Amid yesterday?s news that Amy Rodriguez would be unavailable for the Seattle Reign came a lot of speculation about her immediate national team future. Despite news of her pregnancy, Rodriguez he may be able to play in the current national team camp, we thought. March?s Algarve Cup could still be in play.
Wrong on all accounts. Today U.S. Soccer confirmed Rodriguez has been replaced in national team camp by Chicago Red Stars number one draft pick Zakiya Bywaters. According to?the federation?s release, Rodriguez and husband Adam are expecting an August arrival.
Before Rodriguez?s pregnancy was announced, Bywaters had tweeted the news of her surprise call-up. Once it was confirmed Rodriguez would not join the Reign this season, many speculated Bywaters? invite was tied to a potential Rodriguez withdrawal. Per U.S. Soccer?s release, the Pac-12 Player of the Year was recalled to replace the departing Rodriguez.
Now all the virtues of being available for Tom Sermanni?s first camp get flipped. Coming off a year and a half that saw her role in the national team diminish, the ongoing camp was particularly important one for Rodriguez. Now the 25-year-old misses her chance to impress her new coach and potentially win back some of player time he?s lost. During the next eight-plus months on the sideline, Rodriguez stands to lose ground to players like Tyreso?s Christen Press.
With her recall, Bywaters also enters the picture, with her invite to the Jacksonville camp culminating a banner month for the 21-year-old. The Las Vegas-native was the surprise first pick in this month?s inaugural NWSL draft.
But with the news of Rodriguez?s pregnancy barely 24 hours old, it?s still mentioning: There are big, life-defining issues, and then there?s soccer. Rodriguez will probably lose some ground in the national team over the next nine-or-so months, but she?ll also be starting a family, something which transcends her place in a soccer team. Soon these types of admonitions won?t be necessary, but still in a time which should be happy for family and friends, it?s worth repeating: The USWNT camp is actually a secondary concern.
onexone role play. Looking for male counterpart (demon); plot inside. Just want to get my feet in the water with this website. I find it easier with a onexone.
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Have you ever shoe-horned yourself onto the 8.19am Denmark Hill to Blackfriars train? It?s not pretty. If you haven?t, and yet you live in this great megalopolis, then you?ve more than likely embedded your limbs into some other unwitting passenger?s soft, memory-foam-like body, on one of the city?s other overcrowded train or tube routes.
With all that pushing and apologising, one?s thoughts do wander to alternative methods of getting into work. Seeing as walking is largely out of the question (and if cycling in sweaty Lycra really isn?t your scene), just how feasible is commuting by motorbike or scooter? Will a large portion of Londoners ultimately proclaim ?enough is enough,? whilst disdainfully pulling an over-priced season ticket from a machine amidst the latest round of fare hikes?
Earlier this month the Motorcycle Industry Association reported an 8.5 per cent rise in new registrations for bikes between 51-125cc, during 2012. After completing Compulsory Basic Training (or ?CBT?, colloquially), bikes with an engine size up to 125cc are incredibly cheap, not only just to buy but also to run. The MCI says that these increased sales figures can be traced back to the petrol price rises of early 2011.
In addition, the MCI noted that for the first time ever, the five best-selling bikes around the country were all 125cc or under. These included the Honda CBF 125 M; a smaller Honda NSC 110 WH; and the Yamaha YBR 125. Whether the top-selling five are indicative of a trend, we?ll have to wait and see. But it?s certainly not incomprehensible that during this age of cutbacks and above-inflation rises on everything but salaries, townspeople may be exploring their options and going for the cheapest-to-run one.
But is this the same for London? The figures provided by the MCI are national and cannot be broken down geographically. However, some London-based dealerships are noticing that things are looking noticeably bright: ?During the recession in 2008, sales dropped off. However, we?re now back to pre-2008 figures,? says Reuben Anderson, director of London Scooters which is based in London Bridge. ?Scooters are quite seasonal but even this time of year sales haven?t really slowed off at all. We get a lot of customers who live on the border of the M25 and a few from Kent and Essex. I bike 12 miles in to work and it takes me 25-30 minutes. It costs me less than ?10 a week to do that sort of commute.?
Commuters at rush hour near London Bridge (Getty Images)
Money talks. With National Rail pledging fare hikes for the next five years to pay for significant network improvements, it?s the free parking for motorbikes in London (in all but Westminster City Council, who still charge just ?1 per day) and the ?16 per-year road tax for under 125cc?s, which makes the two-wheeler a very attractive prospect. That is all aside from the no Congestion Charge fee and the freedom to ride in bus lanes.
According to South-West London based BMG Scooters, the price of a single journey from Fulham Broadway to Piccadilly Circus on the tube is 20 minutes long and ?2.30 with an Oyster card, whilst they say a scooter journey is 25 minutes and, a tad optimistically, ?0.35. However, for those in Greater London, it?s often not the cost which attracts them but the cut to their average journey time. Sha Murni, who works in the city said: ?Getting to work would take one hour 20 minutes on the train, as opposed to an average 42 minutes on bike.?
It?s not all hunky-dory, though, as many motorcyclists will tell you. Carrying around clunky all-weather coats and helmets can be a pain for the city workers used to only ever clutching a satchel. The dearth of parking spaces in some of the most popular spots, whilst often free, can cause irritation, and then there?s the over-whelming exposure to danger.
The Department for Transport?s latest annual report on road casualties reports a 10 per cent reduction in motorcycle fatalities in 2011 compared to 2010. This is also a 33 per cent drop from the 2005-09 statistics. Yet like most other road users, this does in no way guarantee relative safety and all due care needs to be taken. London?s road network is an eco-system. Like a Congolese jungle, different species of transport either work together or put up a fight. For motorcyclists, their relationship with other road users can be a tempestuous one.
Motorcyclist, Sha, said: ?Pushbikes are the downside. Over the years I?ve seen an increase in pushbike users and the fact that they are using the same lanes as the rest of the traffic doesn?t make any sense to me. They create disturbance, delays and they increase the risk to themselves and others. Another thing, the traffic lights are not taking into account the timing of the traffic.?
It must be stated that motorcyclists are no angels either. However, for one motorcycle sales and hire company, business has been booming. ?We?ve had two record Januarys on the trot. Sales have gone up 400-500 per cent compared to three years ago and they?re still maintaining that level ? London dealers especially? said Greg Holland-Merton, director of Raceways Motorcycles. ?For some of the ones out of town, the increases haven?t been the same, which is to be expected, really. For London shops, the year before was the same and so will this one. I see a bright future, sales have gone bananas.?
Tagged in: commuting, london underground, national rail
San Francisco: Google has moved its Chinese-language search engine site to Hong Kong and stopped censoring its Chinese search results, the company announced on Monday.
The move came after the web search giant announced on January 12 that it would stop censoring its Chinese search results after discovering a cyber attack that originated in China and which was aimed at compromising Chinese human rights activists.
"Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services - Google Search, Google News, and Google Images on Google.cn," the company said on its official Google blog. "Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong."
The company said it would continue to conduct research and development work in China and also continue to operate its advertising sales teams in the country.
"Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said. "We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement."
"We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced, it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision."
Google added that it will create a new web page that will track which Google services are available in China, and which are being blocked by the Chinese government.
The past year or so has seen a rush of companies moving toward REIT status.
Firms in wide-ranging industries including healthcare, timber companies, outdoor advertisers, casinos, data warehouses and digital transmission towers have converted, or will soon convert, into REITs.
In order to become a REIT, a company must fulfill two requirements:
First, it must invest at least 75% of its assets in real estate and get a minimum of 75% of its revenue from rents or other direct real-estate activities.
Second, it must pay out a minimum of 90% of its profits to its shareholders in the form of dividends.
If a company meets these criteria, the government (Internal Revenue Service) will not tax those profits at the company level. But as stated previously, the dividends received by shareholders are taxed as ordinary income.
Besides the tax advantages, there are other reasons as to why are companies are making the conversion to REIT status.
It seems to be a very successful strategy to increase share price performance, making both management and shareholders happy.
Jeff Kolitch, portfolio manager at Baron Real Estate Fund, told Barron's that the average REIT trades at 22 times adjusted funds from operations (AFFO), a measure comparable to operating cash flow. There are many, many stocks that trade below 22 times operating cash flow, so conversion to REIT status gives many stocks an immediate boost.
In addition, the newly-converted companies enjoy the access to large amounts of capital enjoyed by real estate trusts. Equity REITs last year raised more capital through stock and debt offerings than the industry had in at least 12 years. The amount raised last year was also as much capital raised as the prior five years combined, according to research firm SNL Financial.
This trend toward an expanding REIT universe is likely to continue in the months and years ahead.
Adam Markman, a managing director at real estate research firm Green Street Advisors, told BloombergNews, "The pace of conversions isn't slowing. The more success that we have, the more likely it is we'll see additional activity."
Michael Fitzgerald, a partner at Paul Hastings, has worked on REIT conversions and is also a supporter of the REIT trend.
"This is just the beginning. There's going to be a huge emphasis on tax structuring starting in 2013," he told the Financial Times.
This "tax structuring" should expand the REIT universe even further.
New "Stars" in the REIT Universe
For investors interested in income, some of the new "stars" in the REIT universe are rather intriguing.
The list includes: casino company Penn National Gaming Inc. (Nasdaq: PENN), communications infrastructure firms American Tower Corp. (NYSE: AMT) and SBA Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: SBAC), outdoor advertising company Lamar Advertising Co. (Nasdaq: LAMR), publisher Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI), and data service companies Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR) and DuPont Fabros Technology Inc. (NYSE: DFT).
Some of the above have already converted to a REIT, while others are still contemplating the move.
Other firms including CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) and Cincinnati Bell Inc. (NYSE: CBB) are spinning off part of their firm into a REIT. Cincinnati Bell has already done that with the spinoff its co-location business unit CyrusOne Inc. (Nasdaq: CONE). CBS is considering the spinoff of its billboard advertising unit as a REIT. That business accounted for about 10% of its operating profits.
If you're interested in investing in REITs in 2013, check out this latest offer from our Global Investing Strategist Martin Hutchinson, who has a winning strategy to find the best sources of yield.
NBC's Pete Williams reports on the major policy shift being considered by the Boy Scouts of America.
By Pete Williams, Justice Correspondent, NBC News
The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation?s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions.
If adopted by the organization?s board of directors, it would represent a profound change on an issue that has been highly controversial -- one that even went to the US Supreme Court. The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization?s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts.
?The chartered organizations that oversee and deliver scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with their organization?s mission, principles or religious beliefs,? according to Deron Smith, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts? national organization.
Individual sponsors and parents ?would be able to choose a local unit which best meets the needs of their families,? Smith said.
The discussion of a potential change in policy is nearing its final stages, according to outside scouting supporters. If approved, the change could be announced as early as next week, after the BSA's national board holds a regularly scheduled meeting.
Only seven months ago, the Boy Scouts affirmed a policy of banning gay members, after a nearly two-year examination of the issue by a committee of volunteers convened by national leaders of the Boy Scouts of America, known as the BSA.
In a statement last July affirming the ban, its national executive board called it ?the best policy for the organization.?
But since then, a scouting official said, local chapters have been urging a reconsideration. "We're a grassroots organization. This is a response to what's happening at the local level," the official said.
Two corporate CEOs on BSA?s national board, Randall Stephenson of AT&T and James Turley of Ernst & Young, have also said they would work to end the ban. Stephenson is next in line to be the BSA?s national chairman. During the 2012 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney said the BSA should admit gay scouts and scout leaders.
About 50 local United Way groups and several corporations and charities have concluded that the ban violates their non-discrimination requirements and have ceased providing financial aid to the Boy Scouts. An official of The Human Rights Campaign, an advocate for gay rights, said HRC planned to downgrade its non-discrimination ratings for corporations that continue to give the BSA financial support.
?It?s an extremely complex issue,? said one Boy Scouts of America official, who explained that other organizations have threatened to withdraw their financial support if the BSA drops the ban.
While the national scouting organization sets broad policies, more than 290 local councils nationwide govern the day-to-day conduct of the more than 116,000 local organizations. Individual scouting troops are sponsored by religious and civic organizations that represent a diversity of views on the issue of allowing gay scouts and leaders.
?The beliefs of the sponsoring organizations are highly diverse,? the official said.
The policy change now under discussion ?would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue,? said the BSA's Smith.
?The Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members or parents. Under this proposed policy, the BSA would not require any chartered organization to act in ways inconsistent with that organization?s mission, principles or religious beliefs,? he said.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the Boy Scouts had a First Amendment right of free expression when it came to the organization?s belief that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with values stated in the scout oath, requiring scouts to be ?morally straight.?
The Scouts have won similar legal battles, with courts finding that the BSA?s right of free association permits it, as a private organization, to reject those it believes do not conform to is values.?
Please join the Blind Brook Board of Education for a presentation on the results of Blind Brook's commissioned Special Education Review. Dr. Jackie Taylor, consultant and former Superintendent of the Byram Hills School District in Armonk and Mr. Harry Burg Director of Pupil Personnel Services, will share the information and participate in a round table discussion with the BOE. The Superintendent will provide an update on safety and security. In addition, there will be an 8th grade English class presentation on the New Writing Workshop led by Ms. Cher Treacy. Sam George, a 7th grader, will receive the National Geographic Geography Bee Champion Medal.
The Board of Education will convene at 7:15 pm in the H.S. Faculty Room and is expected to immediately adjourn to Executive Session to discuss Teacher and Support Related Personnel contract negotiations, a matter regarding pending litigation and tenure recommendation.
The Board is expected to reconvene in public session at 8:00 pm in the Monroe E. Haas Instructional Media Center (H.S. Library).
Upcoming meetings include the Superintendent's proposed budget presentation on February 25th.
Buying or selling a home is often an adventurous and complex affair. It can also end up being a time-consuming, costly and even disappointing event if the buyer or seller is not familiar with all aspects of the process or doesn?t possess the best resources and information necessary at hand.
Chris Druesedow of Kenai Peninsula Real Estate offers unparalleled expertise and service to all clients looking to buy or sell Kenai real estate property. Your complete success and satisfaction, along with his representation and service is his number one priority. They service the entire Kenai and Soldotna real estate area and its surrounding communities.
You?ll find Kenai real estate smack on the western part of the Kenai Peninsula coast, which also sits on the boundary of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. It?s about a thirty minute plane trip from southwest Anchorage, Alaska. Approximately ninety percent of the area is wilderness, so it is full of breathtaking scenery, superb fishing and abundant wildlife of all that the North has to offer; truly an ideal location for outdoor types and nature-lovers.
Kenai has a rather prolific history and booming real estate market, as it is known worldwide for its oil, natural gas, ever-growing tourism and flourishing fishing industry, both commercial and private. The Borough has forty-four schools, all of which distinguish themselves with high standards and national ratings, with an impressive teacher/student ratio. The University of Alaska also manages the Kenai Peninsula Community College. Fishing and tourism services, as well as civil service, schools and various other city office positions make up the major employment opportunities in the community.
Soldotna real estate is located in the Kenai Peninsula, and is a bit rural, with the Kenai River as its natural emblem that flows right through the center of town, which makes it another must fishing spot for those hoping to snag a record breaking prize. Aside from excellent fishing, there are a slew of other outdoor activity to take part in, such as hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, rafting and skiing. There is also a town golf course, a children?s park, swimming pools and movie theaters.
Located right on the banks of the river, the Soldotna Visitors Center is an excellent facility to gather information about local attractions and events and things to do in the area, such as the Soldotna Sports Center, where various sporting events take place, the Soldotna Historical Museum and the Centennial Park, where campsites are located, as well as nearby rodeos, baseball and softball events, hokey, ice skating and an assortment of other events and activities.
While there are a vast array of properties of many types available throughout Alaska, Chris Druesedow uses his knowledge, expertise and intuition to find his clients the perfect home at the perfect price. Depending on preference and need, the professionals at Kenai Peninsula Real Estate will not only help prospective buyers find both traditional and hard-to-find properties that are desirable and that meet their precise specifications, but help sellers, looking to sell their existing property, find the best value. Just some of the types of real estate property they specialize in include:
? Investment property ? Foreclosure ? Short sales ? Lease to own ? Condos ? Vacation property ? Lakeside property ? Waterfront property
These types of properties are displayed at Chris Druesedow?s site, with some of the best information and tools at his disposal. He will provide detailed information on all types of Kenai and Soldotna real estate and properties for sale. Find the latest news and what?s going on in the current real estate market, with blogs that provide fresh news on market activity.
Whether you?re new to the Kenai Peninsula and considering buying a home on the spectacular Kenai River, a resident buying additional property, a first time buyer or selling property, the professionals at Kenai Peninsula Real Estate have lived here for years and know the area inside and out. They understand and abide by a code of ethics, professionalism and integrity. Call or email Chris Druesedow for more information on your next Soldotna or Kenai real estate property transaction.
Ashley Wagner became the first woman since Michelle Kwan in 2005 to win back-to-back titles in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, managing to hold off up-and-comer Gracie Gold despite three major mistakes Saturday night.
Wagner was subdued as she waited for her marks, surely thinking she'd blown her chance to repeat. When her score was announced and she saw she was still in first, a look of shock crossed her face.
Wagner finished with 188.84 points, about two ahead of Gold. Gold won the free skate ? posting the second-highest score ever at the U.S. meet, no less. But the 17-year-old had too much ground to make up after a dismal performance Thursday night in the short program left her in ninth place, more than 13 points behind Wagner.
Earlier Saturday, Olympic silver medalists and 2011 world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their fifth straight dance title, matching a U.S. record. Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir won the pairs title.
There is something about defending the title that brings out the worst in the American women. Since 1990, Kwan is the only other woman to win consecutive titles (granted, she did win eight straight). Six women have won the last seven crowns, and the reigning champion has almost always had a total meltdown. Rachael Flatt is the only defending champ who even managed to stay on the podium the next year.
Wagner, though, seems to be made of different stuff. She's been rock solid since moving to California to train with John Nicks in the summer of 2011. She won the U.S. title last year, had the best finish by an American at worlds since 2007 and won the silver medal last month in the Grand Prix final.
And she sure looked loose as she came out from the dressing rooms, clapping along with the crowd to Agnes Zawadzki's "Rhapsody in Blue" music. Her opening triple flip-double toe loop-double toe combination was gorgeous, drawing oohs and aahs from the crowd. She also did a triple loop in and out of a spread eagle ? incredibly difficult.
But she didn't have her usual fire, almost as if she was skating not to lose rather than skating to win. And then came the falls. She was off-balance in the air on the lutz, and couldn't right herself in time to save it. With the triple loop only seconds later, she didn't have time to regroup. She pulled herself together only to two-foot her last jump, the triple flip.
At 21, Wagner is a far more complete skater than Gold, and that's what made the difference. Skating to "Samson and Delilah," Wagner told a story while Gold just skated and jumped.
With blonde good looks and a made-for-the Olympics name, Gold has all the makings of that "next big thing" the United States has been craving. That she can skate only fueled the hype, and some were ready to put her on the Sochi medals stand after she won the U.S. junior title last year and finished second in the junior world championships.
But she's been wildly inconsistent this year, winning the silver medal at Cup of Russia after falling apart at Skate Canada. After botching her short program Thursday, she needed a dazzling performance just to have a chance at one of the spots on the world championships team. She came through, posting a 132.49 that was the second-highest score for a free skate at nationals. Sasha Cohen scored 134.03 in 2006, the year she won her only U.S. title.
"I stopped focusing on what was around me ? the crowd, the screaming, the other skaters, the pressure, the expectations. I let it all go," Gold said. "I just pictured myself at my rink in Chicago and even the practices here ? how I would skate if I was practicing. Just the feel of the knees, the feel of the ice, one thing at a time.
"I didn't get over my head with thoughts or expectations. I just went out there and skated like I know how to skate."
Gold's jumps are fabulous, easily the best of the entire field. Maybe the whole world. They're done with power, and her combinations are so smooth she looks like a stone skipping across the water. She did seven triples, and even Kim Yu-na would be impressed with her triple lutz-triple toe loop combination.
But skating is both sport and art, and Gold is going to have to add some substance between the jumps if she wants the prize to match her name. Her footwork was basic and most of her spins were adequate, and she didn't display that passion that makes a good program great.
Have you been thinking about a home remodeling project all Winter and still have not even started the planning? February may be just what you are looking for. By planning and scheduling your project during February you will receive ?the special pricing that Solid Construction Services is making available to our customers.
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Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a Department of Justice agency this morning.
In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats to the free flow of information.
The lengthy essay largely mirrors previous demands from Anonymous, but this time the group also cited the recent suicide of Reddit co-founder and activist Aaron Swartz as has having "crossed a line" for the group. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in prison on computer fraud charges.
Prosecutors said he had stolen thousands of digital scientific and academic journal articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of disseminating them for free.
Read More: Aaron Swartz' Death Fuels MIT Probe, White House Petition to Oust Prosecutor
Anonymous says Swartz was "killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win - a twisted and distorted perversion of justice - a game where the only winning move was not to play."
"There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused," it reads, also mentioning recent arrests of Anonymous associates by the FBI.
In their statement, the hackers say they targeted the homepage of the Federal Sentencing Commission for "symbolic" reasons.
The group claimed that if their demands were not met they would release a trove of embarassing internal Justice Department documents to media outlets. Anonymous named the files after Supreme Court justices and provided links to them; an attempt by CNN to follow the links yielded dead-ends, mostly offline sites.
The file names use an ".aes256? suffix, denoting a common encryption protocol. The same system was used to encrypt the Wikileaks Afghan war documents before their release.
As of press time, the commission webpage had been taken down.
SEVARE, Mali (AP) ? French forces have taken control of the airport and a key bridge in the radical Islamist stronghold of Gao, the French defense minister said Saturday, marking a significant inroad into the heart of territory held by the al-Qaida-linked extremists.
The move comes just two weeks after France launched its military offensive to rout the Islamists from power in northern Mali. It is unclear what kind of resistance they will face in the coming days.
The Islamists first seized control of Gao and two other provinicial capitals ? Timbuktu and Kidal ? in April last year during the chaotic aftermath of a coup in the distant capital.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced in a statement from his ministry Saturday that jihadist fighters who encountered the advancing French and Malian troops "saw their means of transport and their logistics sites destroyed."
The French and Malian forces launched the air and land operation to take Gao's bridge and airport under the cover of darkness overnight, said Col. Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman in Paris.
French and Malian forces came under fire in the morning from rebels in Gao and continued to face sporadic "acts of harassment" in the afternoon, Burkhard said. He had no immediate estimate available on casualties.
Phone networks have been down in Gao for days, making it nearly impossible to independently corroborate what is going on in the town.
Gao has been under the control of the al-Qaida-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad, or MUJAO, for months.
On Friday in a show of might, the Islamists destroyed a bridge near the Niger border with explosives, showing that the extremists still remain a nimble and daunting enemy.
Since France began its military operation two weeks ago with a barrage of airstrikes followed by a land assault, the Islamists have retreated from three cities in central Mali: Diabaly, Konna and Douentza.
The Islamists, though, have maintained control of the majority of the territory in Mali's north, most importantly the cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The announcement that Gao's airport had been taken marked the first official confirmation that French and Malian forces had reached the city. Previously the closest they had been was Hombori, a town some 155 miles (250 kilometers) away.
The French currently have about 2,500 forces in the country and have said that they will stay as long as needed in Mali, a former French colony. However, they have called for African nations to take the lead in fortifying the Malian army's efforts.
There are currently some 1,750 troops from neighboring African countries, including Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Senegal, Niger and Chad.
Did you know that as of Jan 26, 2013, it's "illegal" to unlock your phone? Of course you did. You've seen the "Sky is falling!" headlines
It's not quite that simple, but that's what you'll hear around the Internets today. The too-long-didn't-read simple version is that you'll likely not be affected in any way (minus the personal freedom aspect). But after seeing so many people worried, and some of the poor information they were receiving, we knew it was time to talk about it a bit.
In 1998 Congress passed a law that provides copyright protection to the software (and software means written code, remember) that locks your cell phone to a certain carrier. This has nothing to do with rooting, or bootloader unlocking. It only covers locking your phone to a GSM carrier through software. As a provision of this law, the Librarian of Congress (which I imagined as a totally hot babe with her hair in a bun, and was quickly disappointed when I investigated) is allowed to grant exceptions, and did until his October 2012 decision to allow the DMCA to regulate cell phone locking. Fast forward to today, when the exceptions expired, and now the software used to lock phones is covered under the same copyright laws as most other software.
It sounds scary. But it's really not. Let's have a look.
There was once a time when a ?web presence? may have meant a static HTML site with a few dozen links, a few banner ads, and a guest book. Now with the rich capabilities of modern devices, high speed internet and wireless networks, and a web economy that is based on traffic as much as it is based on direct sales, a website must be as dynamic as the modern online world. The number of technologies for building web technology (Javascript, Flash, MySQL, CGI,? PHP, Perl,? XHML, Python, JSP, JSF, Ajax, the list goes on and on) ?is quite staggering, but the commonly occurring needs of an organization or a web business are usually centered on serving up pages or descriptions of items complete with imagery to the visitor. Furthermore, the explosion in social media has led to a need for greater networking and plug-in capability with the large well known sites. Let us break down what it would take to achieve a developer from scratch what is achieved by a?web Content Management?System (CMS).
A static website, one that simply displays text or images, is very easy to build with just knowledge of HTML or CSS, and more advanced websites can be created with Dreamweaver and other software suites. Updating these pages can be done manually, but doing so gets extremely time-consuming as a web page grows. A combination of PHP, JavaScript, and other technologies can make the user experience more interesting and cut out the ease of updating, and plugging into a backend database system such as MySQL can give the site much more value and cut down the cost to maintain given some initial development time. This is essentially the work that a ready-made CMS provides, and most can be installed with a single click and can take an experienced designer around $300 and a week of work to into professional shape.
However, there are circumstances in which a site developed from scratch may b e preferable, such as when the site provides an interesting and unique service that can?t be built easily with the templates offered by a CMS. In this case it could take months to develop a system similar in complexity to what a CMS provides. However, the issues that really make a CMS system shine through are maintenance and search engine optimization (SEO). Security, updates for the latest operating systems and mobile devices, and plug-ins for improved features and social network support are all developed by third parties, allowing the web developer and content manager to focus simply solely on maintaining the content. The cost and time savings during the operation of the site could be enormous and there should be as little down time as possible. As far as SEO is concerned, the techniques are numerous and a designer who chooses to work from scratch must be aware and able to implement all of them, but web CMS platforms are all pretty much optimized for SEO as far as th e design and framework portion of it is concerned.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, at a time when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire, a young woman with an elaborate hairstyle was laid to rest only yards away from a king's pyramid, researchers report.
She was 5 feet 2 inches in height, around age 20 when she died, and was buried in a decorated coffin whose face is gilded with gold. A nearby pyramid, at a site called Hawara, was built about 2 millennia before her lifetime. The location of her burial is known from archival notes. ?
High-resolution CT scans reveal that, before she was buried, her hair was dressed in an elaborate hairstyle.
"The mummy's hair is readily appreciable, with longer strands at the middle of the scalp drawn back into twists or plaits that were then wound into a tutulus, or chignon at the vertex (crown) of the head," writes a research team in a paper published recently in the journal RSNA RadioGraphics. They note that it was a popular hairstyle at the time, which may have been inspired by a Roman empress, Faustina I, who lived in the second century. [ See Photos of Egyptian Mummy's Reconstruction ]
Today, thanks to research and reconstruction work that includes high-resolution CT scans, anthropological analysis, 3-D printing and facial reconstruction drawing, this woman, along with two other mummies, are being brought back to life. Their three-dimensional faces and hair, carefully reconstructed by professional forensic artist Victoria Lywood, of John Abbott College, are set to be revealed tomorrow (Jan. 25) at the Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
In pictures sent to LiveScience the reconstructions appear vividly real in every aspect, from the tone of their muscles to the color and style of their hair. It looks like they could be people living today.
"They are three human Egyptian mummies that have been trapped in the manner they held when laid to rest nearly 2,000 years ago. And now we can reveal what they might have looked like," the team writes in a press release.? All three mummies were donated to the Redpath Museum in the 19th century.
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Egyptian mummy's elaborate hairstyle revealed in 3-D
Nearly 2,000 years ago, at a time when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire, a young woman with an elaborate hairstyle was laid to rest only yards away from a king's pyramid, researchers report.
Elusive giant squid is still a deep mystery
Goggle-wearing rats learn predictive skills
Climate change views swayed by weather
While two scientific papers have recently been published on them, and their reconstructed faces are set to be unveiled, there are still plenty of mysteries for Egyptologists to tackle. For instance, when researchers scanned the woman they found three puncture marks, each about an eighth of an inch (3-4 millimeters) across, on the right side of her abdominal wall, wounds that may have killed her, leading to the question ? how did she get them???
"These wounds were believed to have occurred either before or shortly after death," the researchers write in their RadioGraphics paper, "although these CT findings are far from conclusive, it is possible that the punctures are related to the cause of death."
The 'matron'
Another mummy, dubbed the "white-haired matron," is of a woman who lived long enough to see her hair go gray, likely passing away sometime between the ages of 30 and 50. Radiocarbon dating indicates that she lived late in the time of Roman rule (A.D. 230-380), when Christianity was growing in Egypt and mummification was soon to go out of style. At 5 foot 3 inches, she was relatively tall for her time, and museum records indicate that she was found somewhere in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor).
She suffered from a problem quite common in ancient Egypt ? bad, and rather painful, teeth. "Thecondition of the teeth of (the mummy) was poor," the team writes in the RadioGraphics paper, noting that she was missing several of them and that a large cavity, between two teeth, was visible along with several abscesses.
Theban male
The third reconstructed mummy lived a few centuries earlier than the other two, at a time when a dynasty of Greek kings ruled Egypt. If he and the matron could talk, they could sympathize with each other?s dental problems. [ Mummy Melodrama: 9 Secrets of Otzi the Iceman ]
The 5-foot-4-inch male mummy had numerous cavities, including one that caused a sinus infection, possibly killing him. His condition was so bad that in his final days he had a form of linen "packing," dipped in medicine, inserted into one of his cavities. According to records he also was found in Thebes, with CT scans showing that he died relatively young, likely in his 20s or early 30s.
Western University researcher Andrew Wade, a leading member of the team, said at a recent Egyptology symposium in Toronto that the development of high-resolution CT scans has played a key role in advancing the study of Egyptian mummies, including these three individuals, unveiling tiny details that help bring their past to life.?
"The high spatial and contrast resolution of the last decade of CT studies of mummies has allowed us to examine the paleo-anatomic minutiae (of mummies)," he said.
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DAKAR (Reuters) - A faction of one of the armed Islamist groups occupying the north of the Mali has split off from its al Qaeda allies and says it is willing to hold talks with the government, the leader of the new group said on Thursday.
Alghabass Ag Intallah, a senior member of the Tuareg-led Ansar Dine group which helped seize northern Mali last year from government forces, said he had created a new organization, the Islamic Movement of Azawad (MIA), and was ready to seek a negotiated solution to Mali's conflict.
A French-led military operation is underway in Mali to drive back the Islamist fighters who launched a surprise push southward toward the capital Bamako two weeks ago. An African ground force is being deployed to support French and Malian troops.
"We want to wage our war and not that of AQIM," Ag Intallah said by telephone, referring to al Qaeda's North African wing which has been at the heart of the takeover of the vast desert north by Malian and foreign Islamist fighters.
"There has to be a ceasefire so there can be talks," he said, speaking from the town of Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold in northeast Mali seized by Ansar Dine last year. "The aim is to speak about the situation in the north."
He said the new group, which would be based in Kidal, had been in touch with mediators in Burkina Faso and Algerian authorities. He said rebel demands would be for a broad autonomy rather than independence for the north.
Ansar Dine had formed a loose alliance with AQIM and a third group, MUJWA, to impose sharia Islamic law in the desert and mountain area the size of Texas.
It was not immediately possible to confirm how many fighters would leave the ranks of Ansar Dine to join the new group.
International negotiators have long sought to prize apart the Islamist alliance by offering talks to Ansar Dine and Tuareg separatists, on the condition that they broke with AQIM. Ag Intallah was a senior Ansar Dine negotiator in talks last year.
But preliminary negotiations broke down last month after Ansar Dine called off a ceasefire, amid reports of splits between moderates seeking a political solution and radicals with deep links to al Qaeda.
Ag Intallah would not give a figure for his supporters, as he said a list was still being drawn up, but he said most Malians in the ranks of Ansar Dine had joined his faction.
Estimates for the total number of Islamist fighters in Mali vary but do not exceed roughly 3,000.
Ag Intallah said some members of the Tuareg separatist MNLA movement, which has fought AQIM in the north, had also joined his group.
A spokesman for the MNLA was not immediately available for comment.
Google announced that it has revamped its image search to be faster and more effective. The changes, which will be rolled out over the next few days, include image results displayed in an inline panel, allowing users to flip through a set of images by using their keyboard and view metadata without being redirected to a separate landing page.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Apple Inc. warned Wednesday that the blockbuster sales growth of the last five years is slowing drastically, as iPhone sales are starting to plateau.
The outlook sent Apple shares plunging by 10 percent, wiping out a year's worth of gains.
Analysts said the warning suggested that Apple can no longer sustain its growth without some completely new product. Its last revolutionary product launch was the iPad in 2010.
"It has been an overriding concern with Apple that they would not be able to generate revenue growth just rolling out new versions of old products," said Jeff Sica, president and chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management. "Now they've proven it in their numbers."
Apple said it expects sales of between $41 billion and $43 billion in the current quarter, which ends in March. That would usually be little cause for concern, even though analysts were expecting $45.6 billion, because Apple usually lowballs its forecasts. But Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company is changing its practices and providing a reasonable range rather than a single, easily achievable number.
That means Apple is looking at sales growth of about 7 percent from last year's January to March quarter, a striking number for a company that's posted double-digit increases in every quarter except one since 2008.
Apple shares fell $51.48 to $462.59, in extended trading, after the release of the results.
Apple's enviable profit growth also hit a wall in the October to December quarter. It said net income in the fiscal first quarter was $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per share, flat with a year ago. That still beat expectations, as analysts polled by FactSet had forecast earnings of $13.48 per share.
Revenue was $54.5 billion, up 18 percent from a year ago. Analysts were expecting $55 billion.
Apple shipped 47.8 million iPhones in the quarter, about 1 million less than analysts were expecting, and 22.9 million iPads, also about 1 million short.
Most surprisingly, Mac sales were also 1 million short, at 4.1 million. That's a 22 percent drop from shipments a year ago. Oppenheimer said this was due to difficulties producing enough of the new iMac desktops fast enough.
Investors have already been concerned that Apple's strategy of keeping the price of the iPhone high means it's losing out on sales, particularly overseas. Consumers are instead opting to buy cheaper smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software, which has propelled South Korea's Samsung Electronics to the world's largest maker of smartphones.
There's speculation that the company will produce a cheaper iPhone, but that would cut into its stunning profits, which are the whole reason it's become the world's most valuable company.
Apple had warned that the holiday quarter's profits would be lower than Wall Street was initially expecting, because it had so many new products coming out, including the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. New production lines are more expensive to run and yield more defective products that need to be redone or thrown out rather than sold.
Tracking the spread of dengue fever: Domestic networks drive rapid transmission of human infection Public release date: 24-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Beverly Clark beverly.clark@emory.edu 404-712-8780 Emory University
The mosquitoes that spread dengue fever tap into the domestic networks of humans, along with their bloodstreams, finds a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The data from Iquitos, Peru, shows that the trail of the most rapid transmission of human infections does not lead through large, public gathering places, as might be expected, but from house-to-house, as people visit nearby friends and relatives.
"It's common in a dengue fever outbreak to first treat public places like schools for mosquitoes, but our results show the focus needs to be on residential networks," says disease ecologist Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec.
Vazquez-Prokopec and Uriel Kitron, both from Emory University's department of environmental studies, conducted the spatial-temporal analysis as co-authors of the study, led by Steve Stoddard and Thomas Scott from the University of California, Davis. The research is part of a major, ongoing dengue project that also includes scientists from the U.S. Navy; the University of Iowa; Tulane University; San Diego State; and researchers in Peru.
"On a global scale, human air travel is known as a driver of dengue virus circulation, but this is the first time we've quantified the powerful impact of human movement on the small scale of neighborhoods," Vazquez-Prokopec says.
The tropical disease is caused by a virus that is passed from the blood of one person to another through the bites of mosquitoes. Also known as "break-bone fever," dengue causes debilitating pain leading to the hospitalization of many sufferers. Severe cases can be fatal.
"It is vicious, and rapidly growing as a threat," Vazquez-Prokopec says.
During the last 50 years, the incidence of dengue has increased 30-fold and more than half the world's population is now at risk. The World Health Organization estimates that 50-100 million dengue infections occur each year. That number is expected to rise as the climate warms and the trend toward urbanization continues.
During 2009 and 2010, dengue fever emerged for the first time in decades in the contiguous United States, when an outbreak in the Florida Keys led to 93 cases.
The dengue virus is complex and has at least four different serotypes. Each time a person is infected with one serotype, it raises the risk that they will become more severely ill if infected by a different serotype.
"There is no vaccine for dengue. The only way to control outbreaks is to kill the vectors mosquitoes," Vazquez-Prokopec says. Many of the places affected have poor public health infrastructure, he adds, so it's critical to identify the most effective places to spray for the insects.
A 2009 outbreak of dengue in Iquitos killed at least 24 people and drove almost 1,000 sufferers to the hospital, where cots had to be set up in stairwells and hallways to handle the flood of patients.
A city of 400,000 located deep in the Amazonian rain forest, Iquitos is essentially an island, only accessible by boat or plane. The city has high unemployment, and the housing is often substandard. Water is stored in open containers in crowded homes that lack air-conditioning, or even window screens. These factors make the homes havens for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the primary vector for the dengue virus. These mosquitoes feast almost exclusively on human blood, bite during the day, and have a limited flight range of about 100 meters.
To study how the dengue virus spreads through Iquitos, the researchers tracked and mapped outbreak patterns of two large neighborhoods, encompassing hundreds of homes, over several years. When a case of dengue was confirmed through a blood test, social workers would interview the patient, recording all the places the patient went during the 15 days leading up to the onset of fever. Mosquitos were collected from as many of these locations as possible and tested to determine if they carried the virus.
The data from interviews of 2,000 people was plotted over time and space using geographic information systems (GIS) technology.
"People appear to be getting infected most often in homes, but not necessarily their own homes," Vazquez-Prokopec says. "The main driver is people visiting friends and relatives in nearby homes."
Interviews with dengue patients revealed that two-thirds of them had visited the same location.
"We suspect that the importance of human movement that we observed in Iquitos will hold in other populations and for other pathogens transmitted by the mosquitos that spread dengue," Vazquez-Prokopec says. "The findings provide a different way for thinking about how a vector-borne pathogen may spread through a population, and have implications for better disease surveillance and control."
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Tracking the spread of dengue fever: Domestic networks drive rapid transmission of human infection Public release date: 24-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Beverly Clark beverly.clark@emory.edu 404-712-8780 Emory University
The mosquitoes that spread dengue fever tap into the domestic networks of humans, along with their bloodstreams, finds a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The data from Iquitos, Peru, shows that the trail of the most rapid transmission of human infections does not lead through large, public gathering places, as might be expected, but from house-to-house, as people visit nearby friends and relatives.
"It's common in a dengue fever outbreak to first treat public places like schools for mosquitoes, but our results show the focus needs to be on residential networks," says disease ecologist Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec.
Vazquez-Prokopec and Uriel Kitron, both from Emory University's department of environmental studies, conducted the spatial-temporal analysis as co-authors of the study, led by Steve Stoddard and Thomas Scott from the University of California, Davis. The research is part of a major, ongoing dengue project that also includes scientists from the U.S. Navy; the University of Iowa; Tulane University; San Diego State; and researchers in Peru.
"On a global scale, human air travel is known as a driver of dengue virus circulation, but this is the first time we've quantified the powerful impact of human movement on the small scale of neighborhoods," Vazquez-Prokopec says.
The tropical disease is caused by a virus that is passed from the blood of one person to another through the bites of mosquitoes. Also known as "break-bone fever," dengue causes debilitating pain leading to the hospitalization of many sufferers. Severe cases can be fatal.
"It is vicious, and rapidly growing as a threat," Vazquez-Prokopec says.
During the last 50 years, the incidence of dengue has increased 30-fold and more than half the world's population is now at risk. The World Health Organization estimates that 50-100 million dengue infections occur each year. That number is expected to rise as the climate warms and the trend toward urbanization continues.
During 2009 and 2010, dengue fever emerged for the first time in decades in the contiguous United States, when an outbreak in the Florida Keys led to 93 cases.
The dengue virus is complex and has at least four different serotypes. Each time a person is infected with one serotype, it raises the risk that they will become more severely ill if infected by a different serotype.
"There is no vaccine for dengue. The only way to control outbreaks is to kill the vectors mosquitoes," Vazquez-Prokopec says. Many of the places affected have poor public health infrastructure, he adds, so it's critical to identify the most effective places to spray for the insects.
A 2009 outbreak of dengue in Iquitos killed at least 24 people and drove almost 1,000 sufferers to the hospital, where cots had to be set up in stairwells and hallways to handle the flood of patients.
A city of 400,000 located deep in the Amazonian rain forest, Iquitos is essentially an island, only accessible by boat or plane. The city has high unemployment, and the housing is often substandard. Water is stored in open containers in crowded homes that lack air-conditioning, or even window screens. These factors make the homes havens for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the primary vector for the dengue virus. These mosquitoes feast almost exclusively on human blood, bite during the day, and have a limited flight range of about 100 meters.
To study how the dengue virus spreads through Iquitos, the researchers tracked and mapped outbreak patterns of two large neighborhoods, encompassing hundreds of homes, over several years. When a case of dengue was confirmed through a blood test, social workers would interview the patient, recording all the places the patient went during the 15 days leading up to the onset of fever. Mosquitos were collected from as many of these locations as possible and tested to determine if they carried the virus.
The data from interviews of 2,000 people was plotted over time and space using geographic information systems (GIS) technology.
"People appear to be getting infected most often in homes, but not necessarily their own homes," Vazquez-Prokopec says. "The main driver is people visiting friends and relatives in nearby homes."
Interviews with dengue patients revealed that two-thirds of them had visited the same location.
"We suspect that the importance of human movement that we observed in Iquitos will hold in other populations and for other pathogens transmitted by the mosquitos that spread dengue," Vazquez-Prokopec says. "The findings provide a different way for thinking about how a vector-borne pathogen may spread through a population, and have implications for better disease surveillance and control."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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