Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316152546?client_source=feed&format=rss
peyton manning 49ers andy pettitte tyler clementi kevin kolb sarah shahi rutgers dharun ravi
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Letran turns back late EAC rally to book second straight NCAA victory
InterAKTV/Justin Gener
Letran survived a late push by gritty Emilio Aguinaldo College to notch a 79-74 victory in NCAA Season 89 action Saturday at The Arena in San Juan.
The Knights held the lead for the majority of the game, opening up a double-digit advantage. But the Generals kept within striking distance, trailing by just six points, 63-57 heading into the fourth period.
EAC made its move late in the match, coming within two points, 71-69, courtesy of a Jorem Morada three-pointer with over a minute left in the game.
Letran freshman Rey Nambatac, last year?s Most Valuable Player in the juniors division, responded with a clutch floater.
After an airball from Generals big man Cedric Happi, Raymond Almazan scored on a putback to give the Knights a 75-69 cushion with 35.6 seconds left.
But EAC didn?t throw the towel just yet, as Morada nailed another three-pointer with 25.7 seconds left to keep his team within three points.
Nambatac hit a pair of free throws, which Morada countered with his own conversions from the charity stripe.
However, Almazan slipped away for a fastbreak dunk with 13 seconds left to finally seal the victory for Letran.
Guard Mark Cruz led Letran with 18 points, but missed the final part of the game because of cramps. Almazan and Nambatac scored 15 and 13 points, respectively, for the Knights, who booked their second straight win to open the season after defeating San Sebastian last week.
Morada registered 22 points, while Jack Arquero chipped in 20 for EAC, which suffered its second straight setback after losing to Perpetual Help last Thursday.
Pokemon jillian michaels Freddy E NHL lockout Honey Boo Boo Psalms 91 once upon a time
WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Obama to US media: 'Behave'
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? One element of President Barack Obama's Africa policy is to encourage a free press, although he offered repeated reminders for U.S. reporters traveling with him on the continent to be on their best behavior.
"Americans, behave yourselves," he needled as a contingent of U.S. and South African media was pulled from a quick photo-op Saturday with President Jacob Zuma.
Obama spoke just before their news conference and may have been trying to suggest his press corps keep its questions tight.
Both U.S. and South African reporters asked multi-part questions. Obama didn't try to cut anyone off, but instead said the U.S. press corps must be happy the news conference was taking place in a wood-paneled chamber inside Pretoria's grand Union Buildings.
"This is much more elegant than the White House press room," Obama said, referring to the more cramped media quarters in the West Wing. "It's a big improvement."
He kept up the theme of a long-winded U.S. press at the start of his meeting with African Union Commission Chairwoman Dlamini-Zuma.
"I might take some questions, except earlier in the press conference you guys asked 4-in-1 questions," a grinning Obama teased.
At his earlier stop in Senegal, Obama apologized to host President Macky Sall on behalf the American media.
"Sometimes my press ? I notice yours just ask one question," Obama said. "We try to fit in three or four or five questions in there."
Minutes before that comment, Obama had praised democratic progress in Senegal, specifically mentioning "a strong press" as part of that movement. However, the first Senegalese reporter to be called on lobbed a softball, simply asking Sall to describe the visit and any new prospects it posed for Africa.
___
Zuma's dinner in honor of Obama's visit to Pretoria began with a moment of silence for ailing former President Nelson Mandela. Then came a longer, unintended and much more awkward silence.
Zuma came to the podium to deliver a toast but said his notes were not there. He asked the audience, "Just bear with me for a minute."
But the minute grew into 2 1/2, initially only broken by the sound of waiters popping champagne corks in preparation. Zuma cleared his throat and chuckled nervously in the quiet. "What is here are the remarks of President Barack Obama," Zuma said with an extended laugh from the audience
The seven-piece South African Navy Band decided to fill it by striking up "The Girl from Ipanema," and finally an aide delivered Zuma's remarks.
Obama took his turn at the podium and said his staff felt pretty good by the mix-up.
"This is not the first time that a president has come to the podium without notes that were supposed to be there," Obama said. "And they are gratefully relieved that does not only happen to them."
___
Questioned about foreign policy, Obama said more than the security issues that "take up a lot of my time," he gets great satisfaction from listening to regular people talk about building their businesses.
A priority is the war that's drawing to a close in Afghanistan, with U.S. combat troops scheduled to return home by the end of next year.
Another is keeping the U.S. public safe. "I can't deviate from that too much," Obama said before also mentioning the need to focus on turmoil across the Middle East.
But "as much as the security issues in my foreign policy take up a lot of my time, I get a lot more pleasure from listening to a small farmer say that she went from one hectare to 16 hectares and has doubled her income," Obama said. "That's a lot more satisfying and that's the future."
The president apparently was still feeling good after the stop in Senegal. On Friday, he toured an exhibit showcasing the Senegalese agricultural sector with a focus on nutrition and fortified foods and chatted up several of the farmers who were there. The programs get help from Feed the Future, a public-private partnership begun by Obama that he touted in Senegal, including to reporters aboard Air Force One.
___
Obama's trip has been quite a family affair.
He's traveling with his wife, Michelle, their daughters Malia and Sasha, his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, and a niece, Leslie Robinson. Other relatives are with him in spirit.
He spoke Saturday about his late mother, anthropologist Stanley Ann Dunham, and what he said she always used to tell him.
"You can measure how well a country does by how well it treats its women," he said, quoting her.
On Thursday in Senegal, he quipped about how he had disappointed his maternal grandmother by becoming a politician, not a judge as she had hoped.
___
Obama was looking forward to visiting Robben Island for a special reason: the opportunity to take his daughters with him.
The tiny island off the coast of Cape Town is where many opponents of South Africa's former system of white-minority rule were sent to prison.
Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years behind bars on the island. He was elected president a few years after his release.
Obama has visited the island previously, but called it a "great privilege and a great honor" to be able to bring Malia, who turns 15 next Thursday, and Sasha, 12, to teach them the history of the island and South Africa and how those lessons apply to their own lives growing up in America. The family was scheduled to ride the ferry over on Sunday.
The Obama girls could have visited Robben Island in 2011 when they accompanied their mother on her visit to South Africa, but the trip was scrubbed at the last minute due to rough seas.
___
Michelle Obama says she definitely would take more risks if she could go back and relive her teenage years.
She avoided getting too specific, though, saying simply that she'd try more things and travel more.
"I wouldn't be as afraid as I was at that age to fail," she said in Johannesburg during a Google+ Hangout chat involving scores of young people in Africa and several cities across the U.S., including New York City, Los Angeles and Houston. Singer-songwriters John Legend and Victoria Justice also participated.
After some of the students seated on stage with the first lady were asked to name their dream jobs, the question was then put to her.
Mrs. Obama didn't identify her dream job, but said that back then she could never have envisioned participating in such a forum. She often has said she never saw herself becoming first lady, either, and used her example to try to inspire the audience. She told them to keep their dreams big and embrace failure.
"Don't take yourself out of the game before you even start, because there's no telling what life has in store for you," Mrs. Obama said.
___
Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler in Johannesburg and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jpaceDC
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-notebook-obama-us-media-behave-170718184.html
the killing grant hill turkey Houston fire oklahoma titanic After Earth
Egypt protests set for showdown, violence feared
By Alastair Macdonald and Tom Perry
CAIRO (Reuters) - Mass demonstrations across Egypt on Sunday may determine its future, two and half years after people power toppled a dictator they called Pharaoh and ushered in a democracy crippled by bitter divisions.
The protesters' goal again is to unseat a president, this time their first freely elected leader, the Islamist Mohamed Mursi. Liberal leaders say nearly half the voting population - 22 million people - have signed a petition calling for change.
But with the long dominant, U.S-funded army waiting in the wings, and world powers fearing violence may unhinge an already troubled Middle East, Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and militant allies pledge to defend what they say is the legitimate order.
Several people have been killed, including an American student, and hundreds were wounded in days of street fighting.
Mursi calls opponents bad losers backed by "thugs" from the rule of Hosni Mubarak. He is banking on the "Tamarud - Rebel!" coalition fizzling out, as other challenges in the streets have done since he took power a year ago on Sunday.
An economic crisis deepened by unrest and political deadlock may spur many less partisan Egyptians to join the rallies, due to start in the afternoon in Cairo. But many, too, are weary of turmoil and are skeptical that the opposition's demand to reset the rules of the new democracy is better than soldiering on.
U.S. President Barack Obama called on Egyptians to focus on dialogue. His ambassador to Egypt has angered the opposition by suggesting protests are not helping the economy.
Liberal leaders, fractious and defeated in a series of ballots last year, hope that by putting millions on the streets they can force Mursi to relent and hand over to a technocratic administration that can organize new elections.
"We all feel we're walking on a dead-end road and that the country will collapse," said Mohamed ElBaradei, former U.N. official, Nobel laureate and liberal party leader. "All Egypt must go out tomorrow to say we want to return to the ballot box, and build the foundations of the house we will all live in."
'CIVIL WAR'
Religious authorities have warned of "civil war". The army has said it will step in if violence gets out of control but insists it will respect the "will of the people".
Mursi, who on Saturday met the head of the military he appointed last year, interprets that to mean army support for election results. Opponents believe that the army may heed the popular will as expressed on the streets, as it did in early 2011 when the generals decided Mubarak's time was up.
That would depend on a massive turnout, which is uncertain. Islamists suspect that agents of the old order are intent on shedding blood to trigger a military intervention.
In Cairo, thousands of people gathered on Tahrir Square, the seat of the January 25 uprising of 2011, some saying they will camp out until Mursi goes. Others gathered outside the presidential palace several miles away, which was under heavy guard.
In a nearby suburban neighborhood, the Muslim Brotherhood and allies who include former militant organizations, have set up camp outside a mosque. Guarded by baton-wielding civilians in protective clothing, the Islamists say they will defend Mursi.
Both sides say they want to avoid violence but that has not prevented incidents in which the Brotherhood says several of its offices around the country have been attacked and at least five of its supporters killed in the past week.
"It will be imperative for peaceful protesters to clearly separate themselves from the thugs that use them as cover," an aide to Mursi said. "And it will be more important for the leaders calling for these protests to back away from the language of violence and demonization."
On Saturday evening, Mursi hosted representatives of the Islamist political parties that have been backing him on the streets for a meeting on the "current internal situation," a statement from the presidency said.
Mursi stressed the role of state institutions in protecting citizens and public and private facilities, it said.
Attendees from all of the major Islamist political forces in the country affirmed their adherence to "legitimacy," the statement read, echoing the word used by many Islamists in their recent rallies in support of the elected president.
U.S. CONCERN
The United States has evacuated non-essential diplomatic staff and families and Obama said protecting U.S. missions was a priority. He was criticized at home when the ambassador to Libya was killed last year in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi.
The Egyptian army, half a million strong and financed by Washington since it backed a peace treaty with Israel three decades ago, says it has deployed to protect key installations.
Among these is the Suez Canal. Cities along the vital global waterway are bastions of anti-government sentiment. A bomb killed a protester in Port Said on Friday. Beyond the canal, in the Sinai peninsula which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, a police general was gunned down in an ambush on Saturday.
Visiting the other end of Africa, Obama said in Pretoria: "Every party has to denounce violence ... We'd like to see the opposition and President Mursi engage in a more constructive conversation about how they move their country forward because nobody is benefiting from the current stalemate."
Mursi renewed an offer last week to include opponents in a new panel to review a controversial new constitution and has complained of a media campaign of vilification. The authorities have taken legal action against journalists and owners.
Opponents cite that among evidence that the Brotherhood, suppressed for decades under Mubarak, aims to use its organized, vote-winning power to entrench itself and its Islamic agenda deep in the state, in much the same way as the ousted leader.
Observers note similarities with protests in Turkey this month, where an Islamist prime minister with a strong electoral mandate has been confronted in the streets by angry secularists.
With much of the Arab world in turmoil after the uprisings that also brought sectarian civil war to Syria, the fate of its biggest nation may be determined by events in the coming days.
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed, Maggie Fick, Alastair Macdonald, Shadia Nasralla, Tom Perry and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Alison Williams and Xavier Briand)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-protests-set-showdown-violence-feared-003343388.html
NBCOlympics Danell Leyva Ye Shiwen OJ Murdock Olympics Live Mens Gymnastics Allison Schmitt
21 killed in Pakistan bombings as Britain pledges help to fight extremism
On Sunday, two bombs targeting military troops killed 21 and wounded dozens in northwestern Pakistan. The attacks came as British Prime Minister David Cameron was visiting Pakistan to pledge aid for fighting terrorism?
Pakistani security officials and rescue workers examine the site of car bombing on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday. A car bomb exploded as a convoy of paramilitary troops passed through the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing more than a dozen people and wounding scores of others, police said.
Mohammad Sajjad/AP
EnlargeTwo bombings killed 21 people in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, just as Britain's prime minister was in the capital pledging to help to fight extremism.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
In the deadlier of the two attacks, a car bomb exploded as a convoy of paramilitary troops passed through the outskirts of the northwest city of Peshawar, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens of others, police said.
Most of the dead and wounded were civilians, although nine paramilitary Frontier Corps troops were hurt, said police official Shafiullah Khan. The blast struck one Frontier Corps vehicle, but the other passed by safely.
The explosion damaged many other vehicles and shops in the area, according to local TV video. Frontier Corps vehicles rushed to the scene, and a police officer collected evidence from the crater caused by the bomb.
Later in the day, a roadside bomb struck an army convoy and killed four soldiers in the North Waziristan tribal area, the main sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country, said intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. The blast also wounded 20 soldiers, the officials said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion will likely fall on the Pakistani Taliban. The group has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years that has killed thousands of security personnel and civilians. The militants have proven resilient despite a series of army offensives against them in the tribal region.
British Prime Minister David Cameron told his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, that Britain would do all it can to help fight extremism, a battle that he said requires both a tough security response and measures to fight poverty and promote education.
Britain pledged to provide Pakistan more equipment to battle the kind of improvised explosives that killed the soldiers in North Waziristan and to share expertise in protecting sporting events. Britain hosted the Olympic Games last summer.
"The enemies of Pakistan are enemies of Britain, and we will stand together and conduct this fight against extremism and terrorism together," Cameron said at a joint news conference with Sharif in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Cameron arrived in Pakistan following a visit to neighboring Afghanistan. He welcomed Pakistan's stated commitment to help promote a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan is seen as key to any deal because of its historical links with the insurgents. Pakistan pushed the Taliban to carry through with its recent step to set up a political office in the Gulf country of Qatar, although acrimony between the insurgents and the Afghan government has hampered the negotiation process.
"I assure Prime Minister Cameron of our firm resolve to promote the shared objective of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan to which the 3 million Afghan refugees currently living in Pakistan can return with honor and dignity," Sharif said at the news conference.
Sharif has also pushed for peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, although a series of attacks by the group since he took office in early June have led many to question that approach.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for shooting to death 10 foreign mountain climbers and a Pakistani guide in northern Pakistan a week ago, an attack the group said was retaliation for a U.S. drone strike that killed the Taliban's deputy leader.
The Taliban withdrew their offer of peace talks with the Pakistani government following the drone strike. The government continues to stick by its stance that negotiating with the group is the only way to bring peace.
Critics of talks point out that past peace deals eventually collapsed, offering the militants a chance to regroup. They also note that the Taliban reject Pakistan's democratic government and believe Islamic law should be applied throughout the country.
Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot and Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Rasool Dawar contributed to this report.
daylight saving time 2012 grapes of wrath silent house nfl mock draft project m colts colts
Where did Miesha Tate, the Jones family and Brendan Schaub fall on Cagewriter?s hot list?
It's been a slow week of MMA, but never fear. UFC 162 and a championship fight are oh-so-close. Who had a good week, and who didn't?
Hot -- Miesha Tate: She's filming "The Ultimate Fighter" now as a coach against UFC women's bantamweight championship. She will also pose nude as a part of ESPN the Magazine's Body Issue.
Not -- Brendan Schaub and Matt Mitrione: The one-time teammates started squabbling on Twitter like a bunch of seventh graders. They are fighting on July 27, so the squabbling will likely continue until then.
Hot -- The Jones' jewelry collection: According to UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones' Instagram, the Jones family has much better jewelry than most of us.
Hot -- GLORY: The kickboxing promotion will become more available to the U.S. fans. They will start airing fights on Spike come October.
Thank you for reading Cagewriter this week. Want more? Follow Cagewriter on Facebook or Twitter.
Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
? Report card: Best of the second quarter
? Jones family jewelry box loaded with goodies
? T.J. Grant mad at Anthony Pettis for trying to take his title shot
monkeypox nick perry 30 rock live nfl draft picks 2012 space shuttle enterprise ryan leaf ryan leaf
Harvard Uses IBM Supercomputer Crowdsourcing To Unearth New Solar Energy Potential
Description
IBM?s World Community Grid made it possible for the Harvard Clean Energy Project to conduct the most extensive investigation of quantum chemicals ever performed. This has yielded information on millions of new organic compounds, some of which can one day be developed into low cost, highly efficient solar cells. Harvard is open sourcing the information it compiled on these compounds, which scientists are invited to continue investigating.
IBM?s World Community Grid made it possible for the Harvard Clean Energy Project to conduct the most extensive investigation of quantum chemicals ever performed. This has yielded information on millions of new organic compounds, some of which can one day be developed into low cost, highly efficient solar cells. Harvard is open sourcing the information it compiled on these compounds, which scientists are invited to continue investigating.
SOURCE LINK:http://turbotodd.com/harvard-uses-ibm-supercomputer-crowdsourcing-to-unearth-new-solar-energy-potential/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CrowdsourcingEngagementFeed/~3/kH0m45VSA1k/26860
Bob Ross Hurricane Categories Hurricane Sandy new jersey atlantic city ocean city maryland Nexus 7
EU backs banking union despite Berlin objections
BRUSSELS: European Union leaders said Friday they want agreement by the end of the year on a way to resolve failed banks at a European rather than a national level, signaling work should go on despite German objections ahead of elections in September. German Chancellor Angela Merkel cast doubt on whether that timetable could be respected, saying the creation of a European authority with such powers would require a change to the EU treaty ? a lengthy and politically risky process.
EU finance ministers Thursday agreed on an intermediate step toward what is known as European banking union, which involves tighter oversight of banks and coordinated resolution of any problems. Under the deal, investors and wealthy savers will share the costs of future bank failures before taxpayers.
That moves the EU closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have caused public outrage.
But the law only sets common rules that national authorities in the 27-nation bloc have to follow when dealing with their own banks. It does not allow for sharing power or the financial costs of closing down or rescuing banks at EU level.
It is only a stepping stone to creating a central EU body to deal with failing banks, including big financial institutions that operate across national borders.
The European Commission, the EU?s executive arm, is to propose how to create such a central agency, called the Single Resolution Mechanism, in July, although some officials indicated it could be delayed beyond that date.
Merkel insisted that setting up a central authority with powers to close down banks in eurozone countries would require changing the EU?s treaty, or else it could be challenged in Germany?s constitutional court.
The European Commission believes no treaty change is needed and has floated the idea that it could itself take on the role of the resolution authority, to avoid the need to change laws for the creation of a completely new body.
But Berlin rejected that too.
?Germany has made clear that under the current treaties the Commission does not have the competence to run such a central authority or act as a resolution body. If we want new competencies then they must be linked to treaty changes,? Merkel told a news conference after the summit.
France said work on the banking union should go as far as possible under existing treaties before considering any treaty change, but a treaty amendment could be done if necessary.
?If it appeared legally necessary to amend the treaty, we would do so, but it would only be from a legal perspective, and in no case from a political perspective,? French President Francois Hollande told journalists after an EU summit in Brussels.
?Before we get there I think we must go as far as possible in the framework of existing treaties,? he added.
In an indication of acute political sensitivity on the issue, EU officials said Germany tried to have the term ?banking union? removed from the final summit statement altogether.
?In this morning?s draft conclusions the term banking union had disappeared and was replaced with more vague terms. We reproposed our commitment toward a banking union,? Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta told a news conference after the summit.
But there will be little progress on the Single Resolution Mechanism until after the September parliamentary elections in Germany, which wants to avoid discussions that could involve any form of financial support for institutions in other countries.
Taxpayers across much of Europe have had to pay for a series of deeply unpopular bank and government rescues since the financial crisis erupted in Greece in 2010. It has since spread across the bloc and even threatened the survival of the euro.
The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and ? in the case of Ireland ? almost bankrupting the country.
The SRM is to complement the work of the European Central Bank as the Single Supervisory Mechanism, responsible for looking after all eurozone banks.
?A fully effective SSM requires a Single Resolution Mechanism for banks covered by the SSM. The European Council looks forward to the Commission?s proposal establishing an SRM with a view to reaching agreement in the council by the end of the year so that it can be adopted before the end of the current parliamentary term,? the leaders said, using the careful legal language employed in summit declarations.
The final version omitted ? at Germany?s insistence ? a reference to the features the SRM should have that were enumerated in earlier drafts.
The deleted phrase said that the SRM should have ?strong resolution powers, allowing quick, effective and coherent decision-making at central level.?
The European Parliament has its last plenary session in mid-April 2014.
The SRM is to have access to funds that it may need to help finance the restructuring or closure of banks, if losses imposed on shareholders and bondholders or even large depositors are not enough to cover the needs.
The central fund is to be built from fees paid in annually by banks, just like the national resolution funds created under the intermediate law. But until enough money accrues over the next 10 years, it may need to resort to the eurozone bailout fund for help.
The leaders remained vague on how the fund would work.
?It should include appropriate funding arrangements, based on contributions by the financial sector itself, and an appropriate and effective backstop which should be fiscally neutral over the medium term,? they said.
cars Bacon Number Kate Middleton photos Chi Magazine Kate Middleton Nude Photos Coptic Christian saturday night live
Saturday, June 29, 2013
qwerty travel: 39;People must be educated on tackling natural ...
Places that are prone to natural disasters must have a proper warning system in place and their residents should be educated on how to deal with crisis situations, experts said here Wednesday.
Experts, representatives of governments and the civil society from eight South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan and Bhutan, participated in a three-day workshop on ?Regional Priorities for Knowledge Management and Strategy for Action: South Asia on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction? organised by Unesco.
Speaking to IANS on the sidelines of the event which ended Wednesday, SAARC Disaster Management Centre director Santosh Kumar said it was of utmost importance that a proper early warning system was in place for areas that were prone to natural calamities and residents were educated and informed about tackling a crisis.
?Early warnings need to be more quantified and people should be educated about the impact of such a damage?local level communities have to be educated and informed,? he said.
Agreed Lam Dorji, executive director of Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN), Bhutan, who said that when it comes to natural disasters, people at the village level have no education on how to tackle the situation.
?Changes have to be made at the ground level,? he said.
Kumar said it was difficult to say whether climate change was behind the cloudburst and incessant rains which subsequently led to flash floods and landslides, killing hundreds in the hill state of Uttarakhand.
?Scientifically, it is difficult to establish the relation between the heavy rains and climate change as more study is required on this subject though according to reports, global warming is threatening to affect the rain patterns in India,? Kumar said.
?
?
Article Reference: ?www.business-standard.com
Source: http://southasiarevealed.com/2013/06/27/people-educated-tackling-natural-calamities/
The Campaign Kinesio tape randy travis Allyson Felix Kourtney Kardashian Baby Girl Ashton Eaton London 2012 basketball
Source: http://mbps-scampi.blogspot.com/2013/06/must-be-educated-on-tackling-natural.html
daylight savings Daylight Savings Time 2013 DeAndre Jordan Oz the Great and Powerful elisabeth hasselbeck Mothers Day 2013 World Baseball Classic
Source: http://qwerty-travel.blogspot.com/2013/06/39people-must-be-educated-on-tackling.html
kate walsh cnn debate equatorial guinea marine helicopter crash photo of whitney houston in casket star jones carrot top
These Heartbreaking Ads Show How Useless Facebook Likes Can Be
We toss around likes as if they were high fives on the Internet. As affirmation of people doing the right thing. As oh hey look cool. As being silly and ironic. As the digital form of support. As a hug. As a fist bump. But what do those thumbs up actually do? Boosts someone's ego? Spreads your online seed? In reality, nothing.
Ad Agency Publicis Singapore created an advertisement for Crisis Relief Singapore that says, "Liking isn't helping". It shows people who are in clearly need of help surrounded by a crowd of thumbs up (which are photoshopped in). It makes your stomach turn and hits home a little bit, supporting a cause by liking it isn't doing much.
People need more than just a Facebook Like or retweet or Instagram post. You can help Crisis Relief here. [Crisis Relief via PetaPixel]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/these-heartbreaking-ads-show-how-useless-facebook-likes-615986913
fiona apple CJ Spiller tracy morgan Chase.com Talk Like a Pirate Day raiders iOS 6 Features
HandiBot Is The Robotic Carpenter Of Geppetto's Dreams
Given that I have no talent in woodworking I suspect Handibot may - dare I say it? - come in handy. The device is a motorized CNC machine - they're calling it a Universal Digital Power Tool (UDPT) - for wood. It can cut, machine, drill, and carve. Build by the guys who built the ShopBot, a similarly complex CNC system for woodworking.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/hoTl_EM2-fI/
severe weather wichita brian wilson storm chasers david blaine gotye divine mercy
Google developing gaming console, smartwatch, and more in major ...
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is working on its own Android-powered gaming console and smartwatch ? and a replacement for the Nexus Q is also on the way. The report states that Mountain View hopes to ship at least one of the products by this fall, and plans to both design and market them itself. In recent months, Android gaming consoles like Ouya and the GameStick have received a tremendous amount of attention ? the Ouya went on sale at retailers just this week ? but according to the Journal's sources Google's move to create a console is also based on expectations that Apple will add gaming to a future version of the Apple TV.
Improvements for low-cost smartphones
Google is currently working on the next iteration of the Android operating system, which will reportedly be better suited for the low-cost smartphones that are taking off in developing countries. Google is said to be developing its own low-cost smartphones ? a one-two punch that could prove effective against efforts like Mozilla's Firefox OS. Through its Google X hardware facilities the company is also reportedly working on "next-generation" Android devices separate from the hardware its subsidiary Motorola is developing.
According to the Journal, expanding Android's reach across multiple product types is a big part of Google's plans. HP is named as one hardware partner that is working on a new laptop that will run the next version of Android, internally named "K release" (our own sources have indicated the shipping name will be Key Lime Pie). The Journal reports that the Android-powered laptop is intended to be a direct competitor to Windows computers.
HP is working on an Android laptop
As part of that broader plan, the new version will also feature official, Google-sanctioned support for a broad range of new device types ? from the laptops mentioned above, to appliances and wearables. The latter is shaping up to be a crowded market even before it's really taken off; Sony recently announced the SmartWatch 2, and both Apple and Samsung are said to be working on wearable devices of their own. The new version of Android will reportedly arrive sometime this fall.
NFL fantasy football Chris Kluwe Jennifer Granholm Tulane player injured fox sports obama speech Art Modell
NASA Space Shuttle Runway Gets New Life as Commercial Spaceport
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? The famous?seaside?space shuttle runway here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center may have a second life soon as a launch and landing spot for a whole new type of space mission: tourist flights.
The 15,000-foot-long (4,600 meters)?Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) has been unused for spaceflights since the 30-year space shuttle program retired in 2011. But now NASA is handing over operation of the facility to Space Florida, the aerospace economic development agency for the state of Florida, to put the runway to new uses.
"Space Florida will take over operation of SLF as a combined airport and spaceport," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said here at a press conference today (June 28). "This will continue to expand Kennedy's viability as a multiuser spaceport. We look forward to working with Space Florida over the coming months." [Photos: NASA's Last Shuttle Landing in History]
Space Florida hopes to recruit commercial space companies to perform launches and landings from the Shuttle Landing Facility. The organization has reached out to suborbital launch company XCOR Aerospace, as well as orbital spaceship builders Sierra Nevada Space Systems, Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), and has high hopes many of these companies will establish operations at Kennedy Space Center.
"It's our job to make it a commercial entity ?we're excited for the challenge," Jim Kuzma, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Space Florida, told SPACE.com.
NASA itself may prove to be a customer of the facility when it starts launching its new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion spacecraft, in coming years. Under the new arrangement, NASA is no longer shouldering the everyday cost of running the Shuttle Landing Facility ? Florida is ? so if NASA uses the facility it will have to pay for it like any other customer.
"It's exciting for Florida," Kuzma said. "We think the work force is here, the understanding of the needs of the space industry is here."
Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace, which hopes to begin launching tourists to the edge of space on its Lynx vehicle soon, agreed.
"The workforce is incredible here," he said. "There's just something in the DNA here."
XCOR said it was attracted to the idea of launching flights out of Kennedy Space Center in part because the Space Coast lures so many tourists ? it's about an hour's drive from the tourist Mecca of Orlando.
"There are 30 million tourist visitors a year here," Nelson told SPACE.com. "A few are going to want to fly to space."
Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on?SPACE.com.
Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-space-shuttle-runway-gets-life-commercial-spaceport-115756289.html
amber heard Google Now Jason Collins White House Correspondents Dinner 2013 NHL playoff schedule Queen of Versailles Nicole Eggert
PolitiFact Gets Facts Wrong on Abortion & Breast Cancer Link ...
PolitiFact put out a ?fact-check? this week that purports to debunk the link between induced abortion and breast cancer. Instead, it provides a guide on how to hoist yourself with logical fallacies?namely, the appeal to authority (?it?s true because experts say so?) and the argumentum ad populum (?it?s true because lots of people say so?).
They?re not shy about this, either: ?PolitiFact does not do medical or scientific analysis. We rely, as we do in other areas, on the most reliable and independent sources available.?
Now, the problem with the appeal to authority is that it?s an invitation to play ?dueling authorities.? So I?ll do that real quick.
Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2005-2006): ?Risk factors that have specific relevance to young women include reproductive factors, history of induced abortion or miscarriage, oral contraceptive use, smoking, and radiation exposure, most specifically for treatment of Hodgkin Disease.?
Department of Breast Surgery, St. George?s Hospital, London, U.K. (2005): ?The hormonal changes that take place in pregnancy cause breast tissue to proliferate and differentiate. Abortion interrupts this process and may leave the proliferated, undifferentiated breast tissue at higher risk of carcinogenesis.? ?There is no evidence to support a link between spontaneous abortion and breast cancer. Absence of a link with induced abortion is less clear, and further research should concentrate on investigating any relationship.?
Department of Surgery, College of Medical Sciences, University of Benin (2005): ?A protective role for xenoestrogens has been postulated and evidence is emerging in support of an increased breast cancer risk with abortion and prolonged use of postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy.?
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2003): ?Induced abortion is a prevalent response to an unintended pregnancy. The long-term health consequences are poorly investigated and conclusions must be drawn from observational studies.? ?Reviewers were mixed on whether subsequent breast neoplasia can be linked to induced abortion, although the sole meta-analysis found a summary odds ratio of 1.2. Whatever the effect of induced abortion on breast cancer risk, a young woman with an unintended pregnancy clearly sacrifices the protective effect of a term delivery should she decide to abort and delay childbearing.?
University of Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX (1997): ?Early FFTP [first full-term pregnancy] confers protection [against breast cancer], while induced abortion confers risk. Most specific and controlled variables studies indicate 150% risk for abortions performed on women younger than 18 years of age.?
Then there?s Dr. Louise Brinton, the NCI researcher who helped organize the 2003 workshop PolitiFact mentions. Turns out she reversed her position on the abortion-breast cancer link in 2009. To wit:
A national study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality, in women under age 45, contained an admission from Dr. Brinton and her colleagues that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%.
Brinton?s study, published in the peer-reviewed Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, shows an odds ratio (OR) of 1.4 for all instances of breast cancer for women who have an abortion. (For women who have never had one, the OR is 1.0?basically a ?control? number to which to compare all the others.)? The OR is 0.8 for women aged 20-29 who have carried one baby to term. (Again, 1.0 for women who have had no children.)? For women younger than 20 who have carried one baby to term, it?s 0.6.
Put simply, increasing abortions was associated with an increased risk for all forms of breast cancer, including triple-negative breast cancer, which is especially nasty. And it?s not a matter of ?breaking even?; having the abortion leaves you worse off than you were before you got pregnant.
(Keep in mind that PolitiFact uses the NCI, and the conference Brinton helped organize, to discredit the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer on the basis of ?response bias.? The CABC addresses and disputes the ?response bias? objection, but PolitiFact does not see fit to mention that in its fact-check.)
This is where PolitiFact would most likely move to the argumentum ad populum: ?You may have some studies, but we have more studies.? Michael Crichton addressed this dangerous treatment of science better than I can:
Let?s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.
In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it?s consensus, it isn?t science. If it?s science, it isn?t consensus. Period.
In short, it doesn?t matter how many studies you have if they?re wrong.
So who?s wrong?
Well, aside from the data, there?s a big commonsense reason to suspect a connection between induced abortion and breast cancer. You can find it in PolitiFact?s own sources. I?ll use one of the National Cancer Institute links to demonstrate. (I can?t use the RCOG link, which basically says, Just trust us.)? According to the NCI, ?[w]omen who have their first full-term pregnancy at an early age have a decreased risk of developing breast cancer later in life.?
So here?s the scenario: you?re a young woman, and you?re pregnant. According to the NCI, this reduces your risk of developing breast cancer. (It?s not hard to find a lot of material supporting this claim.)? But then you get an abortion ? and your risk doesn?t change?
If you leave that pregnancy alone, it comes to term, thus decreasing your risk of breast cancer. But the NCI and others are going to tell us that cutting off a process that reduces your risk does not increase your risk?
With this in mind, it?s easy to see why even PolitiFact?s own sources are squeamish about following its lead in calling the abortion-breast cancer link ?a ridiculous claim.? See, for example, the WHO link, titled ?INDUCED ABORTION DOES NOT INCREASE THE RISK OF BREAST CANCER,? capital letters and all. The actual text backpedals quite a bit: ?Two major studies have been carried out using this methodology [historical cohort study], and neither found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with first trimester abortion.? When you get past the theatrics?some might call it misinformation?the best you?ll get is ?we didn?t find one.?
Of course, at least a few people ?found one? when it came to puerperal fever (per Crichton above)?and the ?consensus? threw out the evidence for 125 years. But no such thing could happen today, right?
Here?s the bottom line: PolitiFact?s own sources attest to the likelihood that carrying a pregnancy to term reduces the risk of breast cancer. An abortion cuts off that existing protection. Therefore, abortion increases the risk of breast cancer.
This is as close to ?settled? as we?re going to get on this science at this time. If you want to play appeal to authority, reputable sources say there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. If you want to play argumentum ad populum, history has shown enough times that the masses are wrong.
We saw something like this in the debates over HR 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Democrats like Jerrold Nadler tried to dismiss the scientific evidence for fetal pain because it?s disputed by other experts (appeal to authority), or because it?s ?an outlier? (argumentum ad populum). Abortion proponents flatly refused to address the information on its merits. So here?s what it came down to: We can?t say with 100% certainty that pre-born children don?t feel pain from a dismemberment abortion. We?d prefer that our society continue aborting them anyway.
Now, in the face of significant challenges to the prospect that there?s no link whatsoever between induced abortion and breast cancer, PolitiFact and the abortion lobby would have doctors say nothing about it to women considering abortion. Where less invested heads might go with ?better safe than sorry? (to say nothing of ?informed consent?!), the abortion industry, who profits handsomely off women?s ignorance, sticks with ?better rich than safe.? And ?fact-checking? abortion-supporters appear okay with that.
Editor?s note: This essay first appeared June 25 on the Live Action News website and is reprinted with permission of the author.
Source: http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/politifact-gets-facts-wrong-on-abortion-breast-cancer-link
ncaa final game reba mcentire acm awards global payments eli young band wrestlemania country music awards 2012
Review: 2013 Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/dl62xshfBx4/
2012 ncaa basketball tournament walt what time is it current time a thousand words my sisters keeper kirby
Vatican monsignor arrested over alleged fraud, corruption and slander, lawyer says
Monsignor Nunzio Scarano allegedly plotted to smuggle cash into Italy from Switzerland and was already under investigation in an alleged money-laundering scheme that purportedly involved the Vatican bank.
By Claudio Lavanga and Ian Johnston, NBC News
A monsignor suspended from his job as an accountant at the Vatican has been arrested, a papal spokesman said Friday.
Greg Burke, the senior Vatican communication adviser, confirmed Monsignor Nunzio Scarano had been detained.
Scarano normally works as an accountant for APSA, the body that manages the Vatican's real estate, but was suspended over alleged financial offenses.
The cleric?s lawyer Silverio Sica told The Associated Press that his client was arrested on Wednesday over separate allegations and was now accused of fraud, corruption and slander.
Sica laid out what the prosecutors claimed had happened in the interview with the AP:
He said Scarano was a middleman in the operation: Friends had asked him to intervene with a broker, Giovanni Carenzio, to return 20 million euros ($26 million) they had given him to invest.
Sica said Scarano persuaded Carenzio to return the money, and an Italian secret service agent, Giovanni Maria Zito, went to Switzerland to bring the cash back aboard an Italian government aircraft. Such a move would presumably prevent any reporting of the money coming into Italy.
The operation failed because Carenzio reneged on the deal, Sica said.
Zito, nevertheless, demanded his 400,000 euro commission. Scarano paid him an initial 200,000 euros by check, which Zito deposited, Sica said.
But in a bid to not have the second check deposited at the bank, Scarano filed a report for a missing 200,000 euro check, even though he knew Zito had it, Sica said.
Carenzio and Zito also were arrested Wednesday along with Scarano, Sica said.
Pope Francis this week set up a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank, which is formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, and has been hit by a number of scandals in the past decades.
The AP also described the alleged financial offenses that led to Scarano?s suspension, again citing Sica.
That investigation concerns transactions Scarano made in 2009 in which he took 560,000 euros ($729,000) in cash out of his personal IOR bank account and carried it out of the Vatican and into Italy to help pay off a mortgage on his Salerno home.
To deposit the money into an Italian bank account ? and to prevent family members from finding out he had such a large chunk of cash ? he asked 56 close friends to accept 10,000 euros apiece in cash in exchange for a check or money transfer in the same amount, Sica said earlier this week. Scarano was then able to deposit the amounts in his Italian account.
The original money came into Scarano's IOR account from donors who gave it to the prelate thinking they were funding a home for the terminally ill in Salerno, Sica said. He said the donors had "enormous" wealth and could offer such donations for his charitable efforts.
He said Scarano had given the names of the donors to prosecutors and insisted the origin of the money was clean, that the transactions didn't constitute money-laundering, and that he only took the money "temporarily" for his personal use.
The home for terminally ill hasn't been built, though the property has been identified, Sica said.
"He [Scarano] declares himself absolutely innocent," Sica said of the Salerno investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related:
This story was originally published on Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:38 AM EDT
mlb yankees Bb&t Maria Sibylla Merian cory monteith Holly Sonders jimmy fallon
Disney Music Gift Cards make shopping EASY! {Review} | Ahh ...
Thank you to Child?s Play Communications for providing me with a $15 Disney Music gift card, free of charge, for my review. ?These are my own honest opinions.
Are you a Disney fan or do you have one in your home? ? ?Great news for you! ?The vast collection of?Disney?contemporary hits and timeless classics are now available for online shopping with the launch of?Disney?digital?music?store and?music?gift cards!
These cards can be purchased at Wal-Mart and grocery retailers nationwide and come in denominations of $15, $25 and custom variable amounts. ?The gift cards are activated upon purchase and can then be used immediately at the Disney Digital Music Store?by entering a code and then browsing the library of over 12,000 songs!
My girls LOVE to sing and dance to familiar songs, so this was a huge hit at our house. ?It was simple to download the music and finding just what we wanted was very easy and intuitive with the category search from the home page. ?I even found some new lullabies for the new baby!
Buy It! ?This would make the perfect gift for a child?s birthday or other significant event in their life! ?Cards are available at Wal-Mart and grocery retailers nationwide!
?
Source: http://ahhmazingreviews.com/?p=15282
Pitbull Hannah Storm jenny mccarthy fergie new years looper New Years Eve
Friday, June 28, 2013
George Zimmerman murder trial: Live video and chat
Testimony resumes for a fourth day on Thursday in the George Zimmerman murder trial in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman is accused of profiling, pursuing and fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, in February 2012. Zimmerman, a former volunteer crime watchman in Sanford, Fla., has pleaded not guilty, saying he shot in self-defense when Martin attacked him. Yahoo News is following the latest developments, retweeting courtroom observations, and taking your comments in the chat player below.
Warning to viewers: profanity is sometimes used and violent images are being shown in the courtroom.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/george-zimmerman-murder-trial--live-video-and-chat-222843188.html
tyson chandler tyson chandler the pirates band of misfits cleveland browns minnesota twins bobby abreu 2012 draft
Goodbye M&M's, hello granola bars as school snacks
FILE - In this May 3, 2006 file photo, a student purchases a brown sugar Pop-Tart from a vending machine in the hallway outside the school cafeteria, in Wichita, Kan. High-calorie sports drinks and candy bars will be removed from school vending machines and cafeteria lines as soon as next year, replaced with diet drinks, granola bars and other healthier items the Agriculture Department said Thursday June 27, 2013.(AP Photo/The Wichita Eagle, Mike Hutmacher, File)
FILE - In this May 3, 2006 file photo, a student purchases a brown sugar Pop-Tart from a vending machine in the hallway outside the school cafeteria, in Wichita, Kan. High-calorie sports drinks and candy bars will be removed from school vending machines and cafeteria lines as soon as next year, replaced with diet drinks, granola bars and other healthier items the Agriculture Department said Thursday June 27, 2013.(AP Photo/The Wichita Eagle, Mike Hutmacher, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Kids, your days of blowing off those healthier school lunches and filling up on cookies from the vending machine are numbered. The government is onto you.
For the first time, the Agriculture Department is telling schools what sorts of snacks they can sell. The new restrictions announced Thursday fill a gap in nutrition rules that allowed many students to load up on fat, sugar and salt despite the existing guidelines for healthy meals.
"Parents will no longer have to worry that their kids are using their lunch money to buy junk food and junk drinks at school," said Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest who pushed for the new rules.
That doesn't mean schools will be limited to doling out broccoli and brussels sprouts.
Snacks that still make the grade include granola bars, low-fat tortilla chips, fruit cups and 100 percent fruit juice. And high school students can buy diet versions of soda, sports drinks and iced tea.
But say goodbye to some beloved school standbys, such as doughy pretzels, chocolate chip cookies and those little ice cream cups with their own spoons. Some may survive in low-fat or whole wheat versions. The idea is to weed out junk food and replace it with something with nutritional merit.
The bottom line, says Wootan: "There has to be some food in the food."
Still, 17-year-old Vanessa Herrera is partial to the Cheez-It crackers and sugar-laden Vitaminwater in her high school's vending machine. Granola bars and bags of peanuts? Not so much.
"I don't think anyone would eat it," said Herrera of Rockaway, N.J.
There are no vending machines at Lauren Jones' middle school in Hoover, Ala., but she said there's an "a la carte" stand that sells chips, ice cream and other snacks.
"Having something sweet to go with your meal is good sometimes," the 13-year-old said, although she also thinks that encouraging kids to eat healthier is worthwhile.
The federal snack rules don't take effect until the 2014-15 school year, but there's nothing to stop schools from making changes earlier.
Some students won't notice much difference. Many schools already are working to improve their offerings. Thirty-nine states have some sort of snack food policy in place.
Rachel Snyder, 17, said earlier this year her school in Washington, Ill., stripped its vending machines of sweets. She misses the pretzel-filled M&M's.
"If I want a sugary snack every now and then," Snyder said, "I should be able to buy it."
The federal rules put calorie, fat, sugar and sodium limits on almost everything sold during the day at 100,000 schools ? expanding on the previous rules for meals. The Agriculture Department sets nutritional standards for schools that receive federal funds to help pay for lunches, and that covers nearly every public school and about half of private ones.
One oasis of sweetness and fat will remain: anything students bring from home, from bagged lunches to birthday cupcakes.
The Agriculture Department was required to draw up the rules under a law passed by Congress in 2010, championed by first lady Michelle Obama, as part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity.
Nutritional guidelines for subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall.
Last year's rules making main lunch fare more nutritious faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department left one of the more controversial parts of the rule, the regulation of in-school fundraisers like bake sales, up to the states.
The rules have the potential to transform what many children eat at school.
In addition to meals already subject to nutrition standards, most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods ? often greasy foods like mozzarella sticks and nachos. That gives students a way to circumvent the healthy lunches. Under the rules, those lines could offer healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers, fruit cups or yogurt and similar fare.
One of the biggest changes will be a near-ban on high-calorie sports drinks. Many beverage companies added sports drinks to school vending machines after sodas were pulled in response to criticism from the public health community.
The rule would only allow sales in high schools of sodas and sports drinks that contain 60 calories or less in a 12-ounce serving, banning the highest-calorie versions of those beverages.
Low-calorie sports drinks ? Gatorade's G2, for example ? and diet drinks will be allowed in high school.
Elementary and middle schools will be allowed to sell only water, carbonated water, 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice, and low fat and fat-free milk, including nonfat flavored milks.
At a congressional hearing Thursday, a school nutritionist said schools have had difficulty adjusting to the 2012 changes, and the new "a la carte" standards could also be a hardship.
And the healthier foods are expensive, said Sandra Ford, president of the School Nutrition Association and director of food and nutrition services for a school district in Bradenton, Fla. She also predicted that her school district could lose $975,000 a year under the new "a la carte" guidelines because they would have to eliminate many of the popular foods they sell.
The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law three years ago.
Angela Chieco, a mother from Clifton Park, N.Y., sees the guidelines as a good start but says it will take a bigger campaign to wean kids off junk food.
"I try to do less sugar myself," Chieco said. "It's hard to do."
___
Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Follow Connie Cass on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ConnieCass
Associated Pressprintable bracket game change own stacy francis tournament brackets 2012 ncaa basketball tournament walt
3 Europeans freed after Tunisia topless protest
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) ? Three European feminist activists who were jailed after a topless courthouse protest in Tunisia last month were freed overnight after a court lifted their prison sentence. They left Tunisia on Thursday morning and hours later arrived in France.
The two French women and a German member of the Ukrainian group Femen maintained during the trial that there was nothing sexual or offensive about their protest and that it was only to support their imprisoned Tunisian colleague. All three apologized Wednesday during their appeals hearing.
The prosecutor didn't object to the court's decision.
The three women had been convicted and sentenced to four months and a day of prison for public indecency, offending public morals and threatening public order after they demonstrated topless in front of the court building on May 29 on behalf of Amina Sboui.
The protest was the first of its kind in the Middle East for Femen, which has used nudity to push for greater rights for women across Europe.
"I didn't think it was going to shock Tunisians to that extent. Given the consequences, I would never do it again. We want to return to our country and our loved ones," Frenchwoman Pauline Hillier said at Wednesday's hearing.
Still, they held up clenched fists on their arrival at Paris' Orly airport in a sign of determination, if not victory. They refused to speak to the gaggle of TV crews and reporters present. But Femen colleague Sarah Constantin, present for their arrival, said that "we will continue the combat" until Sboui, the jailed Tunisian protester, is freed.
"Tomorrow we start again," Constantin said. She did not elaborate.
Ivan Terel, a French lawyer for the women, said earlier that their message was misunderstood and they were fighting "for the rights of women wherever they are threatened."
On the opening day of the trial on June 5, three other Femen activists were discovered by authorities and deported on suspicions they planned another protest.
Tunisians overthrew their secular dictator in 2011, kicking off uprisings across the region. In the ensuing years, however, there has been a rise in conservative Islamist movements at odds with the country's longstanding image as secular and progressive ? especially in regard to women's rights.
The Femen activists were calling for the release of Sboui, a Tunisian member of Femen who scandalized the country in March by posting topless photos of herself as a protest. She later attempted another protest May 19 in the religious center of Kairouan, where she was arrested.
Sboui has already been fined for carrying pepper spray.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-europeans-freed-tunisia-topless-protest-081332645.html
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)