'Veronica Mars' film online fundraiser mee
LOS ANGELES (AP) "Veronica Mars" fans just bought themselves a big-screen version of the cult favorite TV series.
A crowd-sourcing campaign to raise $2 million for the project on the Kickstarter website hit its goal in less than a day.
"Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas started the effort Wednesday with help from series star Kristen Bell.
More than 33,000 contributors had pledged $2.1 million and counting as of Wednesday evening.
In his online pitch, Thomas promised that, as he put it,nike blazer vintage prezzo, "The more money we raise, the cooler movie we can make."
Related Articles：'Fifty Shades' dominates publishing in 201
NEW YORK (AP) The story of 2012 in publishing was the story of "Fifty Shades of Grey," in more ways than one.
E L James' erotic trilogy was easily the year's biggest hit, selling more than 35 million copies in the U.S. alone and topping bestseller lists for months. Rival publishers hurried to sign up similar books and debates started over who should star in the planned film version. Through James' books and how she wrote them, the general public was educated in the worlds of romance/erotica, start-up publishing and "fan fiction."
But the success of James' novels also captured the dual state of the book market the advance of e-books and the resilience of paper. In a year when print was labeled as endangered and established publishers referred to as "legacy" companies, defined and beholden to the past, the allure remained for buying and reading bound books.
James already was an underground hit before signing in early 2012 with Vintage Books, a paperback imprint of Random House Inc., the house of Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison, a house where legacy is inseparable from the brand. She could have self-published her work through Amazon.com, or released her books from her own website, and received a far higher percentage of royalties.
"We had a very clear conversation back in January about the need for a very specific publishing strategy," says Vintage publisher Anne Messitte. "We talked about distribution, a physical format, publicity. And she was basically clear that she needed what we did as publishers to make that happen."
"Fifty Shades" began as an e-phenomenon,nike air force ones, understandable since digital erotica means you can read it in public without fear of discovery. But according to Messitte, sales for the paperbacks quickly caught up to those for e-books and have surpassed them comfortably for the last several months. Everyone was in on the secret,nike sb blazer low. The series sold big at Amazon.com, but also at Barnes & Noble and independents, at drugstores and airports.
Publishers from several major houses agreed that e-books comprise 25-30 percent of overall sales, exponentially higher than a few years ago, but not nearly enough to erase the power of paper. And the rate of growth is leveling off, inevitable as a new format matures. Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said e-sales were up around 30 percent this year, less than half what she had expected.
"We saw all these huge sales for tablets and huge sales for other machines coming out and assumed there would be a lot of new e-book readers," Reidy says. "But in retrospect there were a lot of current e-book readers who were upgrading their machines. And tablet owners do not use e-books as much as those with dedicated e-book readers" such as Amazon's Kindle.
"There are some people who think that print will go away, but 'Fifty Shades' is an indication of why that's not going to happen," says Messitte, who added that the books attracted many non-readers who don't own e-devices. "You're going to need a mix of ways to read."
The rise of e-books has shaken, but not broken the way books are published and sold. Membership in the independent stores' trade group, the American Booksellers Association,nike blazer mid, has increased three years in a row after decades of decline. Amazon is a draw for many self-published authors, but its efforts at acquiring and editing books "legacy" publishing have been mixed.
An in-house imprint, headed by former Time Warner Book Group chief Laurence J. Kirshbaum, has so far landed few works of note beyond a memoir by Penny Marshall and an advice book on cooking by lifestyle guru Timothy Ferriss. Rival sellers have refused to stock Amazon's books, limiting their sales potential. And if publishers suffer from their reputation often earned of being slow to adapt to technology, they benefit from a reputation often earned for being nice to their writers.
"There certainly is the comfort factor, and part of that comfort factor is the culture of old publishing, which is very collegial and warm and friendly," says Richard Curtis, a literary agent who represents several writers publishing with Amazon. "Authors contemplating Amazon are concerned about a loss of that warmth."
Amazon, the acknowledged leader in e-book commerce, remains the dominant player in what could still become the dominant format, and two of the year's major stories would never have happened without industry concern over the Internet retailer and publisher.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple and five publishers for alleged price fixing of electronic books, a lawsuit originating from Apple's 2010 launch of the iPad and iBookstore, which publishers hoped would weaken Amazon's ability to discount works so deeply that no other seller could compete. In October, the corporate parents of Random House Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) announced a planned merger, widely believed as a way to counter Amazon.
One of the publishers sued, HarperCollins, settled in the fall and prices for such new works as Michael Chabon's "Telegraph Avenue" dropped from $12.99-$14.99, common under the Apple model, to Amazon's preferred $9.99. But Chantal Restivo-Alessi, HarperCollins' chief digital officer, said there was no noticeable difference in sales, adding that bargain hunters tend to seek out older books.
"With new books, if you want to read that book, you're going to read that book," she said. "You're not going to replace it with a cheaper book."
Related Articles：Abducted mother of Nigeria finance minister freed_
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) The mother of Nigeria's finance minister has been released five days after her abduction, an official said Friday, bringing an end to a family crisis which showed few people are out of reach of kidnapping rings in the oil-rich southern delta.
Paul Nwabuikwu, a spokesman for Nigeria's finance ministry,nike blazer rosse, said in a statement that the mother of Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was released Friday morning. He offered no other details and could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not immediately clear if arrests had been made or what terms had led to Okonjo's release,nike blazer high. Federal police officials could not be immediately reached Friday.
Kamene Okonjo, 83, was kidnapped Sunday afternoon in her hometown of Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State,cheap nike blazer. Her daughter, Okonjo-Iweala, is a respected economist who became a finance minister with extensive powers last year. She was also a possible candidate to head the World Bank before losing the position to U.S. nominee Jim Yong Kim.
Ransom kidnappings are frequent in Nigeria's oil-rich delta. Experts say kidnappers whoonce targeted mainly expatriate oil workers have shifted their focus to wealthy Nigerian families in recent years.
The finance minister had received threats prior to the kidnapping, Nwabuikwu has said, though it was not clear if the authors of those threats were behind the kidnapping.
Okonjo-Iweala was instrumental in pushing through a government policy to end subsidies for gasoline in January, a decision that sparked a nationwide strike and widespread protests in Africa's most populous nation. President Goodluck Jonathan later reinstated a partial subsidy Okonjo-Iweala has since said the subsidy must be entirely removed because the country cannot afford it.
Related Articles：Bangladesh Islamist's death sentence sparks de
DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladeshi Islamist party leader was sentenced to death on Thursday over abuses carried out during the country's independence war, triggering riots that killed at least 30 people.
Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 73, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty by Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal of mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 war of separation from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said.
After he was convicted and sentenced, police clashed with activists from Sayedee's party and violence raged in more than a dozen areas around the country, police, witnesses and media reports said.
At least three policemen were among the dead and around 300 were wounded, they added.
Protesters, who said the verdict was politically motivated, set fire to a Hindu temple and several houses in southern Noakhali region, reporters said. In the southeastern region of Cox's Bazar, they attacked a police camp, killing one.
Two policemen were killed when Islamists stormed a police station at Sundarganj in northern Gaibandha district, police said. "We have been virtually besieged. It's a horrible situation," station officer Manzur Rahman told Reuters.
Members of the religious party - known simply as Jamaat - called for a national strike on Sunday and Monday, raising fears of more violence. Sayedee was the third senior party member convicted by the tribunal.
In the capital, authorities deployed extra police and paramilitary soldiers, a Home Ministry official told reporters.
Thousands of people in the capital's Shahbag square, who support the tribunal and have been protesting for weeks to demand the highest penalty for war criminals, burst into cheers as the sentence was announced.
Sayedee looked defiant but remained calm in the dock as judges read out the verdict,nike blazer low, witnesses said.
"I didn't commit any crime and the judges are not giving the verdict from the core of their heart," Sayedee told the tribunal, said reporters at the hearing.
State prosecutor Haider Ali told reporters he was happy with the verdict which he said "appropriately demonstrated justice".
Defense attorney Abdur Razzak said the sentence was politically motivated. "He is a victim of sheer injustice. We will appeal," he said.
RIVAL PROTESTS
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the tribunal in 2010 to investigate abuses during the war that claimed about 3 million lives. Thousands of women were raped during the conflict.
The tribunal has been criticized by rights groups for failing to adhere to international standards. Human Rights Watch said lawyers, witnesses and investigators reported they had been threatened.
Critics say the tribunal is being used by the prime minister as an instrument against her opponents in the two biggest opposition parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Begum Khaleda Zia, Hasina's arch rival and leader of the BNP, has called the tribunal a farce.
Hasina's party has denied allegations of bias.
On January 21, the tribunal sentenced Abul Kalam Azad, a former Jamaat member, to death in absentia after he was found guilty of torture, rape and genocide during the independence war.
In its second verdict, on February 5, the tribunal sentenced another senior Jamaat member, Abdul Quader Mollah, 64, to life in prison after he was found guilty of murder, rape, torture and arson.
Both verdicts triggered protests by Jamaat supporters, in which at least 15 people were killed.
Nine more people, mostly Jamaat members, are facing trial for war crimes, tribunal officials said.
The overwhelmingly Muslim south Asian country of 160 million people would likely see more violence in the run-up to parliamentary elections in January, in which both Hasina and Khaleda will run for power, analysts said,nike blazer vintage prezzo.
Bangladesh became part of Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. But the country, then known as East Pakistan, won independence with India's help in December 1971 following a nine-month war against the then West Pakistan,nike blazers women.
Some factions in Bangladesh opposed the break with Pakistan, including the Jamaat. Jamaat leaders have denied involvement in abuses.
(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul and Serajul Quadir; Editing by Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)
Related Articles：Bankrupt Alabama county eyes debt cuts topping $1
By Michael Connor and Melinda Dickinson
(Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County will within two or three months file a workout plan that calls for reducing the bankrupt local government's $4.23 billion of debts by more than $1 billion,nike blazers women, according to the county's top elected official.
Filing a plan of adjustment, which is being readied as the county negotiates privately on terms with some creditors and battles in court with others, is a key step toward ending Jefferson County's landmark 2011 bankruptcy but it must be approved by a federal judge.
"Our final plan will include a reduction of more than a billion dollars," Jefferson County Commission President David Carrington said in an interview, declining to discuss details. "But there are other elements, too, that are just as important, like lower interest rates and extended payoff times."
Bankruptcy lawyers say there are too few precedents involving big local governments in bankruptcy to say what a plan might entail, though debt concessions such as extending the terms of bonds or reducing interest payments are frequently included.
The county, whose finances were ravaged by run-away sewer-system debt costs, political corruption and a legal case that killed a local tax, expects to file the adjustment plan within 75 days, Carrington said.
The county's target for filing may be a counter to creditor lawyers trying to scuttle the bankruptcy. They have repeatedly complained in court filings that Jefferson County was moving too slowly on developing an adjustment plan and that the bankruptcy case should be voided.
But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Bennett has refused to set a deadline, noting the case was highly complex financially and legally.
Home to Birmingham, Alabama's biggest city, Jefferson County has sole authority to draft the plan under U.S. law. Creditors consent is not required to win a judge's approval but cuts in loan amounts or other changes must be deemed reasonable and equitable by Bennett.
Unlike corporate bankruptcies,nike blazer vintage prezzo, in which creditors can seek asset sales or liquidation, so-called Chapter 9 bankruptcies named for a section of U.S. bankruptcy law leave large creditors such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon open to possible non-negotiated reductions.
"County leaders hope to propose a plan with the consent of sewer creditors, but are prepared to 'cram-down' the plan on dissenting creditors," reported The Birmingham News newspaper, citing unnamed county officials.
Municipal bankruptcies are rare, and Jefferson County's plan may hold clues to how other troubled U.S. local governments may end crises caused by overwhelming debts and shrinking revenue. Detroit, which is widely seen as near bankruptcy, was taken over on Thursday by a state-appointed emergency financial manager.
Jefferson County's November 2011 bankruptcy filing remains the biggest ever by a U.S,nike blazers women. municipality and was primarily driven by the sewer-system debt now estimated at $3.2 billion. The fiscal crisis forced large staff cuts and major reductions in county services.
Carrington said in the interview on Wednesday that negotiations with holders of some of Jefferson County's defaulted debt, including owners of education warrants, were progressing favorably. In addition, the county has so far reached negotiated deals with two creditors.
Bond insurer Ambac Assurance Corp agreed last year to reduce the county's $83 million a year payments on lease revenue warrants. European lender Depfa Bank Plcin February signed off on cutting interest rates on variable-rate school warrants in exchange for accerated payments by the county.
But the county's biggest creditors mostly holding sewer debt, such as JPMorgan, have shown little willingness to compromise, Carrington said, and are pressing ahead with appeals and other court actions.
A hearing on a dispute over hikes in sewer-system rates, which provide payments to sewer creditors, were scheduled to resume on Thursday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Birmingham. The court battles cost the cash-short county $1 million a month.
One possible template for the adjustment plan may be a 2011 terms sheet, which was developed by some creditors and the county before the Chapter 9 filing. It envisioned a $1 billion reduction in county debt but was never implemented.
The pre-bankruptcy terms included three years of sewer rate hikes of as much as 8.2 percent annually and a refinancing of about $2.05 billion of county sewer warrants into a 40-year debt backed by a pledge from Alabama's state government.
A regional business hub with substantial banking and medical sectors, Jefferson County has slashed its annual spending in its current fiscal year by $107 million from a year ago to $205 million. Officials have closed jails, ended in-patient care at a Birmingham hospital, and reduced the county payroll by 1,300.
County finances are too thin to fund any capital spending but were feeling some lift in early 2013 from an improving economy, according to County Manager Tony Petelos.
(Additional reporting by Verna Gates in Birmingham; Writing by Michael Connor in Miami; Editing by Tiziana Barghini and Andrew Hay)
Related Articles：China's own primary school attack prompts soul
BEIJING (Reuters) - As the United States debates its gun laws after the Newtown school massacre, China is doing its own political soul-searching after a shocking knife attack on a Chinese elementary school.
On the same day as the Newtown shooting, a crazed man broke into a school building in central China, stabbing and slashing 23 pupils in an attack that, although not fatal, lit up the Internet - but barely registered with official state media.
Instead, media gave top coverage to the U.S. shooting and barely mentioned the Henan school attack, a decision that has drawn sharp criticism of the ruling Communist Party's readiness to reflect on the ills of U.S. society but not on China's own,nike blazer mid.
"On the same day as the U.S,scarpe nike blazer. shooting, 22 children were slashed at the school in Henan, but mainstream media were virtually mute on this. Are the lives of Chinese children worthless to them?" a microblog user wrote in one of many such posts.
According to China Digital Times, a website following social and political developments in China and run by the University of California, the government's central propaganda department ordered all official media to downplay the Henan attack.
The Internet criticism of official media coverage follows the installation last month of a new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, who has signaled a more open style of leadership and told the media not to shy away from focusing on genuine news.
However, last week's Henan attack has been largely missing from Chinese newspaper and TV reports. The Xinyang Daily, whose circulation area includes the school, devoted its page-one story on Monday to lauding the local education system without mentioning the attack, according to the Global Times newspaper.
The Xinyang paper later apologized for the story.
(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones and Sally Huang; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Related Articles：Autonomous Cars Patrol Israeli Border_9
BEERSHEBA, Israel Along Israel's borders, a small number of automobiles patrol the area for signs of intruders. But unlike most vehicles,nike blazers women, these cars have no drivers, and for the most part drive themselves.
Introduced in 2008, about eight to 10 autonomous cars have been patrolling Israeli borders, said Hugo Guterman, a researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Guterman helped develop the computer system that controls the cars, although the research was funded by Israel's Ministry of Defense, and a company named G-NIUS produces the cars.
Guterman recently showed off a prototype called the Tomcar to reporters that he says works much like the cars that are currently patrolling the borders. The Tomcar uses several cameras to view its surroundings, as well as lasers and radar to avoid hitting obstacles, and is controlled by a three-tiered computer program, Guterman said. The lowest level actually controls the car, turning the steering wheel, braking or accelerating. The medium level uses GPS to navigate the terrain, and gathers information from its cameras and sensors. The highest level takes this information and "decides" what to do, especially when surprises arise, Guterman explained.
These cars have taken the place of some soldiers on the front lines, preventing them from possibly facing gunfire or confrontations. "By removing the people from the front line, actually you are saving lives," Guterman said.
When asked if the vehicles are outfitted with weapons, Guterman said, "No comment."
The computer system used by the autonomous cars is designed to act like two people. "One is the driver and the other is looking around,nike blazers women, and they're connected to one another," Guterman said. The midlevel processing systems that gather data from surveillance cameras works with the upper-level systems to decide whether or not to stop and check out something suspicious, he added.
The cars are usually fully autonomous, running on their own after being programmed to patrol in a certain area, said Gabi Davidson, vice president of marketing at G-NIUS. Occasionally, however, they require further input from remote operators, such as when they run into an unforeseen obstacles or scenario, he added.
For the most part, Israel’s self-driving cars patrol border areas where nobody lives, so there is little risk of unexpected encounters with peaceful civilians, said Dan Blumberg, Guterman's colleague and a researcher at Ben-Gurion University. The car isn't licensed to drive on heavily trafficked roads, however, "even if it drives better than Israeli drivers," Guterman joked.
Guterman said his group is working to test the computer system on autonomous vehicles to help clear snow from urban streets in other countries. That project hit a roadblock, however, when the labor union in one of the cities where it was to be tested balked at the idea.
The car works similarly to Google’s driverless car prototype, except it's better, Guterman said, since it doesn't require a passenger to sit in it at all times, as is the case for the tech company's vehicle.
Guterman isn't involved in the production of the cars that patrol the border, and hasn't worked on the models that are currently deployed since 2008, he said.
This story was generated during a trip paid for by American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
This story was provided by TechNewsDaily,nike blazer mid, a sister site to LiveScience. Email Douglas Main or follow him @Douglas_Main. Follow us @livescience, Facebookor Google+.
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Amazon cuts price of largest Kindle Fire tablet
By Alistair Barr
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Wednesday it cut the price of its largest Kindle Fire tablet, part of an effort by the world's biggest Internet retailer to get the device into the hands of as many consumers as possible.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 inch Wi-Fi tablet will now be priced at $269 in the United States, down from $299. The 4G wireless version now starts at $399, compared with $499 before, Amazon said.
Amazon is launching its larger tablet in the UK,nike blazers, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Dave Limp, president of Amazon's Kindle business, said the company has increased production of the devices in conjunction with the overseas launch. The cost of making the tablets has fallen with greater economies of scale,scarpe nike blazer, letting Amazon cut prices, he said.
"Whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers," Limp said in a statement.
Amazon launched its first Kindle Fire tablet in 2011 to compete with Apple Inc's dominant iPad and other tablets from companies such as Samsung that run on Google Inc's Android operating system.
Amazon sells its devices at cost, undercutting Apple prices. Amazon aims to make money when customers use its tablets to buy physical and digital products from the company, such as movies, music, games and apps.
However, Amazon's strategy rests on selling a lot of tablets. This may not be working well yet for its larger 8.9 inch Kindle Fires, according to recent research by Chad Bartley, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.
Amazon does not disclose device sales numbers. But Bartley said in a research report last month that demand for the larger Kindle Fire tablet was weak, citing checks with contacts in the device supply chain.
Amazon's price reductions on Wednesday may be designed to try to maintain sales during the early part of the year, which is typically a slow period for retail sales, said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners.
Amazon may also be cutting prices before it comes out with new versions of its tablets later this year, when sales normally increase during the back-to-school shopping season and the holidays, Gillis added.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the price cuts were not driven by weak demand, but rather the cost benefits of increasing production for overseas sales,nike sb blazer low.
(Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Related Articles：14th-Century Black Death Graveyard Found in London
A railway construction project in central London has turned up the skeletons of 13 victims of the Black Death.
The find is a reminder of how much history sits beneath urbanized areas in the United Kingdom. In February,nike blazer rosse, archaeologists in Leicester announced that they'd discovered the bones of the lost monarch Richard III underneath a city council parking lot. And this week, archaeologists in Edinburgh uncovered the grave of a medieval knight on the construction site of a new building.
The commuter railway at the center of the current discovery, called Crossrail, is under construction in southeast England. Archaeologists are consulting on the project to ensure that no historical artifacts or remains are destroyed. In a shaft near Charterhouse Square in the historic district of Farringdon, the researchers found two neat rows of 13 skeletons buried about 8 feet (2.5 meters) below the road.
Black Death cemetery
The depth of the burials combined with pottery dating to 1350 found in the graves suggest that the skeletons belonged to plague victims who died around 1349. There are historical records referring to a Black Death burial ground that opened in 1348 in the area, where as many as 50,000 people may have been hastily interred in less than three years. The burial ground saw continued use until the 1500s, according to CrossRail. [See Photos of the 'Black Death' Gravesites]
The Black Death, or bubonic plague, was caused by a bacterium (Yersinia pestis) spread by fleas on rats. It peaked in Europe in the mid-1300s, but killed an estimated 75 million people over the course of the 14th century. Victims sported blackened, swollen lymph nodes called buboes, contracted intense fevers and vomited blood, usually dying within days of contracting the disease.
No Man's Land
In the 16th century, historian John Snow wrote of a Black Death burial ground in Farringdon dubbed "No Man's Land." Despite the development of the area, no trace of this graveyard had been found until the Crossrail project began. Charterhouse Square, where the skeletons were found, was a prime location for where the cemetery might be, as it hadn't been developed in the past 700 years,nike blazer high.
In 1998, archaeologists searching for a historic chapel found a single skeleton in the square. And two years ago, Crossrail archaeologists found previously-disturbed human bones. Both of those discoveries were tantalizing clues that a larger graveyard might be nearby.
Archaeologists have taken the excavated bones to the Museum of London Archaeology for testing, including DNA tests to identify any remaining Plague bacteria and radiocarbon testing on the bones to establish firm burial dates. The scientists say there is no health risk from the Plague bacteria, as it can't survive in the soil for long (rather they are looking for the dead bacteria's DNA).
The site will be used as a shaft to support tunneling works once the skeletons are removed and analyzed. Crossrail has also turned up skeletons near Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam for its appalling conditions in the Middle Ages. Those skeletons (300 of them) dated back to the 1500s through 1700s.
Follow Stephanie Pappas @sipappas. Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience, Facebookor Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
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Copyright 2013 LiveScience,nike blazer vintage prezzo, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Related Articles：
AP Interview- Top US general confident in Afghans_
KABUL (AP) The top commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan believes government security forces have improved faster than expected and will be ready to take the lead in the 11-year-old war against the Taliban when foreign combat forces take a back seat this spring.
Marine Gen. John Allen told The Associated Press that the main job over the next two years for the International Assistance Force as the NATO-led troops in Afghanistan are called will be to advise, train and build the capabilities needed for Afghan forces to go it completely alone.
They will face their first test when the fighting season gets under way in the late spring and summer. During the harsh Afghan winter, snow often blocks roads and fighting dies down.
The Afghan security forces, which have nearly reached their full strength of 352,000, still need much work to become an effective and self-sufficient fighting machine, but a vast improvement in their abilities was behind a decision to accelerate the timetable for putting them in the lead nationwide, Allen said.
President Barack Obama announced earlier this month that the Afghans would take over this spring instead of late summer a decision that could allow the speedier withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
The Afghan troops "are further along in their capabilities than we had anticipated, and I'm very comfortable frankly with their being in the lead in 2013," Allen said in a recent interview ahead of his departure. "This is an acknowledgment of their capabilities."
The general, who has led the military coalition for 19 months, is leaving Afghanistan on Feb. 10. The White House said it would nominate him to become the head of NATO forces in Europe after he was exonerated in a Pentagon investigation of questionable email exchanges with a Florida woman linked to the sex scandal that led his predecessor, David Petraeus, to resign as CIA director.
Allen, 59, of Warrenton, Virginia, said the investigation was troublesome, but he was confident that the process would clear him.
"I'll make no secret that it was on my mind, but my number one goals were the interests of the troops, the coherence of the campaign and doing all I could obviously to further our combined interests here," he said. "But it does weigh on you, and while it weighed on me it really weighed on my family, it really weighed on my family, and the findings ultimately were announced and I continue to move on."
If confirmed by the Senate, Allen would succeed Navy Adm. James Stavridis in the NATO post.
He would not comment on how quickly the remaining 66,000 U.S. troops would return home, or how many American soldiers will remain after the end of 2014, when all foreign combat troops are to leave Afghanistan saying Obama will make that decision.
"We are advising now, and for the foreseeable future and until the latter part of the spring we will be advising at the battalion level," Allen said, adding that the advising would progressively move up to larger formations until the work was completed. "This is in conjunction with the drawdown of our own forces and in a very measured way, in a way that the Afghans are familiar with and we are able to predict we will eventually move up to the corps level."
Afghan troops already have taken the lead for security on territory holding 85 percent of the country's population of around 30 million.
"In many respects they are already leading operations, 80 percent of operations across the country are being led by the Afghans right now. So I am confident that in this coming fighting season, where technically they will be in the lead across the country operationally, that they are ready and we will be in support of them," Allen said. "I think they are going to do fine this year and we will stay with them. There is much work still to be done."
The Afghan lead in fighting has already become apparent in the casualty figures.
U.S. troop deaths declined overall from 404 in 2011 to 295 in 2012. More than 2,000 U.S. troops and nearly 1,100 coalition troops have died here since the U.S. invasion in late 2001. Last year many of those deaths were at the hands of the Afghan forces they were partnered with or training,nike sb blazer. Deaths from so-called insider attacks Afghan police and troops killing foreign allies surged to 61 in 45 attacks last year compared with 2011, when 35 coalition troops were killed in 21 attacks
By comparison, more than 1,200 Afghan soldiers died in 2012 compared to more than 550 in 2011, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Many are concerned that the Afghan forces will not be up to the task of securing the country after 2014. The size of the force will also have to be reduced after coalition forces leave because much of the funding for it will have dried up. At its summit in Chicago last May,nike blazer mid, NATO agreed on a fundraising goal to underwrite a force of about 230,000 that would cost about $4.1 billion annually.
When Allen took over from Petraeus in July 2011, the war was in full force. But the tide was turning, and public opinion in the United States and in coalition countries was tiring of a lengthy conflict that was widely seen as propping up a corrupt and thankless Afghan government.
In mid-2010, the United States had more than 100,000 troops and coalition forces totaled close to 150,000. The U.S. was spending billions of dollars on a costly counterinsurgency strategy that had all the hallmarks of nation-building. The Afghan army and police were rapidly growing thanks to a mostly U.S.-funded program that cost more than $20 billion, but their combat abilities did not match their numbers.
"When I got here we had virtually no battalion level operations under way, and the brigade level operation was only an ambition. Today, every day, there are brigade and corps level operations going on across Afghanistan," Allen said. He said those operations were being planned, carried out and often supplied by the Afghans, with foreign troops there in a mostly advisory role.
The improvements allowed Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to announce the spring handover date earlier this month.
Allen said the decision was made after the withdrawal last September of the 33,000 U.S. troops who were part of a surge announced by Obama in December 2009. In early 2012, Allen said he was grappling with the question of how many combat brigades he could carve out of the 68,000 troops that would remain in Afghanistan after the withdrawal, but the drawdown actually provided an opportunity to thrust Afghan forces in the lead,nike air force ones.
"The term that I used was they were better than we thought, more importantly they were better than they thought," he said.
But the Afghan forces still need work and to build up key capabilities, including their ability to sustain themselves on the battlefield from medical evacuations to fuel and ammunition and to carry out combined arms operations.
"The building of their capabilities will take time," Allen said, adding that he was "comfortable that our plan to do both these things is on track over time."
The Afghan military will have to make do without requested weapons such as heavy tanks and F-16 fighter jets, but Allen said the equipment that they will receive should give them considerable firepower. They include converting MI-17 transport helicopters to gunships and providing Afghan combat units at all levels with mortars.
He said the Afghans had to get used to the idea that they will not have the same air support in the future as they have today. Currently the coalition can provide air support to troops on the ground anywhere in Afghanistan within 12 minutes of a request.
"They have to get used to their own resources being the firepower necessary," he said.
___
Follow Patrick Quinn on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PatrickAQuinn
Related Articles：Arrests made in Brazil fire, funerals begin_4 -ren
SANTA MARIA,nike blazer beige, Brazil (AP) Brazilian police say they've made three arrests and are seeking a fourth person in connection with a nightclub fire that killed more than 230 people.
Inspector Ranolfo Vieira Junior said at a Monday press conference that the arrests are for investigative purposes. He says the detentions have five-day limits.
He declined to identify those arrested or the fourth person sought.
More than 230 people died early Sunday during the fire at a university party in southern Brazil. Police have said they think a band's pyrotechnics show ignited sound insulation on the ceiling, causing the blaze.
The Zero Hora newspaper quotes lawyer Jader Marques as saying his client Elissandro Spohr,nike blazer hi vintage, a co-owner of the club, was arrested. The paper also says two band members were arrested.
Funerals began Monday in the city of Santa Maria, Brazil, where the blaze took place,nike blazer prezzo.
Related Articles：Beef or Horse- Austrian salami re-labeled -renren
VIENNA (AP) -- What came first the foal in the salami or the label telling Austrian consumers they were buying horse meat?
Food inspectors are asking that question after finding adulterated labels on salami. The word "beef" was crossed out with a marker and replaced by "foal,nike blazer sb."
Manufacturers say the handwritten re-designation is not a shamefaced attempt to come clean amid increased Europe-wide perusal of what's in the wurst. Instead, they say they did not have enough printed labels to properly identify the salami, so they took ones meant for their beef product and rewrote them.
The salami was found in a food store in Feldkirch, a town about 240 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Vienna,nike blazer prezzo.
Food inspector Alfred Dutzler said Friday that the ingredients of the sausage were being closely examined.
Bangladesh students held for murder of blogger_1 -
Police arrested five students Saturday on charges of murdering an anti-Islamist blogger, as four people were killed in fresh protests over the sentencing to death of an Islamic party leader for war crimes,nike blazer vintage shop.
The students allegedly confessed to hacking to death blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider after he helped organise protests against leaders of the biggest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, who are being tried by a war crimes court, police said.
The students, all enrolled at the elite private North South University, targeted Haider,nike blazer sb, 35, "because of his allegedly blasphemous writings against Islam and the Prophet Mohammed," Dhaka police deputy commissioner Masudur Rahman said.
"They tracked him by his Facebook account" and "on the day of the murder they played cricket in front of his home and waited for his return", he told AFP.
The arrests came as police firing claimed four lives during street protests over the sentencing of Islamist leaders for crimes committed in the 1971 independence war.
The deaths bring the total toll of those killed since the tribunal delivered its first verdict on January 21 to 57, according to police.
The trials of a dozen Jamaat and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders have opened old wounds and divided the nation.
More unrest looms on Sunday in the impoverished South Asian nation, when Jamaat is due to hold a nationwide general strike to protest against the trials.
In Saturday's violence police said they killed three people outside the port city of Chittagong when they opened fire on Islamists protesting against the death penalty given earlier in the week to Jamaat vice president Delwar Hossain Sayedee.
The 73-year-old firebrand preacher was the third person to be convicted by the tribunal, whose verdicts have been met by outrage from Islamists who say the process is more about settling scores than delivering justice.
Another protester was shot dead when border guards fired on more than 1,000 Jamaat demonstrators in northern Joldhaka town, police said.
Police and media reported clashes between Jamaat supporters and police in at least half a dozen towns and cities, while in Dhaka police said they fired rubber bullets and gas at protesters.
The government, which says the 1971 independence war claimed three million lives, accuses Jamaat leaders of being part of pro-Pakistani militias blamed for much of the carnage -- charges they deny.
Independent estimates put the death toll from the war in which Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan at a much lower 300,000 to 500,000.
The fresh violence came a day after the United States called for calm,nike blazer femme.
"While engaging in a peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right, we believe violence is never the answer," US State Department deputy acting spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.
Related Articles：AT&T snags OnStar wireless contract from Verizon_0
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) AT&T Inc. is scoring a win over rival Verizon Wireless as it takes over the contract to supply wireless connections to cars with General Motors' OnStar service.
Verizon Wireless and its predecessor companies have supplied the network for OnStar since the service launched in the 1990s,nike blazer beige, but AT&T will take over with the 2015 model year, AT&T and GM said Monday.
The news comes as cellphone companies are jostling to connect non-phone devices to their networks. Now that nearly everyone has a phone, the phone companies have to look elsewhere for growth. Dallas-based AT&T has been particularly aggressive in this area, garnering, for instance, the contract to connect Amazon Kindle e-readers.
AT&T will connect OnStar cars to its new "4G LTE" network, which can supply much higher data speeds than current OnStar connections. That means GM could deliver car software updates wirelessly, instead of making owners take their cars to the shop. It could also enable video streaming for passengers, in-vehicle Wi-Fi "hotspots" and give GM a better view of what's going on inside a car, and whether it needs maintenance. Owners might even be able to call up views from their car's cameras, remotely.
"They're basically smartphones on wheels,nike blazer femme," said Glenn Lurie, head of AT&T's "emerging devices" division.
Verizon has an LTE network that delivers speeds similar to AT&T's, with wider coverage. Lurie said that by the time AT&T takes over the contract, its LTE network will cover 300 million Americans, or 96 percent of the population. It also has older, slower networks as a backup.
Verizon Wireless said it was looking forward to continuing to provide service to current OnStar customers.
AT&T and GM made the announcement just before the opening of Mobile World Congress, the world's largest wireless trade show, in Barcelona. The companies didn't reveal financial terms. The 6 million current OnStar users pay $19 per month or $199 per year, plus per-minute calling fees. Turn-by-turn GPS navigation costs extra, too,nike blazer sb.
British automotive research firm SBD believes that 100 million cars worldwide will have built-in wireless capabilities by 2015.
___
AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed from Detroit.
Related Articles：Angola suspends Pentecostal church for 60 days aft
(Reuters) - Angola's government has suspended a Pentecostal church from conducting any activities for 60 days after a New Year's Eve stampede during an overcrowded religious vigil killed 16 people,nike blazer low, the presidency said in a statement.
The incident took place at the Cidadela Desportiva stadium in the capital Luanda, where the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) organized a Pentecostal Christian vigil.
The death toll included three small children. Another 120 people were injured.
The presidency said in a statement issued late on Saturday that an inquiry commission had concluded that IURD had attracted 150,000 people to a venue with capacity for 30,000.
It added that the church had caused the overcrowding by marketing the event as "The Day of End - come to end all your problems in life: illness,nike blazer mid, misery, unemployment...".
The inquiry commission said it would pass its findings to the public prosecutors office to investigate criminal and civil responsibility.
It also suspended six other evangelical churches for the same period, adding that they conducted activities similar to those of IURD,nike blazer high.
Catholicism is the main religion in Angola, but evangelical churches have in the last decade flourished in the country and attracted large followings.
IURD was created in 1977 in Brazil, where it has over 8 million followers, according to its website. IURD says it is active in most countries of the world.
(Reporting by Shrikesh Laxmidas; editing by Andrew Roche)
Related Articles：AP Interview- Mexico leader to continue drug fight
MEXICO CITY (AP) Newly elected President Enrique Pena Nieto says he will continue combatting all illegal drug production and trafficking in Mexico, including marijuana, despite its legalization in two U.S. states and liberalized use for medical purposes in others.
In an interview with The Associated Press late Monday on goals for his new administration, Pena Nieto was asked if votes to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado would make him rethink Mexico's drug-war policy.
"The short answer is no," said Pena Nieto, who added that he remains personally opposed to legalization. "My government will continue mounting a real fight against the trafficking of marijuana and all other drugs."
He has proposed focusing on reducing violence in Mexico rather than capturing top drug lords, a change from his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. Many have viewed that as a signal that as long as drug gangs don't attack civilians, they would be left alone.
Murder, extortion and kidnapping skyrocketed under Calderon, with some estimates reaching 60,000 drug-related killings during his six-year term. Top Pena Nieto campaign aide Luis Videgaray, now secretary of the treasury, said in November that the U.S. legalization votes would complicate Mexico's anti-drug efforts.
But Pena Nieto said his government "in no way will abandon the fight." He said he is committed to putting up a united front against organized crime, pushing for better coordination among local, state and federal police forces and completing the overhaul of Mexico's broken and corrupt justice system. Calderon tried both with very little success.
Pena Nieto said he believes he will get better results by integrating prevention, investment and enforcement programs.
"I'll put them all on the same plane, there won't be one priority over the others," he said. "We're not going to put all our marbles in the combat arena."
The new president, whose inauguration on Dec. 1 brought back Mexico's longtime-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party after a 12-year hiatus, has enjoyed a considerable honeymoon in his first week in the rough-and-tumble halls of congress. He got leaders of the top two opposing parties to sign his Pact for Mexico, a list of five themes and 95 promises that he has set out to complete during his six-year term, including fiscal, educational and social security reforms. Many lack details and veer little from what Calderon tried to accomplish.
But Pena Nieto earlier Monday proposed an ambitious plan for the government to retake the public education system, now run by a closed and autocratic teachers' union and its long-time leader, Elba Esther Gordillo, often called the most powerful woman in Mexico and a symbol of the country's corrupt,nike blazer low, old-style politics.
He also announced that his administration would reduce the salaries of middle- and high-ranking federal managers by 5 percent.
Pena Nieto said he would make no promises for his first 100 days in office. He has yet to flesh out other reforms, including opening up Mexico's telecommunications industry, and bringing new private investment to Mexico's crucial but creaking state-owned oil industry.
"I've set my horizon for a year," he said, "... that in a year's time we can achieve agreements and consensus, if not unanimous then at least among the majority for the constitutional and legal changes necessary to put the reforms in place."
The president added that he never set a goal of reducing crime by half in the first year,nike blazer mid, contrary to widely circulated reports.
He has laid out a progressive and in many ways populist agenda, but surrounded himself with foreign-educated technocrats and old-guard figures from his party, known as the PRI, which ruled Mexico with an autocratic style for 71 years before being voted out of office in 2000.
That leaves many to question what direction his administration will ultimately take.
"The basic question is, how will a conservative cabinet move a progressive agenda forward?" economist and sociologist Jorge Zepeda Patterson wrote in a weekend opinion piece for the newspaper El Universal. "Along the way,nike blazers women, the authoritarian tendencies of the political operatives could win out and end up distorting, disguising or emptying out the content of the democratic proposals."
Pena Nieto said the multi-party pact and political cooperation in passing a labor reform measure even before he took office signal a new optimism for the country.
"That proves there's greater will and commitment," he said, "a political disposition on the part of all forces to really push the changes Mexico needs to unleash its potential for growth."
________
Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.
Related Articles：11 killed in explosions in southern Indian city_1
HYDERABAD, India (AP) A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 50 more in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said.
The blasts occurred about two minutes apart at around 7 p.m. outside a movie theater and a bus station, police said. Storefronts were shattered, motorcycles covered in debris, and food and plates from a roadside restaurant were scattered on the ground near a tangle of dead bodies. Passersby rushed the bleeding and wounded out of the area.
"This is a dastardly attack, the guilty will not go unpunished," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. He appealed to the public to remain calm.
The bombs were attached to two bicycles about 150 meters (500 feet) apart in Dilsukh Nagar district, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said. The district is a usually crowded shopping area near a residential neighborhood,nike sb blazer.
Eight people died in one explosion and three in the other, Shinde told reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Mahesh Kumar,nike blazers women, a 21-year-old student, was heading home from a tutoring class when a bomb went off.
"I heard a huge sound and something hit me, I fell down, and somebody brought me to the hospital," said Kumar, who suffered shrapnel wounds.
Hyderabad, a city of 10 million, is a hub of India's information technology industry and has a mixed population of Muslims and Hindus.
The explosions Thursday were the first major bomb attack to hit India since a September 2011 blast outside the High Court in New Delhi killed 13 people. The government has been heavily criticized for its failure to arrest the masterminds behind previous bombings,nike blazer high.
Home Secretary R.K. Singh said officials from the National Investigation Agency and commandos of the National Security Guards were leaving New Delhi for Hyderabad.
Rana Banerji, a former security official, said India remains vulnerable to such attacks because there is poor coordination between the national government and the states. Police reforms are also moving very slowly and the quality of intelligence gathering is poor, he said.
"The concept of homeland security should be made effective, on a war footing," he said.
India has been in a state of alert since Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri, was hanged in a New Delhi jail nearly two weeks ago. Guru had been convicted of involvement in a 2001 attack on India's Parliament that killed 14 people, including five gunmen.
Many in Indian-ruled Kashmir believe Guru did not receive a fair trial, and the secrecy with which the execution was carried out fueled anger in a region where anti-India sentiment runs deep.
___
Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.
Related Articles：ANALYSIS- Disciplining children over fake guns may
A 5-year-old faced with a pile of Legos did what boys have done since the dawn of time: He fashioned a weapon, ran about and made shooting sounds.
That's when the Massachusetts elementary school sent a letter to his parents and warned that the next time, their son Joe would be suspended. "I said listen, he's a 5-year-old, I think maybe a redirection would be more appropriate," his mother, Sheila Cruz, told a local radio station. "She (the principal) said, 'it's a threat to other children, and other children could have been scared.'"
In the gun debate following the Newtown massacre, a spate of media reports has centered on cases of very young children being disciplined for playing with fake guns or making aggressive gestures: A 6-year-old boy was suspended for pointing a finger and saying "pow." A fifth-grade girl's paper gun, crafted by her grandfather, got her searched before classmates and threatened with arrest.
The zero-tolerance policy applied to children existed well before Newtown: Last summer, a school asked the parents of a deaf 3-year-old to change his name, as his signing gesture violated school policy.
There are two truths operating in America today, regardless of where one stands on the issue of gun ownership. First, far too many children die from guns, more often by accident than by design. And second, very young children don't understand gun play in the same way that adults do. Another truth is emerging: More adults are missing out on the worth of children's play.
The zero-tolerance measures have emerged in a complex adult world navigating terrorism, bullying, reduced budgets and the emphasis on academics. But according to experts in and out of the classroom, the take-home message is children can't use the method they best understandplayto make sense of the world around them, and to learn the socialization skills that will make them better adults.
When a gun isn't a gun
There are no specific statistics testifying to any rise in disciplinary actions or imaginative gun play. Nor are there any national requirements about such suspensions except for the Gun-Free Schools Act, which dictates that schools expel students who bring real weapons, to qualify for federal funding. (In 2006-07, 2,695 students brought firearms.)
"It's one thing with 15- and 16-year-olds: There should be a zero-tolerance policy to bring any kind of weapon," says Dr. Michael Brody, who chairs the media committee for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. While an older child can equate guns with danger, young children grasp reality far differently. Even the idea of death doesn't mean the same thing, much less what a gun can do. "It's not until about 8 or 9 years old that they develop the ability of concrete thinking," Brody explains to Yahoo.
To a younger kid,nike sb blazer low, the fascination with gunsor sticks or pointed fingers, for that matteris an age-old experiment with symbols of power, and not necessarily in an aggressive way. "Sometimes a cigar isn't a cigar," Brody says. "It's a rehearsal for adult roles."
The loss of play
After a calamity like Columbine or Newtown, young children's seeming preoccupation with tools of violence is normal, just like their preoccupation with martial moves after watching Mutant Ninja Turtles. Children merely act out what surrounds them. A 1999 study estimated that the average American child saw 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 simulated murders before turning 18and that's just television. And, points out Brody, who recently authored "Seductive Screens: Children's MediaPast, Present and Future," "Most of the acts of violence [they see] is justified violence. It's by the good guys: The good guys are beating up the bad guys because they've done something."
In her book "Under Deadman's Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play," Jane Katch chronicled young children playing a game they called Suicidewhich turned out to be more about spontaneous combustion.
"They were pretending they exploded, and 5-year-olds love explosions of any kind," she said to Yahoo. When the children were told they had to play games that didn't have blood and guts, they invented ninjas cutting witches in half. To a child's mind, that wasn't a bloody deed. "That wasn't their image; It was more cutting a gummy bear in half."
With those competing images, it's no wonder real-life lessons don't stick: One experiment tried to drill home the message to second-gradersin two one-hour classes over the course of two weeksto tell an adult if they came across a gun. Twenty boys were then left alone in a classroom with a fake gun in a drawer. Once they found that gun, he says, they started chasing each other with the replica. Only two kids out of 20 said somebody had to be told.
Rough-and-tumble socializing
At the University of Maine, educators abandoned futile attempts to ban "bad guys" from preschool classroom play and experimented not only with letting villainy return to children's games, but also having teachers agree to play the bad guy. "Over time, we became convinced that children's pretending to act aggressively is not the same as acting aggressively," the study concluded. "Convinced that children could in fact develop social and cognitive skills through such play, we made a conscious decision not to stop play with aggressive themes."
"Children know right away which is playing and which is fighting," says Mary Ellin Logue,nike blazers women, an associate professor of early childhood education who co-wrote the study. "Adults had a less accurate assessment."
What adults perceive as aggression is really rough-and-tumble play that exists cross-species and cross-culture, she told Yahoo. Nor is it kids acting up, but playing through concepts of rules, cooperation and socialization. These games can actually expose children with poor coping skills, who attribute hostility where there's none. "Those are the children who are likely to escalate into violence," she says, and they can be spotted. "The research is about 1 percent of that play escalates into violence. We're making our policies for 99 percent based on 1 percent."
Conversely, suppressing play just backfires. Children will call their imaginary gun a firehose and retreat to the other end of the playground. "They get sneaky," Logue saysnot the lesson children should learn.
Adult pressures on children
There is one indisputable statistic: 100 percent of all adults were once children. That hasn't made understanding the creatures we once were any easier.
"It's amazing to me, in working with parents or other people that have to deal with children, how repressed those memories becomein terms of people not able to reach back and remember what they were like as adolescents and children," Brody says. He sees disproportionate punishments as administrators yielding to concerned parents, rather than advocating for the child. "Sometimes the people making the decisions aren't real experts in terms of child development."
As a longtime teacher, Katch has seen a decided shift in how adults view children at play. "I have no question that there's been a huge change," she says. Katch remembers her post-World War II childhood, when she and other children pretended to be soldiers and folk hero Davy Crockett and shot cap guns. Then came the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. "That was when people started to get worried about children pretending what they've always been pretending." At the same time that children have become inundated with violent images in news, television and video games, adults have begun to criticize children for playing out what they see around them.
"We flood them with too much information, and we don't want them to play about it," Katch says. "And playing about it is how they deal with things."
Society has become far more complicated, and the complications get carried into the school system: We're a time-crunched generation whose extended families have dissipated. Children's schedules have become more structured, recess has been cut, and play has been perceived as less useful than reading and writing by the time they're in first grade,nike blazer high.
"We've had more and more pressure put on young children," Katch says. "They can't play anymore in kindergarten; they can't learn how to get along with lessons that will last a lifetime." The other startling trend she sees is the amount of anxiety in children. "It's my personal opinion, the kids who were born around the time of the World Trade Center [attack] are anxious, and it's a much, much different level of anxiety than I've seen before."
"If you look really closely at the children's play, in most cases they're trying to be good. They're trying to protect, and be powerful and masterful and they're using the tool of their culture to do that," Logue says "Sure, it would be great if they just played with nonlethal fingers, but it's a symbol and what they mean and what they intendwe don't talk to them about it. We don't join that play."
American Kids Are Officially Pigging Out a Lot Les
Discovered: A new reason for declining childhood obesity rates; this massive goldfish shouldn't have been swimming in Lake Tahoe; flies give alcohol to their babies; bees sense electric flowers.
RELATED: Perry Thinks His Slurring Speech Went Well
Our children are consuming fewer calories.,nike blazer mid. Overeating has gone down amongst American kids in recent years, according to data from a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Children consumed on average about 4 to 7 percent fewer calories per day in 2010 than they did in 2000. Boys now eat about 2,100 calories a day while girls consume around 1,755. The decline in calorie consumption was most pronounced in boys aged 2 to 11 and girls in their teens. That might go some ways toward explaining why childhood obesity rates while still high are appearing to taper off.The numbers are reassuring, but Michelle Obama still has her work cut out for her convincing kids to eat healthier,nike blazers women, says R. Bethene Ervin one of the researchers involved in this study: "A harbinger of change is a good phrase. But to see if it’s really a real trend we would obviously need more years of data,nike blazer low." [The New York Times]
RELATED: ... And Garnish with Pickled Toe
Flies get their young tipsy to ward off invaders.Fruit flies do something similar to the old wive's trick of dipping pacifiers in liquor. But instead of trying to calm down cranky babies, they're attempting to protect their young from wasps who might try to lay their own eggs inside their developing bodies. That's the conclusion of a new study led by Emory University's Todd Schlenke. Wasps don't like the taste of alcohol, so when female slies sense theseparasitesnearby, they will lay their eggs in alcohol-soaked food. National Geographic's Ed Yong notes that this technique has important evolutionary advantages, writing, "Throughout the history of these insects, the ability to resist alcohol and to use it as medicine have evolved hand-in-hand many times over." [National Geographic] RELATED: Gecko Foot Glue; When Alcohol Is a Health Food Bees buzz along with flowers. Electric fields are everywhere, we just can't sense them. But bees are uniquely equipped to pick up on the electric energy in flowers, according to new research from University of Bristol biologits Daniel Robert. These electric fields attract pollinating bees as much as smell and color, giving bees a kind of sixth to help them with their reproductive duties. This finding could help gardeners attract more bees to their flowers, simply by misting a positively chargedaerosol spray over the flora. "I am blown away," comments University of Nevada, Reno researcher Anne Leonard. "I imagine that we’ll all be desperate to spray our flowers down with the aerosol they describe."[ScienceNews] RELATED: Which Is Worse? Hungry Kids or Fat Kids? Inset image:Heather Segale
Analysis - Groupon may usher in more “serious” e
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Groupon Inc
The exit of co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason - fired after another disappointing set of quarterly results slashed Groupon's market value by a quarter - may usher in a new, more "serious" era marked more by careful, painful decisions rather than reckless geographical and market expansion.
Consumer and merchant demand is sliding for Groupon's daily deals - online vouchers offering discounts on local goods and services. And a slew of new businesses Mason acquired or expanded into are either lower margin or have yet to gain traction.
"It's time to change Groupon from a start-up into a mature corporation," said Jason Jones of HighStep Capital, a technology investment firm that does not own Groupon shares. "They will probably go outside and find a CEO who has run a major multi-national brand before. They need to tame the beast."
Ted Leonis and Eric Lefkofsky - an early mentor of Mason and Groupon's largest shareholder, respectively - are serving as co-CEOs until the company finds Mason's replacement.
Groupon shares jumped 12 percent to $5.06 on Friday on hopes there will be more focus on profits. But those gains still leave the stock down more than 70 percent from its IPO price, highlighting the challenges ahead for Mason's replacement,nike sb blazer.
"Changing the CEO is not going to change the fundamentally tough aspects of the business," said Dan Niles, chief investment officer of tech-focused hedge fund firm AlphaOne Capital Partners, which does not own Groupon stock.
Underscoring the uphill climb for any incoming CEO, LivingSocial, Groupon's main rival, has struggled so much that it was recently forced into a painful new financing round by existing investors - offering a spate of concessions to snag a $110 million (73 million pounds) lifeline.
"Mason built a good business, but it is difficult to run at scale," Niles added. "The new CEO will have to be somebody with a strong stomach."
CONSOLIDATION
Rocky Agrawal, a Silicon Valley-based independent analyst, expects Groupon's editorial staff to be cut. These employees write the quirky descriptions of deals that made Groupon famous, but it is not clear how much value they provide, Agrawal said.
Some merchants get annoyed when Groupon's writers try to be funny but end up describing their businesses inaccurately, he explained.
This editorial department "was Andrew's baby," so now that he has gone, it is at risk, Agrawal said.
Such a change would be part of a broader shift in Groupon's culture that will come with a new CEO.
"Groupon will be less quirky, more serious," said Rob Solomon, a former COO at the company. Groupon will be "all about execution."
Groupon is also likely to ratchet back its global ambitions, according to Agrawal, Solomon and others.
Groupon would be more profitable if it cut its 10 percent or 20 percent worst-performing markets, Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, said during a Wednesday conference call following the quarterly results.
"I'm wondering how you make sense of being in 500 different markets in 48 different countries," Rohan added.
Kal Raman, the current COO, noted that more than twice the number of people are needed to handle an international division deal, than a deal in the United States.
"We are continuing to evaluate every single market, every single city we are in to make sure that we are able to take care of the merchants and customers, more importantly our shareholders," Raman said.
A Groupon spokesman said there are no "definite" plans for international job cuts, but he noted that there were staff reductions in the United States when the company automated processes there last year,nike sb blazer low.
Groupon's new CEO may also cut the company's goods business, which offers discounts on products such as electronic gadgets, some analysts said.
Groupon Goods is on course to generate $2 billion in annual revenue, but it is less profitable than the original deals business and it is not focused on local merchants, according to Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley Caris.
Groupon will likely become a more focused online local advertising and marketing company, the analyst said.
"The torrid growth story is gone. It will be more about consolidating at this point." Sinha added,nike blazers for women.
(Editing by Peter Lauria, Martin Howell)
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