Google's experimenting with gaming once more, this time through its mobile phone-based Chrome browser, today introducing "Super Sync Sports" via its web-based client. The cheeky sports game asks that you input a code to the mobile version of Chrome that enables touch control for the game on your desktop, essentially converting your mobile phone into a (reasonably awkward) game controller. We gave it a shot with the running game on an iPhone 5 and sadly placed second, but that was most from fear of destroying our phone. Perhaps you'll fare better -- take a chance right here. And hey, it's free, so no harm in trying. There's also a charming video after the break, should you not be in a game-friendly environment.
ROME (AP) ? Why has Italy's muddled election result spooked global investors so much? Because it threatens to punch a hole in the safety net that has kept Europe from catastrophe for the past six months.
That safety net is a crucial offer from the European Central Bank to buy unlimited quantities of struggling countries' bonds. The one catch was that participating countries had to commit to austerity measures ? such as spending cuts and tax increases to lower their deficits.
And if there's any clear message from the Italian elections, it's that voters rejected austerity.
If Italy can't ? or won't ? agree to cuts and reforms to promote stronger growth, the ECB can't help.
That would leave Italy defenseless if its borrowing costs rise to unmanageable levels and into default territory. And if Italy fails, Europe can't afford to bail it out.
A top European Central Bank official underlined Wednesday that any country that wants to use the crucial backstop will have to meet stiff conditions and agree to take steps to cut its deficit.
Peter Praet, the top ECB official in charge of its economic analysis and forecasts, did not mention Italy in the text of his speech in Frankfurt, Germany. But he warned that the bond-purchase shield "will only be activated in cases where the benefiting country has signed up to strict and effective conditionality," meaning an agreement to take concrete steps to curb its financial problems.
Praet's warning came as Italy saw its borrowing costs rise as it sold ?6.5 billion ($8.5 billion) of 10-year and five-year bonds. The interest yield rose to 4.83 percent from 4.17 percent a month ago for the 10-year and to 3.59 percent from 2.94 percent for the five-year.
So far, Italy's borrowing costs have risen only moderately but the fear is that they could soon hit the heights of last summer.
The ECB bond purchase program has been given most of the credit for the easing of the eurozone debt crisis in recent months. Before the ECB offered Sept. 6 to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds issued by a struggling country, Italy and Spain were facing with borrowing costs that would have proved crippling in the long term. The fear was that these two big economies ? the third and fourth-largest among the 17 European Union countries that use the euro ? would be pushed into defaulting on their debts.
No bonds have been bought under the ECB plan, but the mere offer reassured investors and sent borrowing costs across the eurozone lower.
"Basically investors are taking this on faith," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London.
The Italian result risks undermining that faith.
"It would be very hard for the ECB to wade into the market and buy substantial quantities of Italian debt if there is political gridlock in Italy and a broad based rebellion against the austerity strategy," Tilford warns.
The two-day election on Sunday and Monday was a clear rejection of the previous government of financial and economic experts led by Mario Monti. That government won support from eurozone leaders by raising taxes, cutting spending, and narrowing the deficit. But the cost to Italians has been high, with the country mired in recession and unemployment on the rise. Austerity opponents argue that cutting government lowers growth and makes debt ultimately harder to repay.
Pier Luigi Bersani and his center-left allies appeared on Tuesday to have won a narrow victory in the lower house of parliament, but the Senate looks split with no party in control. Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian premier whose center-right coalition did better than expected, is a key player since his coalition is now the second-biggest bloc in the upper chamber.
Comic-turned-political leader Beppe Grillo, whose 5 Star Movement capitalized on a wave of voter disgust with the ruling political class, had a surprisingly strong showing. His bloc of seats in Parliament could prove crucial in making any coalition government viable.
More than half the voters supported either Berlusconi's or Grillo's group ? both of which campaigned against Monti's austerity measures.
Berlusconi has already ruled out an alliance with Monti, whom he blamed for driving Italy deeper into recession.
European leaders pleaded with politicians in Italy to quickly form a government to continue to enact reforms to lower Italy's critically high debt of 127 percent of annual economic output and spare Europe another spike in its four-year financial crisis.
Though Italy's annual borrowing ? its budget deficit ? is relatively small compared with other euro countries at 3 percent of its annual gross domestic product, its overall debt stands at a colossal ?2 trillion.
Some analysts believe the threat of losing the ECB life preserver might be enough to push Italian politicians into moderating some of their stances so they can form a government and reassure markets.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London, said the mere prospect of facing the bond market without the ECB's implied backing could put pressure on politicians to sort out their differences, especially with a nudge from the European Union's executive commission and eurozone heavyweight Germany, the architects of austerity as a strategy for getting Europe out of its financial mess.
"We would expect the ECB, Brussels and Berlin to emphasize that the safety net would be available for an Italy that gets its act together," he said in a research note to investors.
"If tensions escalate, this could help to concentrate minds on the center-right and the center-left in Italy to form some kind of coalition and pursue sensible policies. "
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3 Johns Hopkins researchers recognized for medical inventionsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
BioMaryland LIFE and Abell Foundation awards confer funds for research translation
Johns Hopkins' John Wong, Ph.D., has won a BioMaryland LIFE Award, and Ronald Berger, M.D., Ph.D., and Hien Nguyen, M.D., were awarded funds from the Abell Foundation, the researchers learned last week. Each of the winners will receive $50,000 to help develop their discoveries for clinical use.
The prizes were awarded as part of the annual Joint Meeting of the Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science and Technology Development and the University of Maryland, Baltimore Commercial Advisory Board on Feb. 19. The meeting was attended by more than 150 venture capitalists, seasoned biotech entrepreneurs and business development executives from the biopharma industry. Judging committees evaluated presentations from two dozen university researchers before selecting the winners. The aim of the awards is to speed the translation of promising research into commercial application.
First awarded in 2010, the LIFE Prizes are two grants funded by the Maryland Biotechnology Center, Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to help advance research in biotech and biopharma, medical devices, or diagnostics that have great potential for commercial application. Wong will use the funding to develop technology that will aid in the safer delivery of radiation therapy. This year's other winner was the University of Maryland School of Dentistry's Mark Shirtliff.
For the first time this year, the Abell Foundation also donated funds for two prizes to be awarded at the Joint Meeting. Founded 60 years ago in Baltimore, the foundation's mission is to enhance quality of life in the city. Berger's award will help his team develop advanced defibrillation technology based on their discoveries about the effects of high-frequency alternating current on the heart's electrical patterns. Nguyen will use his prize funds to continue the development of FastStitch, a device that can close the muscle layers of the chest and abdomen in a way that allows surgeons more precision and consistency while requiring less time and resources.
Winner biographies:
Ronald D. Berger is a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering and directs the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's Training Program in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed medical journals and holds more than 20 patents in the fields of arrhythmia detection, catheter ablation, defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. His honors include a First Independent Research Support & Transition (FIRST) Award from the National Institutes of Health and a National Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association. Berger has co-founded three medical device companies and served on advisory boards for eight others. His academic focus is on arrhythmia device technology, signal processing and technology transfer.
Hien Nguyen is the director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Hernia Center, an assistant professor of surgery in the school of medicine and an associate medical director for the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) in the school of engineering. He specializes in minimally invasive surgery and his surgical practice involves the repair of complex hernias, abdominal wall reconstruction, as well as bariatric surgery. His FastStitch device has won many accolades, including a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and finished first place in business competitions at the University of Maryland, University of California, Irvine and the ASME Innovation Showcase.
John Wong is director of the Division of Medical Physics and a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences. Wong helps coordinate all technical services and directly manages the physics and dosimetry services of the radiation therapy clinics to ensure the delivery of state-of-the-art methods of radiation treatment. He has over 130 peer-reviewed publications and holds two patents on methods of delivering precisely targeted radiation treatment.
Three of Wong's inventions, the Active Breathing Coordinator, the image-guided small animal radiation research platform (SARRP) and the cone-beam computed tomography on-board medical accelerator, have been successfully commercialized and have become standards of care and research in the radiation therapy community.
Instead of Defibrillator's Painful Jolt, There May Be a Gentler Way to Prevent Sudden Death, According to Hopkins Scientists (Ronald Berger): http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/instead_of_defibrillators_painful_jolt_there_may_be_a_gentler_way_to_prevent_sudden_death_according_to_hopkins_scientists
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
3 Johns Hopkins researchers recognized for medical inventionsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
BioMaryland LIFE and Abell Foundation awards confer funds for research translation
Johns Hopkins' John Wong, Ph.D., has won a BioMaryland LIFE Award, and Ronald Berger, M.D., Ph.D., and Hien Nguyen, M.D., were awarded funds from the Abell Foundation, the researchers learned last week. Each of the winners will receive $50,000 to help develop their discoveries for clinical use.
The prizes were awarded as part of the annual Joint Meeting of the Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science and Technology Development and the University of Maryland, Baltimore Commercial Advisory Board on Feb. 19. The meeting was attended by more than 150 venture capitalists, seasoned biotech entrepreneurs and business development executives from the biopharma industry. Judging committees evaluated presentations from two dozen university researchers before selecting the winners. The aim of the awards is to speed the translation of promising research into commercial application.
First awarded in 2010, the LIFE Prizes are two grants funded by the Maryland Biotechnology Center, Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to help advance research in biotech and biopharma, medical devices, or diagnostics that have great potential for commercial application. Wong will use the funding to develop technology that will aid in the safer delivery of radiation therapy. This year's other winner was the University of Maryland School of Dentistry's Mark Shirtliff.
For the first time this year, the Abell Foundation also donated funds for two prizes to be awarded at the Joint Meeting. Founded 60 years ago in Baltimore, the foundation's mission is to enhance quality of life in the city. Berger's award will help his team develop advanced defibrillation technology based on their discoveries about the effects of high-frequency alternating current on the heart's electrical patterns. Nguyen will use his prize funds to continue the development of FastStitch, a device that can close the muscle layers of the chest and abdomen in a way that allows surgeons more precision and consistency while requiring less time and resources.
Winner biographies:
Ronald D. Berger is a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering and directs the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's Training Program in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed medical journals and holds more than 20 patents in the fields of arrhythmia detection, catheter ablation, defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. His honors include a First Independent Research Support & Transition (FIRST) Award from the National Institutes of Health and a National Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association. Berger has co-founded three medical device companies and served on advisory boards for eight others. His academic focus is on arrhythmia device technology, signal processing and technology transfer.
Hien Nguyen is the director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Hernia Center, an assistant professor of surgery in the school of medicine and an associate medical director for the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) in the school of engineering. He specializes in minimally invasive surgery and his surgical practice involves the repair of complex hernias, abdominal wall reconstruction, as well as bariatric surgery. His FastStitch device has won many accolades, including a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and finished first place in business competitions at the University of Maryland, University of California, Irvine and the ASME Innovation Showcase.
John Wong is director of the Division of Medical Physics and a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences. Wong helps coordinate all technical services and directly manages the physics and dosimetry services of the radiation therapy clinics to ensure the delivery of state-of-the-art methods of radiation treatment. He has over 130 peer-reviewed publications and holds two patents on methods of delivering precisely targeted radiation treatment.
Three of Wong's inventions, the Active Breathing Coordinator, the image-guided small animal radiation research platform (SARRP) and the cone-beam computed tomography on-board medical accelerator, have been successfully commercialized and have become standards of care and research in the radiation therapy community.
Instead of Defibrillator's Painful Jolt, There May Be a Gentler Way to Prevent Sudden Death, According to Hopkins Scientists (Ronald Berger): http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/instead_of_defibrillators_painful_jolt_there_may_be_a_gentler_way_to_prevent_sudden_death_according_to_hopkins_scientists
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
When the BlackBerry Z10 previously reachedthe FCC, we hadn't yet received the common courtesies of a product name or official carrier plans. Now that it's a known quantity, the device's latest FCC go-round presents a simpler picture. The RFA91LW you see here is clearly the Z10, and the inclusions of CDMA and upper-range 700MHz LTE spectrum leave little doubt that this iteration is headed to Verizon. We also see the expected GSM roaming and NFC. About the only riddle left is the Z10's release date on the network, which isn't yet forthcoming; with FCC approval, though, there's one less thing to hold back a launch on Big Red.
Moving is never an economical wander. There is more than enough requires that can be included in your transporting of things from one place in the universe in a different, and you should be ready for the proposed expenses. At the same time, you might as well not be looking forward to pay better than what is fundamental, and you might as well be conscious that there are some truly exceptional routes to recovery a ton on your particular move. Knowing how is the difficult thing.Moving with a moving outfit is the most straightforward course to migrate to a brand new territory, but moving companies might be pricey. Gratefully, the developing migration industry has conceived a revamped thought, which we love to call ease moving companies.Since you procure affordable moving companies to help you get your family unit products from one place to a different, you should have a record of concerns to inquire moreover.
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House Speaker John Boehner used some choice words to pressure Senate Democrats to avert the looming sequester - $85 billion of arbitrary across-the-board cuts - insisting that "the House has done its job" and the burden to offer an alternative before the cuts strike Friday is on the president's party.
"We have moved the bill in the House twice," Boehner, R-Ohio, said. "We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."
Hours later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the speaker needs a reality check about who is sitting idly by as the impending sequester cuts prepare to take hold at the end of the week.
"He should understand who is sitting on their posterior," Reid told reporters at a Capitol news conference Tuesday. "We're doing our best here to pass something. The speaker's doing nothing to try to pass anything over there. He's falling back onto what he said they did last Congress.
"Well, we have something called the constitution that you have to start over again every two years and the reason he's not bringing something up over there is because he cannot pass it. He can't get his caucus to agree on anything as we learned last year," Reid continued. "So he can't say to us, 'Why don't you get something done' when he hasn't even been trying to get anything done."
Reid used the word "ass" twice when describing Boehner's earlier remarks.
"I was raised in a little town that had 13 brothels in it so I'm used to some pretty salty language as you know," Reid said before repeating Boehner's use of the profane language. "The speaker today said - he's not that category for sure - but Boehner hopes [the] Senate gets off their ass. And it's quite interesting, we should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."
House Republicans voted twice during the 112 th Congress to narrowly pass legislation to offset sequestration with alternative savings, but those measures languished in the Senate and expired with the end of the session.
Reid suggested the $85 billion in across the board cuts should go into effect if Republicans won't agree to increasing taxes as a means of averting the sequester.
"Until there's some agreement on revenue, I believe we should just go ahead with the sequester," Reid said.
Read More About Sequestration
Boehner criticized President Obama for taking a Virginia road trip "to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes."
"I don't think the president's focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester," he said. "For 16 months, the president's been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill."
Considering Republicans have not acted in the current session of Congress on any legislation to replace the sequester, House Democrats question whether there is sufficient support to pass the old GOP proposal.
"I don't think I need to give the Speaker a lesson in legislating or how government runs, but whatever was done last year that didn't get signed into law has evaporated. It is gone. It does not exist," California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said today. "This is a new year, a new session of Congress and it's time for everyone to get to work."
Boehner deflected a question whether he believes his weakened majority could pass the Republican bill again, and returned his attention to pushing for a vote in the Senate.
"It's time for the Senate to act. It's not about the House," he responded. "We've acted."
Related: Sequester Timeline - When Will Cuts Kick In?
"Where's the president's plan to avoid the sequester? Have you seen one? I haven't seen one," Boehner added. "All I've heard is that he wants to raise taxes again. Where's the president's plan? Where's the Senate Democrat plan? I want to see it."
Republican senators held strong on their view that the president needs to agree to spending cuts in order to avert the looming sequester, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he's willing to provide the president with the "flexibility" to find those cuts.
"Senate Republicans do not believe that it's a good idea to walk away from that commitment to cut spending," McConnell said. "My own view is I'd be happy to provide the president with the flexibility to do that differently than the way it's mandated in the sequester."
Related: States Prepare for Sequester
"This is not an issue or problem that needs to be solved or attempted to be solved by raising taxes again," Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, added following lunch with his GOP colleagues in the Capitol. "The president got his pound of flesh in the fiscal cliff negotiation, $600 billion in additional taxes over 10 years. Now it's time for the balanced part of that equation which means we have to rein in federal spending."
McConnell also told reporters Republicans may present several alternatives to the Democrats' sequester proposal later this week, but Reid said he would not allow multiple Republican bills to be considered.
"The agreement was they'll have a bill. We'll have a bill. That's fair enough," Reid said.
Senate leaders are expected to introduce and vote on their respective plans later this week, perhaps by Thursday.
Reid accused Congressional Republicans of being "part of the problem" in finding a solution to the upcoming cuts, pressing for new tax increases to help offset the sequester.
"We want to work with Republicans to come to a balanced responsible way to reduce this sequester, the impact of it. My republican colleagues are standing in the way," Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. "They only want cuts and more cuts."
Although McConnell has said he is not interested in a last-minute deal, Boehner said "If the Senate acts, I'm sure the House will act quickly."
The House is meeting for legislation business today, although no action to avert the sequester is expected. The House also meets Wednesday and Thursday, but is currently not expected to be in session on Friday.
Reid suggested the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts should go into effect if Republicans won't agree to increasing taxes as a means of averting the sequester.
"Until there's some agreement on revenue, I believe we should just go ahead with the sequester," Reid said.
This post was updated Tuesday afternoon to incorporate the latest developments in the Senate.
Kyocera's Smart Sonic receiver and tissue conduction technology have been around for some time, but this year at MWC, we had another chance to test it out. In case you didn't know, the receiver's a ceramic piezoelectric actuator that takes the place of a phone's speaker to let listeners hear phone calls in even the loudest environments. We got to test it out with a Kyocera Torque, and well... trust us, you'll want to see (and hear) the results in the video after the break.
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? Jordan says it has no official word from Saudi Arabia about one of its citizens apprehended by authorities there 50 days ago.
Jordanian foreign ministry spokeswoman Sabah Rafie told the Associated Press Monday that Jordan has yet to receive a formal response regarding the detention of Khaled Natour at Riyadh airport.
Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, his offices, and the Jordanian ambassador to Saudi Arabia have made repeated queries but to no avail, she said.
Youth activist Natour has protested outside the Saudi embassy in Amman against the Saudi-led military force that quashed protests in Bahrain. He later travelled to Saudi Arabia on a work visa but was detained upon arrival in Riyadh.
Al-Rafie said Natour's father contacted the ministry Sunday and wept because he has no news of his son.
VIENNA (AP) ? Top Iranian officials coming to Vienna usually hold talks with the head of the U.N. nuclear agency. But diplomats say not this time, in a development that may reflect a deadlock on agency attempts to probe Tehran's atomic work.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is coming to a conference Tuesday that has nothing to do with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Still, he has missed few chances when in Vienna to meet with Yukiya Amano, whose International Atomic Energy Agency is monitoring Iran and trying to investigate suspicions it might have worked on atomic arms.
IAEA officials recently suggested a pause was needed on related talks after they dragged on without results. Iran denies such work or wanting such weapons.
The diplomats demanded anonymity because their information was confidential.
Well, this might just be the biggest news to come out of Mobile World Congress. Long after discontinuing the TouchPad (and the rest of its mobile devices, for that matter) HP is back with a new tablet. This time, though, it runs not webOS, but an old safety: Android. Interestingly, though, HP is returning to the tablet space not with a high-end flagship, but a lower-end device priced to sell. The Slate 7 is priced at $169, with modest specs that include a dual-core A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage, a 7-inch, 1,024 x 600 display and dual 3MP / VGA cameras. All that said, it could be worth a second look when it goes on sale in April. Meet us past the break to see what we mean.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sen. John McCain says President Barack Obama should invite lawmakers to Camp David or the White House to hammer out a last-minute deal to avert deep budget cuts set to start taking effect at week's end.
The Arizona Republican says Obama should be talking with lawmakers instead of demonizing them over the looming across-the-board cuts in domestic and defense spending.
McCain calls the Pentagon cuts "unconscionable" and says military leaders are already warning they would be devastating.
McCain, the 2008 GOP president nominee, says it's time for Obama to show leadership and call lawmakers either to Camp David or to the White House for a budget summit.
Editorial: Focus on transportation in mayoral election
Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl officially announced his bid for re-election on Tuesday night. He will compete with City Councilman Bill Peduto and City Controller Michael Lamb for the Democratic nomination in the May 21 primary election. Ravenstahl has been the mayor of Pittsburgh since 2006, when he took office after the death of Mayor Bob O?Connor. http://ow.ly/hV3v2
President Barack Obama played golf with Tiger Woods and others at the Floridian Golf Club in Palm City on Sunday, according to ABC News.
Obama played with United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Jim Crane and Tiger Woods, according to reports.
Faced with a long weekend in an empty White House, President Barack Obama figured he needed a getaway, too, so he put together a golf outing with some buddies.
Not at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland or at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, two Washington-area military posts where he's a regular on their courses.
Instead, he went south, to Florida, to spend the long President's Day weekend staying and playing at the Floridian, an exclusive and secluded yacht and golf club on the state's Treasure Coast. He arrived Friday night after a speech in Chicago and wasn't expected to be seen again in public ? including by the members of the news media traveling with him ? until he returns to Washington on Monday.
"At this time, there are no public events scheduled or plans for the president to leave the grounds of the golf club," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Saturday.
Call it a weekend with the boys, presidential style.
Eyebrows might have been raised at the thought of the president, any president, high-tailing it out of Washington, without his family, for some "me time" hundreds of miles away from the Oval Office. First lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha are on an annual ski vacation out West.
As it turns out, it isn't at all uncommon for a president to go on vacation on his own.
Gulfstream Park will have racing all three days on President?s Day weekend, starting with graded turf stakes the Mac Diarmida and The Very One on Saturday.
The weekend?s biggest attraction is two-time Breeders? Cup Ladies Classic winner Royal Delta, who will run in the $100,000 Sabin Stakes (Grade 3) at 1?1/16 miles on dirt for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up on Sunday.
Royal Delta is owned by Benjamin Leon Jr., the founder and chairman of Leon Medical Centers in Miami.
The race will be the first for the 5-year-old Royal Delta since last Nov. 2 when she won the Breeders? Cup Ladies Classic at Santa Anita Park. She won that race in 2011 at Churchill Downs.
Monday is usually a dark day at Gulfstream. But on President?s Day it will have ten races with first post time of 12:45 p.m.
The $100,000 Mac Diarmida (Grade 2) is for males 4-years-old and up and the $100,000 The Very One (Grade 3) is for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up.
Both are scheduled for 13/8 miles on turf. If wet conditions prevent turf racing, both will be 1?1/4 miles on dirt.
Because of heavy rain, Gulfstream did not have any turf races on Friday.
Barring heavy overnight rain, Gulfstream officials expect that Saturday?s two stakes will stay on the turf.
Newsdad is the 3-1 morning line favorite in the Mac Diarmida. He finished second in the race last year and later won the Pan American (Grade 2) at 1?1/2 miles on turf at Gulfstream. Both races were on turf listed as firm.
Teaks North, Nikki?s Sandcastle, Twilight Eclipse and Ioya Bigtime loom as challengers among the ten entrants.
On Jan. 19 at Gulfstream, Teaks North led gate to wire and won the 1?1/8 mile Florida Sunshine Miliions Turf Stakes on a yielding course. Several horses, including Ioya Bigtime and Twilight Eclipse, could challenge him for the lead on Saturday.
Starformer and Closing Range are likely favorites in the The Very One.
Bill Mott trains the weekend favorites Royal Delta, Newsdad and Starformer.
Pick 6 Carryover
On Saturday, Gulfstream will have a carryover of $2,605,671 on its Pick 6 bet on the last six races.
The bet is 10-cents only, with multiple horses permitted in each race.
Gulfstream pays out the entire Pick 6 pool including the carryover only on days when there is just one winning ticket.
When there are multiple winners, such as on Friday, they divide 60 percent of the day?s new bets. The other 40 percent goes into the carryover..
Hialeah Closing Weekend
Hialeah Park will end its Quarter Horse racing meet this weekend.
Hialeah will have eight races on Saturday and ten races on Sunday, with first post time of 2 p.m. each day. The feature race on Sunday is the $100,000 South Florida Quarter Horse Derby, at 440 yards for 3-year-olds.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Roman Catholic leaders on Thursday said the Obama administration did not go far enough toward their issues in the offer of compromise offered last week over health care coverage of contraceptives for employees of faith-based institutions.
"The February 1 notice of proposed rulemaking ... shows some movement by the administration but falls short of addressing U.S. bishops' concerns," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.
"We have been assured by the administration that we will not have to refer, pay for, or negotiate for the mandated coverage. We remain eager for the administration to fulfill that pledge," said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the conference.
The proposals announced by the administration on February 1 would guarantee that employees at religious nonprofits, including certain faith-affiliated universities and hospitals, would get access to birth control coverage without out-of-pocket costs through separate plans, with insurers picking up the tab.
The new rules followed months of protests and legal action by groups representing Roman Catholics, Protestant Evangelicals and some private employers.
"It appears that the government would require all employees in our ?accommodated' ministries to have the illicit coverage ?they may not opt out, nor even opt out for their children ? under a separate policy," Dolan said.
(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Jackie Frank)
evasi0n has just been updated to version 1.1 to address issues some concerning long reboot times and problems that were causing the Weather app to crash. If you've already jailbroken on iOS 6 or 6.1, there's no need for you to do anything if you aren't having issues. If you, however, haven't jailbroken yet, you'll want to download the new version first.
Over on Twitter, planetbeing has pointed out that if you're already jailbroken, there isn't anything new that requires you to rerun evasi0n -
evasi0n 1.1 has been released on the site with the latest fixes. You may have to clear your browser's cache to see it. Note that you do not need to download evasi0n 1.1 if you've already jailbroken.
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Postmaster General?Patrick R. Donahoe announced plans to reduce Saturday deliveries beginning in August. The Postal Service says the changes will save $2 billion annually. Though The Postal Service lost $15.9 billion last fiscal year, some in Congress and elsewhere oppose the Saturday cutbacks.?
By Pauline Jelinek,?Associated Press / February 6, 2013
A 25-year veteran U.S. mail carrier, Keo, delivers mail as he walks his route in Los Angeles Wednesday. The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service wants to stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion a year.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
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Saturday mail may soon go the way of the Pony Express and penny postcards. The Postal Service said Wednesday that it plans to cut back to five-day-a-week deliveries for everything except packages to stem its financial losses in a world radically re-ordered by the Internet.
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"Our financial condition is urgent," declared Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe. But Congress has voted in the past to bar the idea of eliminating Saturday delivery, and his announcement immediately drew protests from some lawmakers. The plan, which is to take effect in August, also brought vigorous objections from farmers, the letter carriers' union and others.
The Postal Service, which suffered a $15.9 billion loss in the past budget year, said it expected to save $2 billion annually with the Saturday cutback. Mail such as letters and magazines would be affected. Delivery of packages of all sizes would continue six days a week.
The plan accentuates one of the agency's strong points: Package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010,?officials?say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has plummeted. Email has decreased the mailing of paper letters, but online purchases have increased package shipping, forcing the Postal Service to adjust to customers' new habits.
"Things change," Donahoe said.
James Valentine, an antiques shop owner in Toledo, wasn't too concerned about the news.
"The mail isn't that important to me anymore. I don't sit around waiting for it to come. It's a sign of the times," he said, adding, "It's not like anyone writes letters anymore."
In fact, the Postal Service has had to adapt to changing times ever since Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general by the Continental Congress in 1775. The Pony Express began in 1860, six-day delivery started in 1863, and airmail became the mode in 1918. Twice-a-day delivery was cut to one in 1950 to save money.
But change is not the biggest factor in the agency's predicament ? Congress is. The majority of the service's red ink comes from a 2006 law forcing it to pay about $5.5 billion a year into future retiree health benefits, something no other agency does. Without that payment ? $11.1 billion in a two-year installment last year ? and related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion for the past fiscal year, lower than the previous year.
Congress also has stymied the service's efforts to close some?post?offices?in small towns.
Under the new plan, mail would be delivered to homes and businesses only from Monday through Friday but would still be delivered to?post?office?boxes on Saturdays.?Post?offices?now open on Saturdays would remain open.
Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages ? and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully has appealed to Congress to approve the move. An independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
If you asked me the one thing that I could not live without, it would be my iPhone. Today I want to share the top iPhone apps that have organized my life and my family. This gadget has brought more organization to my life than I dreamed possible and is what I rely on daily to tackle the day-to-day tasks as a mom. Of course, you don?t have to have an iPhone to benefit from these apps, almost all of these are available to any smartphone user. Here are my top 7 apps to get your family organized.
Whenever I talk about the best apps to organize a family, I always think of Cozi first. Over the years, this app has evolved so much and fits perfectly into our family?s everyday needs. Cozi is a calendar app that is made with a mom in mind. It is easy to use, color-coded (for each family member), includes pictures of your sweet little ones, helps you with your grocery list, and offers text message alerts to you for appointment reminders?all from one central location.
My favorite feature that has saved our family countless fees and embarrassment is their text reminder service. When I input our family?s appointments, I can have a text sent to myself or to my husband that reminds us about that appointment. The reminders can come whenever you designate them (one hour ahead, one day ahead, one week ahead, etc..). ?Does your child have jean day at school? Super silly hair day? ?Little things like that are even input in this handy calendar and a text reminder goes out to me first thing in the morning to save my children from their mom?s forgotten dollar or the super exciting monthly ?skip your uniform,? day.
(Free. Available for the iPad, iPhone, or Android.)
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If you are looking to get your family?s finances back on track this year, my favorite and most reliable financial reporting comes from Mint. Mint can be set up through your home computer, your smart phone, or tablet.? An account with Mint can be set up in less than five minutes and gives you the chance to set budgets to your spending categories and track them with handy pie charts and graphs. In one glance, you can monitor your checking, savings, investments, and retirement at any moment during the day.
Most of the spending categories are immediately categorized for you while unfamiliar categories (like your favorite local restaurant or doctor?s visit) may need a quick categorization for accurate reporting. For tax purposes, you can also tag items for reimbursement so that it can help later when filing your taxes.
The best part, I have found, is that Mint will alert you via email when spending or withdrawals seem high. Did the mortgage company take out an extra payment? Did you have an unusually high amount of withdrawals in one month? Was a large deposit made? Mint sends you an email to alert you of unusual transactions happening in your account which could potentially save you from being the victim of credit card fraud.
(Free. Available for most devices.)
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Making and sticking to your grocery lists has never been easier thanks to the Grocery IQ app. With Grocery IQ you can type, speak, or scan grocery list items into your list. The list automatically adds your items into categories and then alerts you if coupons are available for any items you might be adding to your list. Coupons can then be sent to your email when your list has been made or (if you have a wireless enabled printer) can be sent to your printer for printing. As you gather your items from your list, simply check it off and the item moves to the bottom of the list. Once your whole list is complete, everything is shifted towards the bottom and then can simply be clicked to add those repeat items back on the list for your next visit.
Since I always have my phone with me,? switching to an electronic grocery list has been much easier than I thought it would be. The coupon feature helps save our family money on items we were already planning to buy and the list helps keep our family budget on track. I also love that I can sync my list from my iPad to my iPhone so I can use whichever device I have handy to add items when we need them.
(Free. Available for the iPad, iPhone, or Android.)
If you are trying to stop the paper pile-up from school, Evernote is a fantastic tool for ?clipping and saving those papers in one spot that you can access from your phone or computer. When items come home to us that I might need to reference for our family later, like the cafeteria lunch schedule or the recess schedule, I can either take a photo of what I need or I can scan that item into Evernote and tag it with, ?School,? for easy reference.
Things that I often refer back to, like our library card numbers, gift card numbers that I want to store on my computer, receipts for purchases, or even keeping track of the books my children are reading in a particular series are all housed in my Evernote account for easy accessibility when I need them.
No more scraps of paper all over the house or hanging on to newsletters for one paragraph of information, Evernote has become my virtual notebook to keep us organized.
(Free. Available on most devices.)
Menu planning can be a challenge for families and keeping track of all of those recipes you want to try can be a challenge when your Pinterest boards are overflowing with ideas. I have come to rely upon SpringPad for creating our family?s weekly menu plan. I think of SpringPad as a virtual notebook where you can privately or publicly share things you want to reference to manage your life. Notebooks can be created on any topic, but I create weekly notebooks of menu plans for my family, adding those recipes into a notebook so that I can reference them later, whether I am cooking in the kitchen or I am at the grocery store and not sure if I added all the ingredients to my list like I thought.
Depending on how the recipe is input into the source, SpringPad will either pull the recipe right into your notebook so you can view it right from the notebook, you can manually add in the recipe, or a link to the recipe will be provided so you can access it from the page you found it.
(Free. Available on most devices.)
Setting a timer to get tasks done around the house is an old school method that works remarkably well for productivity that has now been brought to the future with this 30/30 app for organizing your day. ?The idea behind this app is very simple: you work for thirty minutes and focus on a single task with no distractions. When your time is up, you?give?your mind a break and do something completely unrelated, also for thirty minutes. This 30/30 cycle is repeated until your tasks are done.
Type in what your ideal day will look like including blocking out times for a little down time like enjoying a cup of coffee, time wasting on sites like Facebook or Pinterest, or just time with a great book. ?Then set up what the rest of your productive day will look like and use the 30/30 app to visualize if you are going to get your tasks done in the designated time. ?It provides a countdown and a visual reminder of what you are working on and beeps when your time is done. Simple, visually pleasing, and highly effective, I can?t recommend this app enough to increase your productivity.
(Free. Available for the iPad or iPhone.)
Capturing my children on-the?go is one of the main reasons I decided to get an iPhone. While I rely heavily on Instagram for capturing still images of our family from day-to-day I also love to capture movies of them.? Although we have many fancy camcorders laying around our house, the one recorder I always have with me is my phone. I am a huge fan of vintage looking film and pictures so I have found that the ?8MM vintage camera app is a fun way to add a little vintage to our family?s most precious recorded moments.
($1.99. Available for the iPad or iPhone)
What are your favorite apps for keeping your family organized? Chime in here and share your family?s favorite tools!
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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