Jul
8
Meet the ‘Big Brother 10′ cast
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
STUDIO CITY, Calif. - “Big Brother 10″ is returning to its roots.
The claustrophobic CBS reality show is sealing 13 actual strangers - no ex lovers, secret twin partners or long-lost siblings this time - inside a makeshift house on a Studio City soundstage for the chance to be the last houseguest standing and take home the $500,000 grand prize.
“There’s somebody for everyone in this cast,” executive producer Allison Grodner recently told The Associated Press at CBS Radford Studios. “It’s going to be interesting to see people that come from such opposite worlds living together, which has always been a part of this show, but this season, we really do have our most diverse group ever.”
The contestants - which will include a gay bull rider, a Hooters waitress, a professional bodybuilder and a 75-year-old former Marine - will spend the summer competing in challenges and evicting each other while being monitored by over 50 cameras. It’s the first time since the show’s third season that the houseguests are all strangers.
“When approaching this season, we wanted to look at what made this spark and last for 10 seasons,” said Grodner, who’s worked on “Big Brother” since the second season. “Every season had its unique twist. I think, in a way, going back to basics and having the cast be all strangers is part of the twist of ‘10.’ Of course, there will be more.”
In last season’s first-ever winter edition of “Big Brother,” which was quickly put into production because of the writers strike, contestants were partnered with each other and evicted as pairs for the first four weeks of competition. Grodner said a new “Big Brother 10″ gameplay twist would be introduced during the premiere episode on July 13.
“It’s really a power-play,” teased Grodner. “The game will actually start before they enter the house.”
In recent seasons, contestants have come under fire outside the house for controversial remarks made inside the house. During the eighth season, Amber Siyavus said that Jewish people tend to be “really money-hungry” and “selfish.” Last season’s winner Adam Jasinski was fired by a nonprofit autism organization because he used the word “retards.”
“Those types of comments are not something we want to happen,” said Grodner. “It’s a live show. It’s not censored on the Internet. These are real people. We aren’t telling them what to say, but we’re not telling them what not to say either. Things do happen. We, of course, can choose what we put in the show, and we do so carefully.”
This season’s contestants seem to be more aware of the repercussions of their actions from the outset. Before meeting their competitors or entering the house, the “Big Brother 10″ cast was individually interviewed by the AP while they were voluntarily sequestered - no television, newspapers or telephones - from the outside world in a Studio City hotel.
“If you make a mistake and say the wrong things, you may offend people and be known for that forever,” said Steven Daigle, a 35-year-old geographic consultant and gay rodeo competitor from Dallas. “People make mistakes. If I do make a mistake, I hope I can learn from it and know that was some part of my life that I was ignorant or uneducated about.”
The rooms inside the “Big Brother” house this season will be themed to different decades. The kitchen, for example, resembles a ’50s diner while one of the bedrooms is filled with ’70s-inspired furnishings. The timeliness extends to this season’s crop of contestants. At 75, Jerry MacDonald will be the oldest “Big Brother” houseguest ever.
“Age does not bother me,” MacDonald told the AP. “I hope it doesn’t bother them.”
Libra Thompson, a married 31-year-old human resources representative from Spring, Texas, left behind her husband and three children - including 4-month-old twins - to participate in “Big Brother 10.” During production, Thompson and the other “Big Brother” contestants are prohibited from communicating with the outside world.
“It’s better for me that they’re younger,” said Thompson of her newborns. “At four months old, they’re not going to remember much. It’s probably going to be a little bit more difficult for my 4-year-old. However, I’m going to stay focused and remember the reason I’m here, and that’s the cash. That will help me.”
Prize money talks.
“I’m motivated because I’m a big fan of the show, but I’m more motivated that I have a chance to win $500,000,” said Angie Swindell, a 29-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative from Orlando, Fla. “I just have to keep telling myself that if I start feeling all queasy about the 24-7 thing, there’s an end to the means.”
April Dowling, a 30-year-old car dealership finance manager from Higley, Ariz., said she doesn’t think the “Big Brother” experience will be any more difficult than the time she had to spend 15 days in a “tent city” jail for drunk-driving charges. She also believes living in the house may remedy some of her obsessive-compulsive behaviors.
“I have seen a therapist,” said Dowling. “They tried to put me on anti-anxiety medication, but I’m not big on prescription medication. I just don’t like to take it. I’m actually hoping the ‘Big Brother’ experience will be therapeutic. My life will not end if the green beans aren’t behind the corn in the pantry.”
Source
May
9
Air pollution in Wyo. community rivals that of big cities
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
BOULDER, Wyo. - There isn’t anything metropolitan about this tiny unincorporated town in southwest Wyoming, where a few single-family homes and a volunteer fire station stand against a skyline of snowcapped mountains.
But Boulder, with a population of just 75 people, has one thing in common with major metropolitan areas: air pollution thick enough to pose health risks.
“Used to be you could see horizon to horizon, crystal clear. Now you got this,” said Craig Jensen as he gestured to a pale blue sky that he says is not as deeply colored as it used to be. “Makes you wonder what it’s going to do to the grass, the trees and the birds.”
The pollution, largely from the region’s booming natural gas industry, came in the form of ground-level ozone, which has exceeded healthy levels 11 times since January and caused Wyoming to issue its first ozone alerts. Now the ozone threatens to cost the industry and taxpayers millions of dollars to stay within federal clean-air laws.
Sublette County is home to one of the largest natural gas reserves in North America, and it is dotted with hundreds of gas wells to supply the nation’s growing demand for cleaner-burning fuel. Thousands more wells are planned for the future.
But pollution from vehicles and equipment in the gas fields - along with dust, weather and geography - have raised ozone to a level that rivals those of big cities in the summertime.
Wyoming’s ozone problem comes at a time when the federal government has strengthened its ozone restrictions to better protect public health. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency set a new ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, down from 80 parts per billion.
The peak eight-hour average for ozone near Boulder reached 122 parts per billion on Feb. 21 and 102 parts per billion on March 11. By comparison, the Los Angeles area hit a peak average of 152 parts per billion last summer, and Denver recorded a peak of 98 parts per billion last July.
Failure to meet federal air-quality standards could result in mandatory pollution-cutting measures ranging from restricting wood-burning stoves in homes to placing limits on the booming oil and gas industry.
Jeremy Nichols, director of the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, said all economic development in the region - not just the energy industry - could be affected.
“If we don’t get ahead of the curve, we could be suffering serious consequences in the future,” Nichols said.
Conservation groups have seized on the ozone alerts in their efforts to curb drilling for natural gas in the area.
“Obviously, the pace and level of development is just too much,” said Linda Baker of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition.
The energy industry says it has been working with regulators to ease the problem and insists drilling should not be curtailed.
Ozone is a component of smog, a yellowish haze of pollutants that lingers near ground level and can raise the risk of asthma and heart attacks, especially among the elderly and children with respiratory illnesses.
Ozone needs sunlight to form, and state environmental officials believe the ozone levels in Wyoming this past winter and spring were exacerbated by heavy snowcover, which intensified the sunlight by reflecting it off the snow. In 2007, when the area had little snowcover, there were no elevated ozone readings.
Also contributing to the situation are rare temperature inversions, when cold air is trapped close to the ground, and the surrounding mountains, which enclose the pollution in the Green River valley.
Gas developers in the area are sharing information on how best to reduce ozone, according to Randy Teeuwan, a spokesman for Encana Corp., one of the largest gas suppliers. Encana already is using natural gas-powered drilling rigs that emit less pollution, and it is consolidating field operations to reduce emissions.
State officials are working with the industry to reduce emissions without waiting for new federal regulations to take effect.
“We understand that the people who are living up there cannot wait two or three years for us to develop regulatory tools,” said David Finley with the state Department of Environmental Quality.
For instance, the state is considering a plan that, when conditions appear ripe for ozone formation, would ask companies to curtail truck traffic or use more drilling rigs powered by cleaner-burning natural gas.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management is reviewing a proposal by several companies to allow nearly 4,400 more wells in the county.
Jim Sewell, environmental project manager with Shell Exploration and Production, said the expansion project would have lower emissions than existing facilities. The companies also are offering $36 million to pay for environmental monitoring and other measures that lessen the effects of drilling on air quality, wildlife and plants.
Jensen, whose family has lived in this part of Wyoming for four generations, said he has seen both sides of gas development.
On one hand, he has received royalties from wells on his land, enabling him to buy a boat, snowmobiles and other “toys.”
But the pollution leaves Jensen longing for the days of clear skies, little traffic and fewer people.
“I’d give it up right now if all them rigs moved,” he said
Source:
May
1
BP and Shell post big profits in era of record oil prices
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
LONDON - BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s two biggest oil producers, posted forecast-busting first-quarter earnings on Tuesday thanks to record crude oil prices that are expected to bolster profits across the industry.ADVERTISEMENT
The combined profits of $17 billion reignited calls for a windfall tax on oil profits as consumers struggle to pay for food and fuel.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested that some of those profits should be reinvested in costly exploration for new oil reserves in the North Sea.
BP posted a 63 percent surge in first-quarter net profit to $7.6 billion (4.9 billion euros), while Shell reported a 25 percent rise, to a record $9.08 billion (5.81 billion euros).
Revenue at BP jumped 44 percent to $89.2 billion (57.1 billion euros), while sales at Shell soared 55 percent to $114 billion (72.95 billion euros).
Last week ConocoPhillips reported a 16 percent rise in net income to $4.14 billion. Like BP and Shell, the third biggest U.S. producer far outpaced industry expectations. More big profits are expected from the biggest two U.S. companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., when they report first-quarter earnings later this week.
Crude oil hit $111.80 per barrel during the quarter, while gas jumped an average of 22 percent. Crude has pushed even higher since, reaching a record $119.93 per-barrel this week.
BP shares jumped 6 percent to 613 pence ($12.18), while Shell rose 4.5 percent to 25.83 euros ($40.39).
The enormous profit reports from European companies coincided with the end of a two-day refinery strike in Britain that shut off 700,000 barrels of oil per day, brought from the North Sea to a BP plant.
Truck drivers staged a protest in London’s Park Lane on Tuesday, blaring their horns to protest a 30 percent rise in the price of diesel over the past year. A similar protest took place in Washington, D.C. on Monday, and it wasn’t the first.
“The price of fuel is becoming something many families are struggling with,” said Sheila Ranger, a spokeswoman for the RAC Foundation, a commuter advocacy group. “This will be the last straw for some motorists.”
Shell’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said oil companies are not to blame.
“We don’t understand the oil price at this stage,” he said. “The fundamentals will not justify an oil price as we see it at the moment.”
Shell’s earnings from oil production rose 52 percent to $5.14 billion (3.3 billion euros), due almost entirely to the price increases. The company said combined production of gas and oil equivalents increased by less than 1 percent to 3.4 million barrels per day, as a 9 percent rise in gas production outweighed a 6 percent fall in oil production.
Stripping out the impact of oil inventories that have risen in value, refining profits would have fallen 20 percent, Shell said.
“It seems that better marketing and trading were able to offset the weak refining environment,” analyst Alexandre Weinberg of Petercam.
Shell has invested heavily to improve production after a string of setbacks, including an accounting scandal in 2004. More recently, it has faced attacks on its pipelines in Nigeria and a forced sale of part of its stake in a major project on Russia’s Sakhalin Island to a state-run enterprise.
BP’s profit follows an even rougher period for the company from production outages, U.S. environmental fines and fraud and the scandal-tinged departure of its chief executive.
Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who took over from John Browne a year ago, has focused on bringing new production and refining capacity on line to improve earnings.
“At last, it appears that BP is beginning to improve its operational performance and this looks set to drive a stronger financial performance in the second half,” said Tony Shephard, analyst at Charles Stanley & Co.
BP’s closely watched replacement cost profit rose 48 percent to $6.59 billion (4.34 billion euros), compared with $4.44 billion in the first quarter of 2007. The replacement cost figure is viewed by many analysts as the best measure of an oil company’s underlying performance because it excludes changes in the value of crude inventories, measuring the amount it would cost to replace assets at current prices.
The company said refining availability improved for the sixth successive quarter.
“BP is still not firing on all cylinders but its operational turnaround looks to be on track with a strong second half recovery in prospect,” said Charles Stanley & Co. analyst Tony Shephard.
Source:
Apr
24
Bull market in gold means big bucks for old dental work
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
NEW YORK - Dazzled by the bull market in gold, people are digging through drawers for old dental caps, fillings and bridgework they saved years ago and selling them at prices that would make the tooth fairy blush.
run to $1,000 an ounce.
“People are really cashing in. If a dentist passes away, their kids come in with a big pile of gold teeth,” said Scott Taber, owner of Taber Coins, a Shrewsbury, Mass., coin dealer that buys dental gold and then resells it to a gold smelter.
He said he used to see only a few customers a month selling gold teeth but now gets that many each week. “People are digging up the gold and starting to sell it,” he said.
A gold crown typically uses about one-tenth of an ounce of 16-karat gold, which would fetch around $40 to $50 at today’s prices, Taber said. Heavier pieces of dental gold can command prices of several hundred dollars, he said.
That deal sounds pretty good to people like Ann Davis, a 63-year-old retiree in Rock Island, Ill., who had gold caps and a bridge removed nearly 40 years ago and has held on to them ever since.
“You don’t want to throw it away because it might be worth something,” she said. “Now that gold’s going up it’s time to think about selling.”
Gold prices have been surging since late last year as the weak dollar, record crude-oil prices and fears of a U.S. recession have enhanced its appeal as a haven for investors.
Gold set a record of $1,038.60 an ounce on March 17 and has since fallen to about $920, but experts say it could soon resume its upward climb. Several precious metals analysts have even predicted $2,000 gold ahead as a global commodities boom pushes the price of raw materials further into record territory. That would roughly equal gold’s inflation-adjusted high of the 1980s.
Gold crowns, fillings and bridgework are usually made of 16-karat gold, an alloy that contains other metals such as silver, zinc and copper. That made gold dental work soft enough to shape but hard enough to form a biting surface.
Gold is still used to make some crowns, but fillings today are more commonly made of other substances, such as less expensive mercury amalgam or more cosmetically attractive polymer compounds.
“There’s a lot of people my age who have excess gold teeth and they don’t know what to do with them,” said Davis, who stashed her dental gold in a bank safe deposit box and recently began looking online for ways to sell it.
“They must be valuable or otherwise the dentist wouldn’t give them to you in a bag.”
Recycling dental work isn’t just a U.S. phenomenon. The Japan Denture Recycle Association, which started in December 2006, has recycled 30,000 dentures and raised about $176,500 for charity.
Dentures use parts made of gold, silver, palladium and other precious metals, and the project’s leader estimates all the dentures discarded in Japan each year could raise nearly $70 million.
But don’t expect to get rich hawking gold fillings and crowns.
Dr. Parviz Azar-Mehr, a dental specialist who runs a private practice in Westwood, Calif., said he often gives patients the dental gold he removes but says it’s rarely enough to sell.
“Usually the amount of gold is so little that it’s not significant,” Azar-Mehr said.
And replacing a gold crown isn’t cheap. Newer porcelain and gold crowns can cost $500 to $3,000 apiece, and not all insurance companies will pay for the procedure.
Besides the financial benefit, Taber says people don’t mind selling dental gold because it’s far less emotional than parting with heirlooms like grandma’s wedding ring or the family silverware.
“I haven’t seen anybody with sentimental teeth,” Taber said.
Apr
22
Airlines Win Big on Those who Overpack
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
Whether traveling for business or pleasure, airline passengers might want to think twice about how much they bring along for the ride, starting next month.
Five of the seven major US airlines (Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Air) plan to charge most customers $25 each way to check a second bag starting May 5. Of the largest carriers, only American and Southwest have decided not to go along - for now. Airtran is adding a $10 second bag fee for travel on or after May 15. Spirit Airlines already had a $10 fee if paid online, or $20 at the airport.
But the new fees do not apply to all passengers, advises Airfarewatchdog.com. Those buying first-class or business-class tickets, or flying on frequent flyer awards in those classes, will typically be exempt, as will frequent-flyer program members who have achieved upper tiers with their airlines (such as United Mileage Plus Premier customers). Military personnel flying “with orders” are off the hook.
These fees are in addition to those for excess, oversized and overweight bags, so a passenger traveling on United, for example, with three checked bags weighing 50 pounds or less will be charged $25 for the second but $100 for the third.
But if any of the three bags tips the scale at 51 pounds or more, overweight charges of an additional $100 per bag, each way, kick in. So unless otherwise exempt, a passenger flying roundtrip on United with three bags weighing just a pound over the 50-pound limit would be charged $200 for the first ($100 overweight fee each way), $250 for the second (second bag fee of $25 times two plus overweight fee of $100 times two), and $400 for the third (a $100 third bag fee times two plus a $100 overweight fee times two), for a total - fasten your seat belts - of $850.
Keep in mind that these are domestic fees, and international charges may be higher, depending on destination.
A better way
There must be a better way, and there is: UPS, US Postal Service, or FedEx. Flying from your home in Manhattan to a convention in Long Beach? UPS will send your 51 pounds of trade-show samples each way for $59.34, when last checked at ups.com, with four-day service. Or ship that 60-pound suitcase from Miami to San Francisco for $63.78 each way.
Not only will you avoid having to lug your luggage through endless airport concourses, but chances are that UPS will do a better job of not losing your shipment than your airline will (and if UPS does misplace it, at least the company will feel bad about it.)
Although Pete Mitchell, director of business-to-business sales for the luggage manufacturer Samsonite, told the New York Times he often travels with one-of-a-kind items because he is reluctant to send them via a shipping service, he probably didn’t read the fine print in his airline’s lost-and-damaged-luggage policy. Airline policies don’t cover business samples and trade-show materials if something goes amiss. They’re in the same category as cash, valuables, jewelry, and electronics.
What airline baggage policies don’t cover
At least when you ship FedEx or UPS, you can declare a higher value and insure your business items. In fact, before you pack for your next flight, it’s a good idea to have a look at what your airline will not take responsibility for should your checked bags be lost or damaged. Here’s American’s list, for example, which is pretty standard for the industry:
“Antiques, artifacts, artwork, books and documents, china, computers and other electronic equipment, computer software, fragile items (including child/infant restraint devices such as strollers and car seats), eyeglasses, prescription sunglasses, non-prescription sunglasses and all other eyewear and eye/vision devices whether lenses are glass, plastic, or some other material, furs, heirlooms, items carried in the passenger compartment of the aircraft, liquids, medicines, money, perishable items, photographic, video and optical equipment, precious metals, stones or jewelry, securities and negotiable papers, silverware, samples, unique or irreplaceable items or any other similar valuable items.”
Note the “samples” bit, all you road warriors.
United excludes these items as well, and also mentions “business effects” in its disclaimer - which probably includes your press kits and all those fridge magnets you were going to give away at the trade show.
So tell your airline “No, thanks,” next time it tries to hit you with baggage fees. Plan ahead, tell your hotel (or branch office or family) that you’re expecting a shipment and to hold it until your arrival, and save yourself some money and a backache.
Top 10 Most Obnoxious Hidden Airline Fees
What to Do when an Airline Loses Your Luggage
The Top 10 Things Travel Insurance Doesn’t Cover
Original Story: Airlines Win Big on Those who Overpack
Visit Aviation.com, the new one-stop destination for business fliers, commercial travelers, industry analysts and aviation buffs.
Apr
13
Bush readies big welcome for pope
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON - The leader of the world’s Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in history. That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI’s plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner.ADVERTISEMENT
These are all firsts.
Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport. In fact, no president has done so at Andrews Air Force Base, the typical landing spot for modern leaders.
A crowd of up to 12,000 is due at the White House on Wednesday morning for the pope’s official, pomp-filled arrival ceremony. It will feature the U.S. and Holy See anthems, a 21-gun salute, and the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office meeting and a send-off for his popemobile down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The White House crowd will be the largest of Bush’s presidency. It even beats the audience last spring for Queen Elizabeth II, which numbered about 7,000.
The evening festivities will mark the first time the Bushes have put on a high-profile meal in honor of someone who isn’t even a guest. Wednesday is the pontiff’s 81st birthday, and the menu celebrates his German heritage with Bavarian-style food.
But Benedict’s prayer service that evening with U.S. bishops at a famed Washington basilica preclude him from coming to the dinner, according to the White House. Catholic leaders will be there instead.
The president explained the special treatment - particularly the airport greeting.
“One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn’t come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith,” Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday. He added that he wanted to honor Benedict’s conviction that “there’s right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies.”
The Bush-Benedict get-together will be the 25th meeting between a pope and a sitting president.
The first did not come until shortly after the end of World War I, when Woodrow Wilson was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XV in 1919. The next wasn’t for 40 more years, when President Eisenhower saw Pope John XXIII in Rome. President Carter hosted the first White House visit by a pope, when John Paul II came on Oct. 6, 1979.
Since then, such audiences have become a must-do. Every president has met with the pope at least once, often more. This week makes Bush the record-holder, with a total of five meetings with two popes.
There are more than 64 million reasons for this. Catholics number nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population, making them a desirable constituency for politicians to court. Worldwide, there are now an estimated 1 billion Roman Catholics.
“The pope represents not just the Catholic church but the possibility of moral argument in world affairs and it is very important for American presidents to rub up against that from time to time,” said George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and biographer of Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican - seat of a government as well as a religious headquarters - has an interest, too.
“It wants to be a player in world affairs, and everyone understands that to do that you have to be in conversation with the United States,” said John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the independent National Catholic Reporter.
On social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research, Bush and Benedict have plenty of common ground.
But they disagree over the war in Iraq, just as Bush did with Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul.
When Benedict was a cardinal before the 2003 invasion, the now-pontiff categorically dismissed the idea that a preventive strike against Iraq could be justified under Catholic doctrine. In his Easter message last year, Benedict said “nothing positive comes from Iraq.”
Benedict told Bush at their first meeting last summer at the Vatican that he was concerned about “the worrisome situation in Iraq.” Bush characterized the pontiff’s concerns as mostly limited to the treatment of the Christian minority in Muslim-majority Iraq. The statement out of the Vatican suggested a broader discussion.
Weigel predicted talks this time would be focused almost entirely there.
Prominent Christians have been slain in Iraq in recent weeks and tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians are believed to have fled the country because of attacks and threats. “The Vatican is a very adult place,” he said. “The arguments of five years ago are over.”
The current pope’s approach may be softer than that of John Paul, who turned from Bush’s presentation to him of the Medal of Freedom in 2004 to read a statement about his “grave concern” over events in Iraq. But Benedict is no less committed to the church’s stand on issues such as abortion, stem cells and the death penalty, as well as war.
In fact, the death penalty is another area of long-held disagreement, with Bush a strong supporter. Benedict also speaks forcefully against punitive immigration laws and the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, and for environmental protection and social welfare - all in ways that often run counter to Bush administration policies.
But differences between popes and presidents are nothing new.
John Paul and former President Clinton clashed - with strikingly sharp Vatican statements - on abortion.
Also, the church’s opposition to almost any war but self-defensive ones has been a persistent theme in U.S. relations.
Pope Paul VI wanted to help mediate an end to the Vietnam War. John Paul also urged President Reagan against the arms race and spoke out vigorously against the Persian Gulf war under the current president’s father. All these urgings, like the current anti-Iraq argument, were to no avail.
“Modern popes have seen themselves as voices of conscience and peacemakers,” Allen said. “U.S. administrations haven’t always been excited for them to play that role.”
Weighty discussions aside, the talks with Bush are not likely to be the most-remembered or most influential part of the pontiff’s six-day, two-city U.S. tour, Weigel said. That is expected to come when Benedict addresses the United Nations on Friday.
“I think it’s nice they’re going to meet. They have a lot of things to talk about,” he said. “But the notion that the world operates by the big guys getting together and cutting a deal is wrong.”
Source:
Mar
28
Big belly boosts risk of later dementia
Filed Under Most Pepular, News, UK News | Leave a Comment
NEW YORK - Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.
It’s not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren’t overweight were susceptible.
That abdominal fat, sometimes described as making people apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped, has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
“Now we can add dementia to that,” said study author Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.
She and others report the findings in Wednesday’s online issue of the journal Neurology.
The study involved 6,583 men and women who were ages 40 to 45 when they had checkups between 1964 and 1973. As part of the exam, their belly size was measured by using a caliper to find the distance between their backs and the surface of their upper abdomens. For the study, a distance of about 10 inches or more was considered high.
The researchers checked medical records to see who had developed Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia by an average of 36 years later. At that point the participants were ages 73 to 87. There were 1,049 cases.
Analysis found that compared to people in the study with normal body weight and a low belly measurement:
• Participants with normal body weight and high belly measurements were 89 percent more likely to have dementia.
• Overweight people were 82 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than twice as likely if they had a high belly measurement.
• Obese people were 81 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than three times as likely if they had a high measurement.
Whitmer said there’s no precise way to translate belly measurements into waist circumference. But most people have a sense of whether they have a big belly, she said. And if they do, the new study suggests they should get rid of it, she said.
It’s not clear why abdominal fat would promote dementia, but it may pump out substances that harm the brain, she said.
Dr. Jose Luchsinger of the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who studies the connection between obesity and Alzheimer’s disease but didn’t participate in the new work, cautioned that such a study cannot prove abdominal fat promotes dementia.
But the study results are “highly plausible” and “I’m not surprised at all,” he said. High insulin levels might help explain them, he said.
Dr. Samuel Gandy, who chairs the medical and scientific advisory council of the Alzheimer’s Association, said the results fit in with previous work that indicates a person’s characteristics in middle age can affect the risk of dementia in later life.
And it’s another example of how traits associated with the risk of developing heart disease are also linked to later dementia, he said
Source: Yahoo News
Mar
24
RICHMOND, Va. - Turns out there’s some basis for the long-held belief among college admissions officials that the better their schools’ teams do in high-profile sporting events, the more applications they’ll see.
Until recently, evidence about the “Flutie Effect” - coined when applications to Boston College jumped about 30 percent in the two years after quarterback Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass beat Miami in 1984 - had been mostly anecdotal.
So two researchers set out to quantify it, concluding after a broad study that winning the NCAA football or men’s basketball title means a bump of about 8 percent, with smaller increases the reward more modest success.
“Certainly college administrators have known about this for a while, but I think this study helps to pin down what the average effects are,” said Jaren Pope, an assistant professor in applied economics at Virginia Tech who conducted the study with his brother Devin, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
The brothers compared information on freshman classes at 330 NCAA Division I schools with how the schools’ teams fared from 1983 through 2002.
Among their conclusions in a paper that is to be published this year in Southern Economic Journal:
• Schools that make it to the Sweet 16 in the men’s basketball tournament see an average 3 percent boost in applications the following year. The champion is likely to see a 7 to 8 percent increase, but just making the 65-team field will net schools an average 1 percent bump.
• Similarly, applications go up 7 to 8 percent at schools that win the national football championship, and schools that finish in the top 20 have a 2.5 percent gain.
There has been wide debate over the legitimacy of the Flutie Effect, especially when it comes to whether schools should pour money into athletics programs with the hope of reaping the benefits of a winning team.
Pope said that’s certainly not what he is suggesting.
For George Mason University, just outside Washington, the positive effects of its unlikely Final Four appearance two years ago were wide-reaching.
In addition to increases in fundraising, attendance at games and other benefits, freshman applications increased 22 percent the year after the team made its magical run. The percentage of out-of-state freshmen jumped from 17 percent to 25 percent, and admissions inquiries rose 350 percent, said Robert Baker, director of George Mason’s Center for Sport Management who conducted a study called “The Business of Being Cinderella.”
Baker also found that SAT scores went up by 25 points in the freshman class, and retention rates as freshmen moved into their sophomore year increased more than 2 percentage points.
“You will certainly have critics who say it would have happened anyway, but I think the general consensus is that it happened faster because of this and that it allowed this university to reach new heights more quickly,” Baker said.
Gonzaga was virtually unknown in most parts of the country until it broke into the national tournament in the mid-’90s. The Zags have been in the tournament every year since 1999, and during that time enrollment has grown from just over 4,500 to nearly 7,000, said Dale Goodwin, a university spokesman.
Inquiries have jumped from about 20,000 per year to 50,000, and the Spokane, Wash., school attracts students from eastern states where it doesn’t recruit.
“There’s no other way they would have heard about Gonzaga,” Goodwin said.
The study found that private schools saw even larger increases than public universities.
Drake made it to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1971 this year only to lose to Western Kentucky on a last-second 3-pointer in overtime Friday. The shot is destined for the highlight reels, meaning the 5,000-student Des Moines, Iowa, school will get even more publicity than its one-and-out counterparts.
Tom Delahunt, Drake’s vice president for admissions and financial aid, said the school already is at capacity, enrolling its largest class in 30 years last year. He still expects increased interest next year.
“We’ll see an increase in high school sophomores and juniors that are now putting Drake on their list where they wouldn’t have before, and they’ll come and visit,” Delahunt said. “We know if we can get them to come visit we have a better chance for them to enroll.”
Pope and others admit that the windfall is short-lived, usually lasting only a few years after a team’s tournament run. Experts say that’s all the time that’s needed.
“If the effect is one to three years, that’s exactly in the zone where students are paying attention to what’s going on,” said Steven Goodman, an educational consultant in Washington, D.C., and author of “College Admissions Together: It Takes a Family.”
“Not that many 9-year-olds are thinking about college admissions, but there are plenty of 15-year-olds who are following the NCAA tournament.”
Experts agree that any bump caused by a tournament appearance can’t sustain a school, but it gives them valuable national exposure that most couldn’t buy. Out of thousands of schools in the country, Goodman said most students apply to seven to 10.
“No one student can know everything about every college, so universities vie for the attention of students, and sports is one of the many ways that schools do that,” he said
Source:Yahoo News
Mar
16
Pitt beats No. 9 Hoyas to win Big East
Filed Under Sports | Leave a Comment
NEW YORK - Things looked a lot like the last several Big East tournament championship games for Pittsburgh. Except the result.
ADVERTISEMENT
Ronald Ramon scored 17 points and the Panthers won their second conference tournament championship in their eighth title-game appearance with a 74-65 victory over top-seeded and ninth-ranked Georgetown on Saturday night.
The seventh-seeded Panthers (26-9) shed their runner-up tag with a performance just like those in all the other championship games: a blue-collar effort without a star player.
Roy Hibbert had 17 points for the Hoyas (27-5), who were trying to sweep the regular-season and tournament titles for a second straight season.
Pittsburgh’s only title came in 2003 and that was under coach Ben Howland who left for UCLA after that season. Jamie Dixon was promoted to replace him and despite all those title-game appearances and a won-loss record among the best ever for his time as a head coach, the Panthers had never left Madison Square Garden with the trophy under him.
Sam Young, who had 16 points and was selected tournament MVP, led the Panthers’ balanced offense that thrived on its own missed shots, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds against the bigger Hoyas.
Freshman DeJuan Blair had 10 points and 10 rebounds as Pittsburgh finished with a 41-29 rebound advantage a stat that allowed it to overcome 22-for-44 shooting from the free throw line. But even there the Panthers came through when they had to.
A 3-pointer by Ramon with 3:45 to go made it 59-49.
Georgetown was able to get within 65-60 on a 3 by Jonathan Wallace with 1:20 to go, but Ramon went 5-for-6 from the line over the final 1:07 to clinch it.
Pittsburgh, which has five players from the New York area, improved to 6-0 at Madison Square Garden this season and the Panthers are 23-8 in the building since the 2000-01 season. A lot of that success came in the Big East tournament.
In recent years Pittsburgh relied on Brandin Knight for solid play at the point, on this team it was Levance Fields, who had 10 points, six assists and just one turnover in 36 minutes. Big men like Aaron Gray, Chevon Troutman and Chris Taft did all the grunt work up front in the past. On this team it was Young and Blair banging the boards even against the likes of the 7-foot-2 Hibbert.
It wasn’t anything pretty, but it never is for Pittsburgh. This season was off to a great start with an overtime against Duke at - where else? - Madison Square Garden. But senior forward Mike Cook went down with a season-ending knee injury late in that game. Field broke his foot the next game and missed the next 12 games, including a 69-60 victory over Georgetown.
The Panthers used just seven players in the title game, handing the Hoyas their first loss in 15 games in this tournament as its No. 1 seed. Georgetown was looking to add to its record seven tournament titles, the last of which came last season in a blowout of Pittsburgh.
Blair scored all but one of the points in a 9-2 run that gave the Panthers a 55-42 lead with 6:25 to go. The points came just as you would expect: he made one free throw after being fouled grabbing an offensive rebound, he scored on a move down low and he had a three-point play after getting another offensive rebound.
Hibbert started to assert himself down low, scoring five points in a 7-1 run that got the Hoyas within 56-59 but Ramon hit his big 3-pointer with the shot clock running down.
Georgetown, which tied a Big East tournament record with 17 3-pointers in the quarterfinal win over West Virginia, was 8-for-24 from behind the arc on Saturday and committed 14 turnovers
Source : Yahoo News
Mar
16
Pitt beats No. 9 Hoyas to win Big East
Filed Under Top Stories | Leave a Comment
NEW YORK - Things looked a lot like the last several Big East tournament championship games for Pittsburgh. Except the result.
ADVERTISEMENT
Ronald Ramon scored 17 points and the Panthers won their second conference tournament championship in their eighth title-game appearance with a 74-65 victory over top-seeded and ninth-ranked Georgetown on Saturday night.
The seventh-seeded Panthers (26-9) shed their runner-up tag with a performance just like those in all the other championship games: a blue-collar effort without a star player.
Roy Hibbert had 17 points for the Hoyas (27-5), who were trying to sweep the regular-season and tournament titles for a second straight season.
Pittsburgh’s only title came in 2003 and that was under coach Ben Howland who left for UCLA after that season. Jamie Dixon was promoted to replace him and despite all those title-game appearances and a won-loss record among the best ever for his time as a head coach, the Panthers had never left Madison Square Garden with the trophy under him.
Sam Young, who had 16 points and was selected tournament MVP, led the Panthers’ balanced offense that thrived on its own missed shots, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds against the bigger Hoyas.
Freshman DeJuan Blair had 10 points and 10 rebounds as Pittsburgh finished with a 41-29 rebound advantage a stat that allowed it to overcome 22-for-44 shooting from the free throw line. But even there the Panthers came through when they had to.
A 3-pointer by Ramon with 3:45 to go made it 59-49.
Georgetown was able to get within 65-60 on a 3 by Jonathan Wallace with 1:20 to go, but Ramon went 5-for-6 from the line over the final 1:07 to clinch it.
Pittsburgh, which has five players from the New York area, improved to 6-0 at Madison Square Garden this season and the Panthers are 23-8 in the building since the 2000-01 season. A lot of that success came in the Big East tournament.
In recent years Pittsburgh relied on Brandin Knight for solid play at the point, on this team it was Levance Fields, who had 10 points, six assists and just one turnover in 36 minutes. Big men like Aaron Gray, Chevon Troutman and Chris Taft did all the grunt work up front in the past. On this team it was Young and Blair banging the boards even against the likes of the 7-foot-2 Hibbert.
It wasn’t anything pretty, but it never is for Pittsburgh. This season was off to a great start with an overtime against Duke at - where else? - Madison Square Garden. But senior forward Mike Cook went down with a season-ending knee injury late in that game. Field broke his foot the next game and missed the next 12 games, including a 69-60 victory over Georgetown.
The Panthers used just seven players in the title game, handing the Hoyas their first loss in 15 games in this tournament as its No. 1 seed. Georgetown was looking to add to its record seven tournament titles, the last of which came last season in a blowout of Pittsburgh.
Blair scored all but one of the points in a 9-2 run that gave the Panthers a 55-42 lead with 6:25 to go. The points came just as you would expect: he made one free throw after being fouled grabbing an offensive rebound, he scored on a move down low and he had a three-point play after getting another offensive rebound.
Hibbert started to assert himself down low, scoring five points in a 7-1 run that got the Hoyas within 56-59 but Ramon hit his big 3-pointer with the shot clock running down.
Georgetown, which tied a Big East tournament record with 17 3-pointers in the quarterfinal win over West Virginia, was 8-for-24 from behind the arc on Saturday and committed 14 turnovers
Source :Yahoo News