felony artus: 2013

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Bipartisan Group Slowed Down By Shutdown?

The political organization No Labels says its members are trying to move past partisan politics, and focus on solving problems for the country. But did the government shutdown and the debt ceiling debate slow down the No Labels movement? Host Michel Martin speaks once again with Congressmen Reid Ribble, R-WI., and Jim Cooper, D-TN.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. Coming up in this program, states and cities across the country are facing major budget problems and so some leaders there are saying it's time to slash public pensions. We'll talk about that in just a few minutes.

But first, we want to go back to the issue that dominated political debate in recent weeks, which is the government shutdown. With the debate over the shutdown and the debt ceiling now behind us, we wanted to check-in with a group of lawmakers who say they are trying to put problem solving before politics. The group calls itself No Labels. It's made up of political leaders from both sides of the aisle and at all levels of government. But we're joined again today by two of the groups members, both members of Congress. Congressman Jim Cooper is a Democrat. He represents parts of Central Tennessee in the 5th Congressional District there. He joins us from the studios of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Congressman Cooper, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining us once again.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM COOPER: Thank you. Good to be with you, Michel.

MARTIN: Also back with us, Congressman Reid Ribble. He is a Republican. He represents Wisconsin's 8th District, which includes Green Bay, and he's joining us by phone from his Capitol Hill office. Congressman Ribble, thank you so much for joining us once again, as well.

REPRESENTATIVE REID RIBBLE: Thank you, Michel. I'm happy to be here.

MARTIN: So let me start with you, Congressman Ribble, because the polls show that the Republican Party has taken the lion's share of the blame - if it's OK if I call it that - for what just happened on Capitol Hill. Are you hearing that from your constituents back home?

RIBBLE: It depends on the constituent, quite frankly. And by the way, I voted yes to end the shutdown last week. So I voted with the majority vote to see if we could put the government back to work and actually start to function again. And it is a mixed bag back home. I come from a district that is split almost 50-50. But I will tell you that the American people in Northeast Wisconsin were frustrated with the shutdown. They were frustrated for different reasons. But for the most part, the message that I was hearing from my constituents was to reopen the government and act like a grown up.

MARTIN: Now, you know, a majority of the Republican conference did not vote for the bill to reopen the government. And as I recall - maybe your account is different - but as I saw it, not a majority, but a number of the other No Labels Republicans also voted against the bill to reopen the government. I wondered if it was a tough vote for you, and at the end of the day, what was the tipping point for you? What was the deciding factor that made you vote for it?

RIBBLE: The deciding factor that made me vote for it was to hopefully put the government back into what's called regular order. The framework of the deal was that we would reopen the government. We'd lift the debt ceiling for a period of time, and then have our respective budget committees actually go with the House budget and the Senate budget to be brought into a conference to resolve the differences between those two budgets and then to appropriate to those levels. That's how the government is supposed to work. We shouldn't be having continuing resolutions. We ought to work like a real, functioning government, and this bill allows for that opportunity for the first time since I've been in Congress, and I've been in for three years.

MARTIN: Congressman Cooper, you're back in the district. And while it's true that on the whole Americans are likely to blame the Republicans for what just happened in recent weeks. They're not that pleased with Congress overall. In fact, there was one poll this month by the Associated Press that showed Congress had just a 5 percent approval rating. Are you experiencing that, as well? What kind of feedback are you getting from your constituents?

COOPER: Well, you're exactly right, Michel. Everybody suffered as a result of the shutdown. The whole nation was hurt. It's estimated to have cost about $24 billion in lost productivity. That's embarrassing for everybody, particularly for Congress. So I'm glad it's over and I think the message I'm hearing most from people is never let this happen again.

MARTIN: Can I ask each of you what kinds of conversations the two of you were having over the course of this thing? We keep hearing about a lot of the - well, the rhetoric that we heard from a lot of the leaders, let's say, was very hardball, very, you know, tough, you know, no ransom. There were a lot of words that people were using that people on each side didn't appreciate. And I just wanted to ask, were the two of you talking through all that?

COOPER: Absolutely. Reid is one of the nicest and most honorable of all members. He's relatively new to the Congress, but that can be a good thing, too, bringing a fresh perspective. The trouble's really with the extremes in both parties. One group on the Republican side called themselves the suicide caucus. That doesn't sound very friendly, does it? Then on the left, there were folks who didn't want to give an inch either. So Reid and I are centrists and I think that's a better way to govern.

MARTIN: Congressman Ribble, can I ask you the same question? Yeah.

RIBBLE: Yeah, yeah. Jim and I speak often. As well as - the thing that the American people didn't see, that was going on behind the scenes, was this interesting dynamic that I've not witnessed since I've been in Congress, where all these smaller groups that were getting - coming together, meeting in meetings and trying to work out areas of compromise and finding a way to move forward. I was having Democrats walking up to me on the House floor and saying, hey, I'd like to talk to you privately. And we'd step aside and they would say things to me like, how do we help you get out of this? How do we help Republicans save some face and move forward?

On the same hand, I was listening to Republicans asking Democrats the very same thing. So what you've got below the political aspect of this - and the leadership often is dealing in that political realm - regular members of Congress were trying to find a way forward because we knew this wasn't good for the country and we knew it wasn't a winning strategy. And we somehow had to prevent the damage so that you actually could have a functioning Congress after it was over. And so there were - it was very encouraging to me to see how many of these sidebar meetings were going on because there were a lot of them.

MARTIN: If you're just joining us, I'm speaking with Congressman Reid Ribble - he's a Republican - and Congressman Jim Cooper - he's a Democrat. They're both members of a group called No Labels. It's a no labels movement. It involves political leaders from both sides of the aisle and all levels of government. And they're trying to work toward more solution-based governance as opposed to focusing on mainly the politics. So Congressman Ribble, though, was there such a group called the suicide caucus, and if so, what did you - what kinds of conversations were you having with them?

RIBBLE: Well, yeah...

MARTIN: I mean, at some point did you all just say, look, guys, this isn't working?

RIBBLE: Yeah. No one came to me and talked to me about it. But I'm probably not the type of member that would necessarily be in that conversation or would be open to it. I spoke out fairly strongly about the strategy that the Republican conference have driven by some members in the U.S. Senate. I didn't feel this strategy was the right strategy. I felt it was a bad strategy to begin with. But there's been an interesting shift in how voters are looking at this, particularly Republican voters. They used to measure a person's conservativism - if I can use it that way - based on your voting record and based on what you were telling people back home.

And your agreement was some core principles that you believed in. Today, you're now being measured on how conservative you are based on whether you accept a particular strategy, and I think that that's really harmful. And so I spoke out fairly loudly in most of my conference meetings against this strategy, trying to move them toward regular order.

MARTIN: So going forward - I don't know - maybe, Congressman Cooper, you want to take this one. Going forward, what do you envision? Because on the one hand, you're hearing this kind of very kind of intense rhetoric. On the other hand, you're hearing from the voters that they didn't appreciate it, for the most part, except that the people who were mostly committed to this strategy seemed impervious to those kinds of pressures. What do you see going forward, and do you think relationships like yours will make a difference?

COOPER: You know, most people are actually pretty decent as individuals. The problem with Congress is when we get together, we behave terribly. So it's called a collective action problem. No Labels performed a very valuable service in having regular, daily meetings, both at breakfast and in the evenings so that members of both parties could get together and discuss things without pressure, without being scrutinized by leadership. And there's really a vacuum of leadership in both parties 'cause they were not talking to each other, so individual members had to do the talking.

We've got to somehow reduce the tension and focus more on substance. Reid's exactly right. To have your credentials judged on whether you endorse a certain political strategy doesn't make much sense. It should be principles-based because America was built on principles. So I'm hopeful that we've learned a lesson. Three months from now, people will still have this searing memory in their brains, and they will not repeat this tragedy. It's a shame for the whole country that the greatest nation on earth behaved this way. But No Labels and the problem-solve movement showed people you shouldn't be afraid to compromise. And we'll be ready, when the next crisis comes, to show the inner decency of the American people.

MARTIN: Well, Congressman Ribble, the president says that - in his remarks after the shutdown ended - that he agrees that the budget should not be handled this way. And he also put forward what has been another important public policy issue, which is immigration reform. And he also said this is something that he would like to see the country address, too, in the time that remains in his term. Do you think that that could actually happen? Because the argument of the people who were most committed to the shutdown strategy is that - their interpretation of events is that they didn't push hard enough, that they were too compromising, that other individuals in the party were too compromising. So do you hold out hope that these major policy initiatives may in fact be addressed?

RIBBLE: Well, I hold out hope that we can move forward together at some point. However, I think the rest of this fall, the remainder of the fall is going to centered around issues of the budget and how the conference committee's doing. Members are going to start weighing in. They're going to be providing ideas and having some say in that process, even if they're not on the conference committee. I think that that's where the focus is going to be in the fall. Maybe there'll be some other lighter legislative initiatives that take place, but I'm a little bit skeptical. And then, if immigration reform is not done by the end of this year, it is highly unlikely that it would be done next year because it's an election year.

And so once you get into the election year and people start shifting to rhetoric rather than policy, it makes it difficult for anything to move up that substance. If in fact President Bush, with an all-Republican House and Republican Senate, could not craft a Republican version of immigration reform that could pass the Congress, you can understand and accept the difficulties that will happen when you try to do this in a divided government who can't agree on the dollars. And so what I'm hopeful for is that we can show the American people that we can actually govern by getting a budget and appropriation system in place, which then may, in the future - maybe 12, 14 months from now - open up the door to begin to really address the immigration issue in this country. And I would be hopeful that we could.

MARTIN: Congressman Cooper, final thought from you.

COOPER: Michel, the key here is allowing the House representatives to work its will. Republicans have a few more members - 17 more than we do. But they shouldn't be able to control all the legislation that comes through the House. House members, Democrat and Republican, should be able to vote freely on issues of importance to the nation. Unfortunately, Republican leadership - just like previous Democratic leadership - has wanted this party only, and that's wrong. It's bad for the country. We need to open it up and let people vote on the important issues of the day.

MARTIN: Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee is a Democrat. Congressman Reid Ribble of Wisconsin is a Republican. They're both part of the group called No Labels. Thank you both so much for joining us.

COOPER: Thank you, Michel.

RIBBLE: Thank you, Michel.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=239706588&ft=1&f=1014
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Can You Click Your Way To Happiness? New Self-Help Service For The Stressed & Sad, Happify, Makes Big Claims

A new website catering to the stressed out, emotionally unfulfilled, and generally down called Happify is launching publicly today backed by $3.8 million in seed funding. Its goal? To bring the latest scientific advancements in positive psychology and positive neuroscience to consumers in the form of games, activities and exercises designed to “hack your inner self” and “optimize your well-being.” Or at least that’s how co-founder Ofer Leidner puts it.

Leidner previously co-founded and built several digital media businesses, most recently iPlay/Oberon Media (a casual games company, where he had executive roles), as well as Gate42 Technologies, a software startup in the customer relations space which he also co-founded. Meanwhile, Happify CTO and co-founder Andy Parsons has served as CTO at several companies including Outside.in (acquired by AOL), Bookish and Digital Railroad.

The two believe that technology and interactive experiences can help deliver more meaningful services, Leidner tells TechCrunch. These services can be “actually healthier, time well spent and lead users to a happier more fulfilling life,” he says. “The concepts innovate at the intersection of the science of happiness, quantified approach and human emotions.”

It may sound like a bunch of feel-good babble, but Happify isn’t alone in targeting those using online and mobile platforms to go after the modern-day self-help crowd. A number of companies have also attempted to reach this audience including: relaxation resource Calm.com, social motivation app Carrot, goal setting site Wishberg, dream-focused Everest, goal tracker and self-improvement app Lift, and many others.

The games and activities in Happify are based on concepts from a decade’s worth of science from UPenn, Harvard, and Stanford, Leidner explains. “Happify partnered with leading scientists in the field, engagement designers and marketers to create an experience that help develop emotional skills shown by the scientists to lead to greater wellbeing,” he says.

On the site, tracks have four parts that guide you through a week’s worth of content, all designed to boost your overall happiness by focusing on areas like: building self-confidence, fueling your career success, and coping better with stress.

I haven’t had long enough to test the service to confirm its claims here, though I’m a prime candidate for stress reduction right now. So far, all I’ve managed to do is walk through the introductory quiz and play a simple game where you pop hot air balloons with “positive” words on them, like “luck,” “jubilant,” “great,” “joy,” “hope,” etc. (My three-year old had a similar game, but it involved tapping the balloons to learn her colors instead.) I don’t feel happier or less stressed by this activity alone, but Happify takes time to have an effect, I’m told.

The company claims that 86% of the users showed an increase in their happiness score after 8 weeks of regular use, and the average time spent per user per session is about 20 minutes, with members returning 2-3 times per week to practice their emotional skills.

Call it the power of positive thinking.

I tend to raise a skeptical eyebrow at services like these. After all, companies like Lumosity claimed to be able to “train your brain” using games that make you smarter, and for years, consumers bought into its pseudo-science, which later was revealed to be largely bogus (despite what you may have read elsewhere.) Similarly, Happify is leveraging research, while arguably with good intentions, but in a way that’s not definitively quantifiable at this point in time.

Will the majority of users really become happier? Will an online solution mean users who are actually clinically depressed, or suffering from an emotional or mental disorder think they can fix their feelings, DIY-style? Will those it could potentially help, follow through with their coursework for the months it takes to have an effect? Would they have been better served by therapy?

There are a lot of questions which self-help resources, like Happify, can’t really answer. But even if you try and fail to achieve a happier state of being, it probably didn’t hurt you to give it a go.

That being said, it’s clearly not for everyone.

Happify is a freemium subscription service, with 20 four-part tracks, 10 of which are free. The additional eight are included with the Happify Plus membership option. Happify costs $14.95 per month, $6.95 for month for one year and $4.95/month for two years.

Investors in the startup’s seed round for Happify include Founder Collective, BtoV Partners, and angels including Eric Aroesty, Lewis Katz, Craig Kallman, Brian Bedol, David Kleinhandler, Founder Collective, BtoV Partners.

The New York-based company was founded in December 2011, and has a team of nine. The service has been in private beta for the past six months, to test its concepts with 100,000 members. The subscription plan was offered to users three months ago, and Leidner says it’s now seeing good initial growth in terms of paying subscribers.

Now that it has launched to the public, the company is focusing on its Happify iPhone app which it plans to bring to the App Store soon. In the meantime, interested users, the stressed and sad, can try Happify for themselves here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xADr1TPpbPw/
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Former Rep. Major Owens of Brooklyn dies at 77 (Providence Journal)

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It's Back To The Future For E-Cigarette Ads, At Least For Now

E-cigarettes are a booming business among smokers who want to light up indoors, smokers who want to quit and, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month, among children.

And right now, e-cigarette-makers have a tremendous amount of latitude in the U.S. to market those products as they choose, even on television, where traditional cigarette ads have been banned since 1971.

That's because the Food and Drug Administration has not yet determined whether e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine to the lungs through a battery-generated vapor rather than via tobacco smoke, should be considered tobacco products — with all the regulation that designation entails. The agency is expected to make its determination as early as this month.

In the meantime, "the marketing that you're seeing in these cigarettes now, it's the wild west," Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, tells NPR's Melissa Block on All Things Considered. "They're using celebrities, movies, television — it's just like getting into a time machine."

Perhaps some readers will remember those heady, hazy days, when TV was filled with ads touting cigarettes' health benefits, as the center of a refreshing set break for John Wayne — even as part of a wholesome breakfast:

Not surprisingly, today's e-cigarette ads look a lot slicker than their midcentury tobacco cousins. Actors Stephen Dorff and Jenny McCarthy crank up the sex appeal in their advertisements for Blu eCigs, owned by Lorillard, which manufactures Kent and Newport tobacco cigarettes. At the bar, McCarthy says, "I can whip out my Blu, and not worry about scaring that special someone away."

And FIN electronic cigarette's national television spot goes for a stylish smash-up of vintage and modern, complete with a retro-looking diner waitress.

Andries Verleur, co-founder of VMR Products, which makes V2 Cigs, told Bloomberg News that the industry does expect the FDA will eventually clamp down on e-cigarette advertising.

As Mitchell Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, told Shots, the jury's still out on the health effects of e-cigarettes. But, for now, as NJoy King put it in its TV ad that ran during the Super Bowl in February, "the most amazing thing about this cigarette is, it isn't one."

At least, not yet.

You can hear more about the e-cigarette industry in Melissa Block's story on Monday's All Things Considered.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/21/239275016/its-back-to-the-future-for-e-cigarette-ads-at-least-for-now?ft=1&f=
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Student kills teacher, hurts 2 boys at Nev. school

A Sparks Middle School student cries and is comforted after being released from Agnes Risley Elementary School, where some students were evacuated to after a shooting at SMS in Sparks, Nev. on Monday, October 21, 2013 in Sparks, Nev. A middle school student opened fire on campus just before the starting bell Monday, wounding two boys and killing a staff member who was trying to protect other children, Sparks police said Monday. The lone suspected gunman was also dead, though it's unclear whether the student committed suicide. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

A Sparks Middle School student cries with family members after being released from Agnes Risley Elementary School, where some students were evacuated to after a shooting at Sparks Middle School in Sparks, Nev. on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 in Sparks, Nev. A student at the Sparks Middle School opened fire on campus, killing a staff member who was trying to protect other children, police said Monday. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

Swat team members secure the scene near Sparks Middle School in Sparks, Nev., after a shooting there on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Authorities are reporting that two people were killed and two wounded at the Nevada middle school. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

Map locates Sparks, Nev., where at least 2 people are killed in a shooting at Sparks Middle School.; 1c x 2 inches; 46.5 mm x 50 mm;

A Sparks Middle School student, back to camera, cries with family members after being released from Agnes Risley Elementary School Monday Oct. 21, 2013, in Sparks Nev., after a shooting at Sparks Middle School. A student at the Sparks Middle School opened fire on campus, killing a staff member who was trying to protect other children, police said Monday. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — Students at a Nevada middle school were filing off buses and reuniting with friends on the playground after a weeklong vacation when the pop of gunfire shattered the morning calm. Children fled the campus for their lives before the first bell rang.

Police said a Sparks Middle School student was the lone gunman who injured two young classmates, killed himself and took the life of an 8th-grade math teacher who tried to stop the rampage. The teacher, former serviceman Michael Landsberry, 45, was being hailed for trying to protect students from a shooting that was witnessed by 20 or 30 children.

"We have a lot of heroes today, including our children ... and our fallen hero, an amazing teacher," Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez said.

Authorities did not provide a motive for the shooting, and it's not known where he got the gun. The 12-year-old wounded students were listed in stable condition. One was shot in the shoulder, and the other was hit in the abdomen.

Parents clung to their teary-eyed children at an evacuation center, while the community struggled to make sense of the latest episode of schoolyard violence to rock the nation less than a year after the massacre in Newtown, Conn. Sparks, a city of roughly 90,000 that sprung out of the railway industry, lies just east of Reno.

"It's not supposed to happen here," said Chanda Landsberry, the slain teacher's sister-in-law. "We're just Sparks — little Sparks, Nevada. It's unreal."

Investigators were still trying to piece together the chain of events that began around 7:15 a.m. Monday, 15 minutes before classes were set to begin for roughly 700 students in the 7th and 8th grades.

"As you can imagine, the best description is chaos," Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson said. "It's too early to say whether he was targeting people or going on an indiscriminate shooting spree."

It was no shock to family members that Landsberry — a married military veteran with two stepdaughters — would take a bullet.

"To hear that he was trying to stop that is not surprising by any means," said Chanda Landsberry. She added his life could be summed up by his love of family, his students and his country.

On his school website, Michael Landsberry posted a picture of a brown bear and took on a tough-love tone, telling students, "I have one classroom rule and it is very simple: 'Thou Shall Not Annoy Mr. L.'"

"The kids loved him," Chanda Landsberry said.

Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said Landsberry served two tours in Afghanistan with the Nevada National Guard and was well known in the school community.

"He proudly served his country and was proudly defending the students at his school," he said. The mayor praised the quick response from law officers who arrived at the scene within 3 minutes of the initial 911 calls to find the gunman with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

"They got it under control very quickly and shut down the scene," said Martini, who urged listeners on a local radio station hours after the shooting to be sure all guns in their homes are locked away safely.

"I couldn't understand how this kid got a gun," he said. "I'm sure his parents didn't give it to him."

Students from the middle school and neighboring elementary school were evacuated to the nearby high school, and classes were canceled. The middle school will remain closed for the week along with an adjacent elementary school.

"We came flying down here to get our kids," said Mike Fiorica, who came to the evacuation center to meet up with his nephew, a Sparks Middle school student. "You can imagine how parents are feeling. You don't know if your kid's OK."

The violence erupted nearly a year after a gunman horrified the nation by opening fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., leaving 26 dead. The Dec. 14 shooting ignited debate over how best to protect the nation's schools and whether armed teachers should be part of that equation.

The Washoe County School District, which oversees Sparks Middle School, held a session in the spring in light of the Connecticut tragedy to educate parents on what safety measures the district takes.

The district has its own 38-officer police department. No officers were on campus at the time of the shooting.

___

Associated Press writer Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas and news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York City contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-22-Middle%20School%20Shooting/id-87e041d23ca14e3aa832b42a6ad92625
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It was the best of tests, it was the worst of tests (Unqualified Offerings)

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BART, Unions Reach Tentative Deal To End Strike

With the BART transit system on strike, people line up to catch a ferry to Oakland, Calif., during the afternoon commute Monday in San Francisco.

Eric Risberg/AP

With the BART transit system on strike, people line up to catch a ferry to Oakland, Calif., during the afternoon commute Monday in San Francisco.

Eric Risberg/AP

The San Francisco Bay Area's main commuter train system and its unions reached a tentative agreement on a new contract Monday night, ending a crippling four-day strike.

Union officials announced the deal, which still requires approval from union members.

BART general manager Grace Crunican said trains would likely be running at full strength by the Tuesday afternoon commute.

"The public expects us to resolve our differences and to keep the Bay Area moving," she said.

Crunican added that there would be no announcements on the details of the accord, but she did say: "This deal is more than we wanted to pay."

BART is the nation's fifth-largest rail system, with an average weekday ridership of 400,000.

Workers walked off the job on Friday after talks broke down. Commuters endured jammed roadways and long lines for buses and ferries, as they looked for alternate ways around the region.

The contentious talks between BART and its two largest unions dragged on for six months— a period that saw two chaotic dayslong strikes, contentious negotiations and frazzled commuters wondering if they would wake up to find the trains running or not.

The key issues were salaries and worker contributions to their health and pension plans.

Talks began in April, three months before the June 30 contract expirations, but both sides were far apart. The unions initially asked for 23.2 percent in raises over three years. BART countered, offering a four-year contract with 1 percent raises contingent on the agency meeting economic goals.

The unions contended that members made $100 million in concessions when they agreed to a deal in 2009 as BART faced a $310 million deficit. And they said they wanted their members to get their share of a $125 million operating surplus produced through increased ridership.

But the transit agency countered that it needed to control costs to help pay for new rail cars and other improvements.

BART workers walked off the job on Friday after talks broke down. Commuters endured jammed roadways and long lines for buses and ferries, as they looked for alternate ways around the region.

BART workers also walked off the job in early July, shutting down train service for nearly five days.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/22/239472617/bart-unions-reach-tentative-deal-to-end-strike?ft=1&f=1001
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Monday, October 21, 2013

Johnny Depp Dyes His Hair Bleach Blonde: Hot or Not?

See a photo of Johnny Depp's new bleached blonde hair and tell Us whether the new look is is hot or not.

Credit: Jon Furniss/Invision for BFI/AP Images

Johnny Depp's got a new hairdo! The 50-year-old actor was a surprise guest at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival Awards on Saturday, Oct. 19, and looked nearly unrecognizable with bleached blonde hair.

Depp's brunette locks have been dyed a bright yellow color, but his roots remain dark. The Lone Ranger star, looking slim and handsome in a black tux, styled his new 'do by parting it in the middle.

PHOTOS: Johnny Depp's movie makeovers

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Depp attended the the awards at the Banqueting House to present Christopher Lee with the BFI Fellowship honor. "It's my great honor to be here," Depp said on stage. He starred alongside Lee, 91, in the Tim Burton-directed films Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow and Dark Shadows. Depp called the actor a "wonderful inspiration" and said it was "certainly a childhood dream come true to work" with Lee.

PHOTOS: Summer hair makeovers

Following a standing ovation, Lee said on stage, "Johnny, I don't know what to say. I didn't know you were going to be here. It is a very emotional moment for me as you can probably hear."

PHOTOS: 80s hunks then and now

Depp is known for drastically changing his appearance for movie roles, but no word yet if that's the reason for his latest hairdo. The actor is currently filming the movie adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical Into the Woods, in which he plays The Wolf alongside Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine and other stars in the fairy tale flick.

Vote in the poll above and tell Us: Do you think Depp's blonde hair is hot or not?

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-beauty/news/johnny-depp-dyes-his-hair-bleach-blonde-hot-or-not-20132110
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Facebook Adds Video And New Pricing To Its Mobile App Ads

Facebook just announced two changes to its mobile app install ads that should make them more appealing to advertisers.

First, the company says it will now support video in these ad units. “Video creative has proven to be an effective way to drive engagement in News Feed,” Facebook writes, and it makes sense for app ads since a video can be much more effective than screenshots and text for giving you a sense of the gameplay or user experience in an app. (Startups like Voxel and Agawi are trying to go beyond video by including interactive app demos in ads.)

Introducing video could also make the ads into bigger moneymakers for Facebook, since video advertisers usually pay a much higher CPM (cost per thousand impressions) than they do for other ad types. (I asked a Facebook spokesperson how video will affect the pricing, and I’ll update this post if I hear back. Update: The spokeserson told me, “These ads go into our auction just as any other ads. The type of creative (photo, video) doesn’t affect the pricing.”)

Facebook’s announcement blog post quotes John Clelland from DoubleDown Casino, an early tester of the video unit:

In our early tests, we found that using video in our mobile app ads resulted in increased install rates and decreased costs per install. We’ve seen tremendous success with mobile app ads and are looking forward to using video to make them even more engaging with rich media like video.

In addition, Facebook is also announcing that it will allow app advertisers to bid for ads on a cost-per-action basis, instead of having to pay based on clicks or impressions as they had before. Since the rationale behind the ads is to drive installs (and, thanks to new options, other actions like promoting a sale), Facebook is basically allowing advertisers to pay based on what they really care about.

The company says that internal tests showed that paying based on installs instead of clicks meant that advertisers were effectively paying 20 percent less for each install.

A few weeks ago, Facebook said these ads have driven 145 million installs this year.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/jW7mmr4ier8/
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High court to look at death row inmate with low IQ

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eleven years after the Supreme Court barred states from executing mentally disabled inmates, the justices said Monday they will take up a Florida case over how authorities determine who is eligible to be put to death.

The outcome could answer a question left unresolved by the court's 6-3 decision in Atkins v. Virginia, the 2002 case that spares the mentally disabled from the death penalty. The ruling essentially left it to states to decide whether an inmate is mentally disabled.

The case under review is an appeal of a Florida Supreme Court ruling that upheld the death sentence for Freddie Lee Hall, who scored just above the state's cutoff for mental disability as measured by IQ tests.

Hall was sentenced to death for killing Karol Hurst, a 21-year-old pregnant woman who was abducted leaving a grocery store in 1978.

Florida law prohibits anyone with an IQ of 70 or higher from being classified as mentally disabled, regardless of other evidence to the contrary. Hall's scores on three IQ tests ranged from 71 to 80.

Florida is one of nine death penalty states with a strict IQ limit, said Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente. The others are: Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.

Pariente voted with the majority to uphold Hall's sentence, but noted there is no national consensus on how to determine mental disability.

Hall's case has bounced around the Florida courts for decades. In 1989, the Florida Supreme Court threw out Hall's original death penalty and ordered a new sentencing hearing. A judge then resentenced Hall to death, but declared he was mentally disabled. That took place before the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said executing a mentally disabled inmate violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and before Florida passed a law setting the IQ limit.

When Hall later filed another appeal, the same judge ruled he was not mentally disabled because his scores on IQ tests topped 70.

Hall has been in prison more than 35 years, almost all of it under a death sentence. He and another man, Mack Ruffin, were prosecuted for forcing Hurst to drive from a Pantry Pride parking lot in central Florida's Leesburg to a wooded area, where she was sexually assaulted and shot to death. The pair also were convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy. Ruffin also initially was sentenced to death, but his penalty later was changed to life in prison.

The case will be argued early next year.

The case is Hall v. Florida, 12-10882.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-21-US-Supreme-Court-Mental-Disability/id-ee835e19b0cc4d8fac18ac604e5b6fc1
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Raymond becomes major hurricane as it nears Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Raymond strengthened to a Category 3 storm early Monday and threatened to hurl heavy new rains onto a sodden region of Mexico's Pacific Coast already devastated by last month's Tropical Storm Manuel.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the newly formed storm had nearly stalled offshore, about 165 miles (265 kilometers) west-southwest of Acapulco, and it was expected to move a little closer to the coast by Tuesday before veering back out to sea on Wednesday.

Mexican authorities rushed to deploy emergency crews and said they were considering ordering evacuations of low-lying areas. About 10,000 people already were living away from their homes a month after Manuel inundated whole neighborhoods and caused landslides that buried much of one village. It left behind drenched hillsides that posed serious landslide risks.

David Korenfeld, head of Mexico's National Water Commission, said officials were pinning their hopes on a cold front moving from the north that could help steer Raymond away from the coast.

"The cold front coming down is what makes it (Raymond) turn to the left, but that is a model," Korenfeld said. "If that cold front comes down more slowly, this tropical storm ... can get closer to the coast."

Forecasters said that even if Raymond stays offshore, the storm could drop heavy rain and cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides along the south-central Mexican coast.

"There will be rain for the next 72 hours along the Pacific coast — very heavy rain, torrential rain," Korenfeld said.

Raymond's center was about 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southwest of the beach resort of Zihuatanejo and it had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph) early Monday.

A hurricane warning was in effect from Tecpan de Galeana, up the coast from Acapulco, north to the port of Lazaro Cardenas. A tropical storm warning was posted from Acapulco to Tecpan.

Authorities in the southern state of Guerrero, where Manuel caused about 120 deaths from flooding and landslides in September, closed seaports, set up 700 emergency shelters and urged residents in risk areas to take precautions. Officials were expected to decide soon whether to order more evacuations, including from low-lying areas of Acapulco that flooded during Manuel.

The state cancelled classes in most coastal communities west of Acapulco, including Zihuatanejo. Schools are often used as emergency shelters in Mexico.

The potential for damage from such rains is high. About 50 dams in the area are still over capacity, and officials began releasing water to make room for expected rainfall.

Some villages high in the mountains of Guerrero were still without electricity and phone service following Manuel.

In Zihuatanejo, near the Ixtapa resort, authorities sent emergency personnel into low-lying areas to warn people to seek safer ground, said Miguel Quiroz, a local Red Cross dispatcher.

In Barra de Potosi, a beach area just outside Zihuatanejo, a light rain began falling Sunday but tourists were largely undisturbed by the storm's proximity.

"We've got bookings coming in, people are coming in," said London native Les Johnson, an employee at the Our House bed and breakfast. "There's people on the beach, it's quite nice ... there's no problem at the moment."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/raymond-becomes-major-hurricane-nears-mexico-091659556.html
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Banksy Unveils A Ronald McDonald Sculpture In NYC

'Better Out Than In' Continues to Unfold

Posted by: Trent on October 16, 2013|

On Monday we learned that mysterious street artist Banksy orchestrated an art stunt on the streets of NYC over the weekend that no one knew what was really going on until after it was all said and done. Today we get to see the latest art stunt that Banksy has unleashed upon the Big Apple as his ongoing Better Out Than In art residency in NYC rolls on. Banksy has been spray painting art pieces all over NYC in the past couple of weeks but has, today, unveiled a new sculpture as part of his art residency. Ronald McDonald is the subject of Banksy‘s latest art piece, check it out in full below and see what Banksy has come up with now.

For the 16th day of “Better Out Than In,” Banksy has tackled a familiar subject: corporate business and McDonald’s in particular. Dubbed Shoeshine, the new piece is the controversial street artist’s latest commentary on big business and depicts “the powerful figure of Ronald McDonald waving impassively as his ridiculously oversized clown shoes are buffed to a fine shine.” Appearing today in the South Bronx, Shoeshine is set to make its way to a different McDonalds around the city at lunchtime for the next week as its fiberglass shoe is shined by a “real live boy.”

The sculpture is impressive, particularly since it comes with a real live “boy”. It’s clear that Banksy has quite a few tricks up his sleeve and he is clearly having fun with this project. I’m sure how it works logistically to haul this huge sculpture all over town but I do like the concept. I must admit, I’m really jealous that NYC is getting all of the fun. I doubt that Banksy will bring his show to LA anytime soon but even tho it’s not as fun as being there, getting to watch this art residency unfold online is kind of neat. Love it or hate it, Banksy is really turning the art world on its head. It looks like Banksy is trying to be the Andy Warhol of our generation. I think he’s doing a pretty decent job thus far.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pinkisthenewblog/~3/_QnGDwLXz6M/banksy-unveils-a-ronald-mcdonald-sculpture-in-nyc
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What To Know About The Tentative JPMorgan Deal

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approximately 9:00 a.m. ET.

JPMorgan has reached a tentative $13 billion settlement with the Department of Justice over its questionable mortgage practices leading up to the U.S. financial crisis. Renee Montagne talks to NPR business correspondent Chris Arnold about what's known so far about the terms of the deal.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=238899520&ft=1&f=3
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Making Pledge Drives Not Just Bareable, But Memorable Too

Ok, ok, we know the fall comes as a mixed blessing for many public radio listeners. You love the crisp air and brightly colored leaves, pumpkins and warm drinks. But, even though you know the importance of donating to your local public radio station, you don't really love pledge drive week. And who can blame you?

But here at NPR and at our Member Stations all across the country, we are always looking for better ways to inspire and encourage you to do what you already want to do: to support your local public radio station.

Victor Holliday, writer and producer of NPR fundraising promotional spots, in the studio.

Greg Gavin/NPR

Victor Holliday, writer and producer of NPR fundraising promotional spots, in the studio.

Greg Gavin/NPR

To give you a glimpse into one way this happens, we caught up with NPR Associate Producer Victor Holliday, who is a writer and producer of fundraising promotional spots. If you hear Renee Montagne or Nina Totenberg on your station during pledge drive week talking about why it's important to support public radio, chances are, Holliday put that audio clip together.

A very charismatic and passionate spirit, Holliday is friendly and optimistic. His charming personality knows no enemies and is reflective in each promotional spot he creates.

We caught up with Holliday just after he worked on promos for stations to use during their fall pledge drive period to ask him how he makes this work fun – for him and for you, the listener.

This is NPR: Tell us what you do at NPR?

Victor Holliday: I am writer/producer for fundraising here at NPR in the Programming department... We create the fundraising spots to help stations raise money around the programming that we provide.

As a fundraising producer, I really create content for use by all stations which makes the job very challenging in a way, because our stations are different in different markets and so I'm always aware that what I'm creating must be as effective in Mississippi as it would be in San Francisco. So I have to think in a very inclusive and broad way, very often to create something that would be of use to the greatest number of stations.

How do you support Member Stations during their pledge drives?

VH: First, I write scripts, record talent, and mix and create wonderful pieces that will stimulate giving during fundraising campaigns.

The other huge part of it is that I traffic fundraising versions of all of NPR's acquired programs. During National Coordinated Week [one week in the spring and the fall where many Member Stations hold their pledge drives], we ask our flagship shows: Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and all other acquired programs to slightly alter their clocks to give stations the opportunity to come in the programs and do fundraising without disturbing the integrity of the actual show.

Coming up with new ideas for promotional spots requires creativity, what inspires you?

VH: Well I think in a very broad context, it comes from our mission statement, and that's a thing I live with foremost in my mind each day. Respect for the individual, a sense of spirit, a sense of storytelling that actually sort of weaves and brings about a sense of community.

I know at the close of the day what we do is meant to heal the world. The information we provide, the stimulating news coverage that we do, and the very in-depth human stories that can help somebody in one part of the world understand somebody else in another part of the world who they may not know or might not ever reach but whose story may resonate with them. So when I'm creating [promos], I am thinking about what would resonate with the greatest number of people.

Do you create a theme for each pledge drive season?

“ When I'm creating [promos], I am thinking about what would resonate with the greatest number of people.

VH: Yes we do. We are aware of certain key things that happen during the year, so we use those to point us in a certain direction so we are right on target message wise to help support stations where they are and have a sense of universal flow for what's on people mind at a particular time.

Who is your favorite talent to work with?

VH: I think my favorite talent to work with has been our [international] reporters. First of all, the work that they do for us can be such a lonely road for them and a very dangerous one.

The [international] reporters are so incredibly passionate about the work they do. These people are extremely good at what they do but really totally driven in a very passionate and spiritual way about this work, and it's something that comes through in an actual reporting.

To have people who are compassionate journalists and savvy at what they do, and to really be the best at what they do in getting these stories is really just a jewel that we can really never appreciate enough; because these are trustworthy voices in foreign place.

What has been your most memorable fund drive promotion?

VH: My most memorable [fund drive] happens to be my latest. I was challenged to really think a little outside the box more, which is what I try to do, and tell the story of who we are and why it is important and make it fun for the listener.

I actually wrote a fundraising poem to tell the listeners... how special they actually are and how they inspire us to continue to do the work that we do. NPR's Carl Kasell and David Greene each took a turn to voice this promo poem:

The second one is a 'pitch from the backseat,' of sorts. People love the voice of children on the radio because their experience comes through so clearly. We just love children. It's something about the voice of a child that gets your attention. We want to know what they have to say. So I did a piece inspired by Art Linkletter's show Kids Say the Darndest Things, which was later also done by Bill Cosby.

So I got two small boys, who I think six and 11 are their ages. They are the sons of our Correspondent Michele Kelemen. I asked her... if they could spend some time with me, and I could get some thoughts on what they actually hear as backseat listeners.

And I called this spot a "Pitch from the Backseat." We [talked] about what interest them, what they actually hear in the car when the radio is on and the spot ended up being hilarious. I pulled some clips from two of our fun shows, which both the boys mentioned that were just bright moments for them... Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!... and also Car Talk.

You really want to bring something that's going to stimulate people and maybe even surprise them and remind them of memorable moments that happened.

Kendra Gaskin is a fall 2013 intern with NPR Marketing, Branding and Communications.

Emily Hellewell contributed to this post.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thisisnpr/2013/10/18/236962107/making-pledge-drives-not-just-bareable-but-memorable-too?ft=1&f=
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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Women, STEM and stereotypes

Public release date: 16-Oct-2013
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Contact: Andrea Boyle Tippett
aboyle@udel.edu
302-831-1421
University of Delaware

UD researcher gets to the root of why women leave STEM fields

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Women who are the most invested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM) are also the ones who are most likely to leave them.

Part of it may have to do with a well-studied phenomenon called stereotype threat. But the University of Delaware's Chad Forbes is trying to help change that.

The assistant professor of psychology was recently awarded a multi-year, $791,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue work he's been passionate about since childhood.

Only a third of doctoral degrees in STEM are awarded to women, and just 25 percent of STEM positions are occupied by females. Those in them are more likely than men to report job dissatisfaction.

"It's a complex problem and there are no easy answers," Forbes explained.

That hasn't stopped him.

Combining neuroscience with social psychology, he's trying to understand how stereotype threat impacts women and minorities, why they leave STEM fields and how that trend can be reversed.

Stereotype threat happens because our society tends to reinforce stereotypes, such as "women are not good at math."

For many females, they encounter this stereotype in the world and often reflect upon it during stressful, anxiety-ridden situations, like when taking a test or giving a presentation.

"They think: 'Man, why I am sweating so much? This is a stupid test,'" Forbes said. "It's taking up precious cognitive space that is otherwise needed to perform well on tougher math problems."

These "situational stressors" can become a detriment to their performance, inadvertently reinforcing for a woman that she, like other women, is not good at math. Her brain processes that information and stores it, only to have it come back up again the next time she's in the academic hot seat.

Something as simple as having a female mark her gender before a diagnostic math test can lower her score. It may set into motion the stereotype threat phenomenon, bringing forth all the negative experiences and emotions she has stored away from previous situations in STEM.

Have her mark it after the test, and her scores are on par with males, said Forbes, recently called a "Rising Star" by the American Psychological Association.

Studies in his lab show that women overwhelmingly remember negative feedback in STEM over positive.

In his studies, women took a diagnostic math test on a computer, in which the font providing them feedback on their incorrect answers was different from the font used on feedback for their correct ones.

The women remembered the "wrong answer" font in a memory test a week later much better than the "right answer" font. The effect was strongest in the women who answered in a survey that math was important to their identity.

This laid the foundation for his current NSF-funded work in which he is trying to answer questions like: Do women who highly value STEM process stereotype threat situations differently? Do learned aversions interfere with a woman's ability to positively identify with STEM? Can we teach women how to avoid these effects?

Forbes will rely on many of the same techniques he has used in the past, but will also be looking at different genetic markers and activity in particular regions of women's brains in order to delve deeper.

He wants to know how different parts of the brain are talking to each other and whether some women are better at shutting off or tuning out the negativity than others.

Because clearly, the stereotype that women aren't good at math just can't be true.

"Lots of women make it," Forbes said.

"Who knows, this could be completely wrong but that's why you do the science. We are just getting started."

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