbloodstream then you would have to stay in hospital for a couple ofweeks to be on IV.
"If you are sending someone home with MRSA they could declinequite quickly.
"It's a clinical judgment if you are going to send them home.
"You don't want them to go home and then die on you," he said.
Snapple Zooms Nearly 6%
NEW YORK Take a good earnings outlook, an upcoming 2-for-1 stocksplit and some cynical investors, and what do you get?
If you're Snapple Corp., you get a rallying stock price.
Shares in the New York-based seller of bottled iced tea climbed$3, or 5.8 percent, to $54.75 Monday on the NASDAQ market.
Analysts, who asked not to be identified, blamed investorscalled short-sellers, who have bet the stock will collapse. Theyhave sold borrowed shares in hopes of buying them back at a lowerprice later on, when they need to repay their loans.
Unfortunately for them, when the market turns against them andrises, the short-sellers scramble to buy shares to limit their lossesand cover their obligations.
And that helps to force the share price up quickly.
"It could be shorts, but this thing's trading in its own world,"said one trader.
Analysts say Snapple stock also is running higher inanticipation of a Sept. 3 date for the company's latest 2-for-1 stocksplit.
A third factor is the company's earnings picture, whichcontinues to look good.
"There is no other external event that we are aware of thatwould make the price move like this," a spokesman said, when askedabout short covering.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Compost meets the Web
A proliferation of information doesn't always mean quality. This review of current sites points browsers hunting for the scoop in compost in the right direction.
RECENT online computer search for "composting" on the graphical section of the Internet known as the World Wide Web (WWW) produced 7,529 "hits" on the first pass. Alk though that is still a relatively minuscule amount in Web terms - a similar search for "recycling" produced 103,465 hits - it illustrates one of the difficulties with the information overload produced by this evolving technology. The volume of choices is laudable, on the one hand, but sorting the composting gold from the dross is a very time consuming …
Pakistan officials: toll from US strike reaches 29
The death toll from suspected U.S. missile strikes on two villages in Pakistan near the Afghan border has risen to 29, Pakistani intelligence officials said Saturday.
The latest reports from informers and agents in the area of Friday's attacks showed that 29 people had died, said two intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media on the record.
Officials initially said that 27 people died in the North and South Waziristan regions, including several foreign fighters.
Another suspected missile strike later hit a village in South Waziristan, killing seven people, including an …
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Old faithfuls; A perennial-flower primer for the beginning gardener.(HOME & GARDEN)
Peonies, which can live 100 years or more, are perennials. But so are delphiniums, which in my garden last only two or three years before pooping out.
That's why I divide perennials into two groups: the gorgeous but unreliable, like those wimpy delphiniums, and what I call with emphasis perennials, the plants that stand tall during drought and cold and flood, year after year.
For rookie gardeners, starting with the tried-and-true can help avoid disappointment. The toughest perennials flower and thrive even in less-than-desirable places.
Perennials differ from annuals in that they come back year after year - if you're lucky. Planted as seedlings or divisions of older plants, they don't reach their peak for two or more years.
That's Beginners Lesson #1: Perennial gardening takes patience.
Beginners Lesson #2: Preparation pays off.
Do a little research before you buy. Talk to other gardeners or get a perennial guide from a library or bookstore. The photos will help you decide which plants you …
Old faithfuls; A perennial-flower primer for the beginning gardener.(HOME & GARDEN)Peonies, which can live 100 years or more, are perennials. But so are delphiniums, which in my garden last only two or three years before pooping out.
That's why I divide perennials into two groups: the gorgeous but unreliable, like those wimpy delphiniums, and what I call with emphasis perennials, the plants that stand tall during drought and cold and flood, year after year.
For rookie gardeners, starting with the tried-and-true can help avoid disappointment. The toughest perennials flower and thrive even in less-than-desirable places.
Perennials differ from annuals in that they come back year after year - if you're lucky. Planted as seedlings or divisions of older plants, they don't reach their peak for two or more years.
That's Beginners Lesson #1: Perennial gardening takes patience.
Beginners Lesson #2: Preparation pays off.
Do a little research before you buy. Talk to other gardeners or get a perennial guide from a library or bookstore. The photos will help you decide which plants you …
Monday, March 5, 2012
Garlic: From the pages of history to our modern medicinal needs
Referred to in its raw form as a bulb, a clove, a bulbous herb, a spicy, culinary herb, and as "the stinking rose," among others, garlic (Allium sativum) is now finding its way more and more from the kitchen spice rack into the bathroom medicine chest. Garlic's medicinal properties have been known for as long as history has been recorded, but it is only in the last few decades that we have learned more, through well-documented research studies, about its health benefits for all of us.
In his book, The Healing Benefits of Garlic, John Heinerman, Ph.D., says it was around 2300 B.C. in Sumeria, in a city called Lagash, that garlic first came into prominence. "Many of the Old World …
Parish record and population history.
Human demography and disease Susan Scott & Christopher Duncan Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998 Ppxv+354, [pounds]50/$74.95, ISBN 0521 62052 X
Perusing the gravestones in a country churchyard may lead us to ponder the domestic tragedies behind the inscriptions on the moss-covered memorials, so often to the very young. We might also speculate on how such information could be used to study population dynamics, particularly when total population numbers are uncertain.
In 'Human demography and disease', Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan reveal how historical links between poverty, malnutrition and disease may be elucidated using information from parish registers of baptism, marriage and death, Bills of Mortality, and historical records of temperature and commodity prices, together with knowledge of contemporary agriculture and economics. I found the comparisons with today's developing world particularly interesting.
The story starts in the 16th century in Northwest …
The Ocean Project and Its Hundreds of Partners Planning Events Around the World for World Ocean Day, June 8.
Byline: The Ocean Project
PROVIDENCE, R.I., June 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- On June 8 hundreds of communities around the globe will celebrate the 15th annual World Ocean Day - a day to celebrate our individual connection to the ocean and how we all depend on it as a global community. The Ocean Project - with 850 Partner aquariums, zoos, science museums and other educational organizations in all 50 states and 70 other countries - is the largest network ever to focus on conservation of the ocean. This year World Ocean Day is gathering momentum as worldwide attention is drawn to global climate change. Most people are not aware of the crucial role the ocean plays in …
NIAGARA FALLS TO BROWN, SIENA.(Sports)
Byline: Pete Dougherty Staff writer
Before the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference concedes its basketball Player of the Year award to Doug Overton of LaSalle, Marc Brown is making one last pitch for it.
Over Siena's last three games, Brown averaged 27.7 points, 5.3 assists - and eight rebounds. This from a 5-foot-11 point guard.
That Siena, after Tuesday night's 87-68 MAAC victory over Niagara, has won its last three games is no surprise with Brown playing the way he has.
"My career is coming to an end, and I'm trying to make it the best it can be," Brown said. "I want to get back to the (NCAA) tournament."
"At this time of year," …
Congress votes to override veto on Medicare bill
Congress on Tuesday rejected President Bush's veto of legislation protecting doctors from a 10.6 percent cut in their reimbursement rates when treating Medicare patients.
The override vote in the House was a lopsided 383-41, easily meeting the two-thirds threshold needed to nullify the president's veto. About an hour later, the Senate voted to override, 70-26.
Bush has vetoed bills nine times, and Congress has had the muscle to override him only on a water projects bill and twice on farm legislation.
Lawmakers were under pressure from doctors and the elderly patients they serve to void the rate cut, which kicked in on July 1. The cut is based on …
ValuJet won't resume flights by Friday target
ATLANTA ValuJet Airlines, the discount carrier that suspendedservice in June after a crash left 110 people dead, said Wednesday itwill not be able to resume operations by its Friday target date.
The airline had called back about 500 furloughed employees,ranging from pilots to reservation agents, in hopes of returning tothe skies this week with seven aircraft and flights between Atlantaand five other U.S. cities.
But ValuJet said it became clear late Tuesday that executiveswould not have the necessary approval from the TransportationDepartment and the Federal Aviation Administration in time.
The carrier needs a certificate …
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Five steps towards title for Cobras.
NO TEAM in the history of South African domestic cricket has won four trophies in succession. But the Cape Cobras have the unique opportunity this weekend when they face the Highveld Lions in the final round of SuperSport Series fixtures at the Wanderers.
Should the Cobras achieve their goal, they will also become the first team to hold the SuperSport Series trophy aloft three seasons in a row.
Although the Lions are out of the running to eclipse the Cobras, it will be a tough task in Johannesburg from today, with the Cobras' main rivals, the Titans, just up the highway hoping to wipe out the meagre 0.68 points difference that separates the two teams.
We take a closer look at five key …
Maine's Atchinson primed for NAIC challenge. (Maine Insurance Superintendent Brian Atchinson; National Association of Insurance Commissioners)
GARDINER, Maine - State insurance regulators are lucky that Maine Insurance Superintendent Brian Atchinson is used to facing challenges.
Whether it is reviving Maine's collapsing workers compensation market or facing a contested race for president of the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners, Mr. Atchinson has demonstrated an ability to cope with problems that come his way.
The latest test emerged shortly after he was elected NAIC president in December.
Executive Vp David B. Simmons, the organization's top staff member, announced unexpectedly that he wanted new challenges after four years at the helm and' tendered his resignation, effective March 15 (BI, Jan. 15).
"You always get thrown a few curveballs," said Mr. Atchinson, who turned 42 last week.
He then responded with his usual balanced approach.
While offering heartfelt praise to Mr. Simmons for his dedicated service, Mr. Atchinson and other officers were quickly working to isolate Mr. Simmons from regulatory policy matters, though Mr. Simmons is still handling management duties. That protects both a job-hunting Mr. Simmons and the NAIC from the appearance of impropriety.
It's "extremely important" to find the right person, Mr. Atchinson said. "The position is a very demanding one. A lot of …
ZERO-IN BUSHMASTER RIFLE.(MAIN)
Byline: MICHAEL OLESKER
The folks at the gun shop tell me that, yes, this Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle I'm holding is pretty much like the one used to shoot 13 people in the recent sniper unpleasantness. The last word, unpleasantness, is used diplomatically. If we're talking about weapons, it upsets the National Rifle Association types so much when we point out that people occasionally use the damned things to slaughter people.
The Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, say the nice folks at White Marsh Arms in Reisterstown, Md., is certainly not intended to shoot people. True, sometimes it unfortunately works out that way. And, true, once a gun leaves a store, there's no telling how in the world it might be used. And, true, …
THORNBURGH ORDERS INQUIRY OF APPARENT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LEAKS.(Main)
Byline: Michael Wines New York Times
Attorney General Dick Thornburgh has ordered an inquiry to determine whether anyone in the Justice Department provided journalists with politically damaging information about House Democratic leaders.
His move came as senior Democrats in Congress questioned whether the disclosures had come from the department.
An aide to Thornburgh, David Runkel, when asked at a news conference if the disclosures might have been politically motivated, said: "If there is some attempted interference here, in the on-goings of the Democratic caucus on the Hill, it's of concern to us."
He said that he believed only "low- level" employees in the Justice Department or the FBI …
Dad of Jordanian held in Dallas says son innocent
The father of a 19-year-old Jordanian held in the United States on charges of plotting to bomb a skyscraper in downtown Dallas insisted Friday his son wasn't involved in the plot, calling the case against him "completely fabricated."
Hosam Smadi, 19, was arrested Thursday in Dallas after federal officials said he placed what he believed to be a car bomb in a parking garage beneath the 60-story Fountain Place office tower. The decoy device was given to him by an undercover FBI agent.
Smadi has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
The teenager's father, Maher Hussein Smadi, who is from the northern Jordanian …
Running the business at full throttle
Survey results show that IT plays a critical part in most of the initiatives automakers and suppliers are undertaking. In particular, the collaborative initiatives reported in the survey can only be accomplished by designing, developing, deploying, and operating complex information systems. This requires clear goal setting and alignment of business and IT strategy and decision making, investment goals and performance metrics, and a program to leverage existing assets.
Organizing IT Around Value Delivery
The relationship between IT initiatives and the delivery of business value must be well established at the outset. Organizing to align IT with business strategy is a key …
ACHTUNG, TIX!(WXRK - FM radio station gives away U2 concert tickets)(Brief Article)
Radio station's request Lines are usually inundated with calls when giving away concert tickets. But, when the station is the only source to score freebies and the …
Hair today, nerves tomorrow.(Regenerative medicine)(Brief article)
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
For surgeons tasked with helping patients recover from serious nerve damage a trip to the hairdressers might be just the thing. Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the US found that keratin, a fibrous structural protein found in hair, speeds up nerve regrowth (Biomaterials 2008, 29, 118-28).
The use of keratin as a biomaterial dates back to China in the 15th century, according to researcher Mark Van Dyke. His group decided to investigate whether hair might be useful in nerve regeneration, because hair growth is a highly proliferative, regenerative process known to involve more than thirty different growth …
Saturday, March 3, 2012
LEE SAYS ABILITY TO LISTEN QUALIFIES HIM FOR POSITION.(MAIN)
Byline: Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Bill Lann Lee said he would stress his record as a conciliator if making his case directly to the Republican senators who are blocking his nomination to be President Clinton's chief civil rights enforcer.
``You have to be able to listen, you have to be able to respect the other party's views,'' Lee said in an interview. ``Sometimes you have to see things from many points of view, because there are more than two parties. I've been able to do that.''
The veteran NAACP attorney's nomination to be assistant attorney general for civil rights remains mired in the Senate Judiciary Committee. His critics, led by …
ABC hires Amanpour for Sunday morning job
ABC News said it has hired Christiane Amanpour, one of CNN's best-known personalities for her international reporting over the past two decades, to host its Sunday morning political talk show.
Amanpour, who will start in August, replaces George Stephanopoulos. He left the show in December to take over as co-host of ABC's "Good Morning America."
Amanpour's hiring indicates a change in direction for a show that is concerned primarily with politics and domestic issues _ like other Washington-based counterparts "Meet the Press" on NBC and "Face the Nation" on CBS.
"With Christiane, we have the opportunity to provide our …
Urban League seeks to redirect Civil Rights Movement
ATLANTA (NNPA) - After successfully eradicating legal barriers that prevented African Americans from enjoying basic rights as U.S. citizens, the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement must focus on economic empowerment, says the head of the National Urban League.
"As we stand here today, this issue of economic inequality and poverty must be the new and defining issue of civil rights in the 21st century," said Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. "The fight to sit at a lunch counter was an important fight. The fight to be able to afford what was served at the lunch counter is an even more important fight today. And the fight to own the lunch counter in …
ESTATES AT HALFMOON.(Real Estate)
Estates at Halfmoon is a neighborhood of 87 homes on sites that range from two-thirds of an acre to three acres. The nine available home designs range in size from 2,500 square feet to more than 3,800 square feet. Two layouts feature a first-floor master bedroom suite.
Base prices: The $400,000 range
What's included: Wooded home sites; public utilities; Energy Star appliances, granite kitchen counter tops; hardwood flooring in foyers, living room, dining room, kitchen and breakfast areas; full oak risers and treads in main staircase; crown molding in some areas; whirlpool tubs; walkout basement lots available.
Popular upgrades: Expanded kitchen and …
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