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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/gV6uAdT6ogk/story01.htm
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PHOENIX (Reuters) - Four people were reported shot when gunfire erupted at a mortgage company in Phoenix, Arizona media reported on Wednesday.
Officers are looking for a suspect described as a white male in his 60s, local FOX 10 news reported. A nearby intersection was reported closed.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shooting-reported-phoenix-workplace-reports-four-shot-182718485.html
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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The Board of Regents is seeking a 3.5 percent increase in funds for New York's public schools, about $100 million more than what Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposes in his budget for the next fiscal year.
Education Commissioner John King outlined the board's funding request, specifically in formula aid, during a joint budget hearing Tuesday of Assembly and Senate members.
The Regents propose a $75 million investment in full-day, pre-kindergarten programs for high-needs students and seek $9 million for overdue payments to hearing officers involved in tenured teacher cases. The plan also proposes $1.5 million for development of new English language arts exams for ninth- and tenth-grade students and $500,000 for a pilot computer testing program.
Cuomo's proposal would set aside $25 million for pre-kindergarten programs in the form of competitive grants, along with $20 million in competitive grants for extended learning time and $11 million for stipends for high-performing teachers.
While competitive grants are useful for certain pilot programs, King said, programs that are proven effective, such as pre-kindergarten, should be available for all within the school aid formula.
"The evidence is longstanding and overwhelming that pre-K is a good investment," the commissioner said.
The Regents budget recommends a formula aid increase of $709 million, compared with $610 million in Cuomo's plan. The governor would supplement spending with $203 million in fiscal stabilization funds and the competitive grants.
Lawmakers also heard from Council of School Superintendents Deputy Director Robert Lowry, who said that despite the proposed aid increase, 84 percent of districts would still receive less from the state than they did four years ago. Many districts see financial and educational insolvency in the future, he said.
But Lowry praised Cuomo's inclusion of funding above the general aid increase and called the proposal "more positive than we anticipated."
The New York State United Teachers union said the governor's plan to tie state education aid increases to the implementation of teacher evaluation plans created uncertainty for districts, and the Alliance for Quality Education testified the proposed spending on schools was inadequate to avoid classroom cuts.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-ed-commissioner-outlines-regents-155320056.html
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This graphic shows the location of a Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013 Israeli airstrike on a military target in Jamraya, Syria, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the border with Lebanon. (AP Graphic)
This graphic shows the location of a Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013 Israeli airstrike on a military target in Jamraya, Syria, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the border with Lebanon. (AP Graphic)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Israel launched a rare airstrike inside Syria, U.S. officials said Wednesday, targeting a convoy believed to contain anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The attack adds a potentially flammable new element to tensions already heightened by Syria's civil war.
It was the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to disrupt the Shiite militia's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state.
Regional security officials said the strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday, targeted a site near the Lebanese border, while a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital, Damascus. They appeared to be referring to the same incident.
U.S. officials said the target was a truck convoy that Israel believed was carrying sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the operation.
Regional officials said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which if acquired by Hezbollah would be "game-changing," enabling the militants to shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
In a statement, the Syrian military denied the existence of any such shipment and said a scientific research facility outside Damascus was hit by the Israeli warplanes.
The Israeli military declined to comment. However, many in Israel worry that as Syrian President Bashar Assad loses power, he could strike back by transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah, which is neighboring Lebanon's most powerful military force and is committed to Israel's destruction.
The airstrike follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah, which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the Assad regime and rebel brigades seeking his ouster.
The war has sapped Assad's power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms.
A Syrian military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of Jamraya, northwest of Damascus.
The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, the statement said.
The military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying the center was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and self-defense" of Syria's military.
"This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people," the statement said.
Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.
While the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander, and Israel blamed Hezbollah and Iran for a July 2012 attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its expanding capabilities.
Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah's arsenal has markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel.
Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.
Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria's "deadly weapons," saying the country is "increasingly coming apart."
The same day, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."
Syria, however, cast the airstrike in a different light, linked to the country's civil war, which it blames on terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy.
Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while keeping up defenses against possible attacks.
Israeli defense officials have carefully monitored Syria's chemical weapons, fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist fighters among the rebels.
President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a "red line" that if crossed could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials have said Syria's stockpiles still appear to be under government control.
The strike was Israel's first inside Syria since September 2007, when warplanes destroyed a site that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.
Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008, but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.
In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.
And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.
Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks but never did.
In Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria, the military and the U.N. agency tasked with monitoring the border with Israel said Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity in the past week.
Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon, and it was unclear if the recent activity was related to the strike in Syria.
Syria's primary conflict with Israel is over the Golan Heights, which Israeli occupied in the 1967 war. Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite the hostility, Syria has kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated for Israeli attacks.
In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.
___
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Bradley Klapper in Washington, and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Sight would dramatically alter a blind man's understanding of an elephant, according to the old story. Now, a look directly at a cell surface is changing our understanding of cell membrane organization.
Using a completely new approach to imaging cell membranes, a study by researchers from the University of Illinois, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Institutes of Health revealed some surprising relationships among molecules within cell membranes.
Led by Mary Kraft, a U. of I. professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, the team published its findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cells are enveloped in semi-permeable membranes that act as a barrier between the inside and outside of the cell. The membrane is mainly composed of a class of molecules called lipids, studded with proteins that help regulate how the cell responds to its environment.
"Lipids have multiple functions serving as both membrane structure and signaling molecules, so they regulate other functions inside the cell," Kraft said. "Therefore, understanding how they're organized is important. You need to know where they are to figure out how they're doing these regulatory functions."
One widely held belief among cell biologists is that lipids in the membrane assemble into patches, called domains, that differ in composition. However, research into how lipids are organized in the membrane, and how that organization affects cell function, has been hampered by the lack of direct observation. Although the cell membrane is heavily studied, the imaging techniques used infer the locations of certain molecules based on assumed associations with other molecules.
In the new study, Kraft's team used an advanced, molecule-specific imaging method that allowed the researchers to look at the membrane itself and map a particular type of lipid on mouse cell membranes. The researchers fed lipids labeled with rare stable isotopes to the cells and then imaged the distribution of the isotopes with high-resolution imaging mass spectrometry.
Called sphingolipids (SFING-go-lih-pids), these molecules are thought to associate with cholesterol to form small domains about 200 nanometers across. The direct imaging method revealed that sphingolipids do indeed form domains, but not in the way the researchers expected.
The domains were much bigger than suggested by prior experiments. The 200-nanometer domains clustered together to form much larger, micrometer-sized patches of sphingolipids in the membrane.
"We were amazed when we saw the first images of the patches of sphingolipids across the cell surface," said Peter Weber, who directed the team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "We weren't sure if our imaging mass spectrometry method would be sensitive enough to detect the labeled lipids, let alone what we would see."
Furthermore, when the researchers looked at cells that were low on cholesterol ? thought to play a key role in lipid aggregation ? they were surprised to find that the lipids still formed domains. On the other hand, disruption to the cell's structural scaffold seemed to dissolve the lipid clusters.
"We found that the presence of domains was somewhat affected by cholesterol but was more affected by the cytoskeleton ? the protein network underneath the membrane," Kraft said. "The central issue is that the data are suggesting that the mechanism that's responsible for these domains is much more complicated than initially expected."
In addition, the new study found that sphingolipids domains were incompletely associated with a marker protein that researchers have long assumed dwelled where sphingolipids congregated. This means that data collected with imaging techniques that target this protein are not as accurate in representing sphingolipid distribution as previously thought.
"Our data are showing that if you want to know where sphingolipids are, look at the lipid, don't infer where it is based on other molecules, and now there's a way to directly image them," said Kraft, who also is affiliated with the department of chemistry at the U. of I.
Next, the researchers plan to use the direct-imaging method in conjunction with other more conventional methods, such as fluorescence, to further determine the organization of different kinds of molecules in the membrane, their interactions and how they affect the cell's function. They plan to begin by targeting cholesterol.
"Cholesterol abundance is important," Kraft said. "You change that, you tremendously change cell function. How is it organized? Is it also in domains? That's related to the question, what's the mechanism responsible for these structures and what are they doing?"
###
The paper, "Direct chemical evidence for sphingolipid domains in the plasma membranes of fibroblasts," is available from PNAS.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu
Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126511/New_look_at_cell_membrane_reveals_surprising_organization
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Good money management is an important skill for any adult. If this is something you did not achieve, or if you are just looking to improve your skills, this article is for you. You can improve your personal finance knowledge at any time. Below are a few ways to do it.
Order your credit reports if you?re having trouble qualifying for a loan. There can be outdated information that lowers your score. If you find mistakes, write a letter to each credit bureau with a request to remove the information.
Think carefully about your feelings toward money. Understanding your personal spending habits and the reason for these habits is the first step to transforming your personal finances. Create a list outlining how you think about materials or money so you can figure this out. This will enable you to tackle your financial future more successfully.
If you are new to financial independence, be cautious about using credit cards, especially if you are under the age of 21. Credit card companies used to give cards freely to college students. Your income has to be verifiable, or perhaps you will need a cosigner. Always research card requirements before you sign up.
Set financial goals for yourself so you can be wise with your money. When you know specifically what you are saving for, it is a lot easier to stick to your budget and be motivated to reach your goals as soon as you can.
Let your investments do some international travel. No load mutual funds greatly reduce the expense involved in buying individual foreign stocks.
If you are barely surviving, it might be a good idea to get overdraft protection. While it may cost you a couple of dollars monthly, it?s much less than the usual overdraft charge of $20 or more for each transaction.
Thursday before you get paid, be sure that you put away some money for the weekend in your budget. Once you get your paycheck, put the entire amount in the bank and leave it there, wile living on the allowance you already have on hand. This way, your money is still waiting on Monday, when you are more likely to make wise decisions about how to allocate it rather than spending it rashly.
One of the most important skills of a mature adult is the ability to handle personal finances. You can be one of these people if you put your mind to it. It only takes a little bit of discipline and an understanding of where you can pinch some pennies and save. Your financial acumen can be approved greatly with tips like this.
Source: http://outofthestormnews.com/stay-in-the-black-with-our-personal-finance-tips/
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Scenes and observations from the NFL's annual Super Bowl media day ? interviews with players and team personnel from the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers on the field at the Superdome:
___
Terrell Suggs stood up, threw down his microphone, kicked over his chair with a back heel as he stepped down from his podium, and then kicked over a cooler.
Onlookers laughed, satisfied that the Baltimore Ravens' mischievous linebacker had properly punctuated the frenetic, free-for-all known as Super Bowl media day.
Suggs plays a central role in one of the more intimidating defenses in the NFL, and at least some of the conversation involved football, and what it would take to slow down San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick in Sunday's NFL championship game.
But media day is never just about football, not even when the players are interviewing each other.
Posing as a reporter, defensive end Arthur Jones asked Suggs which staple of Louisiana cuisine he preferred, gumbo or jambalaya.
"That's a good question, and I'm glad you asked that, Arthur," Suggs said. "Definitely gumbo."
Suggs also was asked if he is the best dancer in the locker room: "No way. 'Be Nasty,' (safety) Bernard Pollard ? he's definitely the best dancer. And I think if we get this done come Sunday, you all will get to see a good dose of it."
And maybe even get a song from Suggs. He wasn't shy about serenading everyone with a rendition of Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love," moments after he took his seat behind the microphone.
___
Katherine Webb credits a couple of camera shots of her watching the BCS national title game in Miami with landing her at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Otherwise known as Miss Alabama USA and the girlfriend of Crimson Tide quarterback A.J. McCarron, Webb has been hired by TV's "Inside Edition" to be its game correspondent.
"It's so exciting and absolutely crazy at the same time. It's happened so fast. I feel like I'm living on a plane but it's a great journey," said Webb, who was making her first trip to New Orleans for her first Super Bowl.
The 23-year-old Webb has been working on a fledgling modeling and acting career in Los Angeles.
"It's kind of funny how everything kind of lines up to me being at this point," said Webb, explaining that it all started with meeting McCarron while at home in Alabama late last year.
She was hired to interview players and coaches during media day, but wound up being interviewed herself. A colleague had to cut it short a few times, apologetically explaining that Webb had a job to do.
She said she prepped for the job.
"A.J. is interviewed all the time, so it's kind of cool to ask him, 'What do I need to ask and what do I need to stay away from? What annoys players the most to be asked?'" she said.
Webb created a buzz at the BCS game when she was caught on camera and play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger enthusiastically remarked that quarterbacks "get all the good-looking women." ESPN later apologized for the comments.
Webb, however, never thought an apology was necessary.
"Everybody seems to think that I'm offended and I'm not at all," she said. "I appreciate it. I appreciate the fact that he notices a beautiful woman. Women need to be told their beautiful more often. I took no offense to it."
___
For the second year in a row, Super Bowl media day was open to fans for the price of a $25 ticket. They were allowed to sit in sections of seats along the sideline with good views of players on the field, and paid attendance was 5,479, according to NFL spokesman Michael Signora.
When fans walked in, they were given gift bags that included small radios so they could listen to interviews. Other items were mostly product samples from sponsors, including chips and laundry detergent.
Among the fans were John Grimsley and Lisa Wyatt of Baltimore, sitting together a few rows from the field wearing purple jerseys with the No. 52 of star Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. They said the ticket price was worth it.
"This is a very rare experience," said Grimsley, who has Ravens season tickets and tickets to Sunday's big game. "I've never been to anything like this. To be able to see all the Ravens being interviewed, to see some of these guys up close, you don't really get to see that when you go to the games. They're there and then they're gone."
___
The NFL says 5,205 reporters from 24 countries have credentials for the game, and some chose to work in costume at media day.
There was a correspondent from the Nickelodeon television network dressed as a super hero called Pick Boy, wearing black tights with a cape and trim of fluorescent orange and green.
Pick Boy approached 49ers practice squad linebacker Nate Stupar, asking him if he wanted to race. Stupar declined, saying he wasn't about to risk pulling any muscles for something like that.
"I would say that's the first time I got interviewed by a guy with a cape on," Stupar said. "It's entertainment and it's going to be fun to be around the entire week."
Univision radio play-by-play announcer Rafael Hernandez Brito wore a Spanish-style wrestling mask for part of the session.
TV Azteca reporter Jose Marquez Zamora looked like a rodeo clown, with his painted face, round rubber nose and long, pointy shoes covered with light blue sequins. He said he was, in fact, dressed as a typical clown in Monterrey, Mexico, and wasn't concerned about whether his interview subjects took him seriously.
"I don't make interviews about serious stuff," he said. "I only have fun with the players, so our viewers in Mexico get interesting stuff and also get entertained."
Niners offensive lineman Alex Boone was asked about his hair style, which looks similar to a mohawk ? Boone calls it a rhino hawk ? and whether he had the best hair on the team.
"Absolutely. I think I get it from my mom's side," Boone said. "My mom's got great hair."
He added that he never in his career had been asked about his hair in a football interview, and then reflected on how the range of questions on media day truly sets it apart from a typical NFL interview session.
"Weird. Very weird. A lot of questions coming this way and some of them aren't football-related, which creeps me out a little bit," Boone said. "But it's a trip, and I'm excited to be here."
___
When players and coaches were asked to play along with a joke about the growing influence of social media in everyday communication, results were mixed and appeared to expose the generation gap between some players and coaches.
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and others were asked to answer some questions in hash tags only. The tags, which might look like (hash)SuperBowl on the website Twitter, are used to help social media users identify trendy topics.
"That would be very challenging to me," Harbaugh said. "I don't know the hash tag world that well. I don't have one. I don't have a Tweeter (sic). I'm not real good at that."
Ravens kicker Justin Tucker was more cooperative, answering several questions in a row about his Super Bowl experience as a rookie with, "Hash tag, awesome."
___
AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suggs-webb-stand-super-bowl-media-day-012352944--nfl.html
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The east coast of Australia has been drenched by floods and torrential rains, even as recent bush fires affecting much of the country continued to burn. Four people are known to have died as Australians get a further taste of extreme weather that is predicted to become more common as the planet warms.
The deluge came as a storm that started as tropical cyclone Oswald just north of Australia was dragged south over most of the east coast by a low-pressure system extending all the way to New South Wales, says Richard Wardle of the Bureau of Meteorology in Queensland. As it hit land, Oswald lost its cyclone status but remained a "vigorous" storm, Wardle says.
With no low-pressure zone further east to pull Oswald out to sea, the storm stayed over land, moving slowly south and dumping huge amounts of rain on coastal communities. Bundaberg, a town in Queensland, experienced its worst-ever flood as the storm lingered nearby for nearly 24 hours, leading to the evacuation of 7500 people from their homes. In Brisbane, the floods were almost as bad as those that devastated the city two years ago.
In Queensland and New South Wales, the deluge arrived while the bush fires that broke out two weeks were still smouldering. At the time, the Bureau of Meteorology said that the exceptionally hot, dry weather that led to the fires was "consistent" with climate change. Experts are now drawing the same conclusions about the rains.
"The frequency of more intense events is going to increase. Droughts, heatwaves and ? in northern Australia ? rainfall events and tropical cyclones are going to be more intense," says Jon Nott of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, who researches extreme weather events.
Nott says that more intense rainfall in the tropics and subtropics is one of the things we can expect with global warming. The connection between tropical cyclones and climate change is complicated: fewer cyclones are expected, but the ones that strike will be more severe. They could also become 20 per cent wetter.
Nott points out that Australia might be experiencing a "double whammy" of climate change and natural variability, driving wetter conditions. One natural pattern, the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, affects circulation in the Pacific, and reverses every 20 or 30 years. It flipped about five years ago for the first time since 1977, bringing warmer waters to Australia's east coast. "During those phases, Queensland sees more flooding, more rainfall, and more landfalling tropical cyclones," Nott says. Climate change will only compound the effects of such patterns, he says.
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SEVARE, Mali (AP) ? As French and Malian soldiers held control of the fabled desert city of Timbuktu following the retreat of Islamist extremists, Tuareg fighters claimed Tuesday that they seized the strategic city of Kidal and other northern towns.
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad ? the Tuareg group's name for northern Mali ? appears to have taken advantage of a French-led bombing and ground campaign to dislodge al- Qaida-linked Islamist fighters from the towns in northern Mali.
Phone lines were down in Kidal, making it difficult to independently confirm the group's claim.
The Tuareg movement said on its website that it was ready to work with French troops and fight terror organizations.
However, it said it would refuse to allow Malian soldiers in Kidal, and the other towns under its control in northeastern Mali, following allegations that the troops killed civilians suspected of having links to the Islamists.
It said it "decided to retake these localities with all urgency to assure the security of the belongings, and more particularly of people, because of the grave danger their lives faced with the return of the Malian army, marching in the footsteps of the French army."
While the group known as NMLA was an important player in the early days of the Malian conflict last April, it had been ousted from power in northern Mali by the al-Qaida-linked extremists known as Ansar Dine.
Kidal is the last of the three provincial capitals across the north that had been under the grip of the Islamists since last April. French and Malian forces retook Gao over the weekend, and announced Monday that the Malians had entered the fabled city of Timbuktu.
"The Malian military is in control of Timbuktu," Modibo Traore told The Associated Press on Tuesday morning.
The French military operation began more than two weeks ago and has so far met little resistance though experts warn it will be harder to hold on to the towns than it was to recapture them from the Islamists.
Photos released by the French military showed throngs of jubilant residents greeting the arrival of troops in the town, where Islamists whipped women for going outside without veils and amputated the hand of a suspected thief.
There also was celebration among the thousands of Timbuktu residents who fled the city rather than live under strict and pitiless Islamic rule and the dire poverty that worsened after the tourist industry was destroyed.
"In the heart of people from northern Mali, it's a relief ? freedom finally," said Cheick Sormoye, a Timbuktu resident who fled to Bamako, the capital.
However, the mayor of Timbuktu said Islamists set fire to an institute housing irreplaceable manuscripts before they fled the town.
Timbuktu has been home to some 20,000 irreplaceable manuscripts, some dating to the 12th century. It was not immediately known how many were destroyed in the blaze that was set in recent days in an act of vengeance by the Islamists before they withdrew.
Michael Covitt, chairman of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, called the arson a "desecration to humanity."
"These manuscripts are irreplaceable. They have the wisdom of the ages and it's the most important find since the Dead Sea Scrolls," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/malian-military-control-city-timbuktu-084800800.html
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A sheriff in Wisconsin has made a radio ad counseling residents to have a gun and know how to use it. He says it's a necessary warning, critics say it is irresponsible.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke talks during a budget hearing in Milwaukee in this 2011 photo. The Wisconsin sheriff released an ad calling on residents to defend themselves, because the old model of having a citizen call 911 and wait for help isn't always the best option.
Gary Porter/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel/AP/File
EnlargeA top law-enforcement official in Wisconsin is telling gun owners that, when faced with a violent criminal in their home, they should no longer just rely on dialing 911, but should take matter into their own hands.
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Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has attracted national attention by releasing a 30-second radio spot in which he tells the public they are needed ?in the game? of personal protection.
?With officers laid-off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back; but are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We?re partners now,? he says.
Wisconsin has a ?castle doctrine" law, which makes it legal for gun owners to kill or maim an intruder to their home. So Sheriff's Clarke plea has the force of law behind it. What makes his actions so unusual is the fact that he ? as a sheriff ? is essentially telling his citizens not to depend on the police.
?It?s highly irregular. Most law enforcement professionals will not encourage people to pick up their guns and engage in vigilante justice," says Randolph McLaughlin, a civil rights attorney in Manhattan and a professor at Pace University Law School. "What [Clarke] is saying is that ?we in law enforcement are unable to protect you, so do what you need to do.? It?s an extremely dangerous proposition to encourage citizens who have no law-enforcement training to use their weapons.?
The comments have resonance beyond Wisconsin. In all, 48 states have either a castle doctrine law or its variant ? a "stand your ground" law that allows the use of deadly force outside one?s private property if a person feels threatened and cannot retreat ? according to a 2012 study by Texas A&M University. Moreover, in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Clarke's comments play into the national conversation about how involved a community should be in arming and protecting itself.
Clarke first agreed to talk to the Monitor for this story Monday but subsequently declined, citing a busy schedule.
Clarke defended the spot Monday morning, telling Fox News that ?personal safety is a personal responsibility.? The police are not omnipresent. We can't be there all the time and sometimes we can't be there as fast as we'd like.?
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29 Jan 2013
Before web is purchased by you hosting services for the small business take a peek at these five things. Don?t be the one to get burned! Find out about things that produce a web hosting company stay above the rest!1. PriceObviously, the initial thing you must base your web hosting decision off of may be the value. You ought to definitely compare the prices of a number of the most effective web hosting companies to have an idea of just what a fair cost for web hosting is. Hosting prices modify frequently so it?s probably that the prices have changed since the time this short article was actually written. First, do a few searches on the web to see which organizations are giving the best prices, discounts and solutions for your smaller businesses. 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NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) ? Months before she was killed in a gunman's rampage, Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung wrote a letter expressing her excitement over an effort to bring a children's museum to Newtown.
At the time, the proposal was fairly modest: a building of perhaps 20,000 square feet would provide art and science programs for area children.
Since last month's massacre, the plan has become more ambitious, with museums around the country collecting donations and organizers looking to renovate a 52,000-square-foot building to host the new learning center. A capital campaign that was to begin in the spring will start right away, with hopes of raising $10 million instead of the original $4 million.
"The need for the children's museum, which everyone thought was a great idea before, became almost a necessity," said Kristin Chiriatti, the museum's president. "People understood that the children will need a place to heal. We have so many children who are scared to go to school now and may have lifelong poor associations with learning."
It will still be a community museum, Chiriatti said, but it will also be a destination point for southwestern Connecticut.
The museum, first proposed in 2011, was to feature rotating exhibits on such topics as electricity, sound and outer space. Chiriatti called it "Everwonder," a play on the wonder the museum is meant to evoke and her question as to whether it would be possible to build, she said.
The group had been involved in hosting programs at the local library and envisioned a place for children to draw and conduct experiments.
Hochsprung wrote to Chiriatti in March that she supported the idea to engage students with hands-on, interactive experiences.
"In order for students to learn, they must be invested in what we are teaching," she wrote.
On Dec. 14, Hochsprung was among the victims of the rampage that killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook. The 20-year-old gunman killed his mother before driving to the school, opening fire and then committing suicide as police arrived.
The museum building will include some type of memorial to Hochsprung and the other victims, Chiriatti said.
"These children were our children's friends," she said. "We haven't decided how it will be done, except that it will be done in a cheerful way that celebrates childhood and education. Because that's what this is about: creating a cheerful place, filled with learning and enjoyment."
Architects and other professionals have agreed to volunteer for the project, which is tentatively planned for the campus of Fairfield Hills Hospital in Newtown.
And Chiriatti is getting help from other museums across the country.
Robert Dean, the executive director of a children's museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., got involved the day of the shooting, after a 9-year-old son of his museum's board president asked how they might help the kids in Newtown. He called a board meeting to brainstorm.
"We talked a letter-writing campaign and other things, but when we learned they were trying to build a children's museum, I just thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if they could have the same thing we have?'" he said.
A dollar from each admission fee collected at that museum and two others in Grand Rapids last Saturday will be donated to the Everwonder project.
Dean contacted the Association of Children's Museums, which launched a national effort. Museums are being asked to set aside one day this year and donate $1 from each admission that day to Everwonder. Chiriatti said she has already heard from four ? the Children's Museum of Brownsville, in Texas; the Seattle Children's Museum; the Tucson Children's Museum, in Arizona; and the Bucks County Children's Museum, in Pennsylvania.
She said they are hoping to raise all they need without seeking any money from an $8.5 million fund set up by the United Way to support the community after the massacre.
"They need to identify where that money is really needed, what is most important," she said. "If they need a counseling center, that should be where that money goes. It would be great to get some help, but we're certainly not going to be actively seeking that funding if it's needed somewhere else."
Chiriatti said they hope to have their museum opened by the end of 2015.
___
Online:
Everwonder Children's Museum: http://www.everwondermuseum.com/
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/newtown-expands-scope-planned-childrens-museum-075810443.html
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Public release date: 28-Jan-2013
Share ] Contact: Aitziber Lasa
a.lasa@elhuyar.com
34-943-363-040
Elhuyar Fundazioa
This press release is available in Spanish.
In today's society, there is a significant imbalance in the function of the care of the elderly. While the population ages more and more, the social mechanisms set up to perform the care function of the elderly are unable to meet this demand. Today, the mechanisms correspond to four spheres: the family, the welfare state, the market of private institutions, and the so-called community sphere.
"Why has this imbalance come about?" As Etxezarreta explains, "at a given moment, an option was made in favour of the welfare state to undertake the care of the elderly and today, with the crisis, we can see that these services have not been developed and that the care is reverting to the family sphere."
The starting point of this thesis is the crisis in the care function. Etxezarreta has analysed two spheres. Firstly, the public services that exist to care for the elderly; considering the social services as a system, he has studied what resources are devoted to this purpose. Secondly, he has analysed the community sphere, which Etxezarreta calls the social economy; "sometimes it is called the tertiary sector, but I prefer to define this sphere through the concept of social economy, because I have set out to study what space is taken up by the social economy in these services."
The social services are geared towards four types of recipients: the elderly, people with disabilities, people in a situation of social exclusion, and finally, children and their families. "There is no doubt that the most important group is the one comprising the elderly. This is what has led me to choose this group for my thesis. In theory the social trends of this group can be extrapolated to the whole sector."
The situation in Gipuzkoa
Etxezarreta's thesis has focused on the situation in Gipuzkoa. "The social services are governed by a decentralised system and are run by the provincial councils, and that is why different policies have been applied in Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba-Alava. I decided to concentrate on Gipuzkoa, because this province has a model of agreement with the tertiary sector. And this approach coincides with the approach of my thesis which maintains that the public sector has used agents from the tertiary sector and from the social economy to offer these services."
Based on data
In his thesis, Etxezarreta conducted an empirical analysis. Using statistics provided by EUSTAT (Basque Institute for Statistics) he studied firstly what quantitative importance the tertiary sector (the social economy, in Etxezarreta's words) has within the private and public agents as a whole. EUSTAT produces statistics on the suppliers of social services and analyses which are capitalist private ones, which are public, and which belong to the tertiary sector. In the end, it is a study of the size of the social economy.
Etxezarreta also studied the associations, co-operatives and foundations linked to the social economy. There is no unified register in this sphere so he gathered data on the number of organisations offering services geared towards the elderly. As Etxezarreta himself puts it, he drew up "a kind of map on the social economy". He also conducted a survey among all these organisations in order to assess the system. Finally, he did a qualitative analysis, and for this purpose had in-depth interviews with a group of 16 experts in the sector. The thesis includes the transcription of these conversations.
This thesis has enabled him to study the possibilities offered by the social economy in the future design of the social services. These possibilities can be studied to anticipate from a more political perspective how the sector will develop. "The healthcare system was designed from a public perspective. Education, by contrast, has been built on a basis of a public network and a subsidised network. And the questions I raise are these: How is the social services sector going to be structured, as it is a sector that has not yet been developed? And is it feasible for the future social services to be structured as a subsidized public system?"
###
About the author
Enekoitz Etxezarreta (Donostia-San Sebastian, 1981). He was awarded a degree in Economics by the Sarriko Faculty of Business Administration in Bilbao. He also has a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Faculty of Philosophy and Education in Donostia-San Sebastian. He wrote up his thesis at Sarriko in the ambit of economics under the supervision of Prof. Baleren Bakaikoa and Dr. Mikel Zurbano, and currently works at the University School of Business Administration in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 28-Jan-2013 Share ] Contact: Aitziber Lasa
a.lasa@elhuyar.com
34-943-363-040
Elhuyar Fundazioa
This press release is available in Spanish.
In today's society, there is a significant imbalance in the function of the care of the elderly. While the population ages more and more, the social mechanisms set up to perform the care function of the elderly are unable to meet this demand. Today, the mechanisms correspond to four spheres: the family, the welfare state, the market of private institutions, and the so-called community sphere.
"Why has this imbalance come about?" As Etxezarreta explains, "at a given moment, an option was made in favour of the welfare state to undertake the care of the elderly and today, with the crisis, we can see that these services have not been developed and that the care is reverting to the family sphere."
The starting point of this thesis is the crisis in the care function. Etxezarreta has analysed two spheres. Firstly, the public services that exist to care for the elderly; considering the social services as a system, he has studied what resources are devoted to this purpose. Secondly, he has analysed the community sphere, which Etxezarreta calls the social economy; "sometimes it is called the tertiary sector, but I prefer to define this sphere through the concept of social economy, because I have set out to study what space is taken up by the social economy in these services."
The social services are geared towards four types of recipients: the elderly, people with disabilities, people in a situation of social exclusion, and finally, children and their families. "There is no doubt that the most important group is the one comprising the elderly. This is what has led me to choose this group for my thesis. In theory the social trends of this group can be extrapolated to the whole sector."
The situation in Gipuzkoa
Etxezarreta's thesis has focused on the situation in Gipuzkoa. "The social services are governed by a decentralised system and are run by the provincial councils, and that is why different policies have been applied in Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba-Alava. I decided to concentrate on Gipuzkoa, because this province has a model of agreement with the tertiary sector. And this approach coincides with the approach of my thesis which maintains that the public sector has used agents from the tertiary sector and from the social economy to offer these services."
Based on data
In his thesis, Etxezarreta conducted an empirical analysis. Using statistics provided by EUSTAT (Basque Institute for Statistics) he studied firstly what quantitative importance the tertiary sector (the social economy, in Etxezarreta's words) has within the private and public agents as a whole. EUSTAT produces statistics on the suppliers of social services and analyses which are capitalist private ones, which are public, and which belong to the tertiary sector. In the end, it is a study of the size of the social economy.
Etxezarreta also studied the associations, co-operatives and foundations linked to the social economy. There is no unified register in this sphere so he gathered data on the number of organisations offering services geared towards the elderly. As Etxezarreta himself puts it, he drew up "a kind of map on the social economy". He also conducted a survey among all these organisations in order to assess the system. Finally, he did a qualitative analysis, and for this purpose had in-depth interviews with a group of 16 experts in the sector. The thesis includes the transcription of these conversations.
This thesis has enabled him to study the possibilities offered by the social economy in the future design of the social services. These possibilities can be studied to anticipate from a more political perspective how the sector will develop. "The healthcare system was designed from a public perspective. Education, by contrast, has been built on a basis of a public network and a subsidised network. And the questions I raise are these: How is the social services sector going to be structured, as it is a sector that has not yet been developed? And is it feasible for the future social services to be structured as a subsidized public system?"
###
About the author
Enekoitz Etxezarreta (Donostia-San Sebastian, 1981). He was awarded a degree in Economics by the Sarriko Faculty of Business Administration in Bilbao. He also has a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Faculty of Philosophy and Education in Donostia-San Sebastian. He wrote up his thesis at Sarriko in the ambit of economics under the supervision of Prof. Baleren Bakaikoa and Dr. Mikel Zurbano, and currently works at the University School of Business Administration in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/ef-spw012813.php
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We have to assume it was a squirrel, but we know how it died. It died squirming and convulsing in the talons of an owl, locked in by the bone ratchets the owl shares with other raptors. Based on what was left behind, we also know that the attacker was likely a Great Horned Owl or a Northern Hawk Owl with a wingspan between 86 and 87 centimeters. All of this we can glean from a striking impression of a deadly strike.
The Wingprint
There is perhaps no evidence of a kill more beautiful than these wing-prints left in the frigid Timiskaming, Ontario snow. Like throwing flour on the invisible man, the snow lets us see the tracks of an invisible predator?invisible at least to the squirrel.
With hearing good enough to sense rodents and other prey inches under the snow, owls feed by plunging their talons deeply through the drifts and into their prey. In the summer, the last thing many small mammals see is the owl. In the winter, strategies change, and many owls supplement their mammalian meat with that of small ground-dwelling birds like grouse. No matter the food, the killing itself isn?t pretty. Hawk owls in particular eviscerate small mammals before eating their heads and organs, thereafter caching the remains.
An owl can triangulate a scurrying vole better than you or I ever could, but the kill is not always so graceful. The hole at this kill site is likely enlarged by the repeated digging that is necessary to finally pierce a vole or grouse.
Often in science, we are unfortunately relegated to tangential, rather than direct, observation. To test the most obtuse ?multiple universe? theories, for example, we might be able to look for boundaries where universes affect each other, but never the universes themselves. We have never seen a single electron, but stipulate its existence because of how atoms interact and how chemical reactions progress. Likewise, we never saw this owl swoop from the sky to puncture a helpless squirrel, but the wing-prints tell the story, a story about survival. The owl?s wingtips etched a testament to this unseen battle in the Canadian snow.
Sitting happily atop the food chain, we are oblivious to the intricacies of animal survival until our attention focuses on it. It takes something striking to raise the minutia of daily subsistence to conscious wonderment. Sometimes it takes an impression of feathers, frozen, somber. It was the last thing the squirrel ever saw.
Image: Gavin Murphy
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=89f666f2515ad06d6ec50061aee50cc8
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Writing effective copy is both an art and a science.
It?s an art because it requires creativity, a sense of beauty and style ? a certain aptitude, mastery and special knowledge. Artistic advertising allows you to create content marketing that?s not just practical and persuasive, but awe-inspiring and breathtaking.
Writing effective copy is also a science, because it exists in the world of tests, trial and failure, improvement, breakthroughs, education and predictability. Scientific advertising allows you to develop an idea, and then test that idea. It?s how you know if your content marketing is working.
In bad copy, one (or both) of these elements are missing. In good copy, they are both abundant.
Read on, in the next few minutes we?ll explore ten examples of good copy living (and selling) out in the wild ?
The most basic approach to writing effective copy is to simply introduce the product without gimmick or style. It?s a simple presentation of the facts and benefits.
There is no story. There is no conversation. There is no ?sizzle? and no superlative claims.
Think Google Analytics.
That copy isn?t going to win any literary awards, but it will get the job done. It will give a prospect the information she needs to make an informed decision about the product.
Everyone loves a good story.
We like hearing about people ? especially interesting people. People who?ve suffered challenges we can relate to, and can tell us how they overcame those challenges.
And the moral of the story, coincidentally, is that your product was the catalyst to overcoming those odds.
You might find this storytelling technique in an email series, a landing page, or a short video. Whatever the format, you?ll get four basic traits in the story:
Your story doesn?t have to be dramatic. It just has to be interesting to your target audience. And this is where good research comes in.
John Caples calls conversational copy ?You and Me.?
In this style of copy, you write as if there is a conversation between two people: the copywriter and the prospect.
The language here would be no different than a salesman sitting down for lunch with a customer and talking through a sales presentation. It?s a straightforward approach that tries to identify with the reader:
I know how you feel. I felt the same way. That all changed when I found x, y and z.
Keep in mind that you don?t have to be a polished copywriter to create effective conversational copy. Often the sheer passion for what you?re trying to promote breathes off the page.
In fact, you can record a conversation about the product, transcribe that conversation, and use it as a rough draft.
When John Lennon asked us to imagine there was no heaven or hell, no countries, religion or war, he was using an effective tool of persuasion: imaginative copy.
As an advertiser, you can ask your target audience to imagine a painless way to lose weight, or what it would feel like to be a successful travel writer.
Imaginative copy typically begins with words like ?imagine,? ?close your eyes,? ?pretend for a moment,? ?discover,? or ?picture this? in the first paragraph of the text.
This is the concept behind AWAI?s Barefoot Writer presentation.
In this example, you are asked to imagine your life in a certain way ? to pretend what it would be like to live your dream, whatever that dream might be.
Then the copywriter paints a picture of achieving that ideal life through your product.
The fundamental premise behind long copy is ?The more you tell, the more you sell.? Ads that are long on facts and benefits will convert well.
Why?
Unlike a face-to-face conversation with a salesperson, a written ad has only one chance to convert a reader. If you get in front of the reader, you?ve got to lay it all out on the table.
Take the Google Analytics example above.
Page after page of facts and benefits are presented because the proposition isn?t simple ? typical prospects are going to be asking a lot of questions. Better to anticipate those questions, and answer them in the copy.
But when you?re following the basic rules of content marketing that works, remember that you don?t have to present all the facts and benefits up front.
You can leak the presentation over a period of weeks through an email autoresponder (like our Internet Marketing for Smart People course), or a registration-based content library (like the Scribe Content Marketing library).
In this way, you?re turning long copy into short, easily-digestible snippets.
Here at Copyblogger we love Ernest Hemingway and David Sedaris. But we aren?t so enamored by their writing abilities that we try to imitate their styles at the expense of teaching and selling.
Our goal isn?t to convince our audience that we?re smart ? it?s educating and selling with our copy.
As David Ogilvy once said, ?We sell, or else.? But we try to sell with style. We try to balance the killer with the poet.
Killer poet copy sees writing as a means to an end (making a sale), and the ad as an end in itself (beautiful design and moving story).
In other words, the killer poet combines style with selling. Creativity with marketing. Story with solution.
It?s a known fact ? third-party endorsements can help you sell products.
But it?s equally effective to position your selling argument as a direct communication between the company founder and his or her customer.
This down-to-earth approach levels the playing field. It telegraphs to the customer, ?See, the CEO isn?t some cold and remote figurehead interested in profit only. He?s approachable and friendly. He cares about us.?
Jeff Bezos of Amazon is a superb example:
Notice this letter is conversational as well as plain: it?s a simple statement of the facts and benefits between two people: Jeff and you.
Some copy will explain the ugly truth about product.
This approach doesn?t start with the jewels of your goods ? it?s going to start with the warts.
When selling a car, you might point out the endless repairs that need to be done ? thin brake pads, leaky transmission, busted sway bar, and inoperable dashboard ? before you introduce the leather seats, Monsoon stereo system, sun roof, brand-new tires and supercharged engine.
What you?re saying is this car will need a lot of TLC. You might even go as far as to say, ?Make no mistake here ? there?s much work to be done here.?
And here?s a curious thing: when you are honest and transparent about product weaknesses, the customer trusts you.
When the reader trusts you, they will be considerably more likely to believe you when you point out the good qualities of your product.
There are also times when you can make outlandish claims.
Claims like (these are actual ads):
But you can make only make extraordinary claims when you have the proof to back it up. The evidence can be in statistics, testimonials, or research ? or preferably all three.
The problem with superlative copy is that it?s often hard to make outlandish claims and not sound like you are hyping it up ? so use this type of copy sparingly.
Generally, it?s good to follow the ?Remove All Hype? policy.
Rejection copy turns conventional wisdom on its head. and tries to discourage people from being interested in your product.
This type of copy is a direct challenge to the reader that leverages the velvet rope approach ? the idea that only an exclusive set of people are invited to use a product.
The American Express Black Card is a good example here ? this card is reserved for the world?s wealthiest and most elite. The only way you can get your hands on one is if you are invited.
Similarly, consider the dating site Beautiful People. If you want to be part of this exclusive dating club made up of ?beautiful? people, then you have to be voted in by existing members:
Potential rejection startles readers ? they don?t expect to be turned down, especially not from an advertiser.
This approach also keys into our sense of wanting to belong. It generates that curiosity itch and activates our pride. We think, ?How dare they say I might not be good enough to get into their club? I?ll show them.?
In the end, great copy often combines several of these techniques into one ad.
The CEO of a company writes a conversational sales letter built around a story about his passion for his product (whether it is peaches or water pumps).
A copywriter writes a long rejection ad that explains why certain people are excluded from receiving an invitation to dine at an exclusive restaurant.
Or a Savile Row tailor writes a plain but elegant sales letter about his suits, which have been worn by kings and presidents.
This is the art and science of copywriting.
Can you share any examples of good copy you?ve secently out there in the wild?
Want more? Click here to learn how to write copy that converts.
About the Author: Demian Farnworth is Chief Copywriter for Copyblogger Media. Follow him on Twitter or Google+.
TweetSource: http://www.copyblogger.com/good-copywriting/
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