Seth MacFarlane Talks Family Guy Movie

The Griffins have sung their way through the small screen, making a Broadway-style splash at the start of each program about "Violence in movies and Sex on TV." And apparently, they'll have their chance to do just that on the big screen.

Family Guy creator - who of course will fete the big screen as this year's Oscar telecast host - said that a feature length movie about the animated irreverent nuclear family is in the offing, though it is not clear when it will actually happen.

During a visit to UCLA for MTV's series Stand In, MacFarlane said that "it will happen at some point," he's quoted as saying via Huffington Post.

MacFarlane also announced a new Oscars contest in the surprise visit to the Westwood campus in L.A.'s Westside. He told an undergraduate film and television class that a contest sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will allow college students to appear on the February 24th Oscar telecast. Up to six winners will serve as trophy carriers during the show, replacing models who typically carry in the statuettes.

"In re-imagining what we want the Oscar show to be, we wanted everyone appearing on that stage to feel a deep commitment to film and its legacy, and most importantly, its future," said Oscar telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron in a statement. "That was the impetus in creating this special honor for young film students who will inspire a new generation to create the films that will be honored in the future."

MacFarlane said that Family Guy is based on his own student film.

Speaking of Oscars hosts past, MacFarlane offered up his empathy, noting jokingly that the event is a "crazy little variety show," adding, "all I can do is do what I think is funny and most entertaining."

He noted to the UCLA class: "The Oscars is a tricky venue. The (hosts) who have not done well, I would classify them as a noble failure, an honorable failure, because at least they were trying something new... If I can do it without torpedoing my career and getting drummed out of the business... All I can do is my very best."

[Source: Huffington Post]

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926363/news/1926363/

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Powerball profits don't all go where you think they do

6 hrs.

John W. Schoen , NBC News

Ed Rodriguez, the father of two school-aged kids in Otisville, N.Y., had high hopes of? winning the $580 million Powerball jackpot last night. Either way, he figured at least some of?the money went to a good cause.

"Some of it goes to education," he said after buying a ticket Wednesday at a Citgo station on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. With many school budgets in his area facing tight budgets, "it helps a lot."

He'd be disappointed on both counts. He didn't win the largest Powerball drawing in history, which went to ticket holders in Arizona and Missouri. And the money doesn't do as much good for education?as he thinks.

About 72 cents of every state lottery dollar goes somewhere else. About 60 cents goes to the winner. Some goes to run the lottery. A piece of it goes to a private, Italian-based conglomerate that operates lotteries and slot machines in 50 countries around the world.

Depending on what state you live in, that leaves as little as 11 cents left to pay for the government services these games were created to help.

Critics argue that, aside from being an inefficient way to raise money, paying for government services with lottery sales?also?shifts a larger portion of?the overall tax burden to those who can least afford it.

?It?s a very regressive tax," said Lucy Dadayan, a senior policy analyst at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. ?And any time a government relies on a regressive tax it's not the best policy option.?But it?s easier for state officials to promote gambling rather than to increase income taxes or sales taxes.?

State-run lotteries have been around since the U.S. was founded, but the modern era of government games dates to the 1960s. Since then, they?ve spread to 44 states, which took in nearly $69 billion in sales in the 2012 fiscal year.

After paying the winners and covering?operating expenses, the roughly $19 billion in remaining?proceeds went to fund a long list of state and local programs and services, from education to social services,?according to ?David Gale, ?Executive Director, North American Association of State and Provincial?Lotteries.

?If lotteries were not in existence those programs and services would be cut or they would have to be funded through another source,? he said.

The bulk of the money collected from tickets ? about 60 cents of every dollar on average - goes back to the winners, said Gale. After expenses ? everything from advertising, fees paid to vendors selling tickets and salaries for lottery commission staff - ?the amount left over varies widely from state to state.

In Rhode Island, just 11 cents in net profits was returned to the 2012 state budget to support a variety of programs, from education to social services. Oregon?s lottery, the most profitable in the country, generated 50 cents in profits for each?dollar of ticket sales last year to help pay for education, economic development and natural resource programs.

Profits can vary for a number of reasons, said Pierce. Some states use some of the revenues to pay for gambling addiction counseling programs. Some states have?laws governing how much money can be spent on advertising.

To try to boost the take, a handful of states are considering turning over their lottery operations to private companies, like GTECH, which already provides a variety of services ? from computer systems to retail terminals ? to about half the states. ?Illinois and Indiana have signed on and New Jersey officials are considering the move, according to Robert Vincent, a company spokesman

"They?re saying, 'We think we can make more money for good causes if we put this in the hands of a private manager,'" he said. ?We think we can drive more sales over the course of the contract.?

With revenues of more than $1 billion last year, GTECH is owned by Lottomatica Group, an Italian-based global gaming giant with 8,000 employees in more than 50 countries worldwide. Vincent said many state-run lotteries simply have don?t have the expertise to maximize their profits and boost tickets sales.

?You?re competing with Altoids,? he said. ?You?re on the counter of a convenience store and it's an impulse purchase whether you?re going to buy a lottery ticket or buy something else that?s there competing for your attention. That?s a very different environment than other government agencies that are there to protect, collect and manage infrastructure.?

States' hard-pressed tight budgets can use all the tickets sales they can get, which has increased pressure on lottery commissions to raise more money.?

But critics of the reliance on lotteries to fund government argue that it shifts the funding burden unfairly onto the poor and working class.

The link between lottery sales and low-income purchasers has been fairly well established. In 2004, three Cornell economists reviewed 10 years of data from 39 states and found a strong correlation between lottery sales and poverty rates.

?State o?cials laud the bene?ts of lottery proceeds and promote the fun and excitement of participation,? the researchers wrote. ?This entertainment value is one explanation for lottery demand by the poor: individuals with lower incomes substitute lottery play for other entertainment.?

By contrast, the researchers found little correlation between poverty rates and sales of movie tickets.

In some cases, lottery revenues have been used to cut income and sales taxes, further shifiting the burden of paying for state services to the poor, according to Patrick?Pierce, a political scientist and author of "Gambling Politics: State Government and the Business of Betting."

Pierce found that in the early stages of initiating a lottery, spending on services like education went up for a few years, but then began to level off as the new lottery winnings eventually replaced taxes collected as general revenue.

?Governors could then take the political credit for no tax increases or tax cuts while they were governors,? he said. ?The only reason they were able to do it was because of the lottery. They didn?t make state government more efficient. They didn?t do anything other than benefit from this voluntary tax that state residents were paying.?

State officials have found another reason to rely more heavily on lottery revenues. While revenues from sales and income are slowly recovering from the 2007 recession and weak recovery, profits from state lotteries have bounced back sharply ? up 37 percent in the past two years.

Despite high unemployment and little or no wage growth, lottery ticket buyers are durable customers.

?When their situation becomes more desperate because of the economy, you get some folks playing the lottery precisely because their situation is more desperate,? said Pierce. ?And this is the only route they see to escaping the situation that they?re in.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/powerball-profits-dont-all-go-where-you-think-they-do-1C7324290

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Lindsay Lohan arrested in New York, accused of punching woman

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lindsay Lohan was arrested outside a New York nightclub on an assault charge early Thursday after she punched another woman in the face, police said, marking another legal dustup for the 26-year-old "Mean Girls" actress.

Lohan and the 28-year-old unidentified woman had some sort of a dispute inside the club Avenue in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood around 4 a.m., police said.

Lohan, who has faced a series of legal and financial troubles in recent years, punched the woman in the face multiple times, said New York Police Sergeant John Buthorn, adding that the victim sustained "minor, minor injuries."

Lohan was arrested on a third-degree misdemeanor assault charge, police said.

She was released from police custody later on Thursday morning. Wearing a green, knee-length dress, black tights and high heels, Lohan was hustled from NYPD's 10th Precinct House with a personal security guard's blazer draped over her head and into a waiting SUV, which quickly drove away.

She will have to return to court at a later date to face the charge, police said. Calls and an email to her publicist were not immediately returned.

The arrest came during an already rough week for Lohan, whose latest performance as Hollywood screen legend Elizabeth Taylor in the TV movie "Liz & Dick" was panned by critics. Cable TV channel Lifetime said on Monday that a modest 3.5 million Americans watched the film that premiered last weekend.

Earlier this month she canceled an in-depth interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress' publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.

Lohan's recent visits to New York have been peppered with run-ins with police and public spats.

Last month police were called to the Long Island home of Lohan's mother, Dina Lohan, where she and her mother had become involved in a loud, early-morning argument. Nassau County Police left the scene without making any arrests.

In September Lohan was arrested in Manhattan after a pedestrian told police that her Porsche had struck him in an alley.

She was initially charged with leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor, but a late-October court date was canceled and another date was not scheduled, an indication prosecutors decided not to proceed with that case.

Also in September, she scuffled with a man at a New York hotel over what media reports described as her demand that photographs he had taken of her be deleted from his cellphone.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins and Dan Burns; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lindsay-lohan-arrested-york-accused-punching-woman-130651914.html

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Major breakthrough in deciphering bread wheat's genetic code

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? Scientists, including Professor Keith Edwards and Dr Gary Barker from the University of Bristol, have unlocked key components of the genetic code of one of the world's most important crops. The first analysis of the complex and exceptionally large bread wheat genome, published today in Nature, is a major breakthrough in breeding wheat varieties that are more productive and better able to cope with disease, drought and other stresses that cause crop losses.

The identification of around 96,000 wheat genes, and insights into the links between them, lays strong foundations for accelerating wheat improvement through advanced molecular breeding and genetic engineering. The research contributes to directly improving food security by facilitating new approaches to wheat crop improvement that will accelerate the production of new wheat varieties and stimulate new research. The analysis comes just two years after UK researchers finished generating the sequence.

The project was led by Neil Hall, Mike Bevan, Keith Edwards, Klaus Mayer, from the University of Liverpool, the John Innes Centre, the University of Bristol, and the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Helmholtz-Zentrum, Munich, respectively, and Anthony Hall at the University of Liverpool. W. Richard McCombie at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and Jan Dvorak at the Univerisity of California, Davis, led the US contribution to the project.

The team sifted through vast amounts of DNA sequence data, effectively translating the sequence into something that scientists and plant breeders can use effectively. All of their data and analyses were freely available to users world-wide.

Professor Keith Edwards said: "Since 1980, the rate of increase in wheat yields has declined. Analysis of the wheat genome sequence data provides a new and very powerful foundation for breeding future generations of wheat more quickly and more precisely, to help address this problem."

The analysis is already being used in research funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to introduce a wider range of genetic variation into commercial cultivars and make use of wild wheat's untapped genetic reservoirs that could help improve tolerance to diseases and the effects of climate change. The wheat breeding community and seed suppliers have welcomed the research.

The sequence data has been deposited at the European Nucleotide Archive and is also available from databases in the UK and Germany.

Researchers from the European Bioinformatics Institute, Kansas State University, and the United Sates Department of Agriculture were also vital to the project's success. The research was possible thanks to major funding was form the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the EU and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Professor Douglas Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive, said: "In the face of this year's wheat crop losses, and worries over the impact on prices for consumers, this breakthrough in our understanding of the bread wheat genome could not have come at a better time. This modern strategy is a key component to supporting food security and gives breeders the tools to produce more robust varieties with higher yields. It will help to identify the best genetic sequences for use in breeding programmes."

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science said: "This groundbreaking research is testament to the excellence of Britain's science base and demonstrates the capability we want to build on through the agri-tech strategy currently being developed. The findings will help us feed a growing global population by speeding up the development of new varieties of wheat able to cope with the challenges faced by farmers worldwide."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Rachel Brenchley, Manuel Spannagl, Matthias Pfeifer, Gary L. A. Barker, Rosalinda D?Amore, Alexandra M. Allen, Neil McKenzie, Melissa Kramer, Arnaud Kerhornou, Dan Bolser, Suzanne Kay, Darren Waite, Martin Trick, Ian Bancroft, Yong Gu, Naxin Huo, Ming-Cheng Luo, Sunish Sehgal, Bikram Gill, Sharyar Kianian, Olin Anderson, Paul Kersey, Jan Dvorak, W. Richard McCombie, Anthony Hall, Klaus F. X. Mayer, Keith J. Edwards, Michael W. Bevan, Neil Hall. Analysis of the bread wheat genome using whole-genome shotgun sequencing. Nature, 2012; 491 (7426): 705 DOI: 10.1038/nature11650

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/CmhAUI61ccc/121128142144.htm

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Increasing drought stress challenges vulnerable hydraulic system of plants, GW professor finds

Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Latarsha Gatlin
lgatlin@gwu.edu
202-994-5631
George Washington University

Amy Zanne, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, co-authors paper published in Nature studying effects of drought on plant life

WASHINGTON - The hydraulic system of trees is so finely-tuned that predicted increases in drought due to climate change may lead to catastrophic failure in many species. A recent paper co-authored by George Washington University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Amy Zanne finds that those systems in plants around the globe are operating at the top of their safety threshold, making forest ecosystems vulnerable to increasing environmental stress.

In the current issue of the journal Nature, Dr. Zanne and lead authors from the University of Western Sydney in Australia and Ulm University in Germany, report that the hydraulic system trees depend on is a unique but unstable mechanism that is constantly challenged.

"Drought is a major force shaping our forests," said Dr. Zanne, a faculty member within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. "Over the last century, drought has been responsible globally for numerous large-scale forest diebacks. To make effective predictions of how forest landscapes may change in the future, we need to first understand how plants work."

The primary challenge plants face during drought is how to keep their plumbing working. Drought stress creates trapped gas emboli in the water system, which reduces the ability of plants to supply water to leaves for photosynthetic gas exchange and can ultimately result in desiccation and death.

"Vulnerability to embolism is one of the main factors determining drought effects on trees," Dr. Zanne said. "However, plants vary dramatically in their resistance to drought-induced embolism, which has made predictions of how forests might be altered under future climates more difficult."

While the research findings are alarming, plants do have a few other tricks up their sleeves. They may have some flexibility of changing their plumbing or new species of trees may replace species no longer capable of persisting in a given place.

An international team consisting of Dr. Zanne and 23 other plant scientists organized via the ARC-NZ Research Network for Vegetation Function at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, analyzed existing measures of plant hydraulic safety thresholds in forest species around the world.

The surprising result that the group discovered is that while plants vary greatly in their embolism resistance, they are sitting at similar safety thresholds across all forest types. The team found these thresholds are largely independent of mean annual precipitation.

The findings explain why drought-induced forest decline occurs in arid as well as wet forests, which had historically not been considered at risk.

###

George Washington University

In the heart of the nation's capital with additional programs in Virginia, the George Washington University was created by an Act of Congress in 1821. Today, GW is the largest institution of higher education in the District of Columbia. The university offers comprehensive programs of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts study, as well as degree programs in medicine, public health, law, engineering, education, business and international affairs. Each year, GW enrolls a diverse population of undergraduate, graduate and professional students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 130 countries.

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Latarsha Gatlin
lgatlin@gwu.edu
202-994-5631
George Washington University

Amy Zanne, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, co-authors paper published in Nature studying effects of drought on plant life

WASHINGTON - The hydraulic system of trees is so finely-tuned that predicted increases in drought due to climate change may lead to catastrophic failure in many species. A recent paper co-authored by George Washington University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Amy Zanne finds that those systems in plants around the globe are operating at the top of their safety threshold, making forest ecosystems vulnerable to increasing environmental stress.

In the current issue of the journal Nature, Dr. Zanne and lead authors from the University of Western Sydney in Australia and Ulm University in Germany, report that the hydraulic system trees depend on is a unique but unstable mechanism that is constantly challenged.

"Drought is a major force shaping our forests," said Dr. Zanne, a faculty member within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. "Over the last century, drought has been responsible globally for numerous large-scale forest diebacks. To make effective predictions of how forest landscapes may change in the future, we need to first understand how plants work."

The primary challenge plants face during drought is how to keep their plumbing working. Drought stress creates trapped gas emboli in the water system, which reduces the ability of plants to supply water to leaves for photosynthetic gas exchange and can ultimately result in desiccation and death.

"Vulnerability to embolism is one of the main factors determining drought effects on trees," Dr. Zanne said. "However, plants vary dramatically in their resistance to drought-induced embolism, which has made predictions of how forests might be altered under future climates more difficult."

While the research findings are alarming, plants do have a few other tricks up their sleeves. They may have some flexibility of changing their plumbing or new species of trees may replace species no longer capable of persisting in a given place.

An international team consisting of Dr. Zanne and 23 other plant scientists organized via the ARC-NZ Research Network for Vegetation Function at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, analyzed existing measures of plant hydraulic safety thresholds in forest species around the world.

The surprising result that the group discovered is that while plants vary greatly in their embolism resistance, they are sitting at similar safety thresholds across all forest types. The team found these thresholds are largely independent of mean annual precipitation.

The findings explain why drought-induced forest decline occurs in arid as well as wet forests, which had historically not been considered at risk.

###

George Washington University

In the heart of the nation's capital with additional programs in Virginia, the George Washington University was created by an Act of Congress in 1821. Today, GW is the largest institution of higher education in the District of Columbia. The university offers comprehensive programs of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts study, as well as degree programs in medicine, public health, law, engineering, education, business and international affairs. Each year, GW enrolls a diverse population of undergraduate, graduate and professional students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 130 countries.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/gwu-ids112712.php

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Analysis: Confusing hard and soft power in emerging markets

LONDON (Reuters) - Deserting debt-laden, recession-racked North Atlantic and Japan for the fast-growing emerging market world may have been irresistible for some investors but many others still remain timid.

Why? It may be a case of "hard power" versus "soft power".

If investment decisions hinged solely on the former - measured by raw data such as economic output, population size and military spending - then convergence between rich and developing nation blocs is nigh on complete.

Adjusted for currencies' purchasing power, emerging economies on aggregate reached a "watershed" in 2012 and became as large as the rich developed world, estimates hedge fund manager Stephen Jen.

That train has long left the station, of course, and may well be only part way through its odyssey. According to Goldman Sachs, the giant economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China alone are expected to surge from a fifth of global output today to a third by 2020.

Using an index of "hard power" traced back to the early 1800s, with inputs such as iron and steel production, energy use, urban population and per capita military spending, Jen reckons dispersion of hard power between the top economies of the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Russia is at its lowest for 200 years.

But he reckons the world is still some way off equality of "soft power" - classed variously as the ability to influence ideas through culture, education, democracy or diplomacy but also capturing "intangibles" such as social justice, good corporate governance, transparency of law or open markets.

There's no direct gauge of this fuzzier "soft power". But if you take gauges such as Transparency International's "corruption perceptions index" as one possible component, then no major emerging economy comes in the top 20 apart from long-standing financial centers such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Through investment eyes at least, the lags in this sort of "soft" development go some way to explaining why emerging financial markets remain far behind in terms of size, liquidity, depth, transparency and legal protections and why they have so badly underperformed of late despite all the "hard" metrics.

The lion's share of world private investable capital still originates in the western world. A recent study by analysts at TheCityUK showed that more than 70 percent of the almost $80 trillion of pension, insurer and mutual fund assets is still based in the United States, Europe and Japan.

And it's this relative gap on "soft power" that may still determine investment success or failure in the years ahead.

"This grating of the tectonic plates - with the real economies moving past each other but with the emerging world continuing to rely on developed countries' financial markets - will continue to create distortions and volatility in the global financial markets," Jen said.

These distortions have been evident for over a decade as booming China and other giants without adequate financial markets of their own banked their new-found and largely state-managed wealth in the west, exaggerated the credit bubble there and triggered sometimes violent and unpredictable capital flows.

SEISMIC REVERSALS

On a simple level, emerging underperformance of late may just be a function of an integrated world economy where no market is immune from shocks in its richest trading partners.

But even stock markets in the austerity-sapped recession economies of the euro zone periphery have as a group performed better than the BRIC equity indices for two years in a row now.

And while developed world equity at large is up 6 percent over the past two years, emerging markets are still down 10 percent.

There are many explanations, some related to the speed in which markets priced the long-term economic projections in the early part of the millennium with a 500 percent advance in BRIC markets between in the six years to 2007, for example.

This gets to the bigger worry of whether emerging markets are deep and liquid enough to absorb a wholesale shift of western capital without periodic seismic reversals that unnerve relatively conservative investors like pension funds.

In what Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane described last year as the "big fish, small pond" problem, rapid capital shifts quickly create overvaluation and he reckoned just a 1 percent shift in western pension funds to emerging markets was equivalent to some 10 percent of their entire capitalization.

So much so that even though investors in global equities would have increased money up to four fold over the past 20 years, equity investors who spotted China's explosive boom as early as 1993 are still in the red. Shorter-term, Brazil's real has lost 20 percent since March with no ostensible "crisis".

Emerging bond markets have done much better of late, up more than 15 percent in 2012 for example. But much of these are hard currency fixed contracts governed by New York or London law.

Citing demand for property in London or New York at the worst points of the recent global crisis, Citi Private Bank's Chief Investment Officer Richard Cookson reckons some simple rules apply that still make many wary of emerging markets.

"After decades of crises, you may ask what's with the emerging world? The answer is rule of law, property rights, corruption, failed institutions. How much of that has changed? Not much."

What's more, it's not at all obvious that the mega emerging economies like China even have the desire to move toward a center ground on financial soft power at least.

"China wants the prestige of a global power but not the responsibilities," said Michal Meidan, Asia analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia. "They would be happy to be considered a global financial power but they are not ready for the responsibility of shoring up the global financial system."

(Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Sujata Rao, Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-confusing-hard-soft-power-emerging-markets-065405080--sector.html

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Native Americans, U.S. settle $3.4 billion lawsuit

HELENA, Mont. (AP) ? After nearly 17 years of courtroom arguments, congressional negotiations and Indian Country bickering, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans could see the first payments of a $3.4 billion U.S. government settlement by the end of the year, plaintiffs' attorneys said Monday.

The settlement between American Indians across the nation and the government over more than a century's worth of squandered and mismanaged land trust royalties became final on Friday, when the appeal period expired.

One of the largest U.S. government settlements in history began with a lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont. The Blackfeet leader observed that those who leased Indian land made money from its natural resources, while the Indians themselves remained in poverty with no accounting of the royalties from that land that were held in trust for them by the government

Cobell herself led the fight against the government for more than 15 years before she died of cancer last year.

"We all are happy that this settlement can finally be implemented," lead attorney Dennis Gingold said in a statement Monday. "We deeply regret that Ms. Cobell did not live to see this day."

Approximately 350,000 beneficiaries could start receiving $1,000 checks by Christmas as the first part of the settlement goes forward, plaintiffs' attorneys said.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released a statement that said the settlement marks a step forward in reconciliation and a new era in how the government administers its trusts.

"With the settlement now final, we can put years of discord behind us and start a new chapter in our nation-to-nation relationship," Salazar said.

The agreement will pay out $1.5 billion to two classes of beneficiaries. Each member of the first class would be paid $1,000. Each member of the second class would be paid $800 plus a share of the balance of the settlement funds as calculated by a formula based on the activity in their trust accounts.

Another $1.9 billion would be used by the government to purchase fractionated land allotments from willing individuals and turn those consolidated allotments over to the tribe. An education scholarship for young Indians also would be established under the agreement.

Congress approved the deal in December 2010 and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan approved it after a June 2011 hearing. Hogan said that while the settlement may not be as much as some wished, the deal ended the legal deadlock and provided some certainty for the beneficiaries.

Cobell traveled across Indian Country to explain the deal, but there was opposition. One opponent, Kimberly Craven of Boulder, Colo., took her objections to the Supreme Court, saying the settlement did not include an actual accounting for how much money the government lost and that the deal would overcompensate a select few beneficiaries.

The Supreme Court declined to take up her petition.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-4b-indian-lawsuit-ends-disbursements-begin-002551060.html

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GI's treatment focus of hearing in WikiLeaks case

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) ? An Army private charged in the biggest security breach in U.S. history is trying to avoid trial by claiming he's already been punished by confinement conditions that a United Nations torture investigator called cruel, inhuman and degrading.

Pfc. Bradley Manning is expected to testify about his treatment during a pretrial hearing starting Tuesday at Fort Meade. The young intelligence analyst has never spoken publicly about his nearly nine months in the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., from July 2010 to April 2011. The hearing is scheduled to run through Sunday.

Manning was confined alone in a 6-by-8-foot cell for at least 23 hours a day, according to documents filed by the defense. For several days in January 2011, all his clothes were taken from him each night until he was issued a suicide-prevention smock, military officials have said.

The Defense Department has said Manning's treatment properly conformed to his classification as a maximum-custody detainee who posed a risk of injury to himself or others. He was moved in April 2011 to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he has a medium-security classification.

Publicity about Manning's treatment helped bring worldwide attention to his case. In March, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Mendez presented a report to the UN's Human Rights Council in which he criticized the U.S. government for refusing his repeated requests for a private visit with Manning.

Although they never spoke, "I am persuaded that Pfc. Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" in violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, Mendez wrote in a Nov. 15 email to The Associated Press.

Mendez said he doesn't know if Manning's treatment amounted to torture, as Manning supporters claim.

Military judges can dismiss all charges if pretrial punishment is particularly egregious, but that rarely happens. The usual remedy is credit at sentencing for time served, said Lisa M. Windsor, a retired Army colonel and former Army judge advocate now in private practice in Washington.

"I think the likelihood of him getting any charges dropped is extremely remote," she said.

If the military judge refuses to dismiss the case, defense attorney David Coombs has requested 10-for-1 credit for 258 days of supposedly punitive confinement. That would knock a little more than seven years off Manning's sentence if he is convicted. He faces the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, and 162 years on the 21 other counts. His trial is set to begin Feb. 4.

Jeff Paterson, a leader of the Bradley Manning Support Network, said the credit would be meaningless if Manning gets a lengthy sentence.

"If that credit is meaningless, then that signals that you can actually torture any personnel or detainee without any actual consequences," Paterson said.

Manning is accused of sending to the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010.

The 24-year-old native of Crescent, Okla., allegedly told a confidant-turned-informant in an online chat in 2010 that he leaked the information because "I want people to see the truth."

Manning has offered to take responsibility for the leak by pleading guilty to reduced charges. The military judge hasn't yet ruled on the offer. It is not part of a plea deal, and it would not preclude prosecutors from pursuing the original charges.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gis-treatment-focus-hearing-wikileaks-case-083304777.html

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Ericsson eyes steady growth despite global downturn

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Illinois moves ahead on health insurance exchange

Illinois is considering proposals from five companies to build a health insurance exchange that would meet requirements of President Barack Obama's health law. An official from one of those companies says ? whoever wins Tuesday's presidential election ? many states will continue their plans for these marketplaces.

Exchanges are a cornerstone of Obama's health law, and Mitt Romney has expressed support for states setting up their own exchanges with more flexibility. That means many states will move forward with plans. That's the view of Brian Patt of Infosys Public Services.

Infosys is one of five companies bidding to design an Illinois exchange, a website where consumers would comparison shop for health insurance.

Spokeswoman Brooke Anderson says Gov. Pat Quinn plans to proceed with plans no matter who wins the election.

Top Headlines On WBEZ.org

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Source: http://www.wbez.org/news/illinois-moves-ahead-health-insurance-exchange-103660

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Democrats complain about new King County GOP's ballot drop-off tactic

Update:

King County officials on Sunday urged voters not to hand their ballots over to strangers.

The only way to guarantee a ballot will be counted is to mail it or drop it off at an offical King County elections site, said Democratic King County Executive Dow Constantine, joined by Sherill Huff, the county?s elections director.

?We are strongly advising citizens if they want to be sure their ballot is counted, don?t hand your ballot over to someone you don?t know,? Constantine said.

Huff said she had received complaints from residents, concerned about people going door-to-door collecting ballots. The effort is part of a Republican get-out-vote push. King County Republicans have also set up 10 collection vans in suburban parts of the county.

It?s not illegal to collect ballots for delivery, Huff said. Nor is there anything wrong with giving your ballot to someone else. Church and community groups commonly collect and deliver ballots, Constantine said. The danger lies is dealing with someone you don?t know, he said.

Secretary of State Sam Reed issued a statement Sunday saying ?We strongly discourage such activity, but it?s not illegal.?

Democrats mounted similar efforts in previous elections.

?

Original post:

Democrats are calling on Secretary of State Sam Reed to denounce a new King County GOP get out the vote tactic they say violates state law.

The ?GOP Victory Van program,? announced last week, includes 10 locations where voters can drop their ballots. Staffers at the sites, paid $10 an hour by the King County Republican Party, are promising to deliver the ballots to official county ballot drop-off centers. The staffers are also offering to turn in ballots while going doorbelling at Republican households.

The GOP is touting the program as a way to boost turnout.

?This is called get out the vote,? said Kirby Wilbur, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. ?We?re trying to get every last vote we can.?

Democrats say the tactic is over the line.

?This initiative is as ill-considered as it is unprecedented,??Kevin J. Hamilton, a Washington State Democratic Party attorney, wrote Saturday to Secretary Reed. ?There is a reason why nonpartisan election officials conduct our elections and the prospect of having partisan operatives collect voted ballots and return them to the elections office is chilling indeed.?

Reed did not immediately return telephone and email messages Sunday?seeking comment.

In a news release, King County officials said the county ?strongly discourages giving possession or responsibility for ballots to anyone other than USPS or?official King County Elections drop locations.?

County Executive Dow Constantine, a Democrat,?and Elections Director Sherril Huff held a?news conference in West Seattle this morning?to advise voters not to give their ballot to anyone they don?t know.

Source: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/2012/11/04/democrats-complain-about-new-king-county-gop-get-out-the-vote-tactic/?syndication=rss

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Obama, Romney to make their final case on last day of race

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney make a frenetic dash to a series of crucial swing states on Monday, delivering their final arguments to voters on the last day of an extraordinarily close race for the White House.

After a long, bitter and expensive campaign, national polls show Obama and Romney are essentially deadlocked ahead of Tuesday's election, although Obama has a slight advantage in the eight or nine battleground states that will decide the winner.

Obama plans to visit three of those swing states on Monday and Romney will travel to four to plead for support in a fierce White House campaign that focused primarily on the lagging economy but at times turned intensely personal.

The election's outcome will impact a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, from the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that could kick in at the end of the year to questions about how to handle illegal immigration or the thorny challenge of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The balance of power in Congress also will be at stake on Tuesday, with Obama's Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and Romney's Republicans favored to retain control of the House of Representatives.

In a race where the two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $2 billion, the most in U.S. history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads.

The close margins in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliffhanger that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and gets its voters to the polls.

In the final days, both Obama and Romney focused on firing up core supporters and wooing the last few undecided voters in battleground states.

Romney reached out to dissatisfied Obama supporters from 2008, calling himself the candidate of change and ridiculing Obama's failure to live up to his campaign promises. "He promised to do so very much but frankly he fell so very short," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday.

Obama, citing improving economic reports on the pace of hiring, argued in the final stretch that he has made progress in turning around the economy but needed a second White House term to finish the job. "This is a choice between two different versions of America," Obama said in Cincinnati, Ohio.

FINAL SWING-STATE BLITZES

Obama will close his campaign on Monday with a final blitz across Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - three Midwestern states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would be enough to get him more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Polls show Obama has slim leads in all three. His final stop on Monday night will be in Iowa, the state that propelled him on the path to the White House in 2008 with a victory in its first-in-the nation caucus.

Romney will visit his must-win states of Florida and Virginia - where polls show he is slightly ahead or tied - along with Ohio before concluding in New Hampshire, where he launched his presidential run last year.

The only state scheduled to get a last-day visit from both candidates is Ohio, the most critical of the remaining battlegrounds - particularly for Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor has few paths to victory if he cannot win in Ohio, where Obama has kept a small but steady lead in polls for months.

Obama has been buoyed in Ohio by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry, where one in every eight jobs is tied to car manufacturing, and by a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.

That has undercut Romney's frequent criticism of Obama's economic leadership, which has focused on the persistently high jobless rate and what Romney calls Obama's big spending efforts to expand government power.

Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, has centered his campaign pitch on his own experience as a business leader at a private equity fund and said it made him uniquely suited to create jobs.

Obama's campaign fired back with ads criticizing Romney's experience and portraying the multimillionaire as out of touch with everyday Americans.

Obama and allies said Romney's firm, Bain Capital, plundered companies and eliminated jobs to maximize profits. They also made an issue of Romney's refusal to release more than two years of personal tax returns.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-romney-sprint-unpredictable-campaign-finish-021401657.html

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Rasmus Bonde, Mads Conrad Petersen clear quarter-final round of ...

Rasmus Bonde, Mads Conrad Petersen clear quarter-final round of 2012 Bitburger Badminton Open

Men?s Doubles partners Rasmus Bonde and Mads Conrad Petersen remained invincible in the quarter-final round of Bitburger Badminton Open Grand Prix Gold and powered their way into the semi-finals on November 2, 2012.

They unseated Yonathan Suryatama Dasuki-Hendra Aprida Gunawan in a hard fought tussle which prolonged to 49 minutes before ending with19-21, 21-11 and 21-11.

The Danish pair showed great fighting spirit and saved the honour despite slipping in the opening game.

On the other hand, Yonathan Suryatama and Hendra Aprida could not forge a fruitful chemistry when it was needed the most and frittered away their first set win.

They played according to the game plan in first set and outclassed their spirited rivals in a commendable manner.

Initially, they were bit cautious as the opposing team employed unusual tactics and gained an early advantage but then the Indonesian campaigners showed elevated craft and counter-balanced the situation.

Yonathan Suryatama and Hendra Aprida started the beating after 5-5 and laid the foundation of their supremacy with 11-7 total.

They did not drop this pace and cruised to victory with a decent lead in 21-19 margin.

However, things were not that easy for them in following game as the suppressed duo of previous set managed to rise from the dust.

This time Rasmus Bonde and Mads Conrad did not repeat the previous mistakes and established a strong grip immediately in the beginning.

They unleashed a flurry of power packed strokes and kept their challengers grounded all the way to game point situation.

At the mid-game break, the Danish players were in commanding position with 11-8 score which helped them in later part of the game.

They played with authoritative approach in the second half and avoided a straight-set defeat with 21-11 margin.

The decider became consequential with this development as both teams were looking to pocket this final match point.

However, Rasmus Bonde and Mads Conrad ruled the court throughout this segment and sealed their splendid win with a staggering knock of 21-11.

Now the twosome of Chris Langridge and Peter Mills will be their next hurdle en route to the final round of this event.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Rasmus-Bonde,-Mads-Conrad-Petersen-clear-quarter-final-round-of-2012-Bitburger-Badminton-Open-a198825

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Anger Management By Favaro, Peter J. | Self Improvement ...

Anger Management By Favaro, Peter J.

Author: Favaro, Peter J. Subtitle: 6 Critical Steps to a Calmer Life Publication Date: 2005/09/30 Number of Pages: 288 Binding Type: Paperback Language: English Depth: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Height: 9.00
List Price:
Price: 22.66

This entry was posted in News - Self Growth. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://self-improvement.roxy-publishing.com/blog/news-self-growth/anger-management-by-favaro-peter-j

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Survival in Earth Land. Fariy Tail Survival

200 Years after the Eclipse Disaster, the world fears mages. They have been hunted to near extinction. Now, a small group is forming to clear the name of mages and fight back.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.

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Is there a character I can be or...?
I read Fairy Tail but i'm only on chapter 107.

burningembers

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Police: Mom stabs newborn baby to death

By NBC News staff

An Athens, Ga., woman was charged with murder Friday morning after being accused of killing her baby boy, possibly just minutes or hours after his birth.

About 1 p.m. ET Thursday, authorities responded to a 911 call reporting a lifeless newborn body discovered in an Athens home, according to a police news release. The baby's body had possible stab wounds and cuts, according to NBC station WXIA of Atlanta.

Police issued an arrest warrant Thursday night for the mother, 21-year-old?Cassandra Elyse Norwood, WXIA reported. She was charged and booked in jail Friday morning.

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Until the autopsy is complete, police are still not sure how soon after birth the baby was killed, but it may have been just minutes or hours, Athens-Clarke County police?Capt. Clarence Holeman told NBC News Friday.

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No one else in the home at the time was hurt, and police are looking for the baby's father, WXIA reported.

A motive in the death has not been released, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/02/14882129-police-georgia-mom-stabs-newborn-baby-to-death-possibly-just-hours-after-birth?lite

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Blake Shelton dominates the CMA Awards

Wayde Payne / AP

Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton accept song of the year award for "Over You" at the CMAs.

By Jill Serjeant, Reuters

NASHVILLE --?Blake Shelton dominated the Country Music Association awards on Thursday, taking home three trophies, including the coveted entertainer of the year prize, on country music's biggest night.

Shelton, 36, whose popularity has rocketed since he became a judge in 2011 on the TV singing contest "The Voice," also won male vocalist of the year for a third time.?

Shelton shared song of the year honors with his wife, Miranda Lambert, for the emotional ballad "Over You," while Lambert took home the female vocalist prize, also for the third time.?

Shelton looked stunned as he accepted the biggest award of the night, beating out recent arrivals Jason Aldean, country-pop crossover sensation Taylor Swift and veterans Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney. He has not released an album since "Red River Blue" in July 2011.?

"Man! Entertainer of the year? What are you talking about?" he said. "I know I am not out there on the road as much. I don't know how this happened. I freaking love it though."?

"I know I have a side job," he said, referring to his TV gig, "but country music is still what I love doing."?

Swift, who won entertainer of the year last year and in 2009, and Aldean both came away empty-handed. Eric Church, who went into Thursday's awards show with a leading five nominations, went home with one award -- album of the year for "Chief."?

"I spent a lot of my career wondering where I fit in -- country or rock? I want to thank you guys for giving me somewhere to hang my hat," said Church, 35, sporting a baseball cap and sunglasses.?

Jason Kempin / Getty Images

Church, who got his first CMA nomination just a year ago, told reporters backstage that he never thought he could win a CMA award. "I can distinctly remember playing for about eight people in Amarillo, Texas, about four years ago and to get from there to here is surreal," he said.

The awards show, broadcast live from Nashville, kicked off with a shout-out to those affected on the U.S. East Coast by Superstorm Sandy, and included appeals to viewers to donate to the Red Cross during the show.?

"Country music has always lifted people up in tough times, and we hope to do that tonight," said co-host Carrie Underwood.?

The country world paid tribute to singer and songwriter Willie Nelson, 79, and his storied career, presenting him with the inaugural Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award.?

Nelson performed his signature 1980 song "On the Road Again," while Lady Antebellum, Shelton, Keith Urban, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw did the honors with a medley of his hits "Crazy," "Whiskey River" and "Good Hearted Woman."?

"How many push-ups can you do with that one?" joked Nelson as he accepted the huge trophy. "Thank you all out there. Appreciate it."?

Alabama quartet Little Big Town scooped up two awards, winning vocal group of the year, and single of the year for the group's hit record "Pontoon."?

The band, which started out in 1998 but did not begin to make an impact until 2005, was ecstatic. "This has been a 13-year journey. Nashville, you have made us your band," said singer Kimberley Schlapman.?

The show also saw performances by Swift, debuting her new single, Dierks Bentley, The Band Perry, Aldean, the Zac Brown Band and Kelly Clarkson.?

Husband-and-wife team Thompson Square took home the prize for best vocal duo, and Louisiana native Hunter Hayes, 21, was named best new artist.?

"Can you believe we were singing for tips for eight years down on Broadway and now we've won this award? It's one of the most wonderful nights of our lives so far," Keifer Thompson of Thompson Square told reporters backstage.

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Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2012/11/02/14868218-blake-shelton-dominates-cma-awards-with-three-wins?lite

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