As for her description I was wondering if she could be the one that loves too easily but also has a dark side to her. If it's not okay I'll change it.
Password: daebak!
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/IXiK0Yq-8gI/viewtopic.php
Believe it or not, the Music app in Windows 8 hasn't let users easily search for music from within the app itself -- they've had to search using OS-level tools. Microsoft is mending that gap in logic with the June update to its built-in jukebox software. The media play now lets you search for songs on both your PC and Xbox Music through an in-app button. And if you don't have any local tunes, you won't have to sign in to start listening -- Music now lets you stream 15 tracks through Xbox Music's ad-supported free tier without using an account. While there aren't other big upgrades to the app, what's here is enough to justify a trip to the Windows Store for the new version.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Source: Windows Experience Blog
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/WDtYv0qHso8/
By Brent Lang
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - So much for bad buzz, because "World War Z" is not the box-office disaster that some observers had gleefully speculated it would be.
The zombie thriller grossed a solid $3.6 million in late night showings Thursday night, according to studio estimates. The Brad Pitt-led cast of thousands racked up those numbers in 2,600 screens. It expands to more than 3,600 screens on Friday and is projected to generate roughly $50 million over the weekend.
The midnight numbers fall short of those generated by blockbusters like "Man of Steel" and "Iron Man 3," but they compare favorably with "The Great Gatsby," which earned $3.25 million in its late night showings on its way to a $50 million opening.
Despite the hot start, "World War Z" is not expected to be the weekend's top film. That honor will likely go to "Monsters University." The 3D prequel to 2001's "Monsters Inc." is projected to matriculate with around $70 million. If tracking holds, that will give Pixar its 14th consecutive first place opening.
Still it's a remarkable turn around for the $190 million-budgeted "World War Z," which had been plagued with reports of cost-overruns and expensive re-shoots, including an 11th hour decision to cook up a new ending.
The global backdrop of the zombie pandemic film appeared to be paying off as well. "World War Z" grossed a total of $5.7 million internationally on Thursday from territories like Korea, Argentina and Australia.
"World War Z" finds Pitt as a United Nations bureaucrat racing around the world in the hopes of stopping a virus that's turning the population into flesh-eating members of the undead. Reviews have been decent with the film earning a respectable 68 percent "fresh" rating on the critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/box-office-brad-pitts-world-war-z-earns-224647346.html
In this Thursday, June 13, 2013 photo, Afghan National Army soldiers march in Sangin district of Kandahar province southern Afghanistan. One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict. That question is especially pressing here in this border region where insurgents regularly ambush government forces and control parts of the countryside. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
In this Thursday, June 13, 2013 photo, Afghan National Army soldiers march in Sangin district of Kandahar province southern Afghanistan. One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict. That question is especially pressing here in this border region where insurgents regularly ambush government forces and control parts of the countryside. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
In this Thursday, June 13, 2013 photo, An Afghan National Army soldier aims his weapon, in Sangin district of Kandahar province southern Afghanistan. One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict. That question is especially pressing here in this border region where insurgents regularly ambush government forces and control parts of the countryside. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
In this Thursday, June 13, 2013 photo, Afghan National Army soldiers stand in position, in the Sangin district of Kandahar province southern Afghanistan. One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict. That question is especially pressing here in this border region where insurgents regularly ambush government forces and control parts of the countryside. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
In this Wednesday, June 12, 2013 photo, Al Hajj Malak Nazir, director of the provincial council, speaks during an interview in Jalalabad east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Nazir is convinced the Taliban will keep fighting after Afghanistan's army and police shortly take control for security around the country from the U.S.-led NATO coalition, but he is equally confident they will not get very far. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
In this Saturday, June 15, 2013 photo, Afghan National Army soldiers attend their graduation ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict. That question is especially pressing here in this border region where insurgents regularly ambush government forces and control parts of the countryside. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) ? One of the most significant turning points in one of America's longest and costliest wars is imminent: Afghanistan's fledgling security forces are taking the lead for security nationwide, bringing the moment of truth on the question of whether they are ready to fight an insurgency that remains resilient after nearly 12 years of conflict.
Nowhere is that question more pressing than in this city near the Pakistani border, which is the capital of Nangarhar province. In the province, which has a predominantly Pashtun population, the ethnic group that makes up the Taliban, insurgents regularly ambush government forces, blow up the offices of humanitarian organizations, and control parts of a countryside that has seen a spike in opium poppy cultivation.
Nangarhar is considered so dangerous that foreign military forces still handle security in more than half of its 22 districts.
That will change, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai declares ? in an announcement expected soon ? that Afghan forces are taking over security around the country and U.S. and other foreign forces will move entirely into a supporting, backseat role. At that point, the remaining districts in Nangarhar, along with other hotspots still in the hands of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, will become the Afghan troops' full responsibility.
Residents of Jalalabad, a bustling trading hub and agricultural center on the junction of two rivers, worry about whether the Afghan forces can keep them safe from an insurgency that they say is equipped and trained in neighboring Pakistan. They also fear that the Afghan forces still don't have enough heavy weapons or firepower.
"Our main concern is that for more than 10 years the international community managed to do nothing and that they are now trying to make us strong. It's too little too late," said Lal Mohammad Durrani, a member of the Nangarhar provincial council. "We need more weapons."
NATO training since 2009 has dramatically ramped up the Afghan National Security Forces, bringing it up from 40,000 men and women six years ago to about 352, 000 today. Once the transition is announced, coalition troops will move entirely into a supporting role ? training and mentoring, and in emergency situations providing the Afghans backup in combat, mainly in the form of airstrikes and medevac.
That is to pave the way for international forces ? currently numbering about 100,000 troops, including 66,000 Americans ? to leave. By the end of the year, the NATO force will be halved. At the end of 2014, all combat troops will have left and will replaced, if approved by the Afghan government, by a much smaller force that will only train and advise. President Barack Obama has not yet said how many soldiers he will leave in Afghanistan along with NATO forces, but it is thought that it would be about 9,000 U.S. troops and about 6,000 from its allies.
In a series of wide-ranging interviews with Afghan and western military officials, experts and analysts, opinions are mixed as to the state of readiness of the Afghan forces ? although nearly all agree they are far better now than they were when the NATO training mission began.
British Lt. Gen. Nick Carter, the deputy commander of coalition forces, said the transition to take the lead in security "represents a significant achievement for the Afghan security forces." But, he added, "That said we will require and need to deliver for the Afghans some fairly significant support for a while to come."
Already, Afghans now carry out 90 percent of military operations around the country. They are in the lead in security in 312 districts nationwide, where 80 percent of Afghanistan's population of nearly 30 million lives ? and only 91 districts remain for them to take over ? including 12 in Nangarhar.
The transition comes at a time when violence is at levels matching the worst in 12 years, fueling some Afghans' concerns the forces aren't ready.
"We thought this summer would not be easy for the Afghan security forces, but it was not expected to be like this. We have roadside bombs, we have suicide attacks, organized attacks," said Jawed Kohistani, an Afghan political and military analyst. "It is a mistake to transition this quickly."
Jalalabad's relatively peaceful tree-lined streets are crowded with checkpoints, manned by often edgy Afghan army and police worried about car bombs. Insurgents use the province's mountain passes and valleys to sneak in from neighboring Pakistan, where they retain safe havens in that country's lawless Pashtun-dominated tribal belt. Jalalabad is also just a 3-hour drive through craggy passes and gorges to Kabul, which has seen a spate of spectacular suicide attacks in recent weeks.
Al Hajj Malak Nazir ? the local head of the Afghan High Peace Council, a body created in an attempt to reach out to the Taliban ? said that even though he considers Afghan forces to be under-equipped, he believes they will eventually prevail over the insurgency.
"The Taliban can't take all of Afghanistan. After transition they could take a district, but they won't be able to keep it," he said. That. He added, is why he has been trying to convince the Taliban to enter negotiations.
"This is a very good opportunity for the Taliban to say they will stop fighting. But they won't," he said. "The Americans are now saying they are leaving, but the Taliban never say they are leaving."
Few believe the Taliban will keep promises they have made in the past to stop fighting when foreign military forces are gone. They have not stopped in any province where Afghan forces have taken the lead.
They have also rebuffed numerous attempts to start peace talks in the past year and have instead intensified a campaign that mostly targets urban centers and government installations.
There is overall agreement, however, they don't have much support outside their traditional areas and can't win militarily against the Afghan forces.
"I think, if the Taliban tried to come back, it would have to come back in a very different way. It would have to come back and participate politically," Lt. Gen. Carter said. "It is my sense that civil society, which is the future of this country, absolutely would not put up with sorts of standards that were here 15 years ago. And, therefore, my sense is that ultimately it is the politics that will determine this, and not the violence that determines this."
On battlefields around the country, Afghan forces plan and carry out operations on their own, with little help from coalition forces. They are often effective, but still need work on logistics and effectively using the weapons they have.
Casualty figures are indicative of the fight. More than 330 Afghan army soldiers have died so far this year, according to a tally by the Associated Press.
Last year, more than 1,200 Afghan soldiers died, compared to more than 550 in 2011, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution. By comparison, coalition casualties have declined as they take forces off the battlefield ? 81 so far this year, 394 in 2012 and 543 in 2011.
About 1,481 militants were reported to have been killed by coalition and Afghan forces so far this year, compared with close to 3,000 militants for all of last year. The NATO command does not issue reports on the number of insurgents its troops have killed, and Afghan military figures, from which the AP compiles its data, cannot be independently verified.
"There is no doubt about the ability of the Afghan national army and police. The nation should trust them, and they do," said the Afghan Army Chief of Staff Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi.
The veteran commander rattled off a series of recent victories over insurgents, including kicking them out of parts of eastern Nuristan that they had controlled for about two years.
"There wasn't a single bit of support from the international community. Only the Afghan national army and national police were able to do that and they did it," he said.
But he grudgingly agreed Afghan troops still need help. That includes the use of coalition air power ? including medical evacuations ? help with locating roadside bombs and further developing the armed forces. They also need to bring down an attrition rate of 3 to 4 percent a month, which means NATO now has to help train 50,000 new recruits a year.
The U.S. has said that Afghanistan will get the weapons it requires to fight an insurgency, including a large fleet of MI-17 transport helicopters, cargo planes and ground support airplanes. The heaviest weapon the Afghan army will have is a howitzer.
"The force is designed according to the threat, and the threat here is an insurgency. The design of the ANSF is appropriate to counter that threat," said German Gen. Hans-Lothar Domrose, the commander of the NATO force that oversees ISAF.
The Afghans, on the other hand, want battle tanks and modern fighter jets ? which they are unlikely to get given their cost and the training required to use them.
The war has already proven very costly
Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko last April estimated that the ANSF has so far cost the American taxpayer $54 billion. The overall cost of the war is more difficult to estimate, but for America alone the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the price at about $650 billion through the end of 2013.
____
Follow Patrick Quinn on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/PatrickAQuinn
Associated Press
Hampton Creek Foods, a food tech startup backed by Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund, is getting ready to expand beyond its initial product Beyond Eggs ??though it's not leaving eggs behind entirely. The company recently released the YouTube video embedded below, which gives a brief glimpse of its upcoming scrambled egg replacer. And founder/CEO Josh Tetrick told me that he just got off-stage at TEDxEdmonton, where he gave the full demo.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/h-BDQoGRzGg/
As a result, a lot of time and frustration can occur early in a new employee's career within the organization, which can lead to an early engagement deficit or even increased turnover. "Resource, noun: A source of supply, support, or aid, esp. Till, 1930's, there was no such department called "personnel management" that was considered necessary to cater to the needs and welfare of the labor society. With the help of employee years of service awards, companies are able to increase the time that employees remain with the company and thus improve the rate of retention of their staff. Indirect influence also includes selecting and employing people who have necessary skills and who value the kinds of rewards available in the organization.
Institute of Employment and Labor Relations - Affiliated with the University of Illinois, this institute offers an MHRIR, which stands for Master of Human Resource and Industrial Relations. Drawing (physically) an idea or concept out on a piece of paper or similar writing tool. Thus, people believe more on short-term incentives than investment in intangibles of talent management. Additionally, there are companies that can be able to handle such tasks efficiently within a very short time. This is the beginning of the courtship, to see if each party's expectation is similar.
In the highly competitive world of business, companies that can provide high quality products and services are likely to expand and grow despite the current economic crisis. In these dealings he does not represent himself or a department; he represents a particular key executive and a company. com which would be really good in providing you location specific job information in the field of human resources. But the one stream in business education that hasn't lost any of its sheen is human resource. The informal investigation can be used primarily to determine if there is an issue that needs to be addressed.
How can they guarantee that they do not make terrible decisions when choosing the right employee to stay with their corporation. It is also the task of the human resource department to fix up few questions that might be asked to the interviewee which might help to determine the right candidate. If you're a business owner or site manager and you don't know, you might want to go down there and find out. One of the most common provisions in this kind of contract is the confidentiality clause or agreement. In this economic climate organizations are extremely reluctant to take on any more overhead than they absolutely need, but sometimes doing without does more damage than taking on the extra cost.
About the Author:
best human resources software, hr ?olutions (http://www.Humanresourceki.com), resource planning softwareEntr?preneurs an? emplo?ers ha?? to ??al with the performan?e ??sue?.
Human Resou?c? Management (?R?) is an e??an??v? term, c?ver?ng ? broa? spectrum of fun?t?ons rel?ting to th? ?mploym?nt r?l?tionshi? ?n? st?
Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Straightforward-Solutions-In-Human-Resource---The-Facts/5018818
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Using voice commands to send text messages and emails from behind the wheel, which is marketed as a safer alternative for drivers, actually is more distracting and dangerous than simply talking on a cellphone, a new AAA study found.
Automakers have been trying to excite new-car buyers, especially younger ones, with dashboard infotainment systems that let drivers use voice commands do things like turning on windshield wipers, posting Facebook messages or ordering pizza. The pitch has been that hands-free devices are safer because they enable drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.
But talking on a hands-free phone isn't significantly safer for drivers than talking on a hand-held phone, and using hands-free devices that translate speech into text is the most distracting of all, researchers found. Speech-to-text systems that enable drivers to send, scroll through, or delete email and text messages required greater concentration by drivers than other potentially distracting activities examined in the study like talking on the phone, talking to a passenger, listening to a book on tape or listening to the radio.
The greater the concentration required to perform a task, the more likely a driver is to develop what researchers call "tunnel vision" or "inattention blindness." Drivers will stop scanning the roadway or ignore their side and rearview mirrors. Instead, they look straight ahead, but fail to see what's in front of them, like red lights and pedestrians.
"People aren't seeing what they need to see to drive. That's the scariest part to me," said Peter Kissinger, president and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the group's safety research arm. "Police accident investigative reports are filled with comments like the 'looked, but did not see.' That's what drivers tell them. We used to think they were lying, but now we know that's actually true."
There are about 9 million cars and trucks on the road with infotainment systems, and that will jump to about 62 million vehicles by 2018, AAA spokeswoman Yolanda Cade said, citing automotive industry research. At the same time, drivers tell the AAA they believe phones and other devices are safe to use behind the wheel if they are hands-free, she said.
"We believe there is a public safety crisis looming," Cade said. "We hope this study will change some widely held misconceptions by motorists."
AAA officials who briefed automakers, safety advocates and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the study's findings said they want to limit in-vehicle, voice-driven technologies to "core driving tasks."
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was skeptical. "We are extremely concerned that it could send a misleading message, since it suggests that hand-held and hands-free devices are equally risky," the association said in a statement.
The automakers' trade group said the AAA study focuses only on the mental distraction posed by using a device and ignores the visual and manual aspects of hand-held versus hands-free systems that are integrated into cars.
Other studies have also compared hand-held and hands-free phone use, finding they are equally risky or nearly so. But a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of drivers' real world driving experiences found hand-held phone use was less safe than hands-free.
Researchers at the University of Utah who conducted the study for the AAA measured the brainwaves, eye movement, driving performance and other indicators of 32 university students as they drove and performed a variety of secondary tasks, ranging from listening to music to sending emails. Cameras were mounted inside the car to track drivers' eye and head movements. A device that drivers pressed was used to record their reaction time to red and green lights introduced to their field of vision. Drivers were fitted with a special skull cap to record their brain activity.
The students were tested while not driving, while driving in a simulator and while driving a car on a 3-mile loop through a suburban Salt Lake City neighborhood with stop signs and stoplights. A researcher with a backup braking system accompanied the students in the test car.
One reason using voice commands is so much more distracting for drivers, even though they aren't using their hands, is that they often require more concentration than simply speaking to another person, said University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, an expert on cognitive distraction and lead author of the study. Talking to a computer requires far greater precision than talking to a person, he said. Otherwise, "Call home" may get you Home Depot.
Synthetic computer voices can be harder to understand than human voices, also requiring more attention. The computers used in the study were exceptionally high-fidelity systems that made no errors, but the systems in cars aren't as good, Strayer said. He said that means the study probably underestimates the concentration required of drivers, and thus the ability of speech-to-text systems to distract them.
Another difference: In phone conversations, a person who is listening will give indications that they agree with what the speaker has said or have heard what was said. Computers don't provide that feedback.
"The complexity of trying to say something that is coherent when there is no feedback is much more difficult," Strayer said.
A simple, quick voice command to turn on windshield wipers isn't very distracting, he said. But concentrating on creating a text message and trying to get it right takes a great deal more mental effort and time.
"The more complex and the longer those interactions are, the more likely you are going to have impairments when you're driving," Strayer said.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hands-free-texting-still-distracting-drivers-100317896.html
Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, wears a banner on her hat as she waits for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, wears a banner on her hat as she waits for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Gary Headrick, right, hugs Steve Netherby, center, and his wife Laurie Headrick, left, before a news conference by opponents of the San Onofre nuclear power plant near the entrance to the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, right, hugs Laurie Headrick, left, as they wait for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Power lines cross a freeway as they make their way to the San Onofre nuclear power plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
A surfer rides a wave in front of the San Onofre nuclear power plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The decision to close California's San Onofre nuclear plant is the latest setback for an industry that seemed poised for growth not long ago.
In Wisconsin, a utility shuttered its plant last month after it couldn't find a buyer. In Florida ? and now California ? utilities decided it was cheaper to close plants rather than spend big money fixing them and risk the uncertainty of safety reviews.
Meanwhile, the low cost of natural gas is discouraging utilizes from spending billions of dollars and lots of time to build nuclear reactors.
New technology allows drillers to extract more gas within the U.S., increasing the supply and pushing down prices. In states were utilities operate as monopolies, they are reluctant to ask their regulators for permission to build enormously expensive nuclear plants ? or even fix old ones ? when it so cheap to build gas-fired plants.
In places where utilities sell power into the open market, the low prices don't offset the financial risk of building expensive and time-consuming nuclear plants.
"The world has changed with natural gas prices being so low and so much gas being available for so long," said Mike Haggarty, a senior utility analyst for Moody's Investor Service.
Industry supporters acknowledge the challenging economics but say nuclear power still has long-term possibilities. While the costs to build plants are enormous, once online, the fuel and operating costs are relatively low. And reactors can reliably produce power with little or no carbon emissions, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group.
Plants fired by gas cost much more to run when prices surge.
"When gas prices are low, that's great," Kerekes said. "But a lot of people don't like to put all their energy eggs in one basket."
On Friday, Southern California Edison announced it would close its San Onofre plant between San Diego and Los Angeles rather than fix damaged equipment that critics said could never be safely replaced. The twin reactors were idled in January 2012 when a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of new tubes that carry radioactive water.
Despite spending more than $500 million on repairs and replacement power, the utility, owned by Edison International, decided to call it quits. It faced safety investigations and regulatory hurdles to restart the plant.
In February, North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corp. decided to close the Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida after workers cracked a concrete containment building during an attempt to upgrade the plant in 2009. The containment building is supposed to prevent a release of radiation in case of an accident. An attempt to fix the problem in 2011 resulted in more cracks.
Despite the shutdown, Duke still wants its customers to reimburse the company for $1.65 billion in plant investments. The utility will use $835 million from an insurance settlement to refund customers who had to pay for backup power.
Even working plants are being scuttled. Dominion Resources Inc. announced in October it would close the Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin because it couldn't find a buyer. Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said the plant's contracts to sell its electricity were ending while wholesale electricity prices are expected to remain low. The company is keeping reactors elsewhere in the country.
"This decision was based purely on economics," Farrell said at the time. "Dominion was not able to move forward with our plan to grow our nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale."
Just a few years back, nuclear industry officials said the time was right for expanding. A more robust economy boosted demand for electricity, natural gas prices were higher, and it seemed Congress might pass legislation restricting the greenhouse gas emissions, a rule that could hurt fossil fuel plants and increase the demand for nuclear power. To further sweeten the pot, the U.S. government adopted tax credits and offered low-cost loans to subsidize construction.
The industry called it a "nuclear renaissance." It was short-lived.
The Great Recession trimmed the demand for electricity as business and consumers cut back, and natural gas prices fell. Several utilities have scrubbed their plans for new plants or delayed them far into the future.
Paul Patterson, a utility analyst for Glenrock Associates LLC, said the idea of a renaissance was "exaggerated to begin with," and low-cost natural gas ended such talk.
Only three nuclear construction projects have moved forward, and they are all under financial pressure.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is finishing a long-mothballed reactor at its Watts Bar plant. Initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, the utility has said finishing the project could cost up to $2 billion more.
Atlanta-based Southern Co. owns a 46 percent share of two new reactors being constructed at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia, a project originally estimated at $14 billion. Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power recently asked regulators to raise its share of the construction budget by $737 million to roughly $6.85 billion.
It may cost more. Georgia Power and the companies designing and building the plant are in a legal fight that may cost the utility more money. Separately, an independent monitor hired by Georgia regulators has warned of additional potential costs.
SCANA Corp. announced this week that it expects its costs to rise by around $200 million and the construction schedule to slip while building two reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina.
___
Henry reported from Atlanta and can be reached at http://twitter.com/rhenryAP . AP Energy Writer Jonathan Fahey also contributed to this report from New York.
Associated Pressnew york mega millions jetblue jetblue michelle malkin october baby sugarland 16 and pregnant
While Android 4.3 never actually materialized at Google I/O last month, the latest version of Jelly Bean keeps popping up and making cameos all over. It most recently appeared in the specs for LG's Optimus L7 II Dual (that name's a handful, we know) on the company's website. The handset was running Android 4.1 when we played with it at Mobile World Congress and appears to have shipped with that OS version in some markets. Obviously, it's only a matter of time until Android 4.3 becomes official but we fully expect it to debut on Google's own Nexus 4 flagship before coming to any other device. In light of this, and considering the Optimus L7 II features a 4.3-inch screen, perhaps we're just looking at a typo? We've reached out to LG for clarification -- we'll keep you posted.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google, LG
Source: LG
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/E14fV7kcWbA/
By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's chief of staff and two leading senators will travel to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Friday to consider how to meet Obama's vow to move detainees and close the facility, a White House spokeswoman said.
Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, will travel to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo with Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and John McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The trio will "review the situation there and discuss the steps that we can take with the Congress to meet the President's goal of closing the facility," said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
Both McCain of Arizona and Feinstein of California have long argued that the prison should be closed. But other lawmakers have blocked the move, arguing the administration has not offered satisfactory alternatives on what to do with the detainees.
Obama last month pledged to lift a ban imposed on transfers of detainees to Yemen from the prison, one of the core obstacles to clearing out the detention camp.
Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen, where al Qaeda has a dangerous presence. There are 80 more prisoners at the camp who are not cleared and an unknown number of those are Yemeni as well.
More than 100 prisoners in the camp have joined a hunger strike to protest the failure to resolve their fate after more than a decade of detention, and 41 are being force-fed through tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs because they have lost so much weight.
(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Vicki Allen)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-chief-staff-senators-travel-guantanamo-174332154.html
June 6, 2013 ? Making small lifestyle changes could reduce your risk of having a stroke, according to a new study in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
Researchers assessed stroke risk using the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 health factors: be active, control cholesterol, eat a healthy diet, manage blood pressure, maintain a healthy weight, control blood sugar and don't smoke.
"We used the assessment tool to look at stroke risk and found that small differences in health status were associated with large reductions in stroke risk," said Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., senior author and professor of medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington.
Researchers divided the Life's Simple 7 scores into three categories: zero to four points for inadequate, five to nine points for average, and 10 to 14 points for optimum cardiovascular health.
Researchers found:
While black participants had worse Life's Simple 7 scores than whites, the association of the Life's Simple 7 score with stroke risk was similar in black and white participants. "This highlights the critical importance of improving these health factors since blacks have nearly twice the stroke mortality rates as whites," Cushman said.
Cushman and colleagues reviewed information on 22,914 black and white Americans age 45 and older who are participating in a nationwide population-based study called the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS).
Researchers collected data in 2003-07 by telephone, self-administered questionnaires and at-home exams. Participants were followed for 5 years for stroke. Many of the study participants live in the Southeast region of the United States where death rates from stroke are the highest.
During the study, 432 strokes occurred. All seven health factors in Life's Simple 7 played an important role in predicting the risk for stroke, but having ideal blood pressure was the most important indicator of stroke risk, researchers said.
"Compared to those with poor blood pressure status, those who were ideal had a 60 percent lower risk of future stroke," Cushman said.
Researchers also found that those who didn't smoke or quit smoking more than one year prior to the beginning of the study had a 40 percent lower stroke risk.
Each year, about 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke -- the No. 4 killer and a leading cause of long-term disability. Every four minutes, an American dies from stroke. People can check their health status at www.mylifecheck.org.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/OjPHDhbvY8g/130606185712.htm
By Zorianna Kit
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After numerous starts and stops by Hollywood executives to project Judy Blume books onto the big screen, the best-selling author and her filmmaker son decided to make it happen.
The film adaptation of her 1981 young adult book "Tiger Eyes" opens in theaters on Friday and simultaneously on iTunes, DirecTV and On-Demand.
It was a family project, with Blume and her son, Lawrence Blume, writing the screenplay and producing the film. Lawrence directed the movie and Blume's husband of 26 years, George Cooper, was executive producer of the independently financed $2 million project.
"Tiger Eyes" is about a teenager named Davey, whose family moved from New Jersey to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to start a new life after the murder of her father.
"It sort of mirrored my own story of being pulled away from my life, my friends and my father in New Jersey and moving to this strange town of Los Alamos, New Mexico," said Lawrence, who directed the 2002 comedy film "Martin & Orloff."
Blume divorced his father, remarried, and moved Lawrence and his sister to New Mexico in the late 1970s.
The New York-based filmmaker collaborated with his mother, who lives in Key West, Florida, mainly by email and telephone.
"The biggest challenge was taking the book's first person inner monologue narrative and figuring out how to turn that into an actionable behavior that actors can play," he added.
Blume, 75, has sold more than 82 million books in 41 countries. Earlier attempts to make a feature film based on one of Blume's books had failed, said Lawrence, 50.
When British supermarket giant Tesco got into the film business a few years ago, Lawrence made a deal for "Tiger Eyes."
Working with his mother, he said, was "kind of magical."
"We don't live in the same city anymore, so it was really nice to be able to spend a lot of time with her," Lawrence said. "There was a joyful feeling on the set."
Shooting began in Santa Fe in the fall of 2010 with "Gossip Girl" actress Willa Holland and Amy Jo Johnson, who starred in the TV series "Felicity."
Blume said she would like to see big screen versions of her adult novels "Summer Sisters" and "Wifey." She is also working on a novel she began before production on "Tiger Eyes" began.
"Writers don't stop writing," said Blume. "So I want to continue to do more of the same."
(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Doina Chiacu)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/best-selling-author-judy-blume-hits-big-screen-163556290.html
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama's top national security adviser Tom Donilon is resigning and will be replaced by U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, marking a significant shakeup to the White House foreign policy team.
A White House official confirmed the personnel changes Wednesday morning ahead of a planned announcement by the president later in the day.
Donilon has been a key foreign policy adviser to Obama since he first took office. But the 58-year-old had been expected to depart sometime this year, with Rice seen as the likely candidate to replace him.
Rice, a close Obama confidante, came under withering criticism from Republicans as part of the investigations into the deadly attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Rice, relying on talking points from the intelligence community, said in television interviews that the attacks were likely spontaneous, which was later proven incorrect.
Obama considered nominating Rice as his second-term secretary of state, but she withdrew amid the GOP criticism, saying she didn't want her confirmation fight to be a distraction for the White House. The president instead nominated John Kerry, who easily won confirmation from his former Senate colleagues.
Rice's new post as national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.
Obama will also name Samantha Power, a human rights expert and former White House adviser, to replace Rice as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Power left the White House earlier this year, though she was considered the president's likely pick to move to the U.N. should Rice be promoted to the White House.
The White House official said Donilon is expected to stay on the job until early July, after Obama wraps up overseas trips to Europe and Africa, as well as an unusual summit in California later this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the personnel changes before they were publicly announced.
Donilon has overseen a foreign policy agenda at the White House that put increased emphasis on the U.S. relationship with Asia. He's also played a key role in the administration's counterterrorism strategy, including the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and in managing the complex U.S. ties with Russia.
Rice, who first started working for Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, has a close relationship with the president and many of his advisers. She's known for being outspoken on human rights issues and also pushed for a more interventionist strategy in Libya.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-donilon-resigns-security-adviser-111501982.html
New Apple product stock keeping units (SKU) have leaked that indicate that at least one of Apple's MacBook lines is about to receive an update. Though nothing is definitive, 9to5Mac believes that these SKUs point to a refresh for both the MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro with Retina display.
These SKUs likely belong to an Apple notebook that comes in two screen sizes. Each screen size will come in two configurations that will be diversified by internal specifications like processor speeds, RAM, and storage space. Currently, Apple sells two notebook lines that fit a refresh with these SKUs: both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display.
Both lines come in two different screen sizes, and supplies of both the Air and the Pro are constrained. The codes are only for one computer line, so it is unknown if both will receive a refresh or not. Supplies of the non-Retina MacBook Pro are not constrained, meaning that a refresh is most likely a long way off, if it comes at all.
Apple refreshed its entire notebook line and revealed the MacBook Pro with Retina display during their keynote at the beginning of WWDC 2012. It is likely that if a refresh takes place during the conference this year, that it will happen during the keynote as well.
Source: 9to5Mac
     |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/dVw5pYpohDM/story01.htm
US Cellular's been promising a WP8 handset for quite some time now, and it looks like the company's about to deliver exactly that. As you might recall, US Cellular's last Windows Phone offering was the entry-level ZTE Render which ran WP7.5 (Tango). We recently obtained promo materials for an ATIV Odyssey with US Cellular branding. This Samsung device, which is currently available on Verizon, packs a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage (with microSD expansion), LTE and NFC support, plus a five-megapixel autofocus camera with flash. While none of this is official (yet), we fully expect US Cellular to make a proper announcement real soon now. Until then, check out the gallery below for some of the aforementioned promo material.
[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Microsoft
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/a49SIJOiz58/
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., holds the championship trophy after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., holds the championship trophy after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., watches as confetti falls after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., is congratulated by his mother Bhavani, as confetti falls after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., is congratulated by his mother Bhavani, as confetti falls after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., holds the championship trophy after he won the National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "knaidel" correctly on Thursday, May 30, 2013, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) ? After years of heartbreakingly close calls, Arvind Mahankali conquered his nemesis, German, to become the champion speller in the English language.
The 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, N.Y., correctly spelled "knaidel," a word for a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. The bee tested brain power, composure and, for the first time, knowledge of vocabulary.
Arvind finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012, and both times, he was eliminated on German-derived words. This time, he got one German word in the finals, and the winning word was from German-derived Yiddish, eliciting groans and laughter from the crowd. He spelled both with ease.
"The German curse has turned into a German blessing," he said.
Arvind outlasted 11 other finalists, all but one of whom had been to the National Spelling Bee before, in nearly 2 ? hours of tense, grueling competition that was televised nationally. In one round, all nine participants spelled their words correctly.
When he was announced as the winner, Arvind looked upward at the confetti falling upon him and cracked his knuckles, his signature gesture during his bee appearances. He'll take home $30,000 in cash and prizes along with a huge cup-shaped trophy. The skinny teen, clad in a white polo shirt and wire-rimmed glasses pushed down his nose, was joined on stage at the Washington-area hall by his parents and his beaming younger brother.
An aspiring physicist who admires Albert Einstein, Arvind said he would spend more time studying physics this summer now that he's "retired" from the spelling bee.
Arvind becomes the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner and the 11th in the past 15 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the title in 1999 and was later featured in the documentary "Spellbound."
Arvind's family is originally from Hyderabad in southern India, and relatives who live there were watching live on television.
"At home, my dad used to chant Telegu poems from forward to backward and backward to forward, that kind of thing," said Arvind's father, Srinivas. "So language affinity, we value language a lot. And I love language, I love English."
Pranav Sivakumar, who like Arvind rarely appeared flustered onstage, finished second. The 13-year-old from Tower Lakes, Ill., was tripped up by "cyanophycean," a word for a blue-green alga. Sriram Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, N.Y., finished third, and Amber Born, 14, of Marblehead, Mass., was fourth.
The field was whittled down from 42 semifinalists Thursday afternoon, with spellers advancing based on a formula that combined their scores from a computerized spelling and vocabulary test with their performance in two onstage rounds.
The vocabulary test was new. Some of the spellers liked it, some didn't, and many were in-between, praising the concept but wondering why it wasn't announced at the beginning of the school year instead of seven weeks before the national bee.
"It was kind of a different challenge," said Vismaya Kharkar, 14, of Bountiful, Utah, who finished tied for 5th place. "I've been focusing my studying on the spelling for years and years."
There were two multiple-choice vocabulary tests ? one in the preliminaries and one in the semifinals ? and they were administered in a quiet room away from the glare of the onstage parts of the bee. The finals were the same as always: no vocabulary, just spellers trying to avoid the doomsday bell.
There was a huge groan from the crowd when Arvind got his first German-derived word, "dehnstufe," an Indo-European long-grade vowel.
Milking the moment, he asked, "Can I have the language of origin?" before throwing his hands in the air with a wry smile.
"I had begun to be a little wary of German words, but this year I prepared German words and I studied them, so when I got German words this year, I wasn't worried," Arvind said.
He appeared to have more trouble with "galere," a word for a group of people having a marked common quality or relationship. He asked for the etymology twice ? French and old Catalan ? shifted his body back and forth and stroked his chin before getting it right with seconds to spare.
Amber, an aspiring comedy writer and crowd favorite, bowed out on "hallali," a huntsman's bugle call. She said, "I know, I know," when the clock told her time was running out, and she knew she had missed it, saying "That's not right" as she finished her effort.
The bee's growing popularity is reflected in an ESPN broadcast that gets more sophisticated each year. In the semifinals, Amber got to watch herself featured on a televised promo that also aired on the jumbo screen inside the auditorium.
She then approached the microphone and, referring to herself, deadpanned: "She seemed nice."
Vanya Shivashankar, at 11 the youngest of the finalists, fell short in her bid to become the first sibling of a previous winner to triumph. Her sister, Kavya, won in 2009. Vanya finished tied for 5th after misspelling "zenaida," which means a type of pigeon.
___
Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter: http://twitter.com/APBenNuckols
Follow Joseph White on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP
Associated Press
