HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) ? An independent Zimbabwe election monitoring group said Wednesday many of the nation's 6.2 million voters will not be likely to cast their ballots if elections are not delayed.
Less than 10 percent of police and officials eligible for a special vote ahead of crucial national polls managed to cast their ballots in early polling "fraught with irregularities," the Election Resource Center said. About 80,000 police, soldiers and officials will be on duty during the July 31 vote.
Earlier on Wednesday, the state commission said in a statement it apologized to the uniformed forces, state officials "and to political parties and the nation at large" and acknowledged "substantial numbers" of voters were turned away during the special voting on Sunday and Monday that spilled into Tuesday.
"All persons who were deprived of the opportunity to vote will be able to vote on July 31 when the rest of the electorate votes," it said.
Voting papers and equipment were not delivered in time at most of the 210 voting posts, and the resource center blamed delays in printing the materials. Zimbabweans are scheduled to vote at 9,600 polling stations for countrywide vote that is two weeks away.
The resource center said the nation faced "further shame and embarrassment," if polls were not delayed. It said Nigeria in 2011 postponed elections twice for logistical reasons and went on to have a fair poll.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party, in a shaky coalition with longtime President Robert Mugabe since the last violent and disputed elections in 2008, said in a separate statement the special voting exposed the commission's inability to hold a credible election at the end of the month.
Tendai Biti, the third ranking official in Tsvangirai's party who is also the finance minister, alleged "a chaos faction" in Mugabe's party was trying to derail election procedures to sow confusion across the country for their own gain at the polls.
"This election is illegitimate and unfair. We are participating because the people are tired and want change. We are going to soldier on," Biti said in the statement.
? Frank Kozik x 3DRetro x Blackbook Toy ? Exclusive GID ?A Clockwork Carrot? |
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Jul 15, 2013
Dragatomi SDCC Custom Blind Box Series: Android Vs. Dunny
For the last few years, Dragatomi has been putting together a special custom blind box release for their booth #5350. One year its been custom Android blindbox series and another year its was a custom Dunny blindbox series. This year it?s both! Presenting the Android Vs. Dunny Blind Box series, which features customs from:
Kat Brunnegraff, Valley Dweller, JC Rivera, D-Lux,? Sneaky Raccoon, Tasha Zimich, Podgy Panda. JFury, Zam, Task One, Scott Tolleson, Button Eyes Toys, DrilOne, Leecifer, Jay222, Mikie Graham, Mike Die, Ardabus Rubber, Spanky Stokes,? J*RYU, Jeremiah Ketner, Jerome Lu, and Malo April.
Each artist got their hands on 3 Android figures and 3 Dunny figures to customize. You have the choice of choosing an Android BB or a Dunny BB, or you can even settle for both at $80 each. For every first 5 blindbox customer who purchases one of each blindboxes, they will receive a free referee figure by Jay222. That will only occur on Wednesday through Saturday.
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Bela and Eva Lengyel were current on their adult foster home's mortgage when, at the height of the financial crisis, they called JPMorgan Chase for help making payments.
What happened next is at the crux of a trial that started Tuesday in Washington County Circuit Court in Hillsboro -- the first wrongful foreclosure case in Oregon to go before a jury, attorneys say.
The Lengyels contend that Chase told them to stop paying the mortgage on their home near Beaverton, enrolled them in a trial modification program and then foreclosed anyway, even though they were making their payments and their home was bringing in enough cash.
Chase denies it told the Lengyels to default, contends they simply couldn't afford their modified payments of $1,550 and suggests the Lengyels weren't responsible with their finances.
The legal battle illustrates the type of quandary troubled homeowners found themselves in during the housing crisis. It could rekindle anger at Big Banks, often accused of unfairly and prematurely foreclosing on some homes. Also hanging in the balance: The fortunes of the Lengyels and the fate of four elderly residents of the home, who could be forced to move.
The Lengyels sued Chase Home Finance in 2010 around the time they lost their home in foreclosure to the loan's investor, Fannie Mae. Their wrongful foreclosure claims against Fannie Mae and Northwest Trustee Services were later dismissed.
They're asking the jury to award them about $10,000 in payments made to Chase as part of their trial modification, their attorney Terry Scannell said.
"We're not looking for a free house," Scannell told the 12-person jury Tuesday afternoon. "All they're looking for is the payments they made to Chase."
Separately, though, they'll ask presiding Judge Don Letourneau for their home back.
The Lengyels left Romania during its 1989 revolution, arriving in the United States in 1992. They bought the home in question in unincorporated Washington County in 1996. A few years later, Bela Lengyel started Bella Plumbing, laying pipe mostly in new homes.
Their businesses did well. They started construction on a large home in Happy Valley. Chase contends the Lengyels refinanced their adult foster home in 2007 with a $405,000 mortgage to help pay for the Happy Valley home's construction.
When the crisis hit, Bela Lengyel's plumbing business "had all but stopped," Scannell said. Lengyel eventually closed it in 2011, bankruptcy records show. He also let the Happy Valley home go into foreclosure after trying to sell it, Scannell said.
On Nov. 4, 2008, the Lengyels phoned Chase seeking help making the $2,200 monthly payments on their adult foster home's mortgage.
The Lengyels say a Chase representative told them they needed to be several months late on their mortgage to qualify for a modification, while making no mention of other forms of help available at the time. Scannell said Chase repeatedly made mistakes, including sending a letter Nov. 5 stating that the Lengyels' loan was in default when it wasn't.
Scannell said Chase also incorrectly conducted a test to determine whether they could afford a lower $1,550 payment. A letter allowing the Lengyels 30 days to challenge the test arrived 200 days late and four months after Chase had already foreclosed on the Lengyels' home, Scannell said.
"They didn't even have the chance to question the inputs," Scannell told the jury.
Chase's attorney, Phil Rush, called it a business case in which Lengyel leveraged his adult foster home to build the home in Happy Valley, which Rush said they intended to sell for $1 million. Bela Lengyel made "an unfortunate investment at the wrong time," Rush said. "Now he's got obligations to pay."
Rush said Chase has no record of instructing the Lengyels to stop paying their mortgage. The Lengyels, Rush said, failed to provide the necessary documents to support their stated income, leaving the loan servicer unable to verify more than $35,000 in annual income.
"As much as we wanted to help the Lengyels out, they simply didn't have enough income to support the kinds of loans they were seeking," Rush said. He said evidence in the trial would show where their income was going.
The Lengyels filed personal bankruptcy in 2012, listing nearly $40,000 in credit card debt and a $443,000 construction loan on the Happy Valley home, along with $120,000 in fees to Scannell. They also estimated the adult foster home would bring in $150,000 in revenue -- and $83,000 in profit each year, bankruptcy records show.
Bela Lengyel has not yet been called to testify. But after proceedings ended for the day Tuesday, Lengyel said in the hallway outside the courtroom that he did not know what would happen to his home's elderly residents if he loses.
One of the residents has lived in the home for 10 years, he said, before choking up and ending the interview. Testimony by a Chase home lending researching officer continues today.
Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker said Tuesday he does not support a measure to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) gained momentum last night with the support of Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Ted Cruz, who backed the bill in committee.
Continue Reading
Rand Paul: 'No reason' GOP shouldn't support bill
?I don?t think it can move forward,? Wicker said on MSNBC?s ?The Daily Rundown.?
(Also on POLITICO: One senator's climb to 51 votes)
Wicker serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which voted against the bill in June.
?I think you have support on both sides of the aisle on my position that we need to come down heavy and hard on sexual assault, on sexual harassment, but we don?t need to take the commanders out of that decision when it involves the military,? Wicker said. ?We can do a lot better, but to take the commanders out and the chain of command is not a step that we need to take. It would be unnecessary to resolve the problem and would be harmful, I think, to good order and discipline in the military.?
Wicker served in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserve before retiring in 2004 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, according to his Senate website. Several top military leaders, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, oppose the bill, POLITICO has reported.
Emergency crew stands near the tail section of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, which caught fire at London's Heathrow airport on July 12, 2013. On Monday, Honeywell, maker of an emergency transmitter on board, said it was helping in the investigation and the fire.
Investigators are looking at an emergency locator transmitter built by Honeywell International as the possible cause of a fire on board a Boeing Dreamliner in London last week, according to a source familiar with the probe.
The transmitter, in the upper rear part of the new airliner, uses a lithium manganese battery, said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record. The fact that it is not powered by a lithium-ion battery could calm concerns about a re-occurrence of problems with batteries that grounded the entire 787 fleet for three months earlier this year.
Honeywell said on Monday it was participating in the investigation into a fire on a Boeing 787 operated by Ethiopian Airlines at Heathrow airport in London on Friday.
Honeywell said it was invited to participate in the probe, which is being led by Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch with help from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing.
Boeing declined to comment.
A spokesperson at the NTSB said the agency would not be providing an update since the investigation was being led by British authorities.
"Honeywell has been invited to participate in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 fire investigation by the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch," said Honeywell in a statement.
"We've sent technical experts to Heathrow to assist with the investigation; however at this time it is premature to speculate on the cause of the fire. We will continue to work closely with Boeing and the NTSB and await the analysis and output of the investigation before drawing any conclusions."
Boeing shares were trading 3.6 percent higher on Monday as concerns waned about another fleetwide grounding. News of the fire had sent Boeing's shares down 4.7 percent on Friday, knocking $3.8 billion off the company's market value.
Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said on Saturday it found no evidence the fire was caused by the batteries that were implicated in the grounding earlier this year.
Boeing resumed deliveries of the Dreamliner jet only in May, ending a period of nearly four months in which it was unable to provide new planes because of safety concerns about the battery system.
Zimmerman reacts to the not guilty verdict, July 13, 2013. (Reuters/Pool)
The NAACP, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights activists are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney Gen. Eric Holder to press federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watchman who was acquitted by a Sanford, Fla., jury Saturday in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
?The most fundamental of civil rights ? the right to life ? was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin," NAACP President Ben Jealous wrote in a letter to Holder shortly after the verdict was announced. "We ask that the Department of Justice file civil rights charges against Mr. Zimmerman for this egregious violation. Please address the travesties of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin by acting today.?
?This verdict represents a tragic miscarriage of justice," Barbara Arnwine, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers? Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. "Yet, there is still the potential for justice to be served through a civil suit brought about by Trayvon Martin?s surviving family members, and also through civil rights charges being brought against Mr. Zimmerman by the Department of Justice."
The Justice Dept. launched a probe of the Zimmerman case last year, but has yet to comment on Zimmerman's acquittal.
?If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action," Holder said in 2012 during a keynote speech to Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention. "And at every step, the facts and law will guide us forward.?
But Holder, the nation's first African-American attorney general, cautioned in subsequent comments that there is a ?very high barrier? when seeking to bring federal criminal charges in such cases, TheHill.com noted.
A Justice Department official told CNN late Saturday night that it "continues to evaluate the evidence generated during the federal investigation, as well as the evidence and testimony from the state trial."
On Sunday, Jackson called on the Justice Department to "intervene" and ?take this to another level.?
"I remain stunned at the decision," Jackson said on CNN's "New Day." "That the grown man, armed, murdered the unarmed boy going home."
"I think that we clearly must move on to the next step in terms of the federal government and in terms of the civil courts," Sharpton said on MSNBC Saturday. "Clearly, we want people to be disciplined, strategic. This is a slap in the face to those that believe in justice in this country."
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The discovery of brain impairment in mice may eventually lead to better therapies for people with schizophrenia and major depression.
So I started a new job recently. I work for a non-profit company that assists people that have developmental disabilities. At an ?all staff? meeting that combined two offices someone said something that just keeps ringing through my mind. These specific people work in a department called Early Intervention so they help parents with young children, 0-3 years old navigate the intimidating world once a developmental disability has been diagnosed, such as Asperges or Autism. When describing the department they work in one employee mentioned many times they are helping the parent go through the ?grieving? process.
I can?t get that out of my head. She spoke a very raw truth. We grieve over not only physical losses but the loss of an ideal. Having a child we are expecting a glowing vision of perfection that is propped up high on a pedestal built from the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the parents. The excitement of meeting that awesome example of a perfect human being unsullied by the reality of how imperfect our world is a feeling that inspires tears of joy. To have that ripped away and the idea of perfection crushed like a cockroach is devastating. Who wouldn?t grieve? It breaks my heart.
Being raised with disability as a normality around me doesn?t lessen how I think I?d feel if my own offspring was afflicted with some sort of developmental disability. Looking at the cases that come across my desk some of these children know more love then anyone I?ve ever seen. While others I am just saddened by the way they have been treated although the situation now may be improved.
The thing about grieving is that its a process and we experience it so many times throughout life. We experience the loss of a friendship, an expectation or the death of a family member or even a family pet. The experience is so different for each person. No rule book exists, not a ?Self-Help? book written can describe the exact emotions that are experienced. The sadness is so deeply personal and vastly different from the next.
Do you believe that grief is exclusive to the physical loss of a loved one? Can you or have you grieved over an idea or failed expectation of self or others?
Canadian police said that 30 people still missing after a fiery train derailment in the village of Lac-M?gantic, Qu?bec, are ?most probably dead? and that families should prepare for the worst. The missing bring the final death count to 50 in the tragic accident, which occurred when at least five cars of a derailed oil train exploded in the middle of the village, destroying 30 buildings and displacing 2,000 people. The accident was the fourth worst train disaster in Canadian history, and has raised questions about the rise of railroad transport for oil, which has recently become a booming industry in Canada.
CBC:
Officials have confirmed that Elianne Parenteau, 93, is one of the 24 confirmed dead following the train derailment that set off a series of explosions in Lac-M?gantic's busy downtown core.
The remains of four more victims were recovered on Thursday. About 26 more are unacounted for and believed to be dead.
Yesterday, families with relatives still missing were told by police to prepare for the worst.
Insp. Michel Forget of the Quebec provincial police said crews have finished searching half of the disaster site. He said the remaining portion was the hardest hit by the explosions.
A temporary memorial site for the victims will open on Friday at one of the local churches, the eglise Ste-Agn?s.
The church will be open day and night, according to Mayor Roy-Laroche, and she invited families to visit and bring souvenirs or flowers in memory of their loved ones.
"The town is doing everything it can to help residents return to their normal ? of course it's relative when I say "normal" ? lives as soon as possible," Roy-Laroche said.
Well!?Britney Spears? next album era is shaping up to be better than an adventure to Smurf Village (which is really saying, since everyone knows how Britney gets?down?at Smurf Village). Now added to the list of collaborators with whom the pop superstar has been recording songs for her forthcoming LP is?Sia, who?s easily one of the best working songwriters in the game right now. (See?Rihanna?s ?Diamonds? and?David Guetta?s ?Titanium? for more on that.)
For her part, Britney described the session as ?AMAZING? (all caps!) and the song they wrote together as ?special,? which comprises all the information you could ever want to have about the song.
As Britney tweeted:
In turn, Sia tweeted (very graciously):
If someone can just keep?Will.i.am?from screaming and shouting all over whatever gorgeous pop confection they?ve cooked up, that?d be great.
Vice President Releases Book ?Smritiyan? by Garima Sanjay
Prime Minister's Office
PM condoles the passing away of thespian Pran Krishan Sikand
Min of Commerce & Industry
Anand Sharma Conveys India's Concern Over Restrictive Provisions of Proposed US Immigration Legislation to US Commerce Secretary
Min of Human Resource Development
HRD Minister Dr. Pallam Raju Meets Australian Senator Carr
at Australia India Ministerial Dialogue on Education Cooperation
Ministry of Water Resources
CWPRS Team to Overview Flood Control Measures in Haridwar & Uttarakhand
 
Presidents Secretariat13-July, 2013 9:17 IST
President's Rule in Jharkhand revoked
The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has today (July 13, 2013) signed the Proclamation under clause (2) of the Article 356 of the Constitution revoking the Proclamation issued on 18 January 2013, in relation to the State of Jharkhand.
Freedom Transit will detour service Saturday due to the Parade of Chrome. Bus alternate routes will be as follows:
Lincoln Line 1 (Red) - Baltimore Street south of Gettysburg Square to Steinwehr Avenue to the Gettysburg National Cemetery parking lot will be closed from 5 p.m. for the duration of the parade.
During this closure the outbound LL1 will leave the Transit Center and travel to Chambersburg Street and turn left on South Washington Street to Steinwehr Avenue and continue as their schedule indicates.
On the inbound trip the vehicle will travel on Steinwehr Avenue and turn left onto South Washington Street. It will follow South Washington Street and turn right onto Chambersburg Street to the Transit Center.
Lincoln Line 2 (Red) -Baltimore Street south of Gettysburg Square to Steinwehr Avenue to the Gettysburg National Cemetery parking lot will be closed from 5 p.m. for the duration of the parade.
During this closure the outbound LL2 will leave the Transit Center and travel to Chambersburg Street and turn left on South Washington Street to Steinwehr Avenue and will use Taneytown Road to the west entrance of the Gettysburg National Military Park and Visitor Center. They will proceed to the Eisenhower Complex as their schedule indicates.
On the inbound trip, the vehicle will leave the Visitor Center west entrance turning right onto Taneytown Road to South Washington Street. It will follow South Washington Street and turn right
onto Chambersburg Street to the Transit Center.
Freedom Transit will honor flag stops on the alternate routes in which passengers can signal the driver. All buses will return to the normal routes after the event. For more information, visit www.ridethetrolley.com or call 1-800-632-9063.
Chipping Sodbury Tourist Information Centre to open all year after Chauffeurhire agrees to pay heating bill
7:00am Friday 12th July 2013 in News By Alexandra Womack
CHIPPING Sodbury Tourist Information Centre (TIC) is to open all year round, the Gazette can reveal, after a generous offer from a company which relies on visitors.
The centre, based in the clock tower on High Street, has previously only opened between March and November because funding grants did not cover the cost of heating the building during the winter.
However, local coach company Chauffeurhire has now stepped in and offered to pay the centre?s winter heating bills so volunteers can remain on hand to offer information to visitors to the town all year long.
Tourist information centre manager Laura Lee Phillips said: ?The TIC is run by volunteers and receives grants from Sodbury Town Council, Dodington Parish Council and Yate Town Council. Although welcome the grants are not sufficient for the TIC to remain open over the winter.
?Due to numerous requests from locals and businesses, the Committee of the TIC voted to open all year round to satisfy demand. The extra cost of heating the TIC will be met by Chauffeurhire coaches who stepped in when they heard of the shortfall in funding.?
Gary Davies, who owns the travel firm on Hounds Road, said: ?I think this is what our town needs.
?The TIC has been so much busier this year and it would do our town good to stay open all year round.
?It will do us good as a company and I think if you ask other local traders they will say the same.?
Mr Davies said the extra heating bill, estimated at around ?110 a month during winter, should have been met by Sodbury Town Council but councillors voted against picking up the bill at its June 11 meeting.
Added Mr Davies: ?I think it is something the town council should be doing but we were happy to step in and help rather than see it not open all year.?
The TIC is now planning to launch a fundraising appeal to help improve facilities and the services it offers. Some donations from local companies have already been received and the centre is continuing to sell maps, books, pictures and tickets to local events in exchange for funds.
The TIC is open Monday to Saturday (10am?5pm). Call 01454 888686 or email chippingsodburytic@gmail.com if you would like the centre to sell tickets on your behalf or can offer sponsor of the service.
According to his federal tax return, NCAA president Mark Emmert made $1.7 million in his first year on the job.
David J. Phillip/Associated Press file photo
According to his federal tax return, NCAA president Mark Emmert made $1.7 million in his first year on the job.
NCAA President Mark Emmert was credited with nearly $1.7 million in compensation during the 2011 calendar year, according to the association?s new federal tax return.
That calendar year was Emmert?s first in the position, where he succeeded the late Myles Brand.
Chief Operating Officer Jim Isch earned $977,531, according to the return. In the 2010 calendar year, Isch earned $760,480.
The return, which the NCAA provided Wednesday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports, shows that Emmert received:
$1,201,159 in base compensation.
$234,300 in retirement and deferred compensation.
$214,947 in other reportable compensation.
$23,689 in nontaxable benefits.
Emmert?s total of $1,674,095 means he received 46 percent more in compensation than Brand did.
In Brand?s final full year as NCAA president he received $1,145,880, which included $770,739 in base pay and $201,264 in bonuses and incentives. Brand died Sept. 16, 2009.
The NCAA?s new tax return also provided an indication of the mounting legal pressure it has been facing.
The association reported nearly $9.5 million in legal expenses during a fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2012 ? more than what it reported for that spending category in its two previous fiscal years ? combined. (While compensation data in the federal tax returns of nonprofits are for a calendar year, the revenue and expense reporting covers the organization?s fiscal year.)
The NCAA reported nearly $4.1 million in legal expenses for 2010-11 and a little more than $4.1 million for 2009-10.
Its total for 2011-12 was its greatest since 2006-07, when it reported nearly $20.1 million in legal expenses.
As a private, nonprofit organization, the NCAA is not required to make public its employment contracts. The return showed showed two other executives with more than $500,000 in compensation in 2011 ? executive vice president Bernard Franklin and interim executive vice president Greg Shaheen, who received comparable amounts in 2010. Shaheen no longer works for the NCAA.
The new return showed that former executive vice president Tom Jernstedt received $456,430 in severance from the NCAA in 2011; he received $89,518 in such pay, plus regular compensation in 2010. Four other former NCAA executives each received more than $175,000 in severance in 2011.
?Overall NCAA salaries and compensation increased 3.4 percent, driven by pay raises in the 2-3 percent range and higher health insurance costs,? NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said in a statement. ?After accounting for severance pay for five former employees and the first full year of President Emmert?s salary, executive salaries remained relatively stable from 2010 to 2011.?
Emmert, in his previous job as president of the University of Washington, was paid $870,000 a year, according to data compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Under a contract signed in July 2009, Emmert?s compensation package included $620,000 in base salary; the rest was under a complex deferred compensation plan that had different amounts vesting based on years of service.
Emmert had free housing and a $12,000 annual car allowance from Washington, plus the opportunity for a six-month paid sabbatical after June 14, 2012. He also was a tenured professor in the university?s public-affairs school and its business school. He resigned those positions when he departed for the NCAA, university spokesman Norm Arkans said last July.
Because the NCAA is organized as a nonprofit, it must annually file a tax return that includes information about the pay of officers, directors and most highly compensated employees. Although the return covers a fiscal year that involves parts of two calendar years, the IRS requires that the compensation reporting cover the most recently completed calendar year.
In the NCAA?s case, the return it filed last week covers a tax year from Sept. 1, 2011, through Aug. 31, 2012, making 2011 the most recently completed calendar year.
Because of the complexity of its return, the NCAA ? like many colleges, universities and other large nonprofits ? routinely takes filing extensions that result in a significant time lag between the period covered by its most recent return and the date it files.
Rachel Axon contributed to this report. ? 2013 USA TODAY Sports. All rights reserved.
Today, whether it be via Skype or Gmail, making phone calls over the web has become part of our daily routine. While the name may not ring any bells for younger generations, Jeff Pulver is one of the pioneers of that very technology we take for granted. A co-founder of Vonage, one of the biggest and earliest VoIP companies around, Pulver is a self-described futurist, serial entrepreneur and long-time evangelist for VoIP technologies. But lately he's been largely absent from the space he helped create.
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. READ MORE
? 2013 National Rifle Association of America. Institute for Legislative Action. This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes. 11250 Waples Mill Rd. Fairfax, VA 22030? 1800-392-8683(VOTE)
MOSCOW (AP) ? The Russian culture ministry on Tuesday fired the director general of the famed Bolshoi Theater that has been mired in scandal since an acid attack on its artistic director.
Anatoly Iksanov would be replaced by Vladimir Urin, head of another major ballet and opera troupe, the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater, said the culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky.
He said that a "difficult situation at the theater" was the reason for the dismissal. Iksanov, however, was offered to work as Medinsky's adviser in the ministry.
The Bolshoi has been shrouded in scandal for years but a fierce conflict erupted in January when an assailant threw acid into the face of Sergei Filin, the artistic director of ballet.
In March, police arrested Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko over his involvement in the attack. Dmitrichenko admitted that he had agreed to an offer from an acquaintance to rough up Filin, but he insisted that the man had used acid on his own initiative. Despite Dmitrichenko's confession, many in the ballet company have stood by him, saying they do not believe him capable of staging such a crime. About 300 dancers and staff, led by principal dancer and Iksanov's key opponent Nikolai Tsiskaridze, signed an open letter claiming that Dmitrichenko had slandered himself under police pressure.
The Bolshoi reopened in 2011 after a $1 billion renovation. Despite the lavish sums, some of the work was of poor quality, with cracks appearing in the walls and gold leaf crumbling away.
Iksanov has been at loggerheads with many of the troupe's famous dancers, including Tsiskaridze who accused him of mismanaging the Bolshoi's reconstruction, ruining its repertoire and abusing dancers' rights. Iksanov and his backers have dismissed the criticism.
Saturday's crash landing of Asiana Flight 214 was terrifying, disconcerting, and unfortunately fatal. But that doesn't mean you should change your travel plans.
Not only are airplanes continuously getting safer, they are also the least dangerous way to get to your destination. Everyday activities from walking to driving are still considerably more lethal.
Last year, an MIT statistics professor determined that the death risk for passengers of commercial airlines is one in 45 million flights. According to The New York Times, a traveler could fly every day for 123,000 years and still be safe.
Although travel fatality statistics are represented in a variety of formats, commercial airlines are the safest mode of transport any way you look at it.
The human skeletal system is a structure millions of years in the making, consisting of bones that handle all the stresses and pressures of a running or contorting human body with optimal efficiency. And automakers want to steal the secrets of our bones.
You might have heard of biomimicry, a catchall term for projects in which scientists and engineers try to copy the talents of plants or animals that nature has honed over the eons. In this case, bone-growth technology, nature is influencing design: Manufacturers are trying to copy bone growth to build more durable structures and lighter vehicles that get better fuel economy.
"We started to try to mimic how the body grows bone; how does it put down material in response to its environment," says Jeff Brennan, a biomedical and mechanical engineer and the chief marketing officer with Altair Engineering, a software and consulting company. "[Bones] follow an optimization algorithm," Brennan continues. "If we can quantify that, we can grow man-made structures in the same way."
Back when Altair was a small Michigan-based company?before its revenue reached into the hundreds of millions?Brennan spearheaded the creation of OptiStruct, the software that helps fuse man-made structures with nature. The program works like other industrial design software, but presents solutions with more curves and fewer edges.
Picture a 3D box: You describe the space in which you're working, attach constraint points virtually, and apply loads. Then OptiStruct takes over and begins running simulations such as evolution on fast-forward, trying to figure out the most efficient structure to withstand those loads.
"Imagine the box being full of a bunch of holes, like Swiss cheese, and all the holes are the same size and uniformly dispersed," Brennan says. "The optimization algorithm says in this one area I need more material, so I'm going to shrink the holes, and in this other area, it's not very stressed, so I'm going to increase the size of the holes." After running the simulation anywhere from 10 to 50 times, what's left is a 3D simulation of load paths and an optimized structure, showing engineers the most efficient way to support a load.
OptiStruct isn't something new. The project began in 1992, and since then the software has been tweaked and improved. Its first customers were the Big Three automakers. GM used OptiStruct to improve powertrain bracket designs in Oldsmobile Auroras and Cadillacs. Then, in the late '90s, European automakers such as Opal, Renault, and Fiat, aggressively adopted the software in their designs. Now more manufacturers, including BMW, Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen, have begun using OptiStruct.
A Volkswagen powertrain bracket for the alternator, A/C compressor, and steering pump that was designed using OptiStruct.
Why the sudden rush for biomimicry? The answer is pretty simple?lightweighting. Fewer pounds means better mpg, and so carmakers are cutting the weight from new vehicles to meet stringent future fuel economy regulations. OptiStruct's algorithms could help car companies use less steel or aluminum, which means a lighter vehicle.
Altair has also taken biomimicry into the aerospace sector. In one example the company worked with Airbus to remove about 1100 pounds from the A380's rib?wing package, a weight reduction of nearly 40 percent. David Mason, vice president of Global Automotive with Altair, says the consumer electronics companies also use the software in drop-testing and lightweighting, where 1 more gram of plastic in more than 1 million devices can make a huge difference. Altair is also working with alternative automotive design with Edison2, winner of the X-Prize in 2010, and Elio Motors, creators of the 84-mpg, three-wheeled Elio.
For Brennan, human bone-growth technology could only be the beginning: "You have to say to yourself, is our structure the best?" He points to other natural structures such as trees and spider webs that are also strong and lightweight. "When you learn something," Brennan says, "you realize how little you know."
BEIJING (AP) ? A new study links heavy air pollution from coal burning to shorter lives in northern China. Researchers estimate that the half-billion people alive there in the 1990s will live an average of 5? years less than their southern counterparts because they breathed dirtier air.
China itself made the comparison possible: for decades, a now-discontinued government policy provided free coal for heating, but only in the colder north. Researchers found significant differences in both particle pollution of the air and life expectancy in the two regions, and said the results could be used to extrapolate the effects of such pollution on lifespans elsewhere in the world.
The study by researchers from China, Israel and the United States was published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While previous studies have found that pollution affects human health, "the deeper and ultimately more important question is the impact on life expectancy," said one of the authors, Michael Greenstone, a professor of environmental economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"This study provides a unique setting to answer the life expectancy question because the (heating) policy dramatically alters pollution concentrations for people who appear to be of otherwise identical health," Greenstone said in an email. "Further, due to the low rates of migration in China in this period, we can know people's exposure over long time periods," he said.
The policy gave free coal for fuel boilers to heat homes and offices to cities north of the Huai River, which divides China into north and south. It was in effect for much of the 1950-1980 period of central planning, and, though discontinued after 1980, it has left a legacy in the north of heavy coal burning, which releases particulate pollutants into the air that can harm human health. Researchers found no other government policies that treated China's north differently from the south.
The researchers collected data for 90 cities, from 1981 to 2000, on the annual daily average concentration of total suspended particulates. In China, those are considered to be particles that are 100 micrometers or less in diameter, emitted from sources including power stations, construction sites and vehicles.
The researchers estimated the impact on life expectancies using mortality data from 1991-2000. They found that in the north, the concentration of particulates was 184 micrograms per cubic meter ? or 55 percent ? higher than in the south, and life expectancies were 5.5 years lower on average across all age ranges.
The researchers said the difference in life expectancies was almost entirely due to an increased incidence of deaths classified as cardiorespiratory ? those from causes that have previously been linked to air quality, including heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and respiratory illnesses.
Total suspended particulates include fine particulate matter called PM2.5 ? particles with diameters of no more than 2.5 micrometers. PM2.5 is of especially great health concern because it can penetrate deep into the lungs, but the researchers lacked the data to analyze those tiny particles separately.
The authors said their research can be used to estimate the effect of total suspended particulates on other countries and time periods. Their analysis suggests that every additional 100 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter in the atmosphere lowers life expectancy at birth by about three years.
The study also noted that there was a large difference in particulate matter between the north and south, but not in other forms of air pollution such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health who has researched the health effects of fine particulate matter in the U.S., said the study was "fascinating."
China's different treatment of north and south allowed researchers to get pollution data that would be impossible in a scientific setting.
Dominici said the quasi-experimental approach was a good approximation of a randomized experiment, "especially in this situation where a randomized experiment is not possible."
She said she wasn't surprised by the findings, given China's high levels of pollution.
"In the U.S. I think it's pretty much been accepted that even small changes in PM2.5, much, much, much smaller than what they are observing in China, are affecting life expectancy," said Dominici, who was not involved in the study.
The deadly derailment and explosion of rail cars carrying crude oil through Quebec last weekend highlighted the dangers of the growing trend of shipping more fuel by rail in the U.S. and Canada, and analysts say it may add to pressure on President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Environmentalists have warned loudly about the dangers of pipelines that might taint groundwater or foul the environment, but such risks pale in comparison with the worst-case accidents that can and do occur if fuel is transported by rail and river barge.
The existing network of rail lines used to transport oil in the U.S. and Canada goes through numerous towns and major cities and crosses important waterways on which millions depend for basic water needs ? making even minor accidents fraught with peril.
?It?s been a real shame that activists have pushed the public to sway so much from pipelines, which are likely much, much safer over time,? said Arthur Salzer, chief executive of Northland Wealth Management. ?It is going to be something that?s going to weigh on the public?s mind.?
On Saturday, a runaway train that was transporting U.S. shale oil from North Dakota to a Canadian East Coast refinery in New Brunswick derailed in the picturesque Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, engulfing the town center in a fireball that killed at least 15 people and left nearly 40 missing.
In addition to the major loss of life and incineration of the town center, Canadian authorities are investigating whether the incident jeopardized water supplies, as about 638 barrels of the crude oil spilled into the Chaudiere River, which feeds into the St. Lawrence and affects consumers on both sides of the border.
While this and other recent rail accidents are under investigation and appeared to involve human error, similar trains loaded with hazardous and highly explosive fuel nearly every day can be found on rail lines connecting Midwestern well sites in North Dakota, Alberta or Texas to refineries on the East Coast in Philadelphia or New York, with the same potential for tragic accidents.
Rail traffic carrying oil nearly tripled last year and is on course to multiply further in the months ahead. Unprecedented amounts of crude oil are being ferried by river barge, posing further hazards for the public and environment along the Mississippi River and other major waterways.
For safety and other reasons, pipelines have long been the preferred method for shipping crude to and from the refineries, which turn it into gasoline and other products for consumers.
By various estimates, pipelines are three to six times safer than rail or barge for transporting oil. Once they are built, pipelines are three times cheaper to operate and offer a far more efficient and reliable way to funnel fuel to market.
Until the recent discovery of large stores of shale oil in the Midwest, pipelines accounted for nearly all of the shipment of crude oil from well to refinery in the U.S., according to the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.
?Pipelines remain the preferred method for transporting petroleum and refined products in the U.S. for good reason: They are the safest, cheapest and most reliable,? said association President Andy Black.
?Railroads never were a substitute for pipelines,? but rather are best viewed as a stopgap measure until pipelines can be built, said Garland Chow, an associate business professor at the University of British Columbia.
Mr. Chow is concerned about talk of shipping nearly half of the Canadian crude oil extracted from Alberta?s vast oil sands by rail if Mr. Obama does not approve the Keystone XL pipeline to ferry the oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. Canada hopes to pump as much as 5 million barrels a day eventually from the oil sands.
?The volume of crude that is forecast to be shipped out of Alberta simply cannot be transported by rails,? Mr. Chow told Bloomberg News.
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NEW YORK (AP) -- A Citi Investment Research analyst took a less optimistic view on shares of chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. on Monday, saying smartphone sales have been weak because the market is becoming saturated.
THE OPINION: Analyst Glen Yeung took Qualcomm shares off a list of recommended stocks, although he maintained a "Buy" rating and a price target of $81 per share.
Yeung said sales of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 5 have been disappointing and production of Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S4 is set to decline sharply in the second quarter after its launch. He said the HTC One phone appears to be following a similar pattern.
"We attribute the lackluster sales of high-end smartphones primarily to market saturation," Yeung said, adding that innovation is also decreasing and sales growth may slow significantly.
THE STOCK: Shares of Qualcomm declined $1.04 to $59.91 in afternoon trading. The stock has traded between $59.46 and $68.50 in 2013.
A fire keeps burns after railway cars that were carrying crude oil derailed in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, Saturday, July 6, 2013. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP) ? Fires continued burning late Saturday nearly 24 hours after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town's center and killed at least one person. Police said they expected the death toll to increase.
The eruptions sent residents of Lac-Megantic scrambling through the streets under the intense heat of towering fireballs and a red glow that illuminated the night sky, witnesses said. Flames and billowing black smoke could still be seen long after the 73-car train derailed, and a fire chief likened the charred scene to a war zone.
Up to 2,000 people were forced from their homes in the lakeside town of 6,000 people, which is about 155 miles (250 kilometers) east of Montreal and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Maine border.
Quebec provincial police Lt. Michel Brunet confirmed that one person had died. He refused to say how many others might be dead, but said authorities have been told "many" people have been reported missing.
Lt. Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police, said: "I don't want to get into numbers, what I will say is we do expect we'll have other people who will be found deceased unfortunately."
Lapointe refused to give any estimate of people unaccounted for because police were having difficulty getting a fixed number.
"People are calling in reported love ones missing, some people are reported two, three times missing by different members of the family," he said.
The derailment caused several tanker rail cars to explode in the downtown, a popular area packed with bars that often bustles on summer weekend nights.
Police said the first explosion tore through the town shortly after 1 a.m. local time. The fire then spread to several homes.
"When you see the center of your town almost destroyed, you'll understand that we're asking ourselves how we are going to get through this event," an emotional Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche told a televised news briefing.
The cause of the accident was believed to be a runaway train, the railway's operator said.
The president and CEO of Rail World Inc., the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the train had been parked uphill of Lac-Megantic.
"If brakes aren't properly applied on a train, it's going to run away," said Edward Burkhardt. "But we think the brakes were properly applied on this train."
Burkhardt, who was mystified by the disaster, said the train was parked because the engineer had finished his run.
"We've had a very good safety record for these 10 years," he said of the decade-old railroad. "Well, I think we've blown it here."
The blasts came over a span of several hours as the fire tore through the center of town, destroying at least 30 buildings. Lines of tall trees in the area looked like giant standing matchsticks, blackened from bottom to tip.
Witnesses said the eruptions sent many shook residents out of their slumber and sent them darting through the streets.
Patrons gathered by a nearby bar were sent running for their lives after the thunderous crash and wall of fire blazed through the early morning sky.
Bernard Theberge, who was outside on the bar's patio at the time of the crash, feared for the safety of those inside the popular Musi-Cafe when the first explosion went off.
"People started running and the fire ignited almost instantaneously," he said.
"It was like a movie," said Theberge, who considered himself fortunate to escape with only second-degree burns on his right arm.
"Explosions as if it were scripted ? but this was live."
Firefighters, including some from Maine, doused the blaze for hours. Local fire chief Denis Lauzon described the scene as one akin to a war zone.
Dozens of residents gathered hours after the explosion at the edge of a wide security perimeter and many feared the worst. About a kilometer (0.6 miles) down the town's main street, flames danced around a railway tanker that sat at the edge of the road.
"On a beautiful evening like this with the bar, there were a lot of people there," said Bernard Demers, who owns a restaurant near the blast site. "It was a big explosion. It's a catastrophe. It's terrible for the population."
Demers, who fled his home, said the explosion was "like an atomic bomb. It was very hot. ... Everybody was afraid."
Charles Coue said he and his wife felt the heat as they sprinted from their home after an explosion went off a couple of hundred yards (meters) away.
"It went boom and it came like a fireball," he said.
Another resident Claude Bedard described the scene of the explosions as "dreadful."
"The Metro store, Dollarama, everything that was there is gone," he said.
Environment Quebec spokesman Christian Blanchette said a large but undetermined amount of fuel had also spilled into the Chaudiere (Ah-DER-Re) River. Blanchette said the 73 cars were filled with crude oil, and at least four were damaged by the explosions and fire.
"We also have a spill on the lake and the river that is concerning us. We have advised the local municipalities downstream to be careful if they take their water from the Chaudiere River."
He added that a mobile laboratory had been set up to monitor the quality of the air.
Firefighters and rescue workers from several neighboring municipalities, including Sherbrooke and Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, were called in to help deal with the disaster.
Firefighters from northern Maine were also deployed to the Quebec town, according to a spokesman at the sheriff's office in Franklin County.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his sympathy in a statement.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of those affected by this morning's tragic train derailment and subsequent fires in Lac-Megantic, Quebec," Harper said.
"We hope evacuees can return to their homes safely and quickly. The people of Lac-Megantic and surrounding areas can rest assured that our government is monitoring the situation and we stand by ready to provide any assistance requested by the province."
The train, reportedly heading toward Maine, belongs to Montreal Maine & Atlantic. According to the railroad's website, the company owns more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) of track serving Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick.
Last week a train carrying petroleum products derailed in Calgary, Alberta, when a flood-damaged bridge sagged toward the still-swollen Bow River. The derailed rail cars were removed without spilling their cargo.
The Quebec accident was likely to have an impact across the border. In Maine, environmentalists and state officials had previously raised concerns about the threat of an accident and a spill from railroad tank cars carrying crude oil across the state.
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway carried nearly 3 million barrels of oil across Maine last year. Each tank car holds some 30,000 gallons (113,600 liters) of oil.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has begun developing protection plans for the areas where the trains travel, spokeswoman Samantha Warren said recently.
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Associated Press writer Charmaine Noronha contributed from Toronto.
(Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
China and Switzerland on Saturday signed a free trade agreement (FTA) -- Beijing's first in continental Europe -- in a deal that comes against a backdrop of trade tensions between the Asian giant and the European Union (EU).
Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng and Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann inked the accord in a ceremony at the Commerce Ministry in Beijing before officials and reporters.
Afterwards, they clinked glasses of champagne in celebration of the agreement, which aims to liberalise trade in goods and services and increase the $26.3 billion in bilateral commerce they rang up in 2012.
China in April signed its first FTA with a European country -- non-EU member Iceland -- but Saturday's deal marks the first with an economy in mainland Europe.
Gao, at a post-signing press conference with Schneider-Ammann, said the agreement would promote trade cooperation with Europe in general.
"China should launch similar cooperation with other countries in Europe, even the European Union," he added, signalling China's desire for an FTA with the 28-nation bloc.
Switzerland ranked as the world's 19th-largest economy in 2012, according to the World Bank. China is the world's second-biggest.
"This free trade agreement has an important significance for the relationship between the two countries," Schneider-Ammann told AFP after Saturday's signing ceremony.
He noted that China is the world's single biggest developing market with a growing middle-class.
Fiercely independent Switzerland is not a member of the EU and even waited decades to join the United Nations.
Nonetheless, it is an economic heavyweight known for high-value luxury goods, such as its world famous watches, pharmaceuticals and as a financial centre.
Switzerland mainly sells watches, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, as well as machinery to China, which ships mostly textiles and machinery back to Switzerland.
In an interview with Swiss paper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Schneider-Ammann said tariffs imposed on luxury watches could fall by 60 percent, while Switzerland will remove similar taxes on Chinese textiles and shoes.
Unlike most western countries, Switzerland enjoys a huge trade surplus with China, amounting to $22.8 billion last year.
Switzerland and China had signed a preliminary FTA agreement in May during a visit to the landlocked, alpine European nation by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Schneider-Ammann said the deal is also important for hedging risks.
"We get a chance to spread out the risk of the Swiss economy a little bit over the borders of our European neighbourhood," he said. "It has a great importance."
The EU economy has experienced serious turmoil over the past several years in the wake of the global financial crisis and due to sovereign debt instability that engulfed Greece and other member states including Spain, Italy and Portugal.
The EU and China have jousted over mutual claims of unfair trade practices in sectors including Chinese solar panels and European wine, leading to worries that the dispute could spiral out of control.
Total trade between China and the EU last year exceeded $500 billion when the EU had 27 members. Croatia joined this month.
A visit to Beijing last month by the EU's trade chief, who held talks with Gao, helped damp down tensions and increased optimism the two sides can come to terms on their differences.
Schneider-Ammann said doing so was vital for smaller countries like his own.
"It's absolutely important that the bigger economies find ways to keep open their markets because (the) more open the global market... the better the chances to do business," he said.
The deal, for which negotiations formally began in January 2011, still needs approval by the Swiss parliament to take effect.
Schneider-Ammann told Neue Zuercher Zeitung: "If all goes as planned, from our point of view, the agreement can be implemented by mid-2014."
Separately, Schneider-Ammann expressed concern about the value of the Swiss franc, which he said remained too strong.
"The Swiss franc is still overvalued," he told reporters after the signing.
The purchasing power of the Swiss franc against the euro, he said, is about 131-132 francs to the single currency, weaker than Friday's exchange rate of about 123.
"That's the overvaluation of our currency," he said.
The franc is a traditional haven for investors in times of international turmoil, which drives up its value and can weaken the competitiveness of Switzerland's exports.
The Swiss central bank set a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 francs to the euro in September 2011 amid global financial instability.
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Today, whether it be via Skype or Gmail, making phone calls over the web has become part of our daily routine. While the name may not ring any bells for younger generations, Jeff Pulver is one of the pioneers of that very technology we take for granted. A co-founder of 
