BAMAKO, Mali (AP) ? Mali army officials say Islamic extremist fighters have attacked Timbuktu in northern Mali.
Capt. Samba Coulibaly, spokesman for the Mali military in Timbuktu, said Sunday there is continuing gunfire between the army and jihadist fighters linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. He said the Islamic radicals sneaked into the city's military camp.
Coulibaly said the fighting started Saturday night at about 10 p.m. when a jihadist suicide bomber blew himself up at a Malian military checkpoint at the western entrance to Timbuktu. He said one army soldier was slightly injured in the explosion.
He said that since the bomb attack, the jihadists have fired upon the Mali army from hidden positions and so far the French military in Timbuktu has not been involved in the fighting.
De-extinction. What if plants and animal species wiped out of existence could be brought back? That's the novel notion springing from recent advances in synthetic biology. The idea is simple. Find samples, like the mummified passenger pigeon discovered recently in a museum desk drawer, and collect its DNA. Compare said DNA to that of its closest living relatives to see what specific genes make a passenger pigeon unique. Then splice those crucial genes into the living relative's DNA strands to produce a genetic copy of the extinct animal. Resurrection. The restoration potential is not limited to plants and animals that we have just recently eliminated. We could also potentially bring back species like woolly mammoths or saber-tooth cats. Not dinosaurs though, since DNA has a half-life of just 521 years or so. Of course, successfully bringing back the mammoth might also require restoration of its habitat, so it has a home to roam. But even without the reappearance of charismatic megafauna, such techniques will find uses from agriculture to injecting a bit more genetic diversity into dwindling populations of endangered species. The biggest contribution of the new biotechnology may not be de-extinction, but preventing extinction in the first place. Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news. ? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
SUFFOLK, Va. -- The kitchen floor is curling up at Carol Rood's house. She and her partner removed the edging when they redid the cabinets last year, and now there's nothing to hold down the white-and-green linoleum where it meets the walls.
"This floor is nasty," Rood, 47, said during an interview in her kitchen. "That was the plan this year, was to do the floor. That's not happening now."
They're not fixing it because Rood's partner, Karol Sebastian, is facing at least two weeks' worth of unpaid days off from her job fixing helicopters for the U.S. Department of Defense. Sebastian, 45, is one of 90,000 civilian defense employees in Virginia expecting furloughs thanks to budget cuts known as sequestration.
This is the best-possible scenario for people directly affected by the cuts: Rood and Sebastian will stay solidly middle class, but their lifestyle will get just slightly shabbier at the edges. You might not even notice unless they told you about it.
"It's not going to knock us out of being middle-income people," Rood said. "I don't think we'll suffer. Suffer's not a good word because we live a really nice life."
Surely others will suffer more: the thousands of government workers and contractors who will be laid off, seniors and schoolchildren who will miss out on meals and early education programs, millions of long-term unemployed who will get stingier benefits, to name a few.
Sequestration's potential aggregate impact is what matters most. A family in Suffolk might represent the first chokepoint. The trouble is small when it starts with them, but when thousands and thousands of families tone their spending, the reverberation's pretty loud. Economists say the policy will result in 750,000 fewer jobs this year.
Rood and Sebastian anticipate getting something like $600 or $800 less per month from May through September, roughly 13 percent of their total income during that time. One of the first things they did at the beginning of the year when they realized they might have less money was to call a meeting with their three teenage boys.
"At the time, I didn't know how many days it was going to be," Sebastian said. "I was like, 'Look, I could lose my job for the summer.'"
Rood continued: "We gave them the whole story, their eyes kinda glassed over because they're teenagers, but they got the money part. They got the fact that we were going to be losing money so we would have to make changes."
For the kids, that means no more lunch money (they'll have to bag it instead) and a family data plan with less texting. For the parents, that means rebundling the cable package, putting plans on hold to pay down the car debt early, and holding off on more trips to the hair stylist. The messed up linoleum in the kitchen, the broken handle on the lawnmower, the malfunctioning second fridge that holds extra water and gallons of milk -- that stuff will have to wait. The nascent termite infestation won't, of course.
"That's the stuff that worries me," Rood said. "When life happens."
Though they consider themselves blessed, Rood and Sebastian said they find it irritating that their reduced income is the product of a pampered elite who supposedly don't even think sequestration is a good idea.
"I don't see any congressmen or senators going on furlough," Rood said. "That's the kind of thing that aggravates me."
Members of Congress are feeling the pinch in their own special way. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. Senate will be privatizing its Hair Care Services unit. Rood might dye her hair at home; future senatorial haircuts might lack taxpayer-subsidized marble bathtubs and a chandeliered sitting parlor.
Rood and Sebastian, both retired from the Navy, have plenty of sequestration company in the detached homes along the curvy streets of their neighborhood. The Hampton Roads area, which encompasses Suffolk and several other towns, is home to 39,000 civilian Defense Department employees. (Active duty personnel are shielded from cuts.)
"We're military, the guy behind us is Air Force, the guy next door is retired Navy, the guy two houses down is retired Navy," Rood said. "This entire neighborhood is saturated with military people."
And from what Rood has gleaned from conversations with her neighbors, a lot of them are also getting stuck with furloughs and layoffs. The concentration of defense personnel and contractors makes the area particularly vulnerable to cutbacks.
"In some sense sequestration is not a big deal in other parts of the country," said James Koch, an economics professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. "Whereas here in this region we're talking about losing a little more than 2 percent of our gross regional project, a little more than $2 billion a year."
Koch, an expert on the region, said the diminished cash equals 17,000 lost jobs, just shy of 3 percent of the regional labor force. Neighbors will notice the difference.
"People will go to shop in the mall and they'll find there are not as many people in the store, or maybe the store is closed," he said.
Rood and Sebastian have found a bright side: They're glad sequestration is teaching them to spend more carefully. On balance, it might even be a good year for them. They met in 2003 while deployed to Bahrain during the Iraq war. In 2006, they combined their families and bought their Suffolk house. But they can't get legally married in Virginia.
"We dealt with 'don't ask, don't tell' and then it was a really big deal for us when President Obama got rid of that," Rood said. She hopes the federal Defense of Marriage Act, debated this week at the U.S. Supreme Court, follows "don't ask, don't tell" out the door.
"In the big picture, I would take sequestration for six months if DOMA would be struck down," she said.
***
HuffPost Readers: Have the federal budget cuts kicking in this month had an impact on you specifically or on your community? Have you lost work, has a program you rely on been cut back, has a project been halted? The Huffington Post wants to hear from you on how you're being affected by sequestration. Send your stories, links to news reports on the impact in your area, photos and anything else you want to share here. Include a number if you'd like to be interviewed. Let us know if you want to remain anonymous."
Here?s an important reminder that it takes just one Nean?der?thal boss to launch a lawsuit: Treat??ing working mothers differently than working fathers is sex discrimination. Never turn a blind eye if you hear a super?visor is doing just that.
Recent case: Shannon, who has young children, worked for medical equipment manufacturer Hologic. After she took two days off to care for her kids, her boss commented that he thought her children were interfering with her job. A few months later, he repeated his criticism, telling her that ?no one with young children can do this job.?
Shannon reported the comments to HR. Shortly after, she learned she was being terminated.
Shannon sued, alleging sex discrimination because male employees with young children hadn?t been criticized. Hologic argued that it hadn?t en??gaged in sex discrimination because it had replaced Shannon with a woman. It tried to get the case tossed out.
The court refused. The question wasn?t whether the company hired women, but whether it treated a subset of women?those with young children?differently than a subset of men who also had young children. The case now proceeds to trial. (Swider v. Hologic, No. 12-1547, DC MN, 2012)
Final note: Shannon?s last day at work was about six weeks after she was informed in person that she would lose her job. However, Shannon asked several times whether she really was being fired, and received no clear answer. She filed her complaint within 300 days of her last day at work, but more than 300 days after she was first told.
The court said that because Hologic didn?t clearly state she was being fired, she could use the last day of work to calculate her filing deadline. Lesson: Put all notices in writing.
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TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) ? Brett D. Shadle always had wanted to be a member of the Navy's most elite special forces unit. A year after enlisting, he made it happen and went on to become a highly decorated member of the Navy's famed SEAL Team 6.
U.S. military officials confirmed Saturday that Shadle, a 31-year-old special warfare operator chief, died Thursday when he and another SEAL collided in midair during a parachute training exercise over the rugged desert of southern Arizona.
Shadle was taken to University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson, where he was pronounced dead. The other SEAL ? an unidentified E-6 petty officer first class ? remained in stable condition Saturday at the Tucson hospital.
Military officials said the accident was under investigation.
Family members said Shadle, of Elizabethville, Pa., was stationed in Virginia. He was married and had a 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter.
His uncle Donald Shadle, 67, of Elizabethville, expressed disbelief, saying his nephew had been on many overseas missions only to come back and get killed during a training exercise.
"He was always a good kid, and he always wanted to be a Navy SEAL and that's what he did," Donald Shadle said.
Shadle enlisted in the Navy in July 2000. The following year he completed his SEAL training and was assigned to his first unit in early 2002.
Navy officials said Shadle had earned multiple Bronze Star Medals with Valor and several service ribbons. While details about his deployments were secret, officials confirmed he had served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Shadle and a fellow SEAL were practicing "routine military free-fall training" when the accident occurred Thursday afternoon, said U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Kenneth McGraw. The SEALs collided in midair and landed in separate areas.
The command has a parachute testing and training facility at the Pinal Airpark northeast of Tucson, McGraw said. Training programs are operated there year-round.
The Navy's SEAL Team 6 gained international attention when it was revealed that members of the top secret unit had carried out a raid in Pakistan in 2011 in which Osama bin Laden was killed. Bin Laden became the most wanted man in the world after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
Team 6 was hit hard later that same year when 22 SEALs from the special unit were killed when the helicopter they were riding in was apparently hit by an insurgent's rocket-propelled grenade. None of those killed on the helicopter was part of the bin Laden raid. Their deaths marked the nation's single deadliest day of the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., and Ron Todt in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
VIENNA (AP) ? Austrian police and firefighters have taken on the role of urban cowboys in a two-day round-up of a herd of cattle that broke out of a fenced-off pasture and decided to go into town.
A police statement says the 43 steers defied attempts by police and volunteer firefighters to recapture them after wandering off Thursday and heading toward the Upper Austrian town of Freistadt. After being chased away from the railway station, they endangered motorists by stampeding onto a two-lane highway before running into a town suburb.
Two firefighters who tried to stop them were injured and needed hospital treatment.
The statement says 18 of the animals remain on the loose Friday. The rest have been corralled or tranquilized.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Authorities say the son of professional wrestler Ric Flair has been found dead in a North Carolina hotel room.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police says officers were called to a hotel on the city's south side around 10:30 a.m. Friday. When they arrived, they found the body of 25-year-old Reid Fliehr, who also was a wrestler.
A statement from police says there are no signs of foul play, and that the cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner's office.
Flair's agent released a statement Friday describing Reid as "an incredible son, brother, friend, and professional wrestler."
Ric Flair's real name is Richard Morgan Flair. The peroxide-blond wrestled for some 40 years and also was known as The Nature Boy.
The 64-year-old won many pro wrestling titles including in the WWE.
Quality prekindergarten programs can boost children?s school skills whether the kids come from poor or well-off homes, a new study shows.
While most previous studies had focused only on kids from underprivileged backgrounds, in the new study Harvard researchers found that regardless of family income children who got a year of quality prekindergarten did better in reading and math than kids who spent the year in daycare, with relatives, or in some other kind of preschool, according to the report which was published in Child Development.?
As a further benefit, the kids who spent a year in preschool developed better ?executive functioning.?
That means is that they had developed the skills needed to take advantage of what is being taught in school, said the report?s lead author Christina Weiland, a researcher at Harvard when the study was done and currently an incoming assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
?For example, they?ve learned that they need to raise their hands before yelling out an answer,? she explained. ?They?ve gotten better at keeping numbers in their heads when doing a math problem and remembering the teacher?s instructions. They?ve gotten better at shifting their attention from a distracting peer to what the teacher is saying.?
Those kinds of self-regulatory behaviors are highly predictive of how well you do later in life, Weiland said.?
There were some kids who benefited more than others from prekindergarten: Latino children, and to a lesser extent, Asian and African American children.
Weiland was able to study the impact of preschool in a sort of ?natural? experiment. In Boston, kids qualify for a free, full-day preschool program during the school year?if they turn 4? by Sept. 1.
Children born after that date must wait a year before they are eligible.
For the study, Weiland tested 969 kids who'd finished?a full?school year of preschool in?2008-2009 and compared them 1,049 kids?who?weren't quite old enough to have made the previous year's?cutoff and so were just starting preschool.?(Many of them had spent that?year in daycare and being cared for by relatives or in other preschool programs.)
Experts unaffiliated with the new research welcomed the new report.
?I think this is a very important study since the effects weren?t just in children at a lower economic level,? said Patrick Tolan, a professor in the Curry School of Education and director of the Youth-Nex Center at the University of Virginia. ?Just as important, though, is the implication that the boost in skills may very much depend on having high quality staff and using programs that have been empirically tested.?
Matia Finn-Stevenson, a research scientist and associate director of the Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy and director of the School of the 21st Century at Yale University, agreed that the quality of the program is all important.
?In this study the children were in a high-quality educational environment with teachers with masters degrees, teachers receiving coaching, etc.,? she said. ?I know parents who are not satisfied with their PreK and they have told me they simply have to look the other way and not make waves because they have no alternatives.?
How can parents figure out whether their PreK program is good?
Finn-Stevenson suggests that ?parents should look for a place that allows parents to come in at any time to see the PreK in action. Look for staff continuity ? how long have they been at the school/program? How often and in what ways do they interact with the children? What is the overall atmosphere? How are the children interacting??
One thing that?s unclear at this point is whether the gains in PreK will carry over into later years. That?s a topic that still needs to be researched, Tolan said.
Having good audio on your computer can make all the difference in the world, but the form that audio takes really depends on your preferences and what types of things you do.
If you game or watch movies, you may prefer a set of surround speakers or headphones. If you're mostly into music, a good pair of stereo speakers (plus maybe a subwoofer) or nice set of studio headphones may do the trick. And if you don't really use your computers sound much aside from needing to hear the occasional system beep or ping, the speakers that came with your computer may suit you just fine.
If you need some help choosing a good setup, we can help. Just check out our reader-nominated Hive Five lists of the five best desktop computer speakers, headphones, or headsets with attached microphones.
In the meantime, we'd like to know:
Images by Jeff Dray (flickr), Arogant (Shutterstock), and PSD Graphics.
(Reuters) - The winner of one of the biggest Powerball jackpots of all time owes $29,000 in overdue child support payments, the Passaic County, New Jersey, sheriff's office said on Thursday.
Pedro Quezada, 44, a county resident who is married and the father of five children ages 5 to 23, was the sole winner of a $338 million jackpot on Saturday.
Because he chose the lump sum option, instead of annual payments over 30 years, he will actually receive $211 million, lottery officials said on Thursday. Officials said that is the third-largest lump sum payment in Powerball history.
The lottery will take out a total of 28 percent in federal and state taxes, which would leave Quezada, who until this week was the owner of a bodega in Passaic, New Jersey, with about $152 million.
His Apple Deli & Grocery now has a "for sale" sign on the door. Quezada told reporters on Tuesday that the business is now closed.
Passaic County Sheriff Richard Berdnik said in a statement that his office is attempting to notify Quezada about the support payment. He said that generally the state's lottery division would pay the judgment out of the winnings.
"Like everyone else, until this warrant is satisfied, Mr. Quezada is subject to potential arrest," the statement said.
The child support issue dates back to 2009, according to local media reports.
Quezada could not be reached for comment.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Excel is the second-most widely used productivity app in the world, and it's second only to Microsoft Word. If you use Excel every day, but you don't need Word or Outlook or PowerPoint or the rest of the enormous toolbox that makes up Office 2013, you don't need to buy the whole Office suite. A long-standing but little-known option makes it possible to buy Excel alone. Just visit Microsoft's Office store, scroll down until you find the tiny icons that let you but the Office apps separately, and click on the icon that lets you buy Excel 2013 for $109.99. Just don't ask why Microsoft chose that price, because Microsoft isn't saying. It's a strange price, but for all the power the app offers, it's an excellent deal.
Excel 2013 deserves a longer and deeper look than we had room for in our write-up of the full Office 2013 suite, partly because Microsoft seems to have packed more new features and conveniences into Excel 2013 than into any of the other apps in the suite. Some of these new features add functions that Excel never had before, but most of them make it effortless to use features that took a lot of time, trouble, and expertise to use in earlier versions.
What's Obviously New Some of the new features are obvious, such as the way Excel now opens multiple worksheets in separate Excel windows, each with its own ribbon interface, instead of as separate panes in a single Excel window sharing one ribbon. This makes it easy to manage different worksheets in a dual-monitor setup, while also bringing Excel into line with Word, which has used separate windows for separate documents for ages. Some are under the hood, including fifty new functions for use in formulas, including one that converts strings to numbers in a customizable way, so that "15%" appears as to "0.15" without requiring a trip to the "Format cell" dialog to change a cell's appearance.
Other new features streamline existing features, making it surprisingly easy for beginners to perform tasks that used to be limited to experts. When you select a block of data, a Quick Analysis icon appears at the lower right of the selection. Click on it, and Excel displays a gallery of suggested formatting, charts, totals, and much more. For example, as you move through the suggested choices, Excel displays a row or column of totals, running totals, averages, and other calculations based on the selected data.
Quick Analysis also suggests suitable charts, or custom formatting that color-codes the data, or displays icons in each cell indicating whether the number of greater or less than the preceding cell. The same gallery also suggests possible pivot tables for custom views of the data, making this feature more accessible than ever. All these various options were (and still are) available from the Ribbon if you had the knowledge and patience to find them, but now Excel goes out of its way to offer them. By the way, keyboard aficionados will be glad to know that the Quick Analysis gallery, like everything else in Excel, can be opened with a keyboard shortcut, in this case Ctrl-Q.
My favorite new feature, because it saves a tremendous amount of time-wasting effort, is called Flash Fill, and it's one of many features where Excel acts as it it's using its brain, not just its raw number-crunching power. If you have a column of first names and a column of last names, and you want a single column containing cells with a last name followed by a comma, then a first name. I used to accomplish this by copying the names into Word, combining them there by replacing tabs with commas, and then copying the results back into Excel. Now, all I need to do is go to the top row of the columns of names, containing, for example, "Arthur" and "Andersen," find an empty cell on that row, and enter "Andersen, Arthur". Then I start typing a similar combination of names on the next cell down, corresponding to the names in the second row, and Excel fills in that cell, and the whole rest of the column, with the combined names that I want. The filled-in data appears in gray until I click on an icon that invites me to confirm that I got the data I want.
You can use the same trick in reverse, too, extracting the first or last word from cells that contain multiple words, instead of combining multiple words into one cell. With some experimentation, you may find that Flash Fill is smarter than you expect. For example, if you have a column of dates such as "2012, 1995, 1987, 1990" and you enter "2000s, 1990s" in the column next to them, Excel will instantly suggest "1980s," and "1980s" to continue the series correctly.
What's Under the Hood Some of Excel's best new features aren't visible in Excel itself because they exist only on the Web. One especially nifty feature lets you add a view-in-Excel button to almost any table that you want to include on a webpage. This can be a webpage on your own site or a blog or anywhere else. All you need to do is to visit Microsoft's site, click a few buttons to get the two chunks of HTML code that you need, and then paste that code above and below a table in a web page.
Tidemark is launching a new service today that provides a visual way to view a company's performance. The SaaS platform provides a way to see data that in many ways borrows from the infographic style that has become so popular as a marketing tool. As part of the release, Tidemark is also announcing an integration with Box, for in-line use of the online storage and collaboration service.
It was only two days ago that ZeroDesktop launched MiiPC, a $99 kid-safe Android PC, and the Kickstarter campaign's already surpassed its $50,000 goal. To jog your memory, MiiPC is an attractive 4.7 x 4.7 x 3.1-inch desktop computer running Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). It's powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Marvell New Armada SoC with 1GB of RAM, 4GB of flash storage, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. The system features an SD card slot in front, a power button on top and a full array of ports in the back, including two USB 2.0, HDMI, analog audio I/O, Ethernet and power.
What makes this device so unique is the software, which is optimized for use with a large screen (up to 1080p), keyboard and mouse. It provides a desktop-class web browsing experience with Flash and runs standard Android apps. MiiPC supports multiple user accounts which can be controlled and monitored remotely in real-time using a companion app for iOS and Android. The idea is for parents to create a safe online environment for their kids by managing their access to the web and to apps. We got the chance to play with a prototype MiiPC yesterday -- read our impressions and watch out hands-on video after the break.
FILE - This undated image provided by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows its director Tom Clements. Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer says Clements was shot to death around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night March 19, 2013 when he answered his front door in Monument, north of Colorado Springs. Personal safety is always on the mind of most correctional officers and prison administrators when they?re working the prison tower or shaking down inmate cells for contraband. But increasingly it?s also a concern at the end of their shifts and off prison grounds. The slaying of Clements has officers checking their review mirrors more often and industry experts recommending a closer look at security off the job. (AP Photo/Colorado Department of Corrections)
FILE - This undated image provided by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows its director Tom Clements. Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer says Clements was shot to death around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night March 19, 2013 when he answered his front door in Monument, north of Colorado Springs. Personal safety is always on the mind of most correctional officers and prison administrators when they?re working the prison tower or shaking down inmate cells for contraband. But increasingly it?s also a concern at the end of their shifts and off prison grounds. The slaying of Clements has officers checking their review mirrors more often and industry experts recommending a closer look at security off the job. (AP Photo/Colorado Department of Corrections)
FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows paroled inmate Evan Spencer Ebel. Ebel, 28, the former Colorado inmate and white supremacist at the center of a two-state mystery is dead after a high-speed chase and shootout with Texas deputies March 21, 2013. Now investigators are trying to piece together whether he killed the chief of Colorado prisons and a pizza delivery man. Tom Clements, the Colorado prisons chief who was gunned down, is being remembered at a memorial service, Monday, March 25, 2013 at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/Colorado Department of Corrections, File)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ? The Colorado prisons chief who was gunned down as he answered his front door is being remembered at a memorial service.
The service for Tom Clements, 58, is set for Monday morning at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
The director of the Colorado Department of Corrections was killed at his home Tuesday night in Monument, north of Colorado Springs.
A private funeral was held for him Sunday. He is survived by a wife and two daughters.
Evan Spencer Ebel, killed in a gunfight with Texas authorities Thursday, is a suspect.
Colorado authorities say evidence gathered in Texas provided a strong lead in the case but stressed investigators had not yet confirmed a link between the crime and Ebel.
Authorities say the car Ebel had in Texas was similar to one seen not far from Clements' home the night he was killed, and bullets Ebel fired at Texas police were the same caliber and brand as the bullet or bullets that killed Clements.
Ballistics tests are due sometime this week.
It remained unclear whether Clements was targeted when he was shot and why.
Officials say Ebel had been a member of the 211s, a white supremacist prison gang in Colorado. El Paso County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer says investigators are trying to determine whether the 211 gang was involved in the killing.
Denver police say Ebel is also a suspect in the March 17 slaying of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon.
Gov. John Hickenlooper, who hired Clements, has said that he is a longtime friend of the suspect's father, attorney Jack Ebel, who testified two years ago before state lawmakers that solitary confinement was destroying his son's psyche.
Hickenlooper confirmed he mentioned the case to Clements as an example of why the prison system needed reform before the job was offered, but the governor said he did not mention Evan Ebel by name.
There was no indication that Hickenlooper's relationship with the Jack Ebel played a role in the shooting. Hickenlooper said he did not having any role in Evan Ebel's parole in January.
Jack Ebel issued a statement offering condolences to all those who have suffered from his son's actions.
"I ask for privacy for me and my family during this time as we grieve for the loss of life that has occurred and for all those affected," he said.
Officials took additional security measures after Clements' death and placed the state prisons on lockdown Friday.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Chronicle announced over the weekend that the paper would begin charging for a large portion of its online content by imposing a paywall.
Since it became one of the first major newspapers to stake a claim online in 1994, the Hearst-owned Chronicle has posted its content for free at the ad-supported SFGate.com. On Saturday, the paper launched the significantly less confusingly-named SFChronicle.com and has begun diverting much of its "premium" content to this new subscription-based site.
"Subscribers to the new website will find the newspaper's unrivaled content with brilliant photos, an uncluttered format and the familiar design of the Chronicle," wrote Chronicle President Marc Adkins in an article explaining the change. "Premium stories and columns will update and change with the news throughout the day. Subscribers also will have full access to the Chronicle's most enduring legacy--its columnists."
In addition to having to pay to read the latest musings of C.W. Nevius and Willie Brown, the paper will be migrating its sports, entertainment and political coverage to the new site. SFGate will still exist in its current free format, but shift more toward breaking news and clicky photo slideshows that, as one Chronicle staffers explained on Reddit, account for about 85 percent of its traffic.
Unfettered online access to the Chronicle's premium site costs $12 per month. In an unscientific poll hosted on SF Appeal, the vast majority of respondents said they wouldn't switch over to the paid format.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-third of the country's 1,400 daily newspaper have some kind of digital pay plan in place.
But as the Chronicle makes big changes to its business model, its high-profile reporters and columnists are sending a very different message via social media. On Monday, a number of the paper's 275 Pacific Media Workers Guild members took to Facebook and Twitter in a virtual protest decrying the Hearst Corporation's push to have workers contribute more towards their own health care benefits.
Changing their Twitter avatars to red, many Chronicle staffers went on a social media strike on Monday, refusing to tweet in promotion of their own stories and instead speaking out against their parent company:
In addition to tweeting about the issue, an online petition demanding "fair health care for Chronicle workers" began to circulate.
Guild spokesperson Kat Anderson explained that employees are currently working under a health plan that, due to the industry-wide rising cost of health care, will likely run out of money in the next ten to 18 months.
"Hearst is an extremely wealthy private company," reporter and bargaining committee member Matthai Kuruvila told SF Weekly, "and they're talking about profit-sharing with management at the same time that they're trying to cut our health care."
A Hearst spokesperson declined to comment about ongoing labor negotiations.
Anderson said there's a walkout of the Chronicle's newsroom scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m.
Map shows projected change in medical claim costs by
Map shows projected change in medical claim costs by
FILE - In this March 23, 2010 file photo, Marcelas Owens of Seattle, left, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., right, and others, look on as President Barack Obama signs the health care bill in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Medical claims costs _ the biggest driver of health insurance premiums _ will jump an average 32 percent for individual policies under President Barack Obama?s overhaul, according to a study by the nation?s leading group of financial risk analysts. Recently released to its members, the report from the Society of Actuaries could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Medical claims costs ? the biggest driver of health insurance premiums ? will jump an average 32 percent for Americans' individual policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, according to a study by the nation's leading group of financial risk analysts.
The report could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. The estimates were recently released by the Society of Actuaries to its members.
While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.
The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.
The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families. That's because the primary impact of Obama's law is on people who don't have coverage through their jobs.
The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn't take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said.
At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said some of what passes for health insurance today is so skimpy it can't be compared to the comprehensive coverage available under the law. "Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don't pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus," she said. "They're really mortgage protection, not health insurance."
A prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does "a credible job" of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, "without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction."
"Having said that," Foster added, "actuaries tend to be financially conservative, so the various assumptions might be more inclined to consider what might go wrong than to anticipate that everything will work beautifully." Actuaries use statistics and economic theory to make long-range cost projections for insurance and pension programs sponsored by businesses and government. The society is headquartered near Chicago.
Kristi Bohn, an actuary who worked on the study, acknowledged it did not attempt to estimate the effect of subsidies, insurer competition and other factors that could mitigate cost increases. She said the goal was to look at the underlying cost of medical care.
"Claims cost is the most important driver of health care premiums," she said.
"We don't see ourselves as a political organization," Bohn added. "We are trying to figure out what the situation at hand is."
On the plus side, the report found the law will cover more than 32 million currently uninsured Americans when fully phased in. And some states ? including New York and Massachusetts ? will see double-digit declines in costs for claims in the individual market.
Uncertainty over costs has been a major issue since the law passed three years ago, and remains so just months before a big push to cover the uninsured gets rolling Oct. 1. Middle-class households will be able to purchase subsidized private insurance in new marketplaces, while low-income people will be steered to Medicaid and other safety net programs. States are free to accept or reject a Medicaid expansion also offered under the law.
Obama has promised that the new law will bring costs down. That seems a stretch now. While the nation has been enjoying a lull in health care inflation the past few years, even some former administration advisers say a new round of cost-curbing legislation will be needed.
Bohn said the study overall presents a mixed picture.
Millions of now-uninsured people will be covered as the market for directly purchased insurance more than doubles with the help of government subsidies. The study found that market will grow to more than 25 million people. But costs will rise because spending on sicker people and other high-cost groups will overwhelm an influx of younger, healthier people into the program.
Some of the higher-cost cases will come from existing state high-risk insurance pools. Those people will now be able to get coverage in the individual insurance market, since insurance companies will no longer be able to turn them down. Other people will end up buying their own plans because their employers cancel coverage. While some of these individuals might save money for themselves, they will end up raising costs for others.
Part the reason for the wide disparities in the study is that states have different populations and insurance rules. In the relatively small number of states where insurers were already restricted from charging higher rates to older, sicker people, the cost impact is less.
"States are starting from different starting points, and they are all getting closer to one another," said Bohn.
The study also did not model the likely patchwork results from some states accepting the law's Medicaid expansion while others reject it. It presented estimates for two hypothetical scenarios in which all states either accept or reject the expansion.
Larry Levitt, an insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, reviewed the report and said the actuaries need to answer more questions.
"I'd generally characterize it as providing useful background information, but I don't think it's complete enough to be treated as a projection," Levitt said. The conclusion that employers with sicker workers would drop coverage is "speculative," he said.
Another caveat: The Society of Actuaries contracted Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, to do the number-crunching that drives the report. United also owns the nation's largest health insurance company. Bohn said the study reflects the professional conclusions of the society, not Optum or its parent company.
___
AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.
Online:
Society of Actuaries __ http://www.soa.org/NewlyInsured/
Charlotte Bobcats' Bismack Biyombo (0) blocks Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Sunday, March 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Charlotte Bobcats' Bismack Biyombo (0) blocks Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Sunday, March 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Miami Heat's Mike Miller (13) applies pressure as Charlotte Bobcats' Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (14) rebounds the ball during the first half of a NBA basketball game in Miami, Sunday March 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra signals his team during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Bobcats in Miami, Sunday, March 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade, center, sits on the bench in street clothes because of right knee soreness during an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Bobcats in Miami, Sunday, March 24, 2013. Juwan Howard, second from right, and Mario Chalmers, right, also sit on the bench. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) drives around Charlotte Bobcats' Jeff Adrien (4) looking for a shot during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Miami, Sunday March 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
MIAMI (AP) ? The world's best came out to see if Miami could do it again. Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked men's tennis player. Wladimir Klitschko, the world heavyweight boxing king. Rory McIlroy, who sits atop the golf rankings for at least one more night.
And they got quite a show.
The Heat won their 26th straight game on Sunday, with LeBron James going for 32 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds in a 109-77 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats.
"I think it's very humbling that you can have some of the greats from other sports come to see your team play, come to see you play," said James, who was 11 for 14 from the field in another surgical performance. "You try to leave an impression on them, as a team and as an individual, absolutely. So it was great to have them in the building, for sure."
Chris Bosh and Norris Cole had 15 points apiece for the Heat, who played without Dwyane Wade, held from the lineup because of right knee soreness that the team believes is minor. And after yet another slow start, Miami is now seven victories shy of matching the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers for the league record of 33 in a row.
The show now goes on the road for a four-game trip that begins in Orlando on Monday, a swing that also will take the Heat to Chicago, New Orleans and San Antonio. And the Heat will start that trip 2? games ahead of San Antonio in the race for the NBA's best record.
Charlotte led by 11 in the early going and was within five in the third quarter, but two huge spurts by the Heat were more than enough to put the game away. Miami used a 31-6 run in the first half to erase the deficit, and a 26-5 blitz in the second half finished the job.
"It was a good professional win and obviously we had a lot of guys step up, guys that hadn't been getting regular minutes," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "That's good to see, because we will need it. ... Good team win."
Kemba Walker led Charlotte with 20 points, and Gerald Henderson had 18. Charlotte finished the night 5 for 25 from 3-point range, while the Heat was 13 for 30 beyond the arc.
"We ran into some dry spells and we settled for way too many 3s," Bobcats coach Mike Dunlap said. "At the end of the game we had 25 and that's not who we are."
James departed with about 8 minutes left, after perhaps the highlight of the night. Chris Andersen blocked a layup try by Walker, doing so with such force that the ball caromed right back into play and basically started a Miami fast break on its own. James capped the sequence with a spectacular dunk, his final points of the night.
Djokovic clapped and smiled. McIlroy ? who could lose his No. 1 ranking if Tiger Woods holds on and wins at Bay Hill on Monday ? turned toward Heat owner Micky Arison and grinned. Klitschko's facial expression was one of disbelief.
By then, the only order of business was for some fans to sing "Happy Birthday" to Bosh, which happened with about 3 minutes left. He turned 29 Sunday.
The final score made it look easy, but there were a few frustrating minutes for Miami.
On Friday night, after a third straight game of falling behind by double digits in the early going and not coming out with the sort of energy they've grown accustomed to displaying, the Heat said they had to improve on those fronts.
Maybe those improvements will happen Monday.
The Bobcats and Heat played three times during 2012, and Charlotte never led for a single second in any of those contests. The Bobcats did lead by five points when the teams played in Miami this past Feb. 4, but hadn't held a double-digit lead over the Heat since December 2011.
That is, until Sunday.
Just like Boston, Cleveland and Detroit did before them in the past week, the Bobcats were able to get the early jump on Miami. Charlotte hit eight of its first 14 shots, grabbed a 19-8 lead and had Spoelstra calling a quick timeout.
"That's kind of been their M.O. lately, they've gotten off to slow starts," Henderson said. "We wanted to come out and jump on them just like the other teams have. Once they got settled in, starting making plays, they got back into the game and we also when on a long drought where we couldn't score the ball."
Whatever Spoelstra said in that huddle seemed to be effective.
Miami closed the first quarter on a 15-0 run, taking the lead back on a 60-foot alley-oop by Cole to James, who pointed to the rim and then found a way to catch the long pass from the second-year guard. By the time the Heat burst was over, an 11-point deficit turned into a 39-25 lead ? making it a 31-6 swing for Miami, which forced the Bobcats into missing 20 of 22 shots during that stretch.
The outcome was never really in doubt again.
"We've been having slow starts," James said. "But it's not how we start. It's how we finish."
NOTES: Ray Allen scored 14 for Miami. ... Play was briefly delayed in the third quarter because of some power-outage issues involving the scoreboard and game clock. ... The Bobcats needed a police escort to get to the arena from their hotel, since that particular section of downtown Miami also had a large crowd of people clogging streets for an outdoor electronic music festival. ... Heat F Juwan Howard was in uniform, his first time on an active roster since Game 5 of last season's NBA Finals, and played the final three-plus minutes for the debut appearance of his 19th season. He made his only shot.
Researchers issue forecast for 'moderate' New England red tide in 2013Public release date: 25-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The "red tide" is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year's outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as "moderate."
As with the past five forecasts for this region, the 2013 outlook is based on the quantities of the A. fundyense in its cyst (dormant) state detected in Gulf of Maine sediments last fall. These data are combined with a computer model to produce a range of bloom scenarios based on previous years' conditions. This year, the team also used a forecast of toxicity impact developed from 34 years of historical data as part of the 2013 outlook. The 2013 bloom is expected to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of toxicity impact, justifying a "moderate" forecast done by the established method.
"This region is very fortunate to have a long time series of cyst abundance data, toxicity records in shellfish, and long-term measurements of ocean conditions from ships and moored instrumented buoys to develop these two complementary approaches to the seasonal forecast," said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Don Anderson.
The forecast team emphasizes the need to consult state and local management agencies for updated harvesting closure information. In order to protect public health, shellfish beds are closed when toxicities rise above a quarantine level, often during the peak harvesting season. Due to effective monitoring by state agencies, there have been no illnesses from legally harvested shellfish in recent years, despite some severe blooms during that time period. There have been, however, several severe poisonings of individuals who ignored closure signs.
"Red tide is a chronic problem throughout the Gulf of Maine, affecting commercial and recreational harvesting interests," said Chris Nash, shellfish program manager for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. "State agencies are responsible for monitoring toxicity levels in shellfish harvest areas and implementing harvest closures when needed. As a state manager, regional-scale, seasonal outlooks help us plan and use limited monitoring resources effectively. Ultimately our goals are to protect public health and give consumers confidence in the quality of the seafood products they purchase from markets and restaurants, and these forecasts are useful in realizing those goals."
Project researchers regularly share their field observations and models with more than 150 coastal resource and fisheries managers in six states as well as federal agencies such as NOAA, the FDA and the EPA. Real-time forecasts are updated on a weekly basis and additional information will be provided on the "Current Status" page of the Northeast PSP website. The National Weather Service is also providing extended hydrological and meteorological outlooks to accompany the bloom forecasts.
"NOAA-funded research has led to the development of seasonal forecasts which aid in monitoring and planning for red tides," said Quay Dortch, program coodinator for NOAA's Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program. "These forecasts will be an important part of the Operational HAB Forecasting System NOAA is developing to reduce the impacts of harmful algae."
###
The forecasting project is a collaboration of investigators from NOAA's National Ocean Service, National Weather Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, WHOI, NCSU, University of Maine, the FDA, Maine Department of Marine Resources, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the North Atlantic Clam Association. Funding is provided through the NOAA program Prevention, Control and Mitigation of Harmful Algal Blooms (PCMHAB), led by Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI). Long-term support for Alexandrium studies in the Gulf of Maine is provided by the NOAA NOS NCCOS Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) and NIEHS and the NSF through the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans' role in the changing global environment. For more information, please visit http://www.whoi.edu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Researchers issue forecast for 'moderate' New England red tide in 2013Public release date: 25-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The "red tide" is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year's outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as "moderate."
As with the past five forecasts for this region, the 2013 outlook is based on the quantities of the A. fundyense in its cyst (dormant) state detected in Gulf of Maine sediments last fall. These data are combined with a computer model to produce a range of bloom scenarios based on previous years' conditions. This year, the team also used a forecast of toxicity impact developed from 34 years of historical data as part of the 2013 outlook. The 2013 bloom is expected to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of toxicity impact, justifying a "moderate" forecast done by the established method.
"This region is very fortunate to have a long time series of cyst abundance data, toxicity records in shellfish, and long-term measurements of ocean conditions from ships and moored instrumented buoys to develop these two complementary approaches to the seasonal forecast," said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Don Anderson.
The forecast team emphasizes the need to consult state and local management agencies for updated harvesting closure information. In order to protect public health, shellfish beds are closed when toxicities rise above a quarantine level, often during the peak harvesting season. Due to effective monitoring by state agencies, there have been no illnesses from legally harvested shellfish in recent years, despite some severe blooms during that time period. There have been, however, several severe poisonings of individuals who ignored closure signs.
"Red tide is a chronic problem throughout the Gulf of Maine, affecting commercial and recreational harvesting interests," said Chris Nash, shellfish program manager for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. "State agencies are responsible for monitoring toxicity levels in shellfish harvest areas and implementing harvest closures when needed. As a state manager, regional-scale, seasonal outlooks help us plan and use limited monitoring resources effectively. Ultimately our goals are to protect public health and give consumers confidence in the quality of the seafood products they purchase from markets and restaurants, and these forecasts are useful in realizing those goals."
Project researchers regularly share their field observations and models with more than 150 coastal resource and fisheries managers in six states as well as federal agencies such as NOAA, the FDA and the EPA. Real-time forecasts are updated on a weekly basis and additional information will be provided on the "Current Status" page of the Northeast PSP website. The National Weather Service is also providing extended hydrological and meteorological outlooks to accompany the bloom forecasts.
"NOAA-funded research has led to the development of seasonal forecasts which aid in monitoring and planning for red tides," said Quay Dortch, program coodinator for NOAA's Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program. "These forecasts will be an important part of the Operational HAB Forecasting System NOAA is developing to reduce the impacts of harmful algae."
###
The forecasting project is a collaboration of investigators from NOAA's National Ocean Service, National Weather Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, WHOI, NCSU, University of Maine, the FDA, Maine Department of Marine Resources, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the North Atlantic Clam Association. Funding is provided through the NOAA program Prevention, Control and Mitigation of Harmful Algal Blooms (PCMHAB), led by Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI). Long-term support for Alexandrium studies in the Gulf of Maine is provided by the NOAA NOS NCCOS Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) and NIEHS and the NSF through the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans' role in the changing global environment. For more information, please visit http://www.whoi.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
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